March 10, 2025 • 61 mins
Quiet determination becomes a superpower in Carl Darden's hands. The former Navy helicopter pilot and Johnson & Johnson executive shares his remarkable journey from Naval Academy graduate to devoted family man, revealing how military discipline transformed his approach to every challenge.
Growing up as a military kid under an Air Force veteran father who flew rescue helicopters in Vietnam, Carl learned early that giving up wasn't an option. When a neighbor handed teenage Carl a Naval Academy catalog, it sparked a passion that would define his career trajectory. Despite the rigors of engineering studies and the subtle racial tensions of early 1980s Annapolis, Carl persevered, eventually following in his father's footsteps as a helicopter pilot.
Carl's definition of himself speaks volumes: "I would say somebody who is quietly determined to do whatever it takes to complete a task. But what I pride myself most on is being known as somebody who is 100% reliable." This reliability manifests in heartwarming stories – like staying up late to correct a fifth-grader's math problem and texting the solution to ensure the student wouldn't study incorrect information.
The conversation takes a deeply moving turn when Carl discusses fatherhood. From helping his son overcome basketball setbacks to watching his daughter forge her own educational path, Carl's pride in his children radiates through his stories. His 25-year marriage, which he describes using aviation terminology as having "a good co-pilot," offers wisdom about partnership, adaptation, and mutual support.
Now producing a sports podcast highlighting Naval Academy athletes, particularly athletes of color, Carl continues finding ways to serve while maintaining rigorous physical fitness routines. His reflections on health, family legacy, and finding purpose after traditional career paths end provide invaluable guidance for listeners at any life stage.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If I had to kind of define who I am, I would just
say somebody who is quietlydetermined to do whatever it
takes to complete a task.
But I think that what I pridemyself most on is being known as
somebody who is 100% reliable.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay, welcome to the Journey to Freedom podcast.
I'm Dr B and I'm your host andjust super.
I hate to say this every time,but I say it every time because
I get so excited about theguests that I get to interview.
I tell you guys all the timethat I'm the luckiest man on the
(00:48):
planet who gets to interviewfolks that are doing something,
that are making a difference.
Carl, I don't know if you know,but last year I said I had gone
to a seminar and came back andjust was really excited about
doing podcasts.
And I said I was going tointerview 100 and came back and
just was really excited aboutdoing podcasts and I said I was
going to interview a hundredblack men last year, in 2024, I
(01:08):
ended up doing 105, which hasmade it even better that you
know and I'm probably at 140 nowafter this year, as we just
continue to grow and continue tounderstand folks, and so I'm so
excited to have you on so wecan continue to chop, chop it up
on on some wonderful things.
But I can't excited to have youon, so we continue to chop it up
on some wonderful things, but Ican't wait to hear your story,
(01:30):
you know, as I just think, likeyesterday I was able to
interview a gentleman that had areally good attitude.
He was like I forgive everybody, I'm OK.
You know, he came out ofChicago, was arrested and
convicted for a double homicideand when that double homicide
(01:51):
happened he happened to be injail and he still spent 19 years
before they figured out thatthere's no way he could have
been there because he was lockedup.
And so then you think of oursystems and the things that you
know that folks argue.
And then they did a civil trialand realized he couldn't have
done the things because he wasnot in a position to do it.
(02:13):
But he had a good attitude,right, he was still happy, he
was still excited, he was still,you know, he's been out now for
about 11 years, but at the sametime he's in his 50s.
He went in at 22 or 20 yearsold and spent, you know, 20 from
20 to 40, which are some of ourmost formative years uh, where
he was and knowing that hedidn't commit the crime.
(02:36):
You know that was impossible todo it and nobody would listen
it's not a good attitude.
So, uh, that's why I just I soenjoyed, you know, the
opportunity that I get to have.
You know, folks like yourselfthat are on.
I've asked Carl to tell thestory because I can't wait to
hear all the wonderful thingsthat he's done and he's going to
(02:56):
continue to do, and then we'regoing to talk about our pillars
and just have some fun togethertoday.
So, carl, thank you for beingon, thank you for spending your
time with me during this hour,and we will talk.
Just go ahead and tell yourstory, we'll go from there.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
All right, thanks, brian.
I appreciate it and first ofall, I really appreciate that
invitation Came as a little bitof a surprise, but I hope that
what I have to say will bringsome value to your listeners.
So essentially, and again justby way of introduction, my name
is Carl Darden and I am a formerNavy veteran.
I've spent 20 years on activeduty, both active duty and in
(03:34):
the reserves, and I actuallycome from a military background.
My father was an Air Forceveteran and he served for 20
years, from the mid-50s to themid-70s, and that included a
tour in Vietnam and he flewhelicopters.
He's a search and rescuehelicopter pilot and just saved
countless lives while he was inservice.
(03:54):
And it was probably thatmilitary background that kind of
formed a foundation for who Iended up becoming, because my
dad, he had a particular I guessfor lack of a better phrase
code that he lived by and it wasbasically, you know, putting
the family first, doingeverything he could to make sure
(04:16):
that they, you know, got everyopportunity to make themselves
better.
But the other side of it wasalso just making sure that he
understood that we understoodthat we had to meet a certain
standard in his mind, and thatpart of that meant never giving
up on anything, Always, you know, showing proper respect to
everybody and just never settinga goal and just basically going
(04:41):
after it.
Essentially, and and that's kindof where, that's kind of how I
grew up we spent time moving allover the place.
I mean, I was born in Las Vegas, moved to Italy, actually
learned to speak Italian beforeI spoke English, came back to
the States when my dad was inVietnam, forgot how to speak
Italian because everybody met,everybody made fun of us and
then when he came back fromVietnam, we went from Maine to
(05:03):
Florida, to South Carolina andthen out to Denver when he
retired.
So we were all over the placeand the things that got me
through were just a love ofsports.
I mean, I did pretty well inschool, but it was like sports,
like baseball and basketball,that really kind of kept me
going.
And I think that I would saythat my first time when I really
(05:30):
felt like I was, I felt like Icould do something in baseball,
actually when I was like nineyears old, because I couldn't
really hit a baseball for twoyears it was just like close
your eyes and swing, but my dadconstantly worked with me and he
wasn't even really a big sportsguy, to tell you the truth, but
the fact is he knew that itmattered to me.
So we went out there and we hada little plastic wiffle ball
(05:51):
and I had the bat and he justthrew me ball after ball after
ball and then that, inconjunction with getting on a
good team with a coach thatcould really teach hitting, made
all the difference in the world.
So that was kind of my firstexposure into not giving up
because I was really this closeto just saying, you know, forget
it, I don't want to do thisanymore.
So you know, that was part ofit.
(06:12):
And then kind of fast forwarding, you know, getting to high
school again, I didn't reallyhave a lot of issues
academically, I mean, I feltlike things kind of came to me
all right, but I wasn't reallysure what I wanted to do beyond
high school.
And it was, I think, between myfreshman and sophomore year
that a neighbor of ours came upto me and I was walking my dog.
(06:34):
I'll never forget this.
I tell this story a lot.
When people ask me how I gotinterested in the Naval Academy,
he hands me this catalog on theUS Naval Academy and I'd heard
of it because I watchedArmy-Navy games in the past.
And he said hey, carl, take alook at this, I think you might
be interested in what it has tosay.
So I said, okay, thanks, mrWilliams, I appreciate it.
So I went home and again, thiswas a catalog.
(06:57):
You don't typically readcatalogs cover to cover right,
you just kind of flip throughthem and focus on different
areas.
But that one I did you know fromthe very start all the way
through and I read it in likeless than a couple of days,
right on through to what therequirements were for the
different majors and so forth.
I mean just the whole nineyards.
And that was when and Iremember, like I said, this was
(07:19):
in the summer of 77.
And I told my parents I saidthat's where I want to go to
school of 77.
And I told my parents I saidthat's where I want to go to
school.
And from that point on, nothinggot in my way in terms of
making sure that I was going toput myself in the position to be
the most competitive, and thatmeant taking all the right
classes, you know, puttingeverything else aside, including
, you know, somewhat of a sociallife or whatever.
(07:40):
But at the end of the day, mything was I want to get accepted
to the academy because Ithought it just provided all
kinds of great opportunities.
And, fortunately for me, thehard work paid off.
I got admitted with the classof 1984 and showed up in
Annapolis in July of 1980.
And I'm not going to lie to you, it was a rough four years.
(08:01):
I majored in engineering and Idid it.
Not engineering and I did it, Idid it not necessarily because
I loved engineering.
I did it because I read thisstat that said four out of five
graduates from the NativeAcademy have engineering degrees
and I just said, ok, that's me,then I'm going to be an
engineer.
(08:22):
And that's not to say that, hadI majored in history or
whatever I'm not saying likehistory was like an easier major
or anything like that becauseyou still had to take
professional courses,engineering courses.
If you were a major, like inhumanities, all English majors,
all history majors, had to takesome level of thermodynamics,
electrical engineering, thingslike that.
But the history definitely didcome easier to me and I think I
(08:46):
probably would have done alittle bit better academically
had I gone that route.
But I'm not sorry that I wentthe engineering route because it
kind of gave me the foundationof how I think and process
information today and, anyway,finished up at the academy,
ended up getting a slot to go toflight school and I ended up
flying helicopters, just like mydad.
(09:07):
Spent nine years on active duty,transitioned into the reserves,
spent 11 years in the reservesand then during that time I also
went to work in the corporateworld for Johnson Johnson, where
I was there, for I think I waswith them for 19 years doing
everything from sales, salestraining, sales management, all
that kind of stuff, and finishedup with Johnson Johnson in 2016
(09:30):
.
Ended up working on my own asan energy management consultant
for a few years and was buildingup a little bit of a book of
business, and then COVID hit andbasically just wrecked that
opportunity altogether.
And then I started thinking tomyself you know, if I can just
(09:50):
find something to kind of keeppaying the bills for a couple
more years, then my neighborretirement pay kicks in.
I was already getting my J&Jpension and then if I could do
that, then I could kind of relaxand then just start doing stuff
for me, right?
So I ended up calling up mykids' local junior well, where
they went to junior high, and Ijust asked them hey, how are you
(10:12):
guys fixed for math teachers,substitute math teachers and
stuff like that, because I canteach anything all the way up
through trigonometry.
And they said, hey, by allmeans, we have a shortage and of
course, with COVID they justdefinitely needed the help.
So I did that for a few yearsNot that often, I would probably
pick up about maybe 10 days amonth or something like that.
(10:34):
And then just recently I justkind of stepped away from that
and I'm just doing straight upone-on-one tutoring with kids,
and I do have four or fivestudents right now One Hispanic,
one Hispanic, one youngAfrican-American high school
freshman girl that she's doing alot better now, and then a
couple other kids as well.
So that kind of keeps me busy.
(10:54):
I feel like I'm kind of givingsomething back and so, yeah,
that's basically my story.
I think you're on mute, brian.
I can't hear you.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, how?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
did I do that.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
What a world we live in.
Thank you for letting me know,thank you for working with the
kids, I mean.
Sometimes we believe thatsuccess means that you change
the world right, like millionsof people at a time.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Just the one or two people that you make a
difference in, and then they'regoing to make a difference, and
then that just springboards andmove on.
I kind of feel like it'shelicopter month and the reason
I say that is like last week Iinterviewed.
Her name was Marcy Ng Martel Ngand she was the first black
female helicopter pilot in theArmy.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Oh, no, kidding yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know, and Hal, you just told your story right.
So I say I tell them.
I'm like, yes, right, go aheadand tell your story.
Well, marcy went for about anhour and 15 minutes when she
started telling me all thethings that she had to go
through, you know, to be thispilot in the Army and the things
that you know, the hurdles shehad to go through.
Oh yeah, what an amazing,amazing story that she told.
(12:16):
And now I get to hear aboutyour dad and then I get to hear
about you know who sounds likehe was an amazing man.
And you know, I know you justlost him recently and sorry for
your loss there, but it justsounds like he gave you like an
identity and you know, kind ofshaped who you were.
What I found out, you know whenwe were talking before that Carl
(12:37):
and I were.
We grew up in the same town,probably within four or five
miles of each other.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Arapahoe Road 925 is where my dad.
My dad was part of anaffirmative action program with
the telephone company and he wasin the reserves and so I spent
my and this.
I don't think you can do thisnow, but he had his weekends
where I would go spend my, my,you know, my, his weekend,
whatever it was that month,crawling on helicopters and
(13:04):
getting into cockpits, rightright.
I don't think you can even comeclose to doing that.
He was a photographer so he hadaccess to the whole base.
Right, right he would allow meto bring a friend his weekend
every month.
I just got to play on a wholebunch of stuff.
I'm sure it's not like thatanymore.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, probably a few changes since then, but I think
that you try to designate atleast one day a year or
something where you can, youknow, have like a career day,
like that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Gotcha, but I do want to know.
I want to hear about youridentity, but maybe before we
get your identity and how thatwas shaped.
I also want to hear you went toAnnapolis you know, and in the
early, like the early eighties,which wasn't probably like the
early seventies, but there stillhad to be some some tension
there, or was it just we accepteverybody, everybody gets to go
(13:59):
for it as a smooth selling.
And then you're doing something.
Academically, that you know howmany I don't know.
Academically, that you know, Idon't know how many folks of
color were graduating withengineering degrees in the early
80s.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, so maybe kind of tell me a little bit about
you know, as it shaped youridentity and who you were.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Did you have to do more?
I guess is what I'm asking andwho you were Did you have to do
more.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I guess is what.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, I think that to your point.
Yeah, it was the early 80s andit wasn't nearly as tough as
when, obviously, wesley Browngraduated in 1947.
He was the first black graduatefrom the Naval Academy.
But you could tell there's justdepending on it was more subtle
.
I guess you know what I mean.
Yeah, and let's just I justwant to be completely up front
(14:47):
here my experience at the navalacademy was largely very
positive.
There was just a couple oflittle things that you know, you
just kind of it basically hityou between the eyes and you
said, okay, okay, that that'show it is.
I just got to be more aware,right, and to be honest with you
, you know I had to deal withthings from time to time, but
the women at the academy, Ithink, had it as tough, or maybe
(15:08):
even tougher than I did, inparticular, because I mean the
class that, the class that Igraduated with 1984, that was
the fifth class with women in it.
It was still a very, very newconcept and I saw just brazen
examples of just mistreatmentand just disrespect on a pretty
(15:30):
large level, and I experiencedit a little bit myself, but
nowhere near on this scale.
And I was at Annapolis justrecently for my 40-year reunion
and I happened to be just kindof observing the campus and and
now it's just completelydifferent.
I mean, it's just likeeverybody's all integrated and
it's just like it's been likethat for forever, you know, and
which is great to see, becausebefore you know, you just didn't
(15:53):
see that and that wasunfortunate.
But overall, I would say thatthe only time I really
experienced any challenges iswhen, to be quite honest with
you, when people got a littlebit out of control.
I mean, the drinking age was 18back then they bumped it to 21,
but we were all grandfatheredin and certain times you would
(16:15):
see people's true colors comethrough after they've had a
couple of drinks.
And that's when you just say,okay, that's who you are Good to
know.
You just move on from there andjust make a note and and, and
and press on, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, oh my God, it's so cool.
I can remember, like when Iwent to a rival high school.
That was probably 10 miles,maybe not even 10 miles from the
high school that you went toand I can just remember in
Cherokee there was 3,500students, I guess we're way less
than that.
You're probably half of that,and then we had 35 people of
(16:50):
color that went to Cherry CreekHigh School.
It was like that.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's like 0.1% and I happened to be a pretty good
athlete.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I happened to be a pretty good athlete, so
they loved me.
I mean, I was the important kid, right.
Right right, you're going tohelp us do football and track
and that kind of stuff.
But I can just remember likehow many of us were in special
eds?
How many of us were?
you know that, like when I wentto Walnut Hill Elementary School
(17:17):
, I was in charity school forall 12 years and I can remember
just me and Ernie Pitts in thein the elementary school that I
was at and that's when I finallyfound that, realized that I was
black when they were sayingnames and all that kind of stuff
.
But overall it was.
You know it was a goodexperience.
You know I I was mad at my dadfor moving out of you know like
(17:38):
Park Hill and that kind of stuff.
You know around people who looklike me and that kind of stuff.
But at the same time, you know,he was pursuing a better
education for me.
He was pursuing it you know, inhis mind it was important to to
integrate, because he wasn'table to do that in Kansas City.
Right, you know, you know, hetells me stories of what it was
(18:02):
like in Missouri.
He was growing up in the 30sand 40s.
You know like, oh my gosh, itwas, it was a mess.
When we think about identityand becoming the man that you
are today, what do you think?
Were there different people orjust experiences?
Did you and I don't know if youserved in any of the wars
(18:22):
flying helicopters, but whatbecame who you were to believe
you could do anything?
You know, I don't know how manypilots and stuff that there
were, how intensive it was.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, well, I think that in terms of my identity I
kind of alluded to it beforethat that was largely shaped by
my dad, just in terms of theexample he set, and I know that
when I started going down thatpath to become a helicopter
pilot, it almost kind ofhappened.
It wasn't one of these thingswhere I wanted to fly from the
time I was six years old.
It just kind of evolved overtime and I realized that when I
got experience to all the areasof the Navy those being the
ships, the submarines, theMarine Corps and also aviation,
(19:08):
the helicopter well, aviation,and then the helicopter
community in particular, seemedto fit my personality the best.
You know I, I there's.
I mean, on some level I'm asomewhat intense person, but I
try to just kind of stay asrelaxed as I can and I think, by
and large, a lot of helicopterpilots tend to be like that.
They're kind of laid back.
(19:28):
You know they very professional, you know they get the job done
and they know what they'redoing, but there's not that same
level of intensity as you mighthave with a jet pilot, which
they need to have becausethey're trying to plant a
speeding jet on an aircraftcarrier that's moving at night,
you know.
So you know more power to them.
But anyway, yeah, I mean Ithink my dad kind of shaped that
(19:50):
a lot and if I had to kind ofdefine who I am, I would just
say somebody who is just, youknow, quietly determined to do
whatever it takes to complete atask.
But I think that what I pridemyself most on is I just in
terms of my reputation is beingknown as somebody who is 100%
(20:10):
reliable, and you know meaningthat.
Hey, you need somebody to counton just for anything.
Just go to Carl, he'll figureout a way to get it done.
Because, for whatever reason,that makes me feel really,
really good.
And I'll give you, I'll giveyou a quick example of that.
And it's just, it's reallyminor.
But I was working through aproblem with a young student
he's a fifth grader, I guess theother day, and I was surprised
(20:33):
that they were getting problemsthis challenging in the fifth
grade.
I mean, I've seen them in the,you know, seen them getting in
the seventh grade, like that,but not in the fifth grade.
And I was working through theproblem and we came up with an
answer and I said, okay, well,this is so, this is basically
how you work through it.
But as we moved on to anotherproblem, there's something that
was kind of sticking in my headabout the answer that we got and
(20:55):
I said, man, something is offthere.
I think I made a mistake and Ican't remember what it.
You know I got to take somemore time to look through it,
you know.
So I kind of put that problemaside.
We worked through the rest ofit, the rest of the lesson, Okay
.
And then I came back home and,sure enough, there was a small
mistake that I made that threwoff the answer.
It was the incorrect answer.
(21:17):
So I went back and I workedthrough the problem.
In fact I have it sitting righthere on my desk.
I worked through the problemstep by step by step, because I
wasn't going to see the kid foranother week and I wasn't sure
if he's going to have a test ora quiz or something coming up.
So I wrote it step by step bystep, as neat as I could.
I took a picture of it and Itexted it to his dad.
(21:38):
I said, hey, benji and I wereworking through a problem.
Something kind of went sidewaysand I didn't catch it until I
got back home.
Here's the corrected answerTell him to call me if he's got
any questions.
And he gave me a thumbs up andwe went on.
But if I would have just letthat go and I'd say you know,
whatever, I'll just see the kidnext week and correct it?
(21:58):
No, that's not me.
I got to fix it right then andthere for me to be able to sleep
at night.
So that's the way it is, and soyou can imagine that was my
reaction dealing with a fifthgrade math student.
So if I'm dealing with adultson adult type issues or
(22:19):
situations and stuff like that,you can bet that I'm going to do
whatever it takes to get thejob done, question, solve their
problem, whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And that's so cool.
Now I'm thinking of solvingthat problem with my kids.
Me, the last math class I hadwas 10th grade, I think, and in
college I got to take astronomyaccount as a math class, and so
I got to know the sum results.
I love the fact that you workthrough that like an engineer
(22:55):
would or should, where I wouldlook at it and go I ain't got
nothing, son, it's good to be.
Oh my gosh, that is so cool.
Oh, but, but.
But you were able to, which isreally cool.
What so?
You, you, you retire from the,the uh navy after 20.
(23:15):
Now did you fly all 20 years?
Were you an aviation andhelicopter pilot for?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
all 20 years.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Or did you move into something like engineering or
something yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So I was a helicopter pilot the whole time I was on
active duty and then when I wentinto the reserves for those 11
years I didn't fly because Ididn't live.
I did my reserve duty inNorfolk, virginia, and but I did
not live there.
I lived in either Raleigh,north Carolina, and for a while
there I was in Baltimore.
So I was having to drive toNorfolk for my reserve duty and
(23:47):
if you're going to be a pilot inthe reserves you almost have to
kind of live in the city whereyou're doing your reserve duty,
because there are certainminimums that you got to
maintain monthly and annuallyand stuff like that and it's
just going to be too hard.
But I did get assigned to a unitthat worked with air traffic
controllers.
So it was aviation related andwe essentially went out on other
(24:07):
amphib ships and we were partof the component that handled
bringing the aircraft on boardand maybe they're going into
like a hot zone or somethinglike that and you'd be
communicating with the forwardair controllers on making sure
they got in and out of theresafely.
You know that sort of thing.
And to answer your question, orto answer what you wondered
about earlier, I did not, I wasbasically just getting ready to
(24:33):
transition to an instructorsquadron when Desert Storm
jumped off in the early 90s andthey did put my orders on freeze
until they kind of determinedtheir manpower requirements and
it turns out that I didn't haveto go.
I actually served with a lot ofguys who came back from there
and, to be honest with you, myjob as a combat support pilot,
(24:55):
as a Navy combat support pilot,would not have been one that
involved flying into hot zonesor anything like that.
There would have been a lot ofresupply and stuff like that.
But for me, the mostchallenging thing because I was
single at the time, I wasn'tmarried, so my biggest challenge
would have just been shuttingdown my apartment and going over
there, because the actual jobthat I would have had would have
(25:16):
been probably, you know,unremarkable by most people's
standards and and uh.
But you just took satisfactionin knowing that what you were
doing was helping somebody else.
So you know, you have kids,right yes, I have a daughter
who's finishing up at theuniversity of ari and my son is
going to a local junior collegebefore he transfers to Arizona
(25:37):
State.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Nice.
And the reason I ask thatbecause one of the themes that
has come from doing all thesepodcasts one was, I guess the
first thing was we say that weneed to find people that look
like us to know that we could dosome of the things that are out
there.
(25:59):
As I graduate, I don't need tosee people look like me.
I can do anything, I can beanything.
My dad instilled all that in meand then I went to my journey
to Freedom Starters, because Iwent to a seminar that had 400
or 500 people in in it and Ifind myself counting how many
people color in the room, likeright
so I think it wasn't important,but it's important enough for me
(26:22):
to count every time I go to aroom, right, so so it does count
, you know, to me.
But then the second thing thathas come up is what does it mean
to be a dad and theresponsibility of a dad?
Because sometimes we get such awell, and probably rightly so,
in some circles where, you know,we hear all these like deadbeat
(26:43):
dads.
We hear all these, you know,dads who don't take
responsibility, and I think weall believe I haven't met
anybody yet that doesn't believethat every child should have a
dad growing up and have what youand.
I had where we had our dads thewhole time.
You know we neither one of ushad you were from single, single
pair of families, uh.
But so I know a lot of people Iinterview who who have, and one
(27:06):
of the things is you know, yes,our kids need a dad, but the
what it means to be a dad andhow it changes how we interact
in life when we have thatresponsibility of protection and
provision, and you know, Ithink some of the decisions that
I, in fact, I know a lot of thedecisions that I made as a dad
(27:28):
when my kids were younger wereprobably different than I would
have made had I not been a dad.
Yeah, if you talk about what itmeans to be a dad, yeah, I
agree with that.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And I remember talking with a friend of mine
from Johnson Johnson years agobecause she was having kind of a
rough time with her marriageand she had just had a kid, and
she said that she asked me shegoes well, you know what was it
like when your daughter was born.
Lena was born in 2002 and thenEthan was right behind her about
a year and a half later and Isaid, you know, I said that's a
(28:08):
good question because I rememberbeing in the delivery room with
my wife, winnie, and I justremember when Lena was delivered
and I saw her for the firsttime, it was almost like this
switch was flipped in my head.
That basically said that is mynumber one priority now.
Period.
(28:29):
End of sentence.
And of course it was reinforcedwhen my son, ethan, was born.
So basically, to me, being adad meant probably somewhat
similar to what it meant for mydad to have two sons and a
daughter as well, and that wasto do whatever you could to give
(28:50):
them every opportunity tosucceed and the pride I get is
seeing them.
You know, hit that mark.
You know, for my daughter itwas just all kinds of little
milestones.
When she was in high school.
She wanted to go to a highschool.
That was kind of tough to.
I mean, it was kind of like anadmission sort of thing, and she
(29:11):
battled pretty hard in juniorhigh but she insisted that she
wanted to go there and you know,she got, she got accepted and
it was just, it was a charterschool, it wasn't a public
school, anything like that.
Um, out here in Arizona there'smore charter schools than
public schools and you know thepublic schools, some of them are
okay, most of them aren't.
But that's not to say that allthe charter schools are all that
(29:31):
great either.
It just kind of depends on whothe teachers are.
But anyway, this one happenedto be pretty good and it had
like an agricultural andagri-science type of angle which
she really liked because sheliked animals and stuff like
that.
And then she decided she wantedto go to University of Arizona
because they had a really greatprogram and I didn't have to
lift a finger in terms of, just,you know, the applications
(29:52):
process and everything.
She did everything and she justsaid, dad, you got to sign here
, you got to do this, you got todo that.
Next thing, you know, boom, youknow she gets accepted and then
she's, she's on her way andthen you know so that that was
one of my proudest moments whenshe got accepted there and of
course that is going to be,that's going to be eclipsed when
she graduates in the springhere.
And then for my son, ethan, youknow his personality is a little
(30:14):
bit different, he's not nearlyas intense as my daughter is but
he's, you know, pretty brightkid and I just remember with him
it was just watching him stay,determined to do something, just
kind of like how I was Allright.
I'll give an example.
He was born in December and westarted him in school early, so
(30:35):
he was a very young ninth grader.
When he went into high schoolhe was still 13 years old.
He didn't turn 14 untilDecember of that year and
consequently, when he wasplaying basketball he was
tracking physically a little bitbehind everybody else because
they were all a year to year anda half older.
But he made the freshman teamand although he didn't start, he
(30:57):
got some good playing time andyou know he's a good contributor
.
And then what happened was inthe next year they didn't have a
sophomore team, it just wentfrom freshman to JV to varsity,
right.
So you know you had to skip.
You know you're skippingbasically a year there, but
really for him physically it wastwo years, because now he's
just turned 15.
Everybody else is probably 15,going on 16, especially if they
(31:21):
started late anyway, because youknow how it is with the kids
these days Sometimes they holdthem back a year early so they
can get that physicaladvancement.
And his growth spurt hadn'tstarted yet.
Well, he didn't make the JBteam as a sophomore.
He got cut.
And I remember the day that Ipicked him up and I said so how
did it go?
He goes, I didn't make the team.
(31:41):
And I said, oh man, I'm reallysorry to hear that.
And then there was just like alittle bit of.
I didn't say anything, I justwanted to see how he was going
to react.
And he says you know, I'm goingto go out again next year.
And that was the best thingthat he could have ever said to
me.
Those are the words I washoping would come out of his
mouth.
And I said, okay, well, cool,we'll make a plan and then we'll
(32:03):
start going.
So we just went and we went toLuke Air Force Base or the YMCA,
wherever, to shoot baskets.
We looked up stuff online thatwould help him develop his
skills even more as a pointguard and as a shooting guard.
And long story short, not onlydid he make the team as a junior
, but then as a senior, he endedup being the captain and the
(32:23):
most valuable player.
So that was all, because hejust didn't give up.
And so when he was named theMVP, that was a pretty proud
moment for me because I knewwhat it took for him to get
there.
You know what I mean.
So as far as dad moments go,those were the two biggest ones
to date for me, and I'm surethey're going to be more to come
(32:43):
in the future.
But I just take a lot ofsatisfaction in knowing that,
hey, they actually did listen toat least something that I told
him at some point along the way,you know and they surprise you
so much.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And you know, I similar to like when your dad
you you said your dad went outand did the baseball thing for
you and helped you swingbaseballs and you went out and
helped your son be better atbasketball so I was a track guy.
So I was, you know, able to toreally understand and be
coaching track for 38 years andI can remember when my son
decided like I think it wasseventh grade or eighth grade,
(33:22):
he decided he was going to playbaseball.
Well, he had missed all thoseyears.
When you're five, six, seven,eight, I, you know, played
baseball with all the kids whoknew and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I mean, I know baseball, I'm a PE teacher.
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
So I obviously know the sport, but I'm not an
enthusiast of baseball.
They're doing stuff and he goesand plays and they put him out
in left field.
They don't let him back.
The coach actually getssuspended for three games for
not playing and letting him goon the bat.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
And.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I still make him go through all these games, and you
know, but I'm like the championthat you are, I'm not helping
him learn baseball, I'm notpracticing with him.
I'm like yeah we're done withbaseball and the coach's son in
(34:16):
their family was so mad at meand so mad at my son because
their dad got you know, he's themanager, he's the coach, and
now he can't even show up to thegames because of my son who's
being so bad, and then I finallyget my son to go do track right
, and so that I know that I canspend time that I can help him
with.
He ends up being second in thestate of California high jump
(34:38):
and you know he gets ascholarship and all that kind of
stuff and the coach's son is,you know, the coach's son
doesn't get to do anything, he'snot very good.
I don't know if he made youknow the baseball team his
senior year and I see him andthis is a proud moment of me as
(35:00):
a dad, but probably my bestmoment, as you know, interacting
with dad cucks.
It was like my son has got this.
You know, you just think ofthose things because I was so,
like you were saying, so proudto be a dad and I think my
self-worth, because I was ableto be a dad, increased tenfold
(35:25):
because I thought I was doingthe things.
Now, obviously I don't think Iwas the best parent that was
alive and you know super dad andbeing able to do everything,
but it was so important to say,hey, I am a dad, I'm taking care
of my responsibility as a dadand these little humans, I have
a responsibility of how theirlife shows the older they get.
(35:49):
And, yes, my oldest is 36 nowand he works for Pixar, and so
I'm the proudest dad that I gotthe son that works for, you know
, disney or whatever right rightyou know, and we just happen to
have eight children, and so allof them I can go and brag on,
but it's like you know there's,there's not one that I wouldn't
say is the greatest kid on theplanet, is doing phenomenal
(36:10):
things, but they just keepsurprising me yeah, you know
what?
okay, so well, I just I kind oflook at that as my self-worth.
Now, the next part of that isyour relationship with your wife
, and what does it mean to bethis amazing husband that is
able to do this in conjunctionand take care of these kids?
(36:33):
What are some of the thingsthat compels you to love your
wife the way that you did, or do?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
She's still around.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
You know that made a difference in that also, you
know, ignited your self-worth inwho you are.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Right.
Well, so my wife and I met in1998.
So I was already in my mid-30sthen and I'd not been married
before or anything like that.
And she's originally fromChicago and in fact that's where
she is right now.
But she's a flight attendant,so she spends a lot of time
(37:16):
going to and from and that sortof thing.
And early on, when we met, I gota really good sense for who she
was, because she was always andI kind of think a thing in
terms of just being a helicopterpilot.
You always like to have a goodcrew and that starts with having
a good co-pilot.
Helicopter pilot, you, youalways like to have a good crew,
(37:36):
you know, and that starts withhaving a good co-pilot.
And she was always that, if Ican draw the analogy, I mean,
whenever I needed to do,whenever I needed something to
be done while I was at work orwhatever, she was able to kind
of cover off on that for me.
And you know, when we gettogether it was almost like she
was.
We joke around a lot.
I said, you know, sometimes Ithink I just married you for the
(37:57):
entertainment value, becauseshe is really, really funny and
she's just always cracking me up.
I mean there can be times whereI can be in just in a really,
you know, not the most terrificof moods, and then she'll walk
in and she'll say something ordo something.
It'll just have me cracking up,you know.
So I think that that was thething that really first
attracted me to her.
(38:18):
And then, as our marriage hasevolved I mean we'll be married,
you know, 25 years come Aprilthe 8th, and we've assumed
different roles, right?
I mean, when I was working forJohnson and Johnson, I did a
fair amount of traveling notcrazy traveling, but enough to
the point where at some point Ihad to kind of put a stop to it
and just make sure I was at homemore.
(38:38):
But, and during that time, youknow, she spent most of the time
working around my schedule.
All right, she'd only work onthe weekends, maybe she'd only
do two trips a month.
She's a flight attendant forUnited Airlines.
She'd only do like two trips amonth.
And then, when I kind of startedgoing through this transition
with Johnson Johnson, we had aconversation and I said, hey,
(38:59):
look, I'm probably gonna bestepping away from J&J, I'm
gonna try and do my own thing.
We're set up, okay, to do thisright now, and I certainly
wouldn't put the family at riskto do this.
But you're gonna need to startworking a little bit more and
then, of course, our roles willbasically shift in the household
.
I'll take over more of thestuff that's done around here
(39:20):
and then, until the businessgets up and running, then she's
going to be gone a little bitmore often and stuff like that.
And she says, okay, no problem,can do.
In fact, I think she actuallywanted to do that for even a
longer period of time because,for whatever reason and I could
never talk her out of this shealways felt like she wasn't
holding up her end of thebargain in the marriage in terms
of just what she was bringingto the table.
(39:41):
I said don't you understand?
I said, what you're doing, youcan't really put a price on
right, I mean in terms of justmaking sure that Lena and Ethan
don't wind up on drugs or thatsort of thing.
I mean, I was doing my partwhen I was there, but I mean, if
I'm gone at a national meetingfor four days at a time or five
days at a time, she's the onelooking after them, you know?
(40:04):
And, conversely, when I wastrying to get my business up and
running, and then she wasworking more often.
You know, the kids were stillin high school, which is
obviously a very formative time,so it was my job to make sure
that they stayed out of trouble.
And you know we're doing theright thing.
So it all kind of balances outand I think that that's one
reason why, you know, after 25years we're still going, still
(40:26):
going pretty strong.
I mean, we we've had our littlebumps in the road here and
there, but it all comes back tookay, she's a great co-pilot.
She's probably the only womanon the planet who can put up
with me, so she's not goinganywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And understanding that there's sacrifices.
One of the things that I'mdoing now is I'm doing a podcast
on Sunday nights.
It's called why Love Waits, andwe have five men and five women
that were talking about thefamily unit and how whether it
was systematically dismantled orjust you know over time when I
(41:03):
look at the black family, likeduring segregation it was super
strong.
It was.
You know, the education systemwas amazing.
Our black kids were learning somuch more.
Then we do this, you know, weabolish segregation and we do
integration and we start bustingkids.
(41:24):
And you know, and we're sendingour kids to schools that they
are not, they're not wanted atyou know they get stuck in back
of classrooms, and then we havewar on drugs classrooms, and
then we have war on drugs, allthe things that have kind of
dispelled family, and thestatistic now is 50 percent of
black women over the age of 40have never been married and of
that 50 percent, um 75 of themhave children oh yeah, and
(41:50):
there's this belief now that forblack women as I'm doing this
at their mom's bottom don't,don't trust men.
Make sure you have a separatebank account, make sure that you
have it out.
And for the men, they're likewell, I don't know if I ever
want to get married because Idon't have to give her half.
And you're like, well, you'replanning on it falling apart in
(42:11):
a year.
Get there, and there's justthis conflict, and I love to
highlight relationships thatwork.
Because, that's another cluethat I'm finding in most of
these, you know, conversations.
Where I'm having withsuccessful black men is the
family unit and the ones thathave worked like crazy to be
with their kids and doeverything and they're treating
(42:31):
their queens like these amazingmen can.
The black family seems to justdo so much better.
And you know how do we?
You know how do we?
You know I'll fix it or justshare the values that you guys
must have had.
You know, because nobody saidit's been easy.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Oh, it's just, you know fairytale land you know,
but it's been work and thesacrifice has been well worth it
.
I believe God put us into, youknow, but it's been work and the
sacrifice has been well worthit.
I believe God put us into youknow, and just said hey, we were
meant for each other.
We weren't supposed to be alonefor our whole lives, and so,
yeah, I just appreciate the factthat, hey, you've worked at it.
You know the way that you talkabout your wife, the way that
(43:12):
you, you know, just I can tellthat the love is there.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You're doing those things.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Well, I first of all.
That was a pretty staggeringstaff that just laid on me there
.
I did not know that, and I tellyou that I think I think a lot
of it has to do with, you know,the people not getting together
or whatever.
I think it all has to do withputting in the work, right.
I mean, you know nothing.
I don't think it's a cliche,but it's a cliche for a reason.
(43:43):
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but I tell you the level of
satisfaction that I get and thelevel of gratitude that I feel
when my wife and I hit certainmilestones, whether it has to do
with the raising of our kids orjust doing things together.
I mean, one of the things we donot every single year, but most
times is that every spring, inMarch, we live about five hours
(44:07):
well, not five about three and ahalf hours from Palm Desert,
california, and every year theyhave one of the major tennis
tournaments on the WTA and theATP tour there at Indian Wells,
and we've gone there probablyabout five times since like 2016
.
And then we'll make the tripback again this spring and
(44:28):
that's just a really fun thingfor us.
It's about a month before ouranniversary and we both love
tennis.
I mean probably she's probablya little bit more addicted to it
than I am, although I startedplaying before she did.
But when I come home, usuallythe tennis channel is on Right
and and.
But when we go, I mean we getour money's worth.
We show up as soon as it opensand we're usually there for like
(44:48):
two days.
We pick usually two days earlyon in, but we get there right as
soon as it opens and we don'tleave until the last match is
done.
So the hotel, we're just thereto sleep.
So for two days we're doingthat and it is just so much,
it's so worthwhile, it's so muchfun to enjoy that time together
(45:09):
when a sport that we bothreally enjoy playing.
So, yeah, I mean those are the,those are the really good times
and stuff like that.
And so, yeah, I mean those arethe really good times and stuff
like that.
And I just think that thesedays there's not the same level
of my old geometry teacher usedto say stick-to-itiveness when
it comes to doing things, and Ithink that, unfortunately, some
(45:34):
people they could be on theverge of having a really good
relationship, but somethinghappens to derail it and they
just don't put in the work toget it back on track.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, oh my gosh.
So I have to ask you, since youguys are such enthusiasts of
tennis, what do you feel aboutpickleball?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Oh, I hate it.
My wife is a little bit moretolerant, okay, I mean she's
actually played it before whenshe said that she's going to
play with a friend of hers backin Chicago.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I looked at her and I said you are dead to me.
I knew that was coming.
Part of it is like mygeneration's fault, because when
I started teaching PE andbringing my eyes upon 1890, that
was the unit that was.
My favorite unit was thepickleball unit.
We started thinking thisgeneration is playing it now
pickleball.
And here's the reason, becausewhen I would do my tennis unit I
was chasing balls the wholetime.
(46:30):
When I did my pickleball unit, Icould put those little wiffle
balls that we do in the gym.
It could be cold, and so I justliked doing pickleball, because
I didn't want to chase theballs all the time, not to tell
you that.
But it was so much easier toteach a kid who wants nothing to
do with pe that's right.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Well, here's, here's my philosophy on pickleball.
Okay, if you are a, if you arean avid tennis player and you've
you've played tennis for yearsand years, and years and you've
gotten to the point where youknow what the joints just can't
take it anymore.
I'm going to go ahead andtransition to pickleball.
You get cut a lot of slack byme.
Okay, I have no issues with youwhatsoever.
The people I have an issue withis the people who never even
(47:12):
tried tennis and just picked itup and started, because what
that is saying to me is, youknow what?
I refuse to put any effort atall into learning this sport.
You know that that, basically,pickleball is halfway based on.
You know what I mean.
And I just said, I just, and Ijust told her, I said I won't
play, you don't ask me to be apartner, because I just won't do
it.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I have.
I have a cousin who's severalyears older than me and when I
was teaching pickleball, I triedto go back to the nineties.
Oh no, I gotta play.
You know, I gotta do all these.
I'm a baller, I'm all thisright, and now he's like the
pickleball club guy.
He's like Facebook, is you know?
As if he just learned thiswhole new sport that didn't
(47:54):
exist.
But I'm like we, we're justtrying to get you to play and
you thought it was good.
You even put together like apickleball cruise or something
like that.
You're the only people that aregoing to our cruise so they can
play pickleball.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Oh man, yeah that's funny, I'm just so surprised
it's on tv now and oh yeah, theygot an old channel now yeah,
it's like it is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
My favorite restaurant is in palm desert at
the uh, the jw marriott, whichis the mikado where you go into
the.
You know you go into the lobbythere, you take the boat out to
the, the restaurant.
I haven't been there so long.
So wow, yeah, get out there anddo this stuff before, is there?
Um, I want to kind of talkabout health a little bit.
What?
What are you doing to make sure, not just physically, but
(48:40):
mental health as well?
Um, you know, I I know as beinga military person, you, you and
you weren't, you weren't incombat, but you still probably
interacted with a whole lot ofpeople that were.
Are there things that you do tojust make sure your mental
health is maintained or yourphysical health is maintained?
Uh, because we want to livelike black men are supposed to
die like when we're 72.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
That's like the average age.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
My dad's 86 now and he's still running track meets,
so I won't live to 100.
What are you doing to maintainyour health?
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Well, yeah, you bring up a good point when you put in
the mental health as well, andthat's one thing that I can
probably start focusing on alittle bit more.
I've never really felt likethat was a huge issue for me in
terms of just getting down onthings and stuff, but you know,
my dad passing a month and ahalf ago impacted me pretty hard
and I think that it's importantto kind of recognize that and
(49:37):
just deal with it.
And the way I've been dealingwith it is you know, my mom,
they would normally come downhere to Arizona from Denver for
five months out of the year.
They'd come in right aroundChristmas time and they'd leave
to go back to Denver in May.
And they came down this timeand unfortunately it was when my
dad passed away, when he gotdown here within like two weeks.
(49:57):
Unfortunately, it was when mydad passed away, when he got
down here within like two weeks,and so my mom is still here and
I make it a point to go visitwith her every day.
My dad, he died just shy of his90th birthday and my mom is 86.
And so I spend at least twohours a day over there with her.
My brother is visiting fromCalifornia and he's been there
(50:22):
with her for the last threeweeks.
He's heading back home on the20th, but then my sister is
coming out from Alexandria onSunday.
I'm picking her up at theairport.
She's going to stay for a weekand then the plan there is just
for them to or at least mysister anyway come out once one
week a month for at least thenext four or five months and my
brother will come out, you know,whenever he can, and of course
you know I'll be here basicallythe whole time while she's here
in May, so with me.
That's how I've been kind ofdealing with.
The loss is just, you know,keeping my dad alive in our
(50:45):
conversations and stuff likethat and just remembering
different stories that reallytold you what he was all about.
You know that sort of thing.
Physically, I've always been,you know, a big physical fitness
guy.
You know, whether it's uh,weightlifting or different
sports or uh, running.
(51:07):
I, I did recreational runningfor a long time.
I finally stopped doing thatabout, um, we'll call it four
months ago, I think I ran mylast four miles or whatever, and
now I, I, my aerobic activityis being accomplished by doing
using my rowing machine.
So a general week for me interms of physical fitness looks
(51:28):
like, okay, jump on the rowingrowing machine two or three
times a week for about 30 to 45minutes, and then two days a
week of resistance training toinclude things like not the
exercises that athletes wouldtypically do yeah, there's some
of that but more or less theones that are going to allow us
(51:49):
to maintain a good productivelife as we get into our later
years.
So that means things that focuson stability and balance and
certainly strength, because youwant to keep your bone density
up as much as you can.
And then, of course, with my dad.
You know he had a history ofheart disease and so forth.
So my cardiac health isextremely important to me, just
(52:13):
making sure I do things tomaintain that.
What's so frustrating sometimesis that medicine can be so
contradictory sometimes.
Right, I mean I meet with mycardiologist once every six
months.
I mean that's how serious I amabout making sure that
everything is on track.
And you know we talk aboutdifferent diets and stuff like
that, which aren't a realchallenge for me to kind of
(52:33):
convert to, because, like I said, I'll do what it takes.
And so one of the things theytalk about, for you know, good
cardiac health is.
You know, maybe don't eat somany peanuts but focus on, like
almonds and pistachios and stufflike that.
Those are really good from aprotein perspective and they're
kind of good for cardiac healthin terms of just what they
provide.
And I said, okay, cool, I cando that, no problem, you know.
So then a few weeks ago, I goto my urologist and I just
(52:58):
recently had a scan to make sureeverything is looking good
there.
And he says, yeah, we saw acouple of little minor kidney
stones.
He goes you probably won't haveany trouble passing them or
anything like that, but I justwant to make you aware of them.
And I said, okay, well, whatcan I do to make sure that I
minimize that issue?
And he goes well, the firstthing you want to do is stay
away from nuts, oh God.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Don't eat almonds, don't eat pistachios, oh God.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
I'm not going really Give me a break, man.
You just can't win.
You can't win for losing.
I swear it's just crazysometimes.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
We all have to eat like the Matrix, just mush all
the time, because that's theonly thing Don't eat this, don't
eat this.
You can eat this, but don't eatthat Right, right.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
But yeah, physical fitness is just really, really
important to me and, like I said, I try to do something.
In fact I'm trying to teachthis to my son and daughter too
Well, mostly my son, because mydaughter gets her exercise in
different ways working with theanimals out on the farm and
stuff like that.
But I tell my son I said, Isaid, ethan, you want to get to
the point where if you don'twork out for and even if it's
(54:04):
just like playing basketball,whatever, you know, if you don't
, if you don't work out for likefive days, then it really makes
you feel weird, you know, andyou get.
You might even get a little bitirritable or whatever.
But that, to me, is where I amright now in my life is it's
like if I go more than three orfour days without doing
something, then unless I'm sick,then something's wrong.
You know, I gotta, I gotta getback on track.
(54:25):
Yeah, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Well, thank you for spending the time.
Is there anything that wedidn't get to talk about today
that you really wanted to makesure that our listeners and
people that will interact withthis video to know or to do or
to think about?
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Well, I think that one of the things I do in my
free time is I produce a sportspodcast that showcases athletes
at the Naval Academy, and I dothis because a lot of people
don't know about the NavalAcademy number one.
A lot of people don't knowabout the Naval Academy number
one.
A lot of people don't realizethat it is, in fact, a four-year
institution.
Somebody was asking me aboutthe Army-Navy game one time and
(55:06):
they actually thought theydidn't understand how the
Army-Navy game got played,because they thought that once a
year people from the Army andthe Navy just got together and
practiced for about a month andthen they played a game.
They didn't realize there wastwo schools that compete.
(55:28):
You know so, and the fact is wehave a lot of elite athletes
and their stories usually justgo untold because nobody knows
about them and certainly you'renot going to see.
I mean there's going to becertain exceptions.
I mean, david Robinson isprobably the most famous athlete
of color to graduate from theNaval Academy and go on to
become a world champion andOlympic champion and all that
kind of stuff.
But there are other athleteswho participate in sports that
(55:50):
you don't hear too much about.
You know sports like rowing,for example.
I'm a huge rowing fan, right,and the Naval Academy has got a
great program there.
Rugby they were nationalchampions two years ago in rugby
, beating the University ofCalifornia Berkeley, you know in
the finals.
And then swimming and divingand track and field I'm a big
track and field nut, and justbeing able to tell their story,
(56:15):
in addition to sharing what theyhave to deal with while they
are there, right, I mean, I'vetold people this a hundred times
that when those athletes getout there to compete on the
football field, basketball court, out on the water if they're
rowing, or in the pool ifthey're swimming, on a tennis
court, whatever there's 36varsity sports, by the way, at
Annapolis that is the easiestpart of their day going out
(56:38):
there and competing, becauseit's kind of where they get away
from everything else that'sgoing on academically and
professionally and stuff likethat.
For others who may want toaspire to become, you know,
officers in the Navy and theMarine Corps and just showing,
(57:05):
hey, not only can you do that,but you can do this too, and it
really does make you a morewell-rounded individual and
that's why I like doing it.
The podcasts come out roughlyevery two to three weeks.
I just put one out the otherday on our national champion
rowing team in 1984 that won anational championship and my two
guests were two classmates ofmine who were on that team and
rowed in that boat.
So yeah, it was a lot of funand I try to highlight the
(57:29):
athletes of color as much as Ican as well.
One of the athletes I had on acouple of years ago, she was
just a fantastic track star.
Her name was Molly Mangan andwe had a fantastic track star.
Uh, her name was molly manganand, uh, we had a great
conversation and just her nameis just peppered all over those
uh uh record books at the navalacademy in terms of indoor and
outdoor tracks.
She was really something wow,that's neat.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
So how do they get to how they, how do folks get to
your so?
Speaker 1 (57:56):
the name of the podcast is navy sports central
and you can find it on anywhereyou listen to podcasts.
It's in every directory outthere.
But yeah, just type that into asearch and it'll pop up.
And we also have a groupFacebook page.
That it's a private page, butif you're that interested in
Navy sports, all you got to dois just find it on Facebook.
(58:18):
Just type in Navy Sports Nationand it'll bring you up.
Just answer a couple ofquestions that get you in and
that's just a really good way tofollow Navy sports.
We got two big games coming uptomorrow and basketball against
army and, to be quite frank, weneed to win both of those to
really have a shot at winningour annual competition, because
we compete in 26 sports overalland Navy's won that competition
(58:41):
probably eight or nine years ina row.
This year we got to kind of aslow start and we were behind
nine to three until about twoweeks ago.
And then we won all four sportsthat day indoor and outdoor.
We won men's and women's indoortrack.
We won that.
We won rifle, rifle, and thenwe won um, what was the other
one?
Gymnastics.
So that got us to nine seven.
If we can win both basketballgames, that'll get us even.
(59:04):
Uh, we don't necessarily haveto win both of them, but winning
both of them, with wrestlingcoming up next week, would be a
bonus, you know.
So we'll see well.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Thank you so much for being part of the podcast today
.
Thank you for sharing yourstory part of the podcast today.
Thank you for sharing yourstory and just being vulnerable
with all the things that youhave.
And so you know I would say, goto just check out his podcast
and check out.
You know who are some athletesthat you may not know about, or
you know some of the best insports that we can find, best in
sports that we can find.
And so, if you found this thing.
(59:36):
If you found this particularepisode interesting, you know,
go ahead and share it withsomebody, somebody you think
that might benefit from it.
I would say, go ahead andsubscribe, because you know,
when you subscribe you get tosee all the different guests
that we have and I promise you,over the 130 some that we have,
you will absolutely findsomebody somewhere that you can
identify with that you can say,hey, if that person can do it, I
(59:59):
can do it too, or if that canbe happening, you know all the
wonderful things that we getfrom having these conversations
and being excuse me inrelationship with each other
Right right.
So you have any closing thoughts?
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
No, I think that'll do it.
I just I would like to reiterate, you know, one of the things we
spoke about in terms of justphysical health.
I read a book called Outlivejust recently and I the doctor's
name that wrote it escapes meright now, but he's an
oncologist and he speaks a lotto what I was alluding to before
, about making sure that you'remaintaining, you know, your
physical health and there'sprobably some discussion on
(01:00:35):
mental health as well physicalhealth and there's probably some
discussion on mental health aswell, because you know, we're
roughly the same age group and Ithink that as we get older,
it's just going to be really,really important to have a
quality life for as long as youcan have it, and that's one of
the things that was really greatabout my dad is that he was
going strong all the way untilthe very end, and that's the way
you want to live your life.
You want to be productive, asproductive as you can, for as
(01:00:57):
long as you can, and you knowwhen it's time for you to go.
Then at least there's noregrets or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
That's to me that's preferred as opposed to just
kind of hanging around and justexisting, because we just didn't
take advantage of, you know,staying in good shape early on,
absolutely, the book you saidwas Outlived when I find it I'll
put it into the comments and ithelped.
It's so important because youhave to enjoy your life, not
existing life.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
All right, don't forget your God's greatest gift
he loves you as you allow him to.
You guys have an amazing dayand we'll look forward to
talking to you the next time.
If I had to kind of define who I am, I would just
say somebody who is quietlydetermined to do whatever it
takes to complete a task.
But I think that what I pridemyself most on is being known as
somebody who is 100% reliable.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay, welcome to the Journey to Freedom podcast.
I'm Dr B and I'm your host andjust super.
I hate to say this every time,but I say it every time because
I get so excited about theguests that I get to interview.
I tell you guys all the timethat I'm the luckiest man on the
(00:48):
planet who gets to interviewfolks that are doing something,
that are making a difference.
Carl, I don't know if you know,but last year I said I had gone
to a seminar and came back andjust was really excited about
doing podcasts.
And I said I was going tointerview 100 and came back and
just was really excited aboutdoing podcasts and I said I was
going to interview a hundredblack men last year, in 2024, I
(01:08):
ended up doing 105, which hasmade it even better that you
know and I'm probably at 140 nowafter this year, as we just
continue to grow and continue tounderstand folks, and so I'm so
excited to have you on so wecan continue to chop, chop it up
on on some wonderful things.
But I can't excited to have youon, so we continue to chop it up
on some wonderful things, but Ican't wait to hear your story,
(01:30):
you know, as I just think, likeyesterday I was able to
interview a gentleman that had areally good attitude.
He was like I forgive everybody, I'm OK.
You know, he came out ofChicago, was arrested and
convicted for a double homicideand when that double homicide
(01:51):
happened he happened to be injail and he still spent 19 years
before they figured out thatthere's no way he could have
been there because he was lockedup.
And so then you think of oursystems and the things that you
know that folks argue.
And then they did a civil trialand realized he couldn't have
done the things because he wasnot in a position to do it.
(02:13):
But he had a good attitude,right, he was still happy, he
was still excited, he was still,you know, he's been out now for
about 11 years, but at the sametime he's in his 50s.
He went in at 22 or 20 yearsold and spent, you know, 20 from
20 to 40, which are some of ourmost formative years uh, where
he was and knowing that hedidn't commit the crime.
(02:36):
You know that was impossible todo it and nobody would listen
it's not a good attitude.
So, uh, that's why I just I soenjoyed, you know, the
opportunity that I get to have.
You know, folks like yourselfthat are on.
I've asked Carl to tell thestory because I can't wait to
hear all the wonderful thingsthat he's done and he's going to
(02:56):
continue to do, and then we'regoing to talk about our pillars
and just have some fun togethertoday.
So, carl, thank you for beingon, thank you for spending your
time with me during this hour,and we will talk.
Just go ahead and tell yourstory, we'll go from there.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
All right, thanks, brian.
I appreciate it and first ofall, I really appreciate that
invitation Came as a little bitof a surprise, but I hope that
what I have to say will bringsome value to your listeners.
So essentially, and again justby way of introduction, my name
is Carl Darden and I am a formerNavy veteran.
I've spent 20 years on activeduty, both active duty and in
(03:34):
the reserves, and I actuallycome from a military background.
My father was an Air Forceveteran and he served for 20
years, from the mid-50s to themid-70s, and that included a
tour in Vietnam and he flewhelicopters.
He's a search and rescuehelicopter pilot and just saved
countless lives while he was inservice.
(03:54):
And it was probably thatmilitary background that kind of
formed a foundation for who Iended up becoming, because my
dad, he had a particular I guessfor lack of a better phrase
code that he lived by and it wasbasically, you know, putting
the family first, doingeverything he could to make sure
(04:16):
that they, you know, got everyopportunity to make themselves
better.
But the other side of it wasalso just making sure that he
understood that we understoodthat we had to meet a certain
standard in his mind, and thatpart of that meant never giving
up on anything, Always, you know, showing proper respect to
everybody and just never settinga goal and just basically going
(04:41):
after it.
Essentially, and and that's kindof where, that's kind of how I
grew up we spent time moving allover the place.
I mean, I was born in Las Vegas, moved to Italy, actually
learned to speak Italian beforeI spoke English, came back to
the States when my dad was inVietnam, forgot how to speak
Italian because everybody met,everybody made fun of us and
then when he came back fromVietnam, we went from Maine to
(05:03):
Florida, to South Carolina andthen out to Denver when he
retired.
So we were all over the placeand the things that got me
through were just a love ofsports.
I mean, I did pretty well inschool, but it was like sports,
like baseball and basketball,that really kind of kept me
going.
And I think that I would saythat my first time when I really
(05:30):
felt like I was, I felt like Icould do something in baseball,
actually when I was like nineyears old, because I couldn't
really hit a baseball for twoyears it was just like close
your eyes and swing, but my dadconstantly worked with me and he
wasn't even really a big sportsguy, to tell you the truth, but
the fact is he knew that itmattered to me.
So we went out there and we hada little plastic wiffle ball
(05:51):
and I had the bat and he justthrew me ball after ball after
ball and then that, inconjunction with getting on a
good team with a coach thatcould really teach hitting, made
all the difference in the world.
So that was kind of my firstexposure into not giving up
because I was really this closeto just saying, you know, forget
it, I don't want to do thisanymore.
So you know, that was part ofit.
(06:12):
And then kind of fast forwarding, you know, getting to high
school again, I didn't reallyhave a lot of issues
academically, I mean, I feltlike things kind of came to me
all right, but I wasn't reallysure what I wanted to do beyond
high school.
And it was, I think, between myfreshman and sophomore year
that a neighbor of ours came upto me and I was walking my dog.
(06:34):
I'll never forget this.
I tell this story a lot.
When people ask me how I gotinterested in the Naval Academy,
he hands me this catalog on theUS Naval Academy and I'd heard
of it because I watchedArmy-Navy games in the past.
And he said hey, carl, take alook at this, I think you might
be interested in what it has tosay.
So I said, okay, thanks, mrWilliams, I appreciate it.
So I went home and again, thiswas a catalog.
(06:57):
You don't typically readcatalogs cover to cover right,
you just kind of flip throughthem and focus on different
areas.
But that one I did you know fromthe very start all the way
through and I read it in likeless than a couple of days,
right on through to what therequirements were for the
different majors and so forth.
I mean just the whole nineyards.
And that was when and Iremember, like I said, this was
(07:19):
in the summer of 77.
And I told my parents I saidthat's where I want to go to
school of 77.
And I told my parents I saidthat's where I want to go to
school.
And from that point on, nothinggot in my way in terms of
making sure that I was going toput myself in the position to be
the most competitive, and thatmeant taking all the right
classes, you know, puttingeverything else aside, including
, you know, somewhat of a sociallife or whatever.
(07:40):
But at the end of the day, mything was I want to get accepted
to the academy because Ithought it just provided all
kinds of great opportunities.
And, fortunately for me, thehard work paid off.
I got admitted with the classof 1984 and showed up in
Annapolis in July of 1980.
And I'm not going to lie to you, it was a rough four years.
(08:01):
I majored in engineering and Idid it.
Not engineering and I did it, Idid it not necessarily because
I loved engineering.
I did it because I read thisstat that said four out of five
graduates from the NativeAcademy have engineering degrees
and I just said, ok, that's me,then I'm going to be an
engineer.
(08:22):
And that's not to say that, hadI majored in history or
whatever I'm not saying likehistory was like an easier major
or anything like that becauseyou still had to take
professional courses,engineering courses.
If you were a major, like inhumanities, all English majors,
all history majors, had to takesome level of thermodynamics,
electrical engineering, thingslike that.
But the history definitely didcome easier to me and I think I
(08:46):
probably would have done alittle bit better academically
had I gone that route.
But I'm not sorry that I wentthe engineering route because it
kind of gave me the foundationof how I think and process
information today and, anyway,finished up at the academy,
ended up getting a slot to go toflight school and I ended up
flying helicopters, just like mydad.
(09:07):
Spent nine years on active duty,transitioned into the reserves,
spent 11 years in the reservesand then during that time I also
went to work in the corporateworld for Johnson Johnson, where
I was there, for I think I waswith them for 19 years doing
everything from sales, salestraining, sales management, all
that kind of stuff, and finishedup with Johnson Johnson in 2016
(09:30):
.
Ended up working on my own asan energy management consultant
for a few years and was buildingup a little bit of a book of
business, and then COVID hit andbasically just wrecked that
opportunity altogether.
And then I started thinking tomyself you know, if I can just
(09:50):
find something to kind of keeppaying the bills for a couple
more years, then my neighborretirement pay kicks in.
I was already getting my J&Jpension and then if I could do
that, then I could kind of relaxand then just start doing stuff
for me, right?
So I ended up calling up mykids' local junior well, where
they went to junior high, and Ijust asked them hey, how are you
(10:12):
guys fixed for math teachers,substitute math teachers and
stuff like that, because I canteach anything all the way up
through trigonometry.
And they said, hey, by allmeans, we have a shortage and of
course, with COVID they justdefinitely needed the help.
So I did that for a few yearsNot that often, I would probably
pick up about maybe 10 days amonth or something like that.
(10:34):
And then just recently I justkind of stepped away from that
and I'm just doing straight upone-on-one tutoring with kids,
and I do have four or fivestudents right now One Hispanic,
one Hispanic, one youngAfrican-American high school
freshman girl that she's doing alot better now, and then a
couple other kids as well.
So that kind of keeps me busy.
(10:54):
I feel like I'm kind of givingsomething back and so, yeah,
that's basically my story.
I think you're on mute, brian.
I can't hear you.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, how?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
did I do that.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
What a world we live in.
Thank you for letting me know,thank you for working with the
kids, I mean.
Sometimes we believe thatsuccess means that you change
the world right, like millionsof people at a time.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Just the one or two people that you make a
difference in, and then they'regoing to make a difference, and
then that just springboards andmove on.
I kind of feel like it'shelicopter month and the reason
I say that is like last week Iinterviewed.
Her name was Marcy Ng Martel Ngand she was the first black
female helicopter pilot in theArmy.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Oh, no, kidding yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know, and Hal, you just told your story right.
So I say I tell them.
I'm like, yes, right, go aheadand tell your story.
Well, marcy went for about anhour and 15 minutes when she
started telling me all thethings that she had to go
through, you know, to be thispilot in the Army and the things
that you know, the hurdles shehad to go through.
Oh yeah, what an amazing,amazing story that she told.
(12:16):
And now I get to hear aboutyour dad and then I get to hear
about you know who sounds likehe was an amazing man.
And you know, I know you justlost him recently and sorry for
your loss there, but it justsounds like he gave you like an
identity and you know, kind ofshaped who you were.
What I found out, you know whenwe were talking before that Carl
(12:37):
and I were.
We grew up in the same town,probably within four or five
miles of each other.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Arapahoe Road 925 is where my dad.
My dad was part of anaffirmative action program with
the telephone company and he wasin the reserves and so I spent
my and this.
I don't think you can do thisnow, but he had his weekends
where I would go spend my, my,you know, my, his weekend,
whatever it was that month,crawling on helicopters and
(13:04):
getting into cockpits, rightright.
I don't think you can even comeclose to doing that.
He was a photographer so he hadaccess to the whole base.
Right, right he would allow meto bring a friend his weekend
every month.
I just got to play on a wholebunch of stuff.
I'm sure it's not like thatanymore.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, probably a few changes since then, but I think
that you try to designate atleast one day a year or
something where you can, youknow, have like a career day,
like that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Gotcha, but I do want to know.
I want to hear about youridentity, but maybe before we
get your identity and how thatwas shaped.
I also want to hear you went toAnnapolis you know, and in the
early, like the early eighties,which wasn't probably like the
early seventies, but there stillhad to be some some tension
there, or was it just we accepteverybody, everybody gets to go
(13:59):
for it as a smooth selling.
And then you're doing something.
Academically, that you know howmany I don't know.
Academically, that you know, Idon't know how many folks of
color were graduating withengineering degrees in the early
80s.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Right right.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, so maybe kind of tell me a little bit about
you know, as it shaped youridentity and who you were.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Did you have to do more?
I guess is what I'm asking andwho you were Did you have to do
more.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I guess is what.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I'm asking.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, I think that to your point.
Yeah, it was the early 80s andit wasn't nearly as tough as
when, obviously, wesley Browngraduated in 1947.
He was the first black graduatefrom the Naval Academy.
But you could tell there's justdepending on it was more subtle
.
I guess you know what I mean.
Yeah, and let's just I justwant to be completely up front
(14:47):
here my experience at the navalacademy was largely very
positive.
There was just a couple oflittle things that you know, you
just kind of it basically hityou between the eyes and you
said, okay, okay, that that'show it is.
I just got to be more aware,right, and to be honest with you
, you know I had to deal withthings from time to time, but
the women at the academy, Ithink, had it as tough, or maybe
(15:08):
even tougher than I did, inparticular, because I mean the
class that, the class that Igraduated with 1984, that was
the fifth class with women in it.
It was still a very, very newconcept and I saw just brazen
examples of just mistreatmentand just disrespect on a pretty
(15:30):
large level, and I experiencedit a little bit myself, but
nowhere near on this scale.
And I was at Annapolis justrecently for my 40-year reunion
and I happened to be just kindof observing the campus and and
now it's just completelydifferent.
I mean, it's just likeeverybody's all integrated and
it's just like it's been likethat for forever, you know, and
which is great to see, becausebefore you know, you just didn't
(15:53):
see that and that wasunfortunate.
But overall, I would say thatthe only time I really
experienced any challenges iswhen, to be quite honest with
you, when people got a littlebit out of control.
I mean, the drinking age was 18back then they bumped it to 21,
but we were all grandfatheredin and certain times you would
(16:15):
see people's true colors comethrough after they've had a
couple of drinks.
And that's when you just say,okay, that's who you are Good to
know.
You just move on from there andjust make a note and and, and
and press on, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, oh my God, it's so cool.
I can remember, like when Iwent to a rival high school.
That was probably 10 miles,maybe not even 10 miles from the
high school that you went toand I can just remember in
Cherokee there was 3,500students, I guess we're way less
than that.
You're probably half of that,and then we had 35 people of
(16:50):
color that went to Cherry CreekHigh School.
It was like that.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's like 0.1% and I happened to be a pretty good
athlete.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I happened to be a pretty good athlete, so
they loved me.
I mean, I was the important kid, right.
Right right, you're going tohelp us do football and track
and that kind of stuff.
But I can just remember likehow many of us were in special
eds?
How many of us were?
you know that, like when I wentto Walnut Hill Elementary School
(17:17):
, I was in charity school forall 12 years and I can remember
just me and Ernie Pitts in thein the elementary school that I
was at and that's when I finallyfound that, realized that I was
black when they were sayingnames and all that kind of stuff
.
But overall it was.
You know it was a goodexperience.
You know I I was mad at my dadfor moving out of you know like
(17:38):
Park Hill and that kind of stuff.
You know around people who looklike me and that kind of stuff.
But at the same time, you know,he was pursuing a better
education for me.
He was pursuing it you know, inhis mind it was important to to
integrate, because he wasn'table to do that in Kansas City.
Right, you know, you know, hetells me stories of what it was
(18:02):
like in Missouri.
He was growing up in the 30sand 40s.
You know like, oh my gosh, itwas, it was a mess.
When we think about identityand becoming the man that you
are today, what do you think?
Were there different people orjust experiences?
Did you and I don't know if youserved in any of the wars
(18:22):
flying helicopters, but whatbecame who you were to believe
you could do anything?
You know, I don't know how manypilots and stuff that there
were, how intensive it was.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, well, I think that in terms of my identity I
kind of alluded to it beforethat that was largely shaped by
my dad, just in terms of theexample he set, and I know that
when I started going down thatpath to become a helicopter
pilot, it almost kind ofhappened.
It wasn't one of these thingswhere I wanted to fly from the
time I was six years old.
It just kind of evolved overtime and I realized that when I
got experience to all the areasof the Navy those being the
ships, the submarines, theMarine Corps and also aviation,
(19:08):
the helicopter well, aviation,and then the helicopter
community in particular, seemedto fit my personality the best.
You know I, I there's.
I mean, on some level I'm asomewhat intense person, but I
try to just kind of stay asrelaxed as I can and I think, by
and large, a lot of helicopterpilots tend to be like that.
They're kind of laid back.
(19:28):
You know they very professional, you know they get the job done
and they know what they'redoing, but there's not that same
level of intensity as you mighthave with a jet pilot, which
they need to have becausethey're trying to plant a
speeding jet on an aircraftcarrier that's moving at night,
you know.
So you know more power to them.
But anyway, yeah, I mean Ithink my dad kind of shaped that
(19:50):
a lot and if I had to kind ofdefine who I am, I would just
say somebody who is just, youknow, quietly determined to do
whatever it takes to complete atask.
But I think that what I pridemyself most on is I just in
terms of my reputation is beingknown as somebody who is 100%
(20:10):
reliable, and you know meaningthat.
Hey, you need somebody to counton just for anything.
Just go to Carl, he'll figureout a way to get it done.
Because, for whatever reason,that makes me feel really,
really good.
And I'll give you, I'll giveyou a quick example of that.
And it's just, it's reallyminor.
But I was working through aproblem with a young student
he's a fifth grader, I guess theother day, and I was surprised
(20:33):
that they were getting problemsthis challenging in the fifth
grade.
I mean, I've seen them in the,you know, seen them getting in
the seventh grade, like that,but not in the fifth grade.
And I was working through theproblem and we came up with an
answer and I said, okay, well,this is so, this is basically
how you work through it.
But as we moved on to anotherproblem, there's something that
was kind of sticking in my headabout the answer that we got and
(20:55):
I said, man, something is offthere.
I think I made a mistake and Ican't remember what it.
You know I got to take somemore time to look through it,
you know.
So I kind of put that problemaside.
We worked through the rest ofit, the rest of the lesson, Okay
.
And then I came back home and,sure enough, there was a small
mistake that I made that threwoff the answer.
It was the incorrect answer.
(21:17):
So I went back and I workedthrough the problem.
In fact I have it sitting righthere on my desk.
I worked through the problemstep by step by step, because I
wasn't going to see the kid foranother week and I wasn't sure
if he's going to have a test ora quiz or something coming up.
So I wrote it step by step bystep, as neat as I could.
I took a picture of it and Itexted it to his dad.
(21:38):
I said, hey, benji and I wereworking through a problem.
Something kind of went sidewaysand I didn't catch it until I
got back home.
Here's the corrected answerTell him to call me if he's got
any questions.
And he gave me a thumbs up andwe went on.
But if I would have just letthat go and I'd say you know,
whatever, I'll just see the kidnext week and correct it?
(21:58):
No, that's not me.
I got to fix it right then andthere for me to be able to sleep
at night.
So that's the way it is, and soyou can imagine that was my
reaction dealing with a fifthgrade math student.
So if I'm dealing with adultson adult type issues or
(22:19):
situations and stuff like that,you can bet that I'm going to do
whatever it takes to get thejob done, question, solve their
problem, whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And that's so cool.
Now I'm thinking of solvingthat problem with my kids.
Me, the last math class I hadwas 10th grade, I think, and in
college I got to take astronomyaccount as a math class, and so
I got to know the sum results.
I love the fact that you workthrough that like an engineer
(22:55):
would or should, where I wouldlook at it and go I ain't got
nothing, son, it's good to be.
Oh my gosh, that is so cool.
Oh, but, but.
But you were able to, which isreally cool.
What so?
You, you, you retire from the,the uh navy after 20.
(23:15):
Now did you fly all 20 years?
Were you an aviation andhelicopter pilot for?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
all 20 years.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Or did you move into something like engineering or
something yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So I was a helicopter pilot the whole time I was on
active duty and then when I wentinto the reserves for those 11
years I didn't fly because Ididn't live.
I did my reserve duty inNorfolk, virginia, and but I did
not live there.
I lived in either Raleigh,north Carolina, and for a while
there I was in Baltimore.
So I was having to drive toNorfolk for my reserve duty and
(23:47):
if you're going to be a pilot inthe reserves you almost have to
kind of live in the city whereyou're doing your reserve duty,
because there are certainminimums that you got to
maintain monthly and annuallyand stuff like that and it's
just going to be too hard.
But I did get assigned to a unitthat worked with air traffic
controllers.
So it was aviation related andwe essentially went out on other
(24:07):
amphib ships and we were partof the component that handled
bringing the aircraft on boardand maybe they're going into
like a hot zone or somethinglike that and you'd be
communicating with the forwardair controllers on making sure
they got in and out of theresafely.
You know that sort of thing.
And to answer your question, orto answer what you wondered
about earlier, I did not, I wasbasically just getting ready to
(24:33):
transition to an instructorsquadron when Desert Storm
jumped off in the early 90s andthey did put my orders on freeze
until they kind of determinedtheir manpower requirements and
it turns out that I didn't haveto go.
I actually served with a lot ofguys who came back from there
and, to be honest with you, myjob as a combat support pilot,
(24:55):
as a Navy combat support pilot,would not have been one that
involved flying into hot zonesor anything like that.
There would have been a lot ofresupply and stuff like that.
But for me, the mostchallenging thing because I was
single at the time, I wasn'tmarried, so my biggest challenge
would have just been shuttingdown my apartment and going over
there, because the actual jobthat I would have had would have
(25:16):
been probably, you know,unremarkable by most people's
standards and and uh.
But you just took satisfactionin knowing that what you were
doing was helping somebody else.
So you know, you have kids,right yes, I have a daughter
who's finishing up at theuniversity of ari and my son is
going to a local junior collegebefore he transfers to Arizona
(25:37):
State.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Nice.
And the reason I ask thatbecause one of the themes that
has come from doing all thesepodcasts one was, I guess the
first thing was we say that weneed to find people that look
like us to know that we could dosome of the things that are out
there.
(25:59):
As I graduate, I don't need tosee people look like me.
I can do anything, I can beanything.
My dad instilled all that in meand then I went to my journey
to Freedom Starters, because Iwent to a seminar that had 400
or 500 people in in it and Ifind myself counting how many
people color in the room, likeright
so I think it wasn't important,but it's important enough for me
(26:22):
to count every time I go to aroom, right, so so it does count
, you know, to me.
But then the second thing thathas come up is what does it mean
to be a dad and theresponsibility of a dad?
Because sometimes we get such awell, and probably rightly so,
in some circles where, you know,we hear all these like deadbeat
(26:43):
dads.
We hear all these, you know,dads who don't take
responsibility, and I think weall believe I haven't met
anybody yet that doesn't believethat every child should have a
dad growing up and have what youand.
I had where we had our dads thewhole time.
You know we neither one of ushad you were from single, single
pair of families, uh.
But so I know a lot of people Iinterview who who have, and one
(27:06):
of the things is you know, yes,our kids need a dad, but the
what it means to be a dad andhow it changes how we interact
in life when we have thatresponsibility of protection and
provision, and you know, Ithink some of the decisions that
I, in fact, I know a lot of thedecisions that I made as a dad
(27:28):
when my kids were younger wereprobably different than I would
have made had I not been a dad.
Yeah, if you talk about what itmeans to be a dad, yeah, I
agree with that.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And I remember talking with a friend of mine
from Johnson Johnson years agobecause she was having kind of a
rough time with her marriageand she had just had a kid, and
she said that she asked me shegoes well, you know what was it
like when your daughter was born.
Lena was born in 2002 and thenEthan was right behind her about
a year and a half later and Isaid, you know, I said that's a
(28:08):
good question because I rememberbeing in the delivery room with
my wife, winnie, and I justremember when Lena was delivered
and I saw her for the firsttime, it was almost like this
switch was flipped in my head.
That basically said that is mynumber one priority now.
Period.
(28:29):
End of sentence.
And of course it was reinforcedwhen my son, ethan, was born.
So basically, to me, being adad meant probably somewhat
similar to what it meant for mydad to have two sons and a
daughter as well, and that wasto do whatever you could to give
(28:50):
them every opportunity tosucceed and the pride I get is
seeing them.
You know, hit that mark.
You know, for my daughter itwas just all kinds of little
milestones.
When she was in high school.
She wanted to go to a highschool.
That was kind of tough to.
I mean, it was kind of like anadmission sort of thing, and she
(29:11):
battled pretty hard in juniorhigh but she insisted that she
wanted to go there and you know,she got, she got accepted and
it was just, it was a charterschool, it wasn't a public
school, anything like that.
Um, out here in Arizona there'smore charter schools than
public schools and you know thepublic schools, some of them are
okay, most of them aren't.
But that's not to say that allthe charter schools are all that
(29:31):
great either.
It just kind of depends on whothe teachers are.
But anyway, this one happenedto be pretty good and it had
like an agricultural andagri-science type of angle which
she really liked because sheliked animals and stuff like
that.
And then she decided she wantedto go to University of Arizona
because they had a really greatprogram and I didn't have to
lift a finger in terms of, just,you know, the applications
(29:52):
process and everything.
She did everything and she justsaid, dad, you got to sign here
, you got to do this, you got todo that.
Next thing, you know, boom, youknow she gets accepted and then
she's, she's on her way andthen you know so that that was
one of my proudest moments whenshe got accepted there and of
course that is going to be,that's going to be eclipsed when
she graduates in the springhere.
And then for my son, ethan, youknow his personality is a little
(30:14):
bit different, he's not nearlyas intense as my daughter is but
he's, you know, pretty brightkid and I just remember with him
it was just watching him stay,determined to do something, just
kind of like how I was Allright.
I'll give an example.
He was born in December and westarted him in school early, so
(30:35):
he was a very young ninth grader.
When he went into high schoolhe was still 13 years old.
He didn't turn 14 untilDecember of that year and
consequently, when he wasplaying basketball he was
tracking physically a little bitbehind everybody else because
they were all a year to year anda half older.
But he made the freshman teamand although he didn't start, he
(30:57):
got some good playing time andyou know he's a good contributor
.
And then what happened was inthe next year they didn't have a
sophomore team, it just wentfrom freshman to JV to varsity,
right.
So you know you had to skip.
You know you're skippingbasically a year there, but
really for him physically it wastwo years, because now he's
just turned 15.
Everybody else is probably 15,going on 16, especially if they
(31:21):
started late anyway, because youknow how it is with the kids
these days Sometimes they holdthem back a year early so they
can get that physicaladvancement.
And his growth spurt hadn'tstarted yet.
Well, he didn't make the JBteam as a sophomore.
He got cut.
And I remember the day that Ipicked him up and I said so how
did it go?
He goes, I didn't make the team.
(31:41):
And I said, oh man, I'm reallysorry to hear that.
And then there was just like alittle bit of.
I didn't say anything, I justwanted to see how he was going
to react.
And he says you know, I'm goingto go out again next year.
And that was the best thingthat he could have ever said to
me.
Those are the words I washoping would come out of his
mouth.
And I said, okay, well, cool,we'll make a plan and then we'll
(32:03):
start going.
So we just went and we went toLuke Air Force Base or the YMCA,
wherever, to shoot baskets.
We looked up stuff online thatwould help him develop his
skills even more as a pointguard and as a shooting guard.
And long story short, not onlydid he make the team as a junior
, but then as a senior, he endedup being the captain and the
(32:23):
most valuable player.
So that was all, because hejust didn't give up.
And so when he was named theMVP, that was a pretty proud
moment for me because I knewwhat it took for him to get
there.
You know what I mean.
So as far as dad moments go,those were the two biggest ones
to date for me, and I'm surethey're going to be more to come
(32:43):
in the future.
But I just take a lot ofsatisfaction in knowing that,
hey, they actually did listen toat least something that I told
him at some point along the way,you know and they surprise you
so much.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And you know, I similar to like when your dad
you you said your dad went outand did the baseball thing for
you and helped you swingbaseballs and you went out and
helped your son be better atbasketball so I was a track guy.
So I was, you know, able to toreally understand and be
coaching track for 38 years andI can remember when my son
decided like I think it wasseventh grade or eighth grade,
(33:22):
he decided he was going to playbaseball.
Well, he had missed all thoseyears.
When you're five, six, seven,eight, I, you know, played
baseball with all the kids whoknew and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I mean, I know baseball, I'm a PE teacher.
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
So I obviously know the sport, but I'm not an
enthusiast of baseball.
They're doing stuff and he goesand plays and they put him out
in left field.
They don't let him back.
The coach actually getssuspended for three games for
not playing and letting him goon the bat.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
And.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I still make him go through all these games, and you
know, but I'm like the championthat you are, I'm not helping
him learn baseball, I'm notpracticing with him.
I'm like yeah we're done withbaseball and the coach's son in
(34:16):
their family was so mad at meand so mad at my son because
their dad got you know, he's themanager, he's the coach, and
now he can't even show up to thegames because of my son who's
being so bad, and then I finallyget my son to go do track right
, and so that I know that I canspend time that I can help him
with.
He ends up being second in thestate of California high jump
(34:38):
and you know he gets ascholarship and all that kind of
stuff and the coach's son is,you know, the coach's son
doesn't get to do anything, he'snot very good.
I don't know if he made youknow the baseball team his
senior year and I see him andthis is a proud moment of me as
(35:00):
a dad, but probably my bestmoment, as you know, interacting
with dad cucks.
It was like my son has got this.
You know, you just think ofthose things because I was so,
like you were saying, so proudto be a dad and I think my
self-worth, because I was ableto be a dad, increased tenfold
(35:25):
because I thought I was doingthe things.
Now, obviously I don't think Iwas the best parent that was
alive and you know super dad andbeing able to do everything,
but it was so important to say,hey, I am a dad, I'm taking care
of my responsibility as a dadand these little humans, I have
a responsibility of how theirlife shows the older they get.
(35:49):
And, yes, my oldest is 36 nowand he works for Pixar, and so
I'm the proudest dad that I gotthe son that works for, you know
, disney or whatever right rightyou know, and we just happen to
have eight children, and so allof them I can go and brag on,
but it's like you know there's,there's not one that I wouldn't
say is the greatest kid on theplanet, is doing phenomenal
(36:10):
things, but they just keepsurprising me yeah, you know
what?
okay, so well, I just I kind oflook at that as my self-worth.
Now, the next part of that isyour relationship with your wife
, and what does it mean to bethis amazing husband that is
able to do this in conjunctionand take care of these kids?
(36:33):
What are some of the thingsthat compels you to love your
wife the way that you did, or do?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
She's still around.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
You know that made a difference in that also, you
know, ignited your self-worth inwho you are.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Right.
Well, so my wife and I met in1998.
So I was already in my mid-30sthen and I'd not been married
before or anything like that.
And she's originally fromChicago and in fact that's where
she is right now.
But she's a flight attendant,so she spends a lot of time
(37:16):
going to and from and that sortof thing.
And early on, when we met, I gota really good sense for who she
was, because she was always andI kind of think a thing in
terms of just being a helicopterpilot.
You always like to have a goodcrew and that starts with having
a good co-pilot.
Helicopter pilot, you, youalways like to have a good crew,
(37:36):
you know, and that starts withhaving a good co-pilot.
And she was always that, if Ican draw the analogy, I mean,
whenever I needed to do,whenever I needed something to
be done while I was at work orwhatever, she was able to kind
of cover off on that for me.
And you know, when we gettogether it was almost like she
was.
We joke around a lot.
I said, you know, sometimes Ithink I just married you for the
(37:57):
entertainment value, becauseshe is really, really funny and
she's just always cracking me up.
I mean there can be times whereI can be in just in a really,
you know, not the most terrificof moods, and then she'll walk
in and she'll say something ordo something.
It'll just have me cracking up,you know.
So I think that that was thething that really first
attracted me to her.
(38:18):
And then, as our marriage hasevolved I mean we'll be married,
you know, 25 years come Aprilthe 8th, and we've assumed
different roles, right?
I mean, when I was working forJohnson and Johnson, I did a
fair amount of traveling notcrazy traveling, but enough to
the point where at some point Ihad to kind of put a stop to it
and just make sure I was at homemore.
(38:38):
But, and during that time, youknow, she spent most of the time
working around my schedule.
All right, she'd only work onthe weekends, maybe she'd only
do two trips a month.
She's a flight attendant forUnited Airlines.
She'd only do like two trips amonth.
And then, when I kind of startedgoing through this transition
with Johnson Johnson, we had aconversation and I said, hey,
(38:59):
look, I'm probably gonna bestepping away from J&J, I'm
gonna try and do my own thing.
We're set up, okay, to do thisright now, and I certainly
wouldn't put the family at riskto do this.
But you're gonna need to startworking a little bit more and
then, of course, our roles willbasically shift in the household
.
I'll take over more of thestuff that's done around here
(39:20):
and then, until the businessgets up and running, then she's
going to be gone a little bitmore often and stuff like that.
And she says, okay, no problem,can do.
In fact, I think she actuallywanted to do that for even a
longer period of time because,for whatever reason and I could
never talk her out of this shealways felt like she wasn't
holding up her end of thebargain in the marriage in terms
of just what she was bringingto the table.
(39:41):
I said don't you understand?
I said, what you're doing, youcan't really put a price on
right, I mean in terms of justmaking sure that Lena and Ethan
don't wind up on drugs or thatsort of thing.
I mean, I was doing my partwhen I was there, but I mean, if
I'm gone at a national meetingfor four days at a time or five
days at a time, she's the onelooking after them, you know?
(40:04):
And, conversely, when I wastrying to get my business up and
running, and then she wasworking more often.
You know, the kids were stillin high school, which is
obviously a very formative time,so it was my job to make sure
that they stayed out of trouble.
And you know we're doing theright thing.
So it all kind of balances outand I think that that's one
reason why, you know, after 25years we're still going, still
(40:26):
going pretty strong.
I mean, we we've had our littlebumps in the road here and
there, but it all comes back tookay, she's a great co-pilot.
She's probably the only womanon the planet who can put up
with me, so she's not goinganywhere.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
And understanding that there's sacrifices.
One of the things that I'mdoing now is I'm doing a podcast
on Sunday nights.
It's called why Love Waits, andwe have five men and five women
that were talking about thefamily unit and how whether it
was systematically dismantled orjust you know over time when I
(41:03):
look at the black family, likeduring segregation it was super
strong.
It was.
You know, the education systemwas amazing.
Our black kids were learning somuch more.
Then we do this, you know, weabolish segregation and we do
integration and we start bustingkids.
(41:24):
And you know, and we're sendingour kids to schools that they
are not, they're not wanted atyou know they get stuck in back
of classrooms, and then we havewar on drugs classrooms, and
then we have war on drugs, allthe things that have kind of
dispelled family, and thestatistic now is 50 percent of
black women over the age of 40have never been married and of
that 50 percent, um 75 of themhave children oh yeah, and
(41:50):
there's this belief now that forblack women as I'm doing this
at their mom's bottom don't,don't trust men.
Make sure you have a separatebank account, make sure that you
have it out.
And for the men, they're likewell, I don't know if I ever
want to get married because Idon't have to give her half.
And you're like, well, you'replanning on it falling apart in
(42:11):
a year.
Get there, and there's justthis conflict, and I love to
highlight relationships thatwork.
Because, that's another cluethat I'm finding in most of
these, you know, conversations.
Where I'm having withsuccessful black men is the
family unit and the ones thathave worked like crazy to be
with their kids and doeverything and they're treating
(42:31):
their queens like these amazingmen can.
The black family seems to justdo so much better.
And you know how do we?
You know how do we?
You know I'll fix it or justshare the values that you guys
must have had.
You know, because nobody saidit's been easy.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Oh, it's just, you know fairytale land you know,
but it's been work and thesacrifice has been well worth it
.
I believe God put us into, youknow, but it's been work and the
sacrifice has been well worthit.
I believe God put us into youknow, and just said hey, we were
meant for each other.
We weren't supposed to be alonefor our whole lives, and so,
yeah, I just appreciate the factthat, hey, you've worked at it.
You know the way that you talkabout your wife, the way that
(43:12):
you, you know, just I can tellthat the love is there.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You're doing those things.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Well, I first of all.
That was a pretty staggeringstaff that just laid on me there
.
I did not know that, and I tellyou that I think I think a lot
of it has to do with, you know,the people not getting together
or whatever.
I think it all has to do withputting in the work, right.
I mean, you know nothing.
I don't think it's a cliche,but it's a cliche for a reason.
(43:43):
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but I tell you the level of
satisfaction that I get and thelevel of gratitude that I feel
when my wife and I hit certainmilestones, whether it has to do
with the raising of our kids orjust doing things together.
I mean, one of the things we donot every single year, but most
times is that every spring, inMarch, we live about five hours
(44:07):
well, not five about three and ahalf hours from Palm Desert,
california, and every year theyhave one of the major tennis
tournaments on the WTA and theATP tour there at Indian Wells,
and we've gone there probablyabout five times since like 2016
.
And then we'll make the tripback again this spring and
(44:28):
that's just a really fun thingfor us.
It's about a month before ouranniversary and we both love
tennis.
I mean probably she's probablya little bit more addicted to it
than I am, although I startedplaying before she did.
But when I come home, usuallythe tennis channel is on Right
and and.
But when we go, I mean we getour money's worth.
We show up as soon as it opensand we're usually there for like
(44:48):
two days.
We pick usually two days earlyon in, but we get there right as
soon as it opens and we don'tleave until the last match is
done.
So the hotel, we're just thereto sleep.
So for two days we're doingthat and it is just so much,
it's so worthwhile, it's so muchfun to enjoy that time together
(45:09):
when a sport that we bothreally enjoy playing.
So, yeah, I mean those are the,those are the really good times
and stuff like that.
And so, yeah, I mean those arethe really good times and stuff
like that.
And I just think that thesedays there's not the same level
of my old geometry teacher usedto say stick-to-itiveness when
it comes to doing things, and Ithink that, unfortunately, some
(45:34):
people they could be on theverge of having a really good
relationship, but somethinghappens to derail it and they
just don't put in the work toget it back on track.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, oh my gosh.
So I have to ask you, since youguys are such enthusiasts of
tennis, what do you feel aboutpickleball?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Oh, I hate it.
My wife is a little bit moretolerant, okay, I mean she's
actually played it before whenshe said that she's going to
play with a friend of hers backin Chicago.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I looked at her and I said you are dead to me.
I knew that was coming.
Part of it is like mygeneration's fault, because when
I started teaching PE andbringing my eyes upon 1890, that
was the unit that was.
My favorite unit was thepickleball unit.
We started thinking thisgeneration is playing it now
pickleball.
And here's the reason, becausewhen I would do my tennis unit I
was chasing balls the wholetime.
(46:30):
When I did my pickleball unit, Icould put those little wiffle
balls that we do in the gym.
It could be cold, and so I justliked doing pickleball, because
I didn't want to chase theballs all the time, not to tell
you that.
But it was so much easier toteach a kid who wants nothing to
do with pe that's right.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Well, here's, here's my philosophy on pickleball.
Okay, if you are a, if you arean avid tennis player and you've
you've played tennis for yearsand years, and years and you've
gotten to the point where youknow what the joints just can't
take it anymore.
I'm going to go ahead andtransition to pickleball.
You get cut a lot of slack byme.
Okay, I have no issues with youwhatsoever.
The people I have an issue withis the people who never even
(47:12):
tried tennis and just picked itup and started, because what
that is saying to me is, youknow what?
I refuse to put any effort atall into learning this sport.
You know that that, basically,pickleball is halfway based on.
You know what I mean.
And I just said, I just, and Ijust told her, I said I won't
play, you don't ask me to be apartner, because I just won't do
it.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I have.
I have a cousin who's severalyears older than me and when I
was teaching pickleball, I triedto go back to the nineties.
Oh no, I gotta play.
You know, I gotta do all these.
I'm a baller, I'm all thisright, and now he's like the
pickleball club guy.
He's like Facebook, is you know?
As if he just learned thiswhole new sport that didn't
(47:54):
exist.
But I'm like we, we're justtrying to get you to play and
you thought it was good.
You even put together like apickleball cruise or something
like that.
You're the only people that aregoing to our cruise so they can
play pickleball.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Oh man, yeah that's funny, I'm just so surprised
it's on tv now and oh yeah, theygot an old channel now yeah,
it's like it is so amazing.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
My favorite restaurant is in palm desert at
the uh, the jw marriott, whichis the mikado where you go into
the.
You know you go into the lobbythere, you take the boat out to
the, the restaurant.
I haven't been there so long.
So wow, yeah, get out there anddo this stuff before, is there?
Um, I want to kind of talkabout health a little bit.
What?
What are you doing to make sure, not just physically, but
(48:40):
mental health as well?
Um, you know, I I know as beinga military person, you, you and
you weren't, you weren't incombat, but you still probably
interacted with a whole lot ofpeople that were.
Are there things that you do tojust make sure your mental
health is maintained or yourphysical health is maintained?
Uh, because we want to livelike black men are supposed to
die like when we're 72.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
That's like the average age.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
My dad's 86 now and he's still running track meets,
so I won't live to 100.
What are you doing to maintainyour health?
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Well, yeah, you bring up a good point when you put in
the mental health as well, andthat's one thing that I can
probably start focusing on alittle bit more.
I've never really felt likethat was a huge issue for me in
terms of just getting down onthings and stuff, but you know,
my dad passing a month and ahalf ago impacted me pretty hard
and I think that it's importantto kind of recognize that and
(49:37):
just deal with it.
And the way I've been dealingwith it is you know, my mom,
they would normally come downhere to Arizona from Denver for
five months out of the year.
They'd come in right aroundChristmas time and they'd leave
to go back to Denver in May.
And they came down this timeand unfortunately it was when my
dad passed away, when he gotdown here within like two weeks.
(49:57):
Unfortunately, it was when mydad passed away, when he got
down here within like two weeks,and so my mom is still here and
I make it a point to go visitwith her every day.
My dad, he died just shy of his90th birthday and my mom is 86.
And so I spend at least twohours a day over there with her.
My brother is visiting fromCalifornia and he's been there
(50:22):
with her for the last threeweeks.
He's heading back home on the20th, but then my sister is
coming out from Alexandria onSunday.
I'm picking her up at theairport.
She's going to stay for a weekand then the plan there is just
for them to or at least mysister anyway come out once one
week a month for at least thenext four or five months and my
brother will come out, you know,whenever he can, and of course
you know I'll be here basicallythe whole time while she's here
in May, so with me.
That's how I've been kind ofdealing with.
The loss is just, you know,keeping my dad alive in our
(50:45):
conversations and stuff likethat and just remembering
different stories that reallytold you what he was all about.
You know that sort of thing.
Physically, I've always been,you know, a big physical fitness
guy.
You know, whether it's uh,weightlifting or different
sports or uh, running.
(51:07):
I, I did recreational runningfor a long time.
I finally stopped doing thatabout, um, we'll call it four
months ago, I think I ran mylast four miles or whatever, and
now I, I, my aerobic activityis being accomplished by doing
using my rowing machine.
So a general week for me interms of physical fitness looks
(51:28):
like, okay, jump on the rowingrowing machine two or three
times a week for about 30 to 45minutes, and then two days a
week of resistance training toinclude things like not the
exercises that athletes wouldtypically do yeah, there's some
of that but more or less theones that are going to allow us
(51:49):
to maintain a good productivelife as we get into our later
years.
So that means things that focuson stability and balance and
certainly strength, because youwant to keep your bone density
up as much as you can.
And then, of course, with my dad.
You know he had a history ofheart disease and so forth.
So my cardiac health isextremely important to me, just
(52:13):
making sure I do things tomaintain that.
What's so frustrating sometimesis that medicine can be so
contradictory sometimes.
Right, I mean I meet with mycardiologist once every six
months.
I mean that's how serious I amabout making sure that
everything is on track.
And you know we talk aboutdifferent diets and stuff like
that, which aren't a realchallenge for me to kind of
(52:33):
convert to, because, like I said, I'll do what it takes.
And so one of the things theytalk about, for you know, good
cardiac health is.
You know, maybe don't eat somany peanuts but focus on, like
almonds and pistachios and stufflike that.
Those are really good from aprotein perspective and they're
kind of good for cardiac healthin terms of just what they
provide.
And I said, okay, cool, I cando that, no problem, you know.
So then a few weeks ago, I goto my urologist and I just
(52:58):
recently had a scan to make sureeverything is looking good
there.
And he says, yeah, we saw acouple of little minor kidney
stones.
He goes you probably won't haveany trouble passing them or
anything like that, but I justwant to make you aware of them.
And I said, okay, well, whatcan I do to make sure that I
minimize that issue?
And he goes well, the firstthing you want to do is stay
away from nuts, oh God.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Don't eat almonds, don't eat pistachios, oh God.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
I'm not going really Give me a break, man.
You just can't win.
You can't win for losing.
I swear it's just crazysometimes.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
We all have to eat like the Matrix, just mush all
the time, because that's theonly thing Don't eat this, don't
eat this.
You can eat this, but don't eatthat Right, right.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
But yeah, physical fitness is just really, really
important to me and, like I said, I try to do something.
In fact I'm trying to teachthis to my son and daughter too
Well, mostly my son, because mydaughter gets her exercise in
different ways working with theanimals out on the farm and
stuff like that.
But I tell my son I said, Isaid, ethan, you want to get to
the point where if you don'twork out for and even if it's
(54:04):
just like playing basketball,whatever, you know, if you don't
, if you don't work out for likefive days, then it really makes
you feel weird, you know, andyou get.
You might even get a little bitirritable or whatever.
But that, to me, is where I amright now in my life is it's
like if I go more than three orfour days without doing
something, then unless I'm sick,then something's wrong.
You know, I gotta, I gotta getback on track.
(54:25):
Yeah, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Well, thank you for spending the time.
Is there anything that wedidn't get to talk about today
that you really wanted to makesure that our listeners and
people that will interact withthis video to know or to do or
to think about?
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Well, I think that one of the things I do in my
free time is I produce a sportspodcast that showcases athletes
at the Naval Academy, and I dothis because a lot of people
don't know about the NavalAcademy number one.
A lot of people don't knowabout the Naval Academy number
one.
A lot of people don't realizethat it is, in fact, a four-year
institution.
Somebody was asking me aboutthe Army-Navy game one time and
(55:06):
they actually thought theydidn't understand how the
Army-Navy game got played,because they thought that once a
year people from the Army andthe Navy just got together and
practiced for about a month andthen they played a game.
They didn't realize there wastwo schools that compete.
(55:28):
You know so, and the fact is wehave a lot of elite athletes
and their stories usually justgo untold because nobody knows
about them and certainly you'renot going to see.
I mean there's going to becertain exceptions.
I mean, david Robinson isprobably the most famous athlete
of color to graduate from theNaval Academy and go on to
become a world champion andOlympic champion and all that
kind of stuff.
But there are other athleteswho participate in sports that
(55:50):
you don't hear too much about.
You know sports like rowing,for example.
I'm a huge rowing fan, right,and the Naval Academy has got a
great program there.
Rugby they were nationalchampions two years ago in rugby
, beating the University ofCalifornia Berkeley, you know in
the finals.
And then swimming and divingand track and field I'm a big
track and field nut, and justbeing able to tell their story,
(56:15):
in addition to sharing what theyhave to deal with while they
are there, right, I mean, I'vetold people this a hundred times
that when those athletes getout there to compete on the
football field, basketball court, out on the water if they're
rowing, or in the pool ifthey're swimming, on a tennis
court, whatever there's 36varsity sports, by the way, at
Annapolis that is the easiestpart of their day going out
(56:38):
there and competing, becauseit's kind of where they get away
from everything else that'sgoing on academically and
professionally and stuff likethat.
For others who may want toaspire to become, you know,
officers in the Navy and theMarine Corps and just showing,
(57:05):
hey, not only can you do that,but you can do this too, and it
really does make you a morewell-rounded individual and
that's why I like doing it.
The podcasts come out roughlyevery two to three weeks.
I just put one out the otherday on our national champion
rowing team in 1984 that won anational championship and my two
guests were two classmates ofmine who were on that team and
rowed in that boat.
So yeah, it was a lot of funand I try to highlight the
(57:29):
athletes of color as much as Ican as well.
One of the athletes I had on acouple of years ago, she was
just a fantastic track star.
Her name was Molly Mangan andwe had a fantastic track star.
Uh, her name was molly manganand, uh, we had a great
conversation and just her nameis just peppered all over those
uh uh record books at the navalacademy in terms of indoor and
outdoor tracks.
She was really something wow,that's neat.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
So how do they get to how they, how do folks get to
your so?
Speaker 1 (57:56):
the name of the podcast is navy sports central
and you can find it on anywhereyou listen to podcasts.
It's in every directory outthere.
But yeah, just type that into asearch and it'll pop up.
And we also have a groupFacebook page.
That it's a private page, butif you're that interested in
Navy sports, all you got to dois just find it on Facebook.
(58:18):
Just type in Navy Sports Nationand it'll bring you up.
Just answer a couple ofquestions that get you in and
that's just a really good way tofollow Navy sports.
We got two big games coming uptomorrow and basketball against
army and, to be quite frank, weneed to win both of those to
really have a shot at winningour annual competition, because
we compete in 26 sports overalland Navy's won that competition
(58:41):
probably eight or nine years ina row.
This year we got to kind of aslow start and we were behind
nine to three until about twoweeks ago.
And then we won all four sportsthat day indoor and outdoor.
We won men's and women's indoortrack.
We won that.
We won rifle, rifle, and thenwe won um, what was the other
one?
Gymnastics.
So that got us to nine seven.
If we can win both basketballgames, that'll get us even.
(59:04):
Uh, we don't necessarily haveto win both of them, but winning
both of them, with wrestlingcoming up next week, would be a
bonus, you know.
So we'll see well.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Thank you so much for being part of the podcast today
.
Thank you for sharing yourstory part of the podcast today.
Thank you for sharing yourstory and just being vulnerable
with all the things that youhave.
And so you know I would say, goto just check out his podcast
and check out.
You know who are some athletesthat you may not know about, or
you know some of the best insports that we can find, best in
sports that we can find.
And so, if you found this thing.
(59:36):
If you found this particularepisode interesting, you know,
go ahead and share it withsomebody, somebody you think
that might benefit from it.
I would say, go ahead andsubscribe, because you know,
when you subscribe you get tosee all the different guests
that we have and I promise you,over the 130 some that we have,
you will absolutely findsomebody somewhere that you can
identify with that you can say,hey, if that person can do it, I
(59:59):
can do it too, or if that canbe happening, you know all the
wonderful things that we getfrom having these conversations
and being excuse me inrelationship with each other
Right right.
So you have any closing thoughts?
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
No, I think that'll do it.
I just I would like to reiterate, you know, one of the things we
spoke about in terms of justphysical health.
I read a book called Outlivejust recently and I the doctor's
name that wrote it escapes meright now, but he's an
oncologist and he speaks a lotto what I was alluding to before
, about making sure that you'remaintaining, you know, your
physical health and there'sprobably some discussion on
(01:00:35):
mental health as well physicalhealth and there's probably some
discussion on mental health aswell, because you know, we're
roughly the same age group and Ithink that as we get older,
it's just going to be really,really important to have a
quality life for as long as youcan have it, and that's one of
the things that was really greatabout my dad is that he was
going strong all the way untilthe very end, and that's the way
you want to live your life.
You want to be productive, asproductive as you can, for as
(01:00:57):
long as you can, and you knowwhen it's time for you to go.
Then at least there's noregrets or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
That's to me that's preferred as opposed to just
kind of hanging around and justexisting, because we just didn't
take advantage of, you know,staying in good shape early on,
absolutely, the book you saidwas Outlived when I find it I'll
put it into the comments and ithelped.
It's so important because youhave to enjoy your life, not
existing life.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
All right, don't forget your God's greatest gift
he loves you as you allow him to.
You guys have an amazing dayand we'll look forward to
talking to you the next time.
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