During my 16th year of organized hockey, I was beaten down mentally and emotionally more than physically. I didn’t find or express the same joy I had when I started the game. At the beginning, I was playing with friends, we all had fun, and feeling safe was never a question. Nearing the end, the focus became a competition, and safety blurred into fear and anxiety. Though I didn’t have the words then, I knew that a sport that once brought me nothing but peace and joy was no longer fun. When an athlete’s organized sporting life is over, it’s not uncommon to question your identity: if I’m not a [BLANK] player, who am I?

The first time I stepped on the ice with the Write-Offs dates back to 2006, as I was navigating this existential question. It’s hard to believe that I’ve shared the ice with Jim and the Write Off family almost every week for close to 16 years now, easily over 700 games. Typing that number surprises me; it’s hard to believe how quickly time flies! But, I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun, and I’m grateful I found that again.

Growing up, I would often hear the saying, “you never know how valuable time is until it’s gone.” There are many areas of life where I experienced this, but Thursday Night Hockey was never one of them. It was there that I found peace and quiet within myself, which allowed me to participate and be present with those I played with fully. I knew how valuable Thursday Nights were, and as time continued to fly and my skates slowed down, I could see it even more vividly. I see Jim sneak up beside the net ready for a pass. I pass, and whatever happens next doesn’t matter because the point isn’t the point. The point is found when you can see your teammates.

My gut tells me Jim understood this, and beyond my gut, the evidence through his actions was crystal clear. Jim lived the quote on my friend Matt’s gym wall: “simple things done savagely well.” He was always the first at the arena, ensuring the dressing rooms were ready, water bottles filled, etc. At first glance, this may not seem like rocket science, but try doing this for over 50 years while radiating a sense of peace and joy.

Thursday night evolved from playing hockey to spending time with family. It surpassed the mundane mechanics of the game, and brought to life the spirit of the game. I find it difficult to define “spirit of the game” with words alone, because it’s an experience that requires your presence and participation. I remember asking Jim what his secret was to playing as long as he has, and he responded with two words: show up.

I remember losing my grandfather in September 2017. Our family had arranged a viewing on Thursday, so I missed hockey that week. I was standing at the front of the viewing room when I looked up and saw Jim in a full suit making his way towards me. I didn’t tell anyone from Thursday night hockey about my grandfather, but Jim found out in his own way, and he showed up.

Jim’s 50+ year on-ice relationship with hockey was the same secret behind his successful relationship with friends: he shows up. Many times I feel I need to do more than show up, I need to [fill in the blank], but what I’ve learned from watching Jim is that showing up positions us to react to people’s needs as opposed to our perceived needs. Showing up is truly a time-saver, a time savor-er.

One month after my grandfather’s funeral, my uncle Ted, who played many significant roles in my life, passed away. Around the same time, I was in the middle of contract negotiations for a new position, and Ted was always my go-to for these things. I remember thinking who I knew that I could trust to guide me, and Jim came to mind. At this point in time, I’d been playing hockey with Jim for 11 years, I had no idea what he did professionally, but I did know he was an honest man who respected time and his teammates.

We met at Tim Horton’s before our game. We sat there, and I talked, talked, and talked some more. He listened. I asked him how I should approach the financial discussion. I had a number in mind, and I shared it with him. I asked how he’d go about the negotiations. His response was simple, clear, and sensible: “Ask your boss what they are comfortable with.”

Interview with Jim Dadson

Nearing the end of 2021, Jim called me and gave me a heads up that he would be hanging up the skates for personal reasons at 79. The news hit me hard, but before the sadness could take over the mood of the conversation, he said, “Georges, this is the privilege of getting older.”

Georges: “Jim, what’s the secret of playing the game of hockey as long as you have?”

Jim: “Keep showing up.”

Georges: “How do you suggest I approach financial negotiations?”

Jim: “Ask what your hiring boss is comfortable with.”

Georges: “Jim, I’m really sad to hear this news. Are you sure there isn’t anything else that can be done….”

Jim: “This is the privilege of getting older.”

Jim’s lessons have continued to pay dividends. My main goal when it comes down to hockey is to show up, and that alone has paid off in more ways than I can mention. His advice around financial negotiations paid off too, literally! I received a higher split than the one I was preparing to negotiate for. And finally, Jim’s view of aging through the lens of privilege leaves me with hope.

Off the ice, Jim currently serves as the president and chair of the Deaf-Blind Ontario Foundation. After listening to his stories, I realized the most important lesson: hope can be found in our deepest challenge. Sometimes it requires us to slow down, look up, see our teammates or neighbors, and know we’re never alone.

To all the coaches, parents, and people working with the next generation, sport is bigger than a game, a score, or any other KPI. If our young ones are having fun and smiling through the wins and losses, then we’re living our calling.

Read the transcript of the video below.

Bailey Arredondo:

All right, okay, here we go. Welcome back to another edition of Listen Up, brought to you by Stack Sports, and today we are joined by Isis Young, former Syracuse, Florida, Fordham, Siena women’s college basketball player. She also broadcast a variety of basketball games throughout the East Coast, and now gets a chance, a crack at professional basketball in Germany for the Saarlouis Royals. Isis, thank you for taking the time today. Have you been to Germany?

Isis Young:

Hey, thanks for having me, one. Two, I have not been to Germany, but coolest fact ever, my little brother is a professional soccer player in Germany. He has been so for four years, so I have somewhat of a connection to Germany, so to speak. He will become my official translator once I get over there. He’s fully aware and not really excited about the job, but that’s what it’s going to be. But yeah, so I know nothing about Germany except what I know about him and following his team.

Bailey Arredondo:

So what does he told you about Germany?

Isis Young:

He’s told me that if you order fish, you got to be specific because they will bring you out a fish head.

Bailey Arredondo:

Oh.

Isis Young:

That is not something that we normally, yes, eat here. That’s pretty common over there. They drive really fast on the highway. Here, our speed limit might be 75, over there it’s about 85, and then people drive 10 above the speed limit, and so they’re racing. And so I will have a car over there, so he gave a suggestion just to get acquainted, be comfortable, and don’t kind of get nervous with how fast cars go. And that I might get beeped at because I’m only going 65 and I’m supposed to be going 85. Otherwise, he really likes it.

He’s there for soccer, and so football over there is huge. And so lots of followings, lots of fans, and then you know what comes with fans, right? You have great days, and they love you, you have bad days, and they don’t. And so, he really appreciates though the fan base that he has in Germany. It’s consistent. They really love sports over there. And he says they talk about women’s basketball over there too, so he thinks that that will be really great for me to just be in that country for my first year.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, what a great brother to not only share all this insight, but be welcoming and say, “Hey, you’re coming to Germany. Might as well give you the lowdown since we’re both going to be playing our respective sports.” So when do you leave?

Isis Young:

I leave on August 15th, so it’s counting down. I’ve started to do the, “Okay, I’ve got six weeks, and now I have five, and this is what it’s going to be. What am I going to do for my last two weeks?” So yeah, August 15th is the day.

Bailey Arredondo:

So what does an early July day look like for you then? Are you researching German things? Are you looking up your teammates? Are you talking to your team? Give me a day in the life.

Isis Young:

Yeah. So our team recently just finished being fully put together. We have our full roster now as of maybe a week ago, so I followed everyone on Instagram. Kind of haven’t had conversations. We’ve had group chat conversations with our team about passports and booking flights, logistical stuff like that, and just what day we’ll start practice. So I’m sure those conversations will ramp up soon as it gets closer, but I follow my teammates on Instagram. I know a couple of them actually, which is great, so that’s exciting for me. One of my teammates, she played at Georgia Tech. She played a couple of years before I was there when I got to Syracuse, but while I was there, she was a GA. And so, I ran across her a couple of times, so it’ll be nice to see a familiar face.

And then another fact, my assistant coach is from Baltimore. So I’m from South Jersey, so he’s about two and a half hours away. He’s been in Germany for 13 years, plays point guard on the men’s side of our program, and so it was just really nice to have a conversation with him to see someone who is thriving overseas in a different country, both basketball-wise, but he’s also this next year, he’s going to be playing and then also coaching with our team. So just the really cool person I’m excited to just be around and learn from, kind of be a sponge, but also glad that I’ll have someone who I can talk about Wawa with and it won’t seem like I’m the most boring person there.

So that’s kind of what it looks like, really. It’s just team stuff. But I work for my mom during the day, so I work about 8:00 to 4:00 every day, and then I get in about two workouts. So I’ll do strength and conditioning, I have a trainer right now that’s working on that with me, and then I’ll do a variety of basketball workouts, whether it’s with my dad, a trainer, by myself, my little cousin will come and rebound and I’ll bribe him with hot fries that every time he goes, that’s what I get him afterwards as a thank you. And then playing a lot of pickup. And I was in a summer league in Philly, so doing that. So it’s pretty busy.

I’m not really one to sit at home and just kind of do nothing, but also I’m trying to enjoy everything and just get a mix of, “Hey, I’m seeing family,” “Hey, I’m working out,” “Hey, I’m getting ready for overseas,” all those things.

Bailey Arredondo:

Isis, let’s go back to coming out of high school in South Jersey and embarking on this basketball journey. You were ranked a top 10 guard in the country. You knew you had a career in basketball, wherever that might take you. What was your mindset heading into college?

Isis Young:

Honestly, it was really just to crush it. I just kind of pictured the fairytale story of getting there as a freshman, if not starting, than being one of the first people off the bench, getting to learn from the upperclassmen, possibly getting on the all-rookie team the SEC, because I went to University of Florida first, and really just doing that. And so, you talked about the end of high school. The first thing that happened that let me know that my plan is not the plan that’s going to happen is I tore my ACL.

So it was my 17th game of my high school career, and I tore my ACL. And so the first year that I was at Florida, I sat in redshirted, which is just extremely tough, Obviously battling an injury like that and going through surgery at 17, 18 years old is something that I would not wish on anyone, but then also doing part of that away from home, again, I’m from Jersey, and so I went to Florida, so I was a distance from home, and then just rehab. I tell everyone I think that was the toughest thing I’ve ever been through is just rehab. Learning how to walk again, learning to run again, trying to become myself again as a basketball player. And then the mental aspect of you may never look how you looked before.

And that’s just the reality of it. It’s only the great athletes, the tip-top ones that come back from injuries that seem better than they were before. Most of the time now you can kind of tell the limitations, and so all that was kind of weighing on me as a 17, 18 year old, which was a lot. So coming out of high school, I definitely was met with some obstacles, but I kind of made the most of it and just got through it. And by the time I was ready to play, my redshirt freshman year, I was good to go, and I felt comfortable. My knee was strong. So that was the most important thing for me at that moment.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s touch on the surgeries because you didn’t just have one, you had two on the same leg.

Isis Young:

Yep.

Bailey Arredondo:

I’m curious, you touched on the mental fatigue it had, but athletes and injuries play a detrimental part in an athlete’s career. And I think of what would happen if Kobe never tore his ACL. What would happen with Derrick Rose if he didn’t have his knee problems and knee surgeries after he won an MVP season?

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

Was there any doubt that you would ever play again?

Isis Young:

Oh, 100%. So I tore my ACL five years after I tore the first one. So I was at Fordham, I has just left Syracuse. I was a grad transfer, and I was getting ready to play at Fordham, I was expected to start. I was one of those on the newcomers list too, the A10, and so I was getting a lot of hype about that, really excited to play for that team, be close to home. And so when I tore it, which was in the first two weeks of practice, the first two weeks that I was on campus. So this is not even technically pre-season right. This was the pre-pre-season before lots of classes started and things like that.

And so when I tore it, I think I was just devastated, honestly. I remember my dad telling me later, he was like, “Your mom, when you told us, she had just said to me, ‘I’m devastated.'” And he said, “You’re devastated. Can you imagine how she feels?” But the first thing I did was I cried it out, my doctor gave me a hug because I think he knew how broken-hearted of a moment it was, and I went home to my dorm and I just wrote out all my options. I just said, “Okay, we can not play again, we can rehab it and we can become a coach. We can just rehab it and try to play again. We can just rehab it to play a college season and then call it there.” I’ve always wanted to play professionally, but I was becoming okay with like, My knee just may not last to make it to the professional level.”

And then one of my options was just to go home. I had just gotten my master’s degree from Syracuse. I had a good college career if we’re going from the University of Florida to Syracuse. If it ended there, no one would have said anything bad about my career. I could have been proud, my kids would have been proud of me. And so, just all that went through my mind. But at first, I honestly just wanted to come home. I just told my parents like, “I just got here, I’m a transfer. I don’t know the team. They don’t know me. I’m completely new. And I have a degree in something that I really want to do that I know I can make it a career, and so we might just hang basketball up and I’ll just come home and rehab and try to find broadcasting work for the season.”

And then I had my last option, which was the best option, which was to rehab it, to not put any pressure on rehab. However long it took is however long it’s going to take to get back. As I go along, I’ll see how I feel about playing again, and that I’ll just do broadcasting in the meantime. And I will say that throughout my rehab, the more that I broadcasted and saw games, the more I just said, “I have to play again. It’s just no way that I could just stop now.” I just kept envisioning myself playing and what I’m learning, and I’m taking notes for myself as well as I’m broadcasting and analyzing the game.

And so I think just the more I called games, the more I said, “You still see yourself playing, and you still have that in you, and let’s rehab like you want to play again.” And my rehab guy made it happen, and God made it happen. It was tough though. I would tell you devastation. It was tough. And I think anyone who goes through injuries can tell you, it looks different for everyone. Everyone has their different struggles, but it was a point where my knee wasn’t getting completely straight. And so that’s one of the main things about extension and ACL is you have to get your knees straight because it’s really important that you can play on a full range of motion or you’re probably going to get injured again.

And so I had a meeting with the doctor three months after my surgery, and he said, “At this point, we’re looking at maybe having another surgery because your knee’s not getting straight. Or we’re just going to have to maybe let you be like that and try to prevent injuries.” But he had told me, he said he would like to do another surgery and clean out my knee because of all the scar tissue, and so I think that kind of flipped a switch in me just to be like, “No, I’m not doing another surgery. We’re just going to make it work.” And so that’s what happened. It’s straight today though, so that’s good.

Bailey Arredondo:

What or who helped you the most through that transition?

Isis Young:

Great question. I would say God first and foremost, just having a lot of faith that the plan that I’m on and the path that I’m on is a plan, that these things aren’t happening to me because I did anything wrong or that I wasn’t prepared or I’m not strong enough, it just simply happened. And then I really think the team. I think the team felt just, “Oh my goodness, we were so excited to play with her.” There were no seniors on the team, and so I was going to be the only senior on the team, and I’m a grad transfer. And so again, I’m coming in and having this air about leadership, but I really don’t know how to lead my teammates because I don’t know them.

And so they were just super supportive, just super supportive about rehab, about coming to practice. They still would ask me questions about our plays in the game and watching film and different stuff like that, so they made me feel so apart, honestly, that I didn’t feel like I was rehabbing alone and just not there. But also honestly, you said who or what, the what is broadcasting. Just broadcasting games got me through it because I just had something else to focus on rather than being sad that I was injured and that everyone else was getting to play this game that they love so much, and for some reason, I’m out another year and I can’t.

And so broadcasting got me through. Just to be able to focus on that and build my career while I was in school was a really a light, honestly. I don’t think I would have made it as well as I did if I wasn’t broadcasting.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s touch on broadcasting Syracuse and Newhouse specifically.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

You don’t know this, but the first time I ever met you was at an admitted student orientation for prospective students coming into the program. You were one of the current student tour guides-

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

… and you were helping us get acclimated, answering a lot of questions. And I remember when you introduced yourself with the other classmates, I told my mom, I said, “Oh, she might be someone I need to talk to. It looks like she has her life situated, she knows what she’s doing.” And I remember when we were getting split into groups to go on the tour, I was split off and I wasn’t in your group initially.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

And when we were leaving the room, we were going left, you guys were going right.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

And I grabbed my mom and I said, “I don’t care if we’re in this group or not. We have to go in Isis’s group,” because I could just tell you have an aura about you that you know what you’re doing, you’re passionate, but you also have an understanding of the full encompass of life. There’s more to life than just Newhouse and what you’re doing.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

So aside from that, how did Newhouse and Syracuse change your life beyond the basketball court?

Isis Young:

Yeah. Thank you for that. I think athletes struggle sometimes with only having an identity as an athlete. You wake up as an athlete, you are a student-athlete, you go home as an athlete. Sometimes we forget that we’re also people. There has to be something that exists outside of your sport because otherwise, when your sport isn’t going right, which clearly I’ve experienced a lot of in terms of being injured, you have to have something that can continue to uplift you or focus on.

And so I think Newhouse did that for me. I remember getting the email that I got into Newhouse and crying. I remember because I could see it. I could see just the possibility, I guess, of going to this school, learning this information, getting these connections, and doing that all while I’m playing basketball and playing at a high level. And so I think for me, Newhouse just gave me, one, a career. Two, a ton of relationships that have been awesome to me that I’ve cherished and that continue to grow, even though I’m not there. And then I think a sense of community, just understanding that we all really help each other out.

We talked about it all the time that Newhouse is super competitive and you’re constantly competing, which I think is one of the reasons I thrived in it because competition is all I know, but also understanding that it’s a community, that you’re supporting the next brother or sister in Newhouse that’s around you. The Newhouse mafia is a real thing. Getting alumni who follow me and say, “Hey, this is Isis, the basketball player. Well, this is also Isis who goes to Newhouse.” That was really cool for me, and so it was cool to be able to add that to my identity and to thrive in that.

Honestly, it’s a sense of pride. I walk around and I broadcast, and I think I’m representing Newhouse. I have this thing, everyone thinks it’s a joke, but it’s not. I only broadcast in my Newhouse pin. I make sure that I visit Newhouse every year and I get about eight or 10 from Professor Stomski, and if I don’t have my Newhouse pin, I feel completely off. But I think it just reminds me that you come from a standard. You come from a standard that has to be upheld, and every time I broadcast and I’m on air or I’m representing myself in work in life, I represent Newhouse like I represent God, like I represent my family.

It gave me a lot, but also just the opportunities to really get into broadcasting and start my career. And the people that believed in me. The relationships that I got from Newhouse are awesome and are second to none in my life, honestly, besides my family.

Bailey Arredondo:

And Newhouse is nothing short of a game-changer, as we both know.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

I want to touch on just you’ve played for four different programs throughout college. I think that’s rare air.

Isis Young:

Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

Give me some of the advantages and disadvantages of playing with four programs.

Isis Young:

Yeah. The first advantage I thought of was a lot of gear. I’d go to the gym every day in a different T-shirt from a different school, and so that’s always fun. I’ve got the best color wave. I have orange and blue, like that Gator orange. Then I have the Syracuse orange. Then I have Fordham and it’s white and maroon. And then I have Siena that was just yellow and green. So I can really wear all the colors of the rainbow besides red, for some reason. Red just was not in the plans. Besides red any given day and go work out. So I love how much gear I have.

Again, the relationships are huge. Just being able to meet two or three people who really stick with you from each school has been awesome to me. Because I was at Syracuse the longest and because I feel like I really started my, I guess personal story or legacy or kind of just my life, really, with broadcasting and kind of putting it all together and feeling like I discovered a purpose that I could have, to be on TV, to be a part of representation, and to be a role model. I call that my college home. If anyone ever asks me, I’m like, “Yeah, Syracuse is my college home.”

I would say a disadvantage though is just the constant hopping around, just the constant need to adapt, go different places, and create those new relationships because you’re constantly building trust again, and you’re constantly meeting new people. And all of those things take energy, and to some degree, you’re kind of always uncomfortable because you’re in a new place every other two to three years. And then I also think, like anything else, life moves on. So all the relationships that I had that I started with my freshman year of college at Florida definitely aren’t the same now seven years later when I went to three different schools that are nowhere near Florida.

It’s been a lot of give and take, I feel like, with just the different schools that I’ve been to. But also from a basketball standpoint, I’m just really well-traveled in that way. I played in the SEC, the ACC, and the MAC, and was at Fordham and didn’t play, but obviously now know the A10. So from a broadcaster standpoint, it’s great because I’ve got really good relationships and information about all of those conferences, but also just being able to play against some of the best competition everywhere, really all alongside the East Coast, which is dope.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now playing professional is certainly an accomplishment of its own for any athlete, but not many can say that they’re going overseas to pursue their dream. What are you most nervous about?

Isis Young:

Oh, honestly, just the culture. Really just thinking I know where the Subway shop is and walking the wrong way, and then realizing I have no idea where I am and I don’t know German, and it’s going to be hard for me to communicate. So maybe getting lost, I think honestly is what I’m most nervous about. I’m so excited to play basketball in Europe. I feel like the European style of basketball has definitely transferred over here to America, and so I don’t feel like that will be much of a culture change for me in that way.

I’m really excited to just experience the fans, the atmosphere, the traveling to different countries. It’s interesting because overseas, their countries are like our states. So how I can go from Jersey to DC, I could also go from Germany to France, and I can be in Paris like that, which is kind of cool. And so I’m really excited about that and just experiencing the culture, but it’s awesome what a game can do in your life.

A game of basketball brought me a career in broadcasting, it brought me a lot of relationships, it taught me a lot about my character and helped build my character. And now it’s taking me overseas to make some money for something that I just love to do. Something that I was whining I couldn’t do because I was injured so many years and now I’m getting paid to do it, which is awesome.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s end with this, Isis. You have to close a chapter to start a new one, and this certainly feels like a big change coming for you, bouncing around from different colleges, the surgeries, being an analyst and a broadcaster in what is truly a male-dominant business. What message would you have to any girl, any person rather, that maybe is hesitant to follow their passion? Whether it’s injuries that stopped them, whether it’s life changes, so many different circumstances, what message would you have?

Isis Young:

Yeah. I never forget, Beth Mowins said this during a talk she gave, we were getting ready to call an ACC game last year together. We did an all-female broadcast, and she said, “It was Mark Twain, I believe, that said, ‘Why wouldn’t you go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.'” And so I would just say to take a chance. To be resilient. We’re all going to get knocked down. You’re going to be met with obstacles. It’s inevitable that life is going to kick you. It’s inevitable. Life goes right for no one all the time.

Expect the different changes, expect to be uncomfortable, but if you don’t take a chance, you’ll just never know. I can’t tell you how bad my first interview was where I interviewed my teammate in the icebox, the first-ever broadcasting I did. I wouldn’t even look back at it now because I would cringe and I would probably laugh like, “Why did I think I could do this?” But if I didn’t take that chance and do it, and then show someone and get feedback, we wouldn’t be here. My life wouldn’t look how it looks. So I would just say, take a chance. You got to bet on yourself and then bet on yourself again.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, Isis, I certainly learned a lot. I’m sure our audience learned a lot about you and your journey, and what an excitement it is for you to embark on this new journey and we’re excited to keep up with that. So I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the program today.

Isis Young:

Thanks so much, Bailey. It’s been awesome to be here. So good to talk to you. It’s always fun to catch up with Newhouse fam.

On this episode of Listen Up, Bailey is joined by #1 U.S. ParaSwimmer Jamal Hill. Tokyo Olympics is just around the corner and Hill talks his daily routine in and out of the pool in preparation for the biggest event of his life. Bailey touches on Jamal’s background in swimming dating back to 2 years-old and learned about the uphill battle to stay at the top of his game. An incredible amount of hard work and dedication got Hill to where he stands today, but many challenges had to be faced. This is a story you don’t want to miss!

Interview Transcript Below

Bailey:

Listen up Stack Sports. We are back. For all of our viewers and listeners of this program here at Stack Sports, we really been appreciating the support for this program and especially recently in our Path to the Draft series, leading up to the NFL draft, all of which can be found on stack.com. But today we are back from a small intermission, break, hiatus, whatever you want to call it. But we’re came back swinging with this guest, Jamal Hill, Los Angeles native, Para Swimmer, author, non-profit founder. Jamal, thank you for coming on the program. Good morning. Is there something you don’t do?

Jamal:

Yeah, I’m not fake. I’m not fake. Thank you so much, man. Happy to be here on the show with you, Bailey. And we’re going to have a great conversation today, man.

Bailey:

Yeah, we appreciate you taking the time and always keeping it real. We know that when we’re talking with you. What you got going on today? You have practice, swimming, nutrition? What’s your daily schedule?

Jamal:

Yeah, for sure. So for me the daily schedule, I live in two blocks of time. So from about 6:30 to noon as all office hours so I’m the executive at a nonprofit as well as the founder. So 6:00 to 12:00 is office hours. If I’m going to do an interview for promotion or reading or inspiration would usually be in that time block. And then from 1:30 to 6:30 at night is all training. So that’s when I hit the pool. That’s when I get my dryland workouts in. That’s when I get my recovery, my sauna, my ice bath. So that’s what it looks. So I’m either actually at the home office in the morning, and then in the afternoon at the pool or at my coach’s house at our training facility.

Bailey:

Now, I want to start with the latest news, as you are now ranked the sixth-best swimmer in the world, Para Swimming rankings for the 50 meter freestyle. You clocked in a 25.62, highest ranked American in the event. Walk us through that time and what it feels like to only have five people faster than you in the world.

Jamal:

Yeah, man, it’s a process. I’ll tell you this, if you had been at the event and you had seen me touch the wall, you would have never known that I just became the sixth-fastest swimmer in the world. I’m somebody and I teach it to younger athletes, I’m a firm believer in when you finish your race, people in the stands, anybody watching you, shouldn’t be able to tell whether you just broke a world record or whether you just swam the worst swim of your life. Nobody should be able to tell that difference.

Jamal:

Ultimately, just because that’s the end of the day we’re professionals. I think there’s a certain level of composure that comes into the work that we do. So for me, I like to come in with no expectations. I think expectations, people, especially elite athletes don’t like to admit it, expectations add a lot of pressure and they pull you out of a state of gratitude for the present moment. So I just make sure to try and keep myself grounded in the present moment, always practice breathing and say a prayer right before I step up on the starting block.

Jamal:

And I know it’s man, I want to something juicy here, but this is the real deal, Holyfield. After that swim, it’s just, listens, at the end of the day, you’re always the same place in life and that’s better than some and worse than others. If it’s not true today, it will be true tomorrow. And so after every swim, I just always remind myself, it’s just one step at a time. Because even after that I went and we’ll have some more great swims, some more best times. But at the end of the day, the next step is always the same. You touch the wall, you get out of the pool and whether you did great or you did terribly, you’re going to warm down. That’s the next step. So that’s where my head was at that time. It’s was just, wow, okay. That was a good swim. Again, better than some, worse than others, this just happened to be a better one. But long story short, I still have to go warm down. I still have a lot more work to do with this competition.

Bailey:

So, why swimming? What gravitated you towards the pool? And when did you first start?

Jamal:

Yeah, for sure. Great question brother. Swimming was the first sport I ever participated in. Came in swimming at 10 months old, mommy and me, went into swim lessons and it was in swim lessons that I could see the swim team on the other side of the local YMCA, really swimming. And that’s when I’m like, oh man, I want to join the swim team.

Jamal:

And my mom was like, “Well shoot, if you want to join that swim team, you got to get your act together.” I’m a little boy, in swim lessons, not listening, playing games, in my own world. So that made me tighten up my act and make that swim team. And from there it was pretty much a love affair. I swam and it was really my first love. First sport just felt really connected to it. And I had to stop swimming competitively when we both have Charcot-Marie-Tooth. So as a complication of that, I had to stop swimming for about six years, from 10 to 16. And when I had an opportunity to rejoin a high school swim team, I took it. And it’s just kind of been building a baby step at a time since then.

Bailey:

At what point did you start to gain a little bit more traction though? Was it in high school when you started getting more competitive with swimming and the thought popped into your mind that you could swim at a pretty high level?

Jamal:

I always say now, I wouldn’t say that, I would say the traction really started to come when I was a junior in college, actually. So from a sophomore year in high school, that’s when I first got back onto a swim team since I was 10 years old. I was only swimming three months out of the year. So imagine if you were only doing reporting or journalism three months out of the year. You probably wouldn’t be that good. You probably wouldn’t have that much momentum, too much traction. So in high school I was a seasonal swimmer. I think the most I eventually on my senior year was about six months. But it was as a junior in college. I had gone to championships in Northeast Ohio, that’s where I went to college at. And that’s a story in itself, but that’s where I’d gone to college at where I had championships. My parents had flown out and … the performance left a lot to be desired.

Jamal:

I felt really embarrassed, heartbroken even. And so kind of in the wake of that performance and how I felt, that it had really impacted me emotionally, that’s when I realized, I think I really, really like swimming. Maybe I should just try and make this a career. So as a junior, I’m like, you know what? I’m not coming back to college. This is 2016, right before the Rio Olympics. If I want to have any chance at making a team for Tokyo, this is the time. So that’s, I think, when the momentum really started to pick up, right around spring of 2016.

Bailey:

You’ve mentioned the hardships you face between 10 and 16, the condition that we have, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, the challenges that, that brought. I’m curious on what motivated you to, not only get back in the pool, but to continue to see how far you can get with swimming. Where does that personal motivation, that internal motivation, come from?

Jamal:

Yeah, that’s a really great question. I think internally we all got to make choices. So I 100% take responsibility and applaud myself for my choices. At the same pace, it would behoove me not to highlight how strong of a support system I had in my parents. My mom and dad, from day one when I was first diagnosed, when I was in the hospital, couldn’t move anything beneath my neck, paralyzed from the neck down. When some of my nerve capacity had regained and it felt like I was walking on my knees. I had to relearn how to walk. I had to relearn how to hold things and pick things up.

Jamal:

They were so sick but, I don’t want to say, they weren’t like, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” But that you can still do anything that you want to do, in anything that you put your mind to. Anything that you practice, however good or bad you are at it right now, if you continue to practice, guaranteed, you’re going to improve.

Jamal:

And it was just messages like this that were reinforced before I had my bought with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, but especially once I had it, I continued to be reinforced and really became seared into my mind and my spirit. And so they served me a lot of ways, which there’s two sides to every coin. So there were definitely some negative consequences with this, I don’t want to say warrior mindset, but it definitely was a warrior mindset with an air of dissociative. So there was some dissociative disorder going on in there, too. Some cognitive dissonance going on in there, too. But I think that’s really where it came from. I made the choice to just follow the path that had really been laid out in front of me.

Bailey:

Let’s transition to in the pool. I think the personal motivation, the internal motivation you just described is not only inspiring for other athletes, but it reminds us that you’re more than an athlete. You have other personal motivations that gets you to the heights that you want to get to. But I want to talk about the pool because I think swimming is so interesting in terms of how you train, the way you eat, your diet. Run us through a week of training for you. I know you mentioned you have two blocks of your schedule, but are you constantly in the pool when you train, do you do things out of the pool? How do you eat? Because I know you can’t have a bigger body for swimming. You got to have that nicer-

Jamal:

Yeah. You definitely want to have the tapered waist, that’s for sure. Great questions, brother. So as far as swimming goes, we said, really at this point in time, my training block is the afternoons. So as a sprinter and working with my coach Wilma Wong, who is a big innovator and really just maverick in the training space. And then the way we think about swim training, especially sprint swim training, I actually only spend about 40 minutes in the pool everyday out of about what I would call a five-hour training block. So I only spend about 40 minutes in the pool and every week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, there’s a specific workout that we do every single day, every single week. So every Monday for the past 15, 25 weeks has been the exact same workout.

Jamal:

Every Tuesday has been the exact same workout. Every Wednesday. So a lot of repetition, a good formula in terms of baseline markers. We always know when we’re improving. We always know when something’s not right that day because it’s not just kind of, do whatever you want. Excuse me. It’s not just do whatever you want to do. So that’s really important for me. And then outside of the pool, I don’t do any weights. I only use elastic and resistance bands. So I have a full body resistance band system called X3 that keeps my general strength up. And then I use really some rotational power building equipment it’s called Power Core 360. Again, it’s just a set of bands and harnesses that allow me to really work on manipulating my hips and my torso separately, as well as together, to just build the connection through my body.

Jamal:

And then obviously any workout is only as great as the recovery. So almost on a daily basis, I take a sauna and ice bath to allow my body to recover, to flush out lactic acid to allow the healing process to begin. And then as far as diet man, again, as you can tell, we like to keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid. We like to keep it simple. I usually, a breakfast, if I’m coming from home, I’ll eat sausage eggs, I’ll eat a sausage and egg sandwich before practice.

Jamal:

If I’m coming from the Pasadena office, I’ll probably stop by Chipotle or something and just grab some lunch before practice. And then after that swim session, I eat again before I go into my resistance band workouts for the evening. Yeah. I would say for the most part, I consume white meat during training periods. But when I go into competition periods, I consume a lot of red meat. And the reason for that is it makes me feel like a real predator to have steaks for dinner every night. It makes me feel like I’m going to tear something up. So I like to save that feeling and that energy for a competition time.

Bailey:

I think that’s interesting that you just pound some stakes that week before a competition-

Jamal:

Not a week before. Literally only in competition.

Bailey:

Oh, only in competition?

Jamal:

Only in competition. So the night before, the night of, it’s usually three days of competition. So for lunch and dinner, I’m usually eat in some form of steak for three to four days throughout that actual competition week or weekend.

Bailey:

Does that help your mindset think that it’s about to come to a big competition or a real deal? Because you know you’re eating steak?

Jamal:

Yeah, I think so. I mean the body knows. I’ve trained it at this point, so I definitely think it does. But in terms of expanse for me, it’s just that feeling, that meat sits on you a little bit more. And then also just being in a competition, it’s the same, but it’s also a lot different than practicing that there’s so much energy being taken from you. And just even in the space, there’s so much energy, there’s so much anxiety, there’s so much excitement. Even being prepared, you just need, I need more on me. I feel like I need more fuel. I feel like I need something that’s going to be processed in my body a little bit slower so that it’s not just all burnt out with energy. Because of swimming, we’d flown bath and practice.

Jamal:

But when you go to a race, after one race at a big event, you’re pooped. And you can train for 40 minutes every day, but after one 30 second race, after one 50 second race, it’s all taken out of you, literally all of it’s taken out of you. And so, just during the racing times, at racing events, I think that red meat just, again, it sits on me differently. It sits on me differently and I think provides me a little bit of a reservoir in addition to what would be my regular diet.

Bailey:

Speaking of competition, you have a pretty big one coming up. And then next few months there are the Paralympic trials in under seven weeks. Obviously the goal is to make it to Tokyo and to compete for a medal. I just find this very interesting because, in most other sports, there’s a championship or an end goal every single year. But for the Olympics, it’s a special feeling once every four years. This is not something you can catch a vibe on for a few months. This is something you work for, for an extended period of time. Where’s your head at now with such a big event on the horizon? Do you know what you’ll have to swim to qualify, do you know what it’s going to take? Or is it a lot of anticipation?

Jamal:

Yeah, I would say that, I do know what I have to swim, so I don’t really think about that at all. Obviously, we all have goals, but as I said before, I’m not a goal setter, in that sense, when it comes to competition. I think it does add pressure. I like to just be in the present moment. But again, I do have something that I want to swim. And then as far as qualifying there and going to the trial and things like that, on the Paralympic side, it’s not as cut and dry as the Olympics. It is, at the Olympics, you go to trials, the fastest person wins, that person goes to Tokyo. Well, the Paralympics is not that cut and dry, it’s a lot more complicated, to be quite frank. Not only do you have to hit a minimum qualifying standard, but you also have to be seen by a board of doctors from around the world to be reclassified and re-certified as a Paralympic athlete every year.

Jamal:

So you have to have experienced that in order to attend the Tokyo games, which I have not, actually. I haven’t been allotted an opportunity to do that. That’s kind of at the mercy of other people. And then also with the Paralympics, it’s tough because, in some ways, Paralympic trials aren’t like the Olympic trials. There are people who get invited to Paralympic trials who are ineligible to even make the team, which, in my humble opinion, is a little disrespectful to the athletes and to the families that have to spend that time and money. Again, I’m not saying slow, I’m saying actually ineligible to make the team, yet they’re invited to the trials to make the team.

Jamal:

So, I don’t want to bash the system too much here, but definitely, there’s a lot that’s confusing to people in the system and it’s almost unfathomable to people outside of that system. So we’re just taking it a day at a time. We’re following the money, as they say, and planning strategic political moves because that’s what it comes down to. But yeah, I’ve got a team to support with that. And we’re just kind of taking it a day at a time. But I’ll tell you this man, I’m the number one ranked Paralympian in the United States, number six in the world. I’m a positive thinker, 100% a positive thinker, but I’m also a realist. And so if we aren’t able to open up certain doors or change certain hearts or open up certain opportunities, I could very well find myself protesting the Paralympic trials this year.

Bailey:

If I would have asked two, three-year-old Jamal Hill, in mommy and me, swimming around, looking at the swim team, not knowing what the future would hold. If I would’ve asked him, what would you would’ve told me if I told you that you were having an opportunity to compete at the Paralympics? We’re talking about not only the best athletes in America, that’s athletes in the world. What would you have said?

Jamal:

Well, the Paralympics would have thrown me off. I wouldn’t have known what that was. But I would have said, I would have probably been like, “Yeah, for sure.” Because I think kids know, I think kids are very intuitive. I knew I loved swimming at that time, it was my favorite thing to do. Would have been like, “Yeah, great, dream come true. Good job older me.” It’s the later years that we start to be influenced by these other things and we lose that sense of what brings us so much joy. So yeah. I’ll tell you that. I don’t know about two or three years old, but you know what I’m saying? In between that time of two to six, I would say that I would not have been surprised. I would have been very elated, very proud, but it probably would have been in line with this vision that I saw for myself then.

Bailey:

Now I want to end with the Swim Uphill Initiative. Jamal, I think this is just such a wonderful motive, wonderful foundation, that you created. Teaching one million people how to swim. Jamal, where did this come from?

Jamal:

Yeah, absolutely. So I made my first Paralympic US team in 2018 and I knew from jump that I wanted to offer more to my family, to my community, to the world at large than just this pretty smile and faced with the medals around my neck. There needed to be more substance to the brand. And we talked about this more than an athlete, and again, more than an athlete and being a brand. So there’s this guy right behind me, one of my favorite athletic figures throughout history. And he’s stood for something that was more than boxing. Obviously he was one of the greatest boxes of all the time, but there have been plenty of great boxers throughout all the time that have been forgotten by the masses.

Jamal:

It’s those people that really speak up for those people who are being ignored, that speak up for the marginalized, that act on behalf of what they truly believe in and move to be the change that they wish to see in the world, that I think have the greatest impact and really push us forward as a society. I love Michael Phelps but 26 gold medals, I don’t know what that ever did for someone who was experiencing injustice. I don’t know what that ever did for someone who was hungry. I don’t know what that ever did for someone who didn’t know how to swim. And that’s no shade to MP, absolutely love him. He has the Michael Phelps Foundation, he does great things. I’m just, anybody, I don’t know what an NBA championship ever did for someone other than, man, I’m glad I’m from this city. Or, man, that’s my favorite player.

Jamal:

So I want it to be more connected, in my view, to humanity. With my platform and to really grow that platform and to inspire and to empower others and just kind of my destiny all pointed to, well, I think that the best way we can make an impact is through teaching swimming. And come to find out around the world every year, a quarter of a million to a million people drown, primarily in low to middle-income countries and communities, both nationally and internationally. So that’s where that comes from. And that’s what inspired that.

Bailey:

And how can people find this? Where can you go to support? What kind of outreach are you hoping to gain by this initiative, Swim Uphill?

Jamal:

Yeah, absolutely. You can definitely find more information as SwimUphill.org, SwimUpill.org. You can definitely follow us on Instagram, SwimUphill, spell out D O T O R G. So there’s no period in our at handles. It’s just SwimUphill.org, Instagram, Twitter. I think that there’s a bunch of ways to support our mission. This summer we’ll be teaching the 500 students, just here in the greater Los Angeles county based in through ourselves and our curriculum providers. Next year, we’ll be teaching 2000 and then the year after that, we’ll be teaching 8,000. And we have this strong strategy and community of partners to continue to grow by a factor four a year. So that come 2028, we will have reached our million mark, we’ll have surpassed it, actually.

Jamal:

So you can support that and you can be a part of that work, number one, by going and donating. Going to SwimUphill.org. You can become one of our monthly donors, we’re working out an incentives package for that. So you can get keychains and special updates and invites to special events. But even if you just donate $50 a month, $25 a month, the price Netflix, $10 a month. That goes a really long way. And that’s just automatically taken out every month. You can write that off at the end of the year, we are a 501c3.

Jamal:

If money is tight right now, and that’s not the best way for you to support, 100% follow us on social media. Share our posts, like our posts, comment on our posts. When you see something inspiring, talk to the people in your family, who here don’t know how to swim? Because I know about this organization that can teach you that no matter where you are. We have provided in Atlanta, we have providers in Houston, we have providers in DC, in Chicago and in Utah.

Jamal:

So wherever you are in the nation, or again, our goal is obviously to expand internationally, we will reach. We will be able to serve you. And the beautiful part of it is, most of the things that you learn on this route to learning how to swim, you won’t even need a pool for. So not only is it cost-effective, but it also resources effectively. You won’t need a pool for most of it. Actually a pool, that’s the very last step in our five-hour program. It’s only about one hour of content that you actually would want to be in a pool for. So it’s a great opportunity for anyone, whether you’re afraid of water, you nearly drown, you know someone else who has drowned. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to make a difference and to be a source of change, a source of hope and empowerment.

Bailey:

Swim Uphill. Jamal, your story is great. Your motivation is great. Your organization, your foundation, your heart is great. And I think that’s what speaks volume to our viewers. And I hope our viewers, we can add a few more numbers to the one million goal. Jamal, we appreciate you taking the time today. I know you have a busy schedule leading up to the Paralympic trials. We’re excited to follow that journey. We hope to stay in touch and thank you for stopping by.

Jamal:

Absolutely. Thank you, Bailey, man. Have a good one, everybody.

Chris Murphy, President of the Santa Cruz Warriors, joins Bailey on this edition Listen Up to talk all things basketball. Murphy summarizes the Warrior’s experience in the G League bubble and how his progression since 2005 within the Warriors organization has been nothing but fulfilling. What the transition was like coming from Central New York to the Bay Area. And what Santa Cruz has meant to Murphy and the idea behind Swishes For Dishes, which sent over 50,000 to Second Harvest Santa Cruz food bank. Listen Up!

On this episode of Listen Up, Anastasia Hayes of Middle Tennessee State joins Bailey Arredondo. Hayes talks about growing up in Tennessee and how everyone in her family got into basketball, and how she has found her offensive rhythm (26.5 ppg) through the pandemic. Plus, taking a look back at the experience of winning the state championship in high school with 2 of her sisters and how “Jesus Will Work It Out” became a pregame ritual. Listen up!

Video Transcript Below

Bailey:
Right. Okay, here we go. I love her one. We’re back for another great episode of Listen Up. And today we are joined by Alexa Graham. One of the heartbeats of the UNC women’s tennis team. Alexa, thank you for taking the time to come to the program.

Alexa Graham:
Hi, thank you for having me.

Bailey:
So let’s start with what life has been like on Chapel Hill. What’d you do the past few weeks? What are you up to? Not on the tennis court.

Alexa:
Well, things are slowly getting back to normal. Our governor just lifted some regulations and stuff with restaurants and everything. So it’s starting to feel a little more normal. We’re back in class in school. So I’m going to school, which is weird. Cause I haven’t done that in like a year. But other than that, pretty normal, just practicing, studying focused on the season.

Bailey:
Now as a West Coast guy, myself coming off of Syracuse, I was a little bit curious, I guess you could say about the weather and you’re from garden city, New York, correct? Yes. And that’s on Long Island? Yes. Okay. So do you like or love snow?

Alexa Graham:
I love snow, but I don’t like cold. So when it’s cold here and I’m not going to get the snow, like I’m miserable. Like if it’s going to be cold, I want it to really be winter. Like North Carolina has this like half winter thing and I don’t really like it.

Bailey:
So, yeah. So I was curious about the adaptation from New York to North Carolina. Is there many differences in the weather? I mean, it’s still pretty much on the East Coast.

Alexa:
Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty hot in the summer, but I mean, it’s hot at home too in the summer, but what drives me nuts is like when we moved to outdoor tennis and it’s like not hot, but it’s not cold enough to be inside. They have a very long like almost winter or almost spring, like just kind of in the middle,

Bailey:
Growing up in Garden City. Did you go to Manhattan a lot? Did you go to the city?

Alexa:
Yeah, definitely. I’m one of the first stops train stops in long Island. So I’m just a short ride on the Long Island railroad. So I love the city. I love Manhattan even now. Like I have a few friends who live in the city and I go all the time and visit them. Is that

Bailey:
Somewhere you could potentially see yourself living, down the line?

Alexa:
Oh yeah. Like if, if New York opens up and stuff, but it’s, it’s really fun. It’s a fun place. And it’s close to my family.

Bailey:
Take us back to the early Alexa tennis days. How did you start playing tennis? Does your family play tennis? When did you and tennis first crop?

Alexa:
I started when I was about seven or eight. No one in my family plays, but my parents were putting me in sports that I could play for a lifetime. So I went into golf, swimming, tennis. At first, I didn’t like any of them, but golf was a little too slow for me and swimming head swim meets at like 6:00 AM. So the one I stuck with of the three was tennis and ended up really liking it. And here I am.

Bailey:
At what age did you realize you could potentially take it to the next level or were better than a lot of your peers?

Alexa:
I wanna say at like 11 or 12, like I still wasn’t playing nearly as much as my peers and my competitors and I was competing with them. So I just was like, if I commit myself to this, if I go full time with this, I could be pretty good.

Bailey:
Now, what was the tennis high school culture like in New York? Was the competition pretty fierce that a lot of people play tennis?

Alexa:
Not a lot of people in any one specific hometown. I wouldn’t say plays tennis, but there’s always one person out of like each hometown on long Island. That’s pretty good at tennis. So I did, I played one season of high school tennis and I got a few good matches. You know, there are a few good girls on Long Island, but there are times when you play with different schools that don’t have the best players. But it was really fun and it really prepped me for college tennis.

Bailey:
Now, why UNC was that always something in the back of your mind going through high school go into UNC, or did it just so happened that you got an offer and visited and loved it?

Alexa:
It definitely wasn’t in my mind, honestly, I don’t like it in the Northeast, like I never would have thought of going to North Carolina. I always planned on staying in the Northeast, but our coach fry and he’s just amazing and they have such a great program and the academics are incredible. So just to be, to come here, I saw their practice on a visit. And so I, how their team was just one big family. Like literally just, they were so happy to be there with each other and hitting with each other that this was my favorite place I had to commit.

Bailey:
Well, speaking of academics, as you touched on, let’s talk about Alexa in the classroom. You’re double majoring in political science and media and journalism, correct? Yes. Okay. What made you decide on journalism?

Alexa:
Well, I’ve always like loved broadcasting. But the first journalism class that I took my sophomore year, it was all writing. It was like a writing journalism class. It was one of the staple classes that you have to take. And that was the first one I took it. I was like, I can’t do this. Like I don’t want to write, but then I realized that it was one class. There’s more to it. You have to go through the school through the program. So when I came back for the extra year, this whole year has been devoted to me finishing the journalism degree. Now,

Bailey:
Have you put together any stories? Do you like storytelling?

Alexa:
Yeah. I work on our school sports show and it’s fun. It’s, it’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun too. And I’ve had some awesome teachers and some really great classes. So it really makes me regret it and do this from the beginning.

Bailey:
Now, did they only ask you for your tennis analytics or do they let you talk about other sports?

Alexa:
No. I’m allowed to talk about other sports too.

Bailey:
That’s good. I’m curious on when you found out, speaking of coming back for this other season when did you find out that this last season was going to be canceled and where were you?

Alexa:
This is a funny story because my team, we, like you could say my team was at their peak. Like we were doing well on the core. Like we were in The Bahamas for spring break that our coach, lets us pick up a spring break trip every year. And I was one of the seniors and the seniors pick. So, of course, we choose The Bahamas and we were in this beautiful resort and we’re all in the pool. And we see on our phones like the sec is canceling, the MBA’s canceling March madness was canceled and we’re like, this is not looking good. So we were literally in the most perfect place and got the worst news possible.

Bailey:
Okay. To backtrack a little bit. So you, the seniors get to decide or where you guys go spring break. Where were the other places you guys went to? Besides the h Bahamas

Alexa:
We were supposed to go to Puerto Rico one year, but because of the hurricane had to go to Del Ray, I think we went we’ve gone to Disney, we’ve gone to Charleston, but my, my class really went for it with The Bahamas trip.

Bailey:
I was about to say, that’s a that’s shooting for the stars out there. And I feel like that’s a great team bonding experience too, traveling outside the States, getting just outside of the tennis bubble a little bit. And I mean The Bahamas, you can’t beat the pool and the weather. Okay.

Alexa:
Oh, for sure. It was a great place to relax for a week and just kind of reset before we finished our season.

Bailey:
So when did you find out that the NCAA was going to allow you another year of eligibility and did you know immediately that you were going to run it back?

Alexa:
Well, when they first canceled everything, they put out this very vague tweet about potentially giving seniors their eligible eligibility back for that year. And so we all saw that and like kind of had hoped like we didn’t make any major decisions for the next year. Cause we kind of had hope that they’re going to give us this year back. And I want to say a month or two later they did right before graduation. So I withdrew my graduation application and got in touch with the journalism school immediately and added the major. But I think for us, for us three seniors, it was, we’re all going to go back and do this. Or at least for me, I didn’t want to do it if we weren’t all going to do it. So now we’re here. We all live together and we’re all really happy we’re here.

Bailey:
Now I’m curious about the atmosphere of the team. I mean, you guys are 11 and Oh this year have won 10 ACC Championships and program history has always some of the top-ranked players in the country. What are practices like?

Alexa:
Well, right now practices are a little weird cause we, we aren’t together every day because they try to make the groups smaller. So there’s not 13 girls on three courts in the middle of a pandemic, but once or twice a week, we do get to all be together at practice. And it’s just so fun. I mean, we’re all super serious, but we all can take a joke and laugh in the middle. And it’s like going out and playing your favorite sport with your best friends. So I love going to practice every day

Bailey:
Now, obviously, it’s, everything’s altered for the pandemic and social distancing, but what do you guys do for fun? Do you guys do any kind of team bonding experiences? Do you guys all get together socially distance or is everyone kind of just in their rooms at practice, going to school at practice?

Alexa:
I mean, we do see a lot of each other by the end of the day. I mean, we have conditioning, we have tennis like we, so we would hang out, I guess you could say at practice or fitness quite a bit. But we, our building have a courtyard and stuff, so sometimes we’ll get together outside and just hang out. Maybe bring in dinner. Coach has brought in dinner to the tennis center and how to sit outside so we can all have dinner together. And honestly, a lot of us live with each other. So we, we see a good bit of each other. No,

Bailey:
This is what I’m also curious about. Give us a new rule or adjustment that had to be implemented for COVID protocols that took some time getting used to whether it’s on the court or off the court.

Alexa:
Oh gosh. I would say wearing our mask all our whole like workout session in the weight room because we wear a mask to the tennis center, like while we’re in the locker room and stuff, but when we’re on the court, we take it off. But when we’re in the weight room and we’re doing stuff, we have to leave the mask on the whole time. And it just gets to the point where you realize it’s bothering you and you just, you don’t want to wear it anymore, but it takes adjusting to, but where we’re used to it by now and we’re handling it

Bailey:
Now as a self-proclaimed summer kid, tennis high school camp, counselor myself. I usually tell them when we’re serving, you have to have somewhat of a pre-service ritual to keep you in rhythm. So every serve doesn’t feel like it’s different. Every feels Sur sort of like it’s the same. Do you have a serve ritual?

Alexa:
Yeah, I just pretty simple three bounces.

Bailey:
That’s it?

Alexa:
No, if I, if I’m okay if I miss bounds or something, I have to start over, but it’s always three. It’s always been three.

Bailey:
Now, what about if you’re down a breakpoint and you know, you’ve got to get this point back. Do you have something that goes through your mind? Do you think about it in that situation or do you just treat it like any other points?

Alexa:
I mean, I don’t want to be careless during the point and just go for some crazy shot that maybe I’d go for if I’m up 40 love, but at the same time, I don’t want to get in my head that I’m down breakpoint and I need to, I need to win this point. So I just kind of, I guess, played the same. I try to make my first serve, stay aggressive and be consistent to take us back

Bailey
To the ITA National Indoor Championship back in November. When did you know you were going to win?

Alexa:
I don’t know if I knew I was gonna win. I knew Abby, she was a fighter. She wasn’t going to hand it to me. But for my first tournament in eight months, maybe I was feeling pretty good all week. I was excited to be there and it was less about I’m playing this huge tournament and more about, Oh my gosh, I’m playing a tournament again. So it was just a really great week I was playing well and I was super happy to be back the whole time.

Bailey:
All right. Finally, let’s end on a two-part question first. What are your goals for the end of this year?

Alexa:
Well, I would love to win a team NCAA title. It’s something our team has never done and we work super hard and I know that’s everyone’s goal is like winning endorse was great. Winning ACC would be great, but we all want that NCA title.

Bailey:
And now what are your goals for your tennis career? Are you thinking about playing tennis professionally after you’re done at UNC? Or what if you get really some good grades in journalism? Do you think you might pursue that a little bit?

Alexa:
I’ll definitely pursue professional tennis once I’m graduated, I’ve thought about it extensively. And in the middle of the season last year, I was just about ready to take a full-time job. But this year and how tennis was taken from me for so long with the pandemic has really opened my eyes of like, I’m not, I’m not done. I don’t want to stop yet. I can get a job a few years down the road.

Bailey:
Well, it’s going to be really exciting to see. And you guys are off to the hottest star best team in the country right now. So we look forward to keeping in contact and watching your test journey. Continue. Alexa, thank you for taking the time today. Thank you so much.

Video Transcript Below 

Bailey
Right. Okay.

There we go. Hello everyone. And welcome back to our digital content here at stack sports. And this is an interview series called listen up where we speak with various people in the sports community and learn more about their career path as always. We’re your hosts. He is Tyrese boon checking in from Beaumont sexist, hopefully, a little bit warmer than the past few weeks, Beaumont, Texas, and as always on Bailey or Dondo from Monterey California. And today we have a very special edition of listen up and we’re bringing on a certified agent from the national basketball players association and now CEO of intrusive sports agency, Deshaun Harris, Deshaun. We appreciate you taking the time today.

Deshaun Harris:
Hey, I’m excited to be on with you guys. Um, two legends in the making, so I’m excited. Let’s go. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it.

Tyrese:
All right, man. Let’s start off man. First question. So how are you doing, how with the pandemic going on, man, how’s your business going? And um, just how you’ve been working with your clients. How’s it been going with?

Deshaun:
Couldn’t be more blessed. Um, as, as you know, we live in a world with instantaneous communication, so really just utilizing it to our, to our advantage, uh, playing to our strengths, making sure that we don’t leave any stone unturned and constantly communicating with our players. Um, constantly, constantly exploring possible opportunities, but first ensuring that everyone has safe sound and happy. Um, and, and just making sure we’re communicating at all times. So really just using our instantaneous communication to our advantage. Nevertheless, so blessed to have health. And I just want to say to everyone that has lost someone over the last year or so, um, our partners are going out to you. We understand the difficulty as far as the pandemic. We’ll also, um, the social issues that, that continue to happen within our country and throughout other countries. And, um, our, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone going through something, whether it’s mental health, physical health, or, uh, social-cultural health. So

Bailey:
Take us back to how basketball started to play a bigger role in your life. Did you have anyone that you looked up to growing up in the basketball world?

Deshaun:
That’s a great question because the person I looked up to when, and continue to look up to as my father, um, I, it seems like my introduction to basketball has always been seamless because there’s always been basketball around. Um, my father was able to play at the collegiate level, but he, uh, decided to go into the Marines. Um, he moved to California and was able to meet my beautiful mother and they had us, uh, throughout the nineties. I was born in 96. So, um, and, and about early two-thousands, my father started a nonprofit within the inland empire California area that served a hundred, uh, certain over 100 student-athletes and helping them pursue their careers, uh, within basketball and other sports. So his trade-off to them was basically, Hey, um, I’ll provide an opportunity to you within basketball if you provide us with good grades.

Deshaun:
So he was able to finance and, and help out a lot of students, uh, that were underserved within our communities. So that was my first introduction to basketball itself, especially travel basketball. So seeing those students come from communities that would often give them a chance and use basketball as a gateway to something more in their future was enlightening for me. Um, after that, my dad kind of, uh, continued to play a big factor within the basketball community, becoming a coach. And now he’s a Dean of athletics at a university in, uh, an Irvine called Westcliff university, but also him, you know, him, him placing the ball within my hands and, and me having, uh, a high school career, but nothing after that. Um, and seeing my own other family members do their thing within basketball. Whereas, whereas my little brother, um, eventually coming to high high school basketball prospect and, uh, him being off at Gonzaga right now and, and others, um, it’s, it’s been a beautiful thing. So I would say just my family and, um, my dad is the, the answer to be short

Tyrese:
Man. That’s awesome, man. I can definitely agree. You know, I count from a, you know, a household, you know, with my POS being in the army, you know, as well being armed forces, you know, so he definitely raised us to, you know, you know, be athletic, you know, be in sports and things of that nature. So I definitely can see where you’re coming from with that. And since we’re talking about, you know, your origin of, you know, with you being the sports, you decided to become a basketball agent, NBA agent, so, or the qualifications of becoming an NBA agent, how does that work? And, how did you go about it?

Deshaun:
Yeah, so, kind of moving on the timeline a little bit further after, um, after my father and our, our family’s nonprofit continued, I, uh, was able to play high school basketball, but there was about three pivotal years that, uh, really decided what was the deciding factor in me wanting to become an agent. So after seeing my brothers, essentially within the space as a freshman and sophomore at that time becoming a top player in the country, um, and myself working basketball tournaments here and there, and being a fixture within the basketball community, whether it’s, uh, through directors, uh, players alike and others, I eventually was able to, I would say intern for a national world, basketball trainer, a close family friend, uh, Rico Heins. So every summer, um, there’s the Ricoh Heins runs the EMF infamous Rico, hind runs at UCLA. And basically, every day is an all-star game for the most part to put it simply.

Deshaun:
Throughout those two years, Oh, and, and the, the opportunity that Rico gave me to be on the court and see players play at a high level, but also the business aspect of basketball, um, and the social aspect of basketball and what may be lacking, um, all between them, uh, really gave me a basis that, Hey, there’s something that needs to be done within this space, as far as providing a clear point of representation for players, um, a, a cleaner point of representation for players and one that reflected, the players backgrounds and, and in communities that they’re brought up in. So I kind of saw a niche there and with me being young and, but also being able to relate to players from a social-cultural standpoint, um, and that being lacking within MBPA itself, I decided, Hey, I really want to make some change. Um, so what it takes to become a certified agent is you need an undergraduate degree and, um, you basically need to know the collective bargaining agreement, which is the basis of, uh, operations within the MBA. So I don’t know if I answered your question

Bailey:
Now. That was the perfect answer for sure. What now I’m curious about what went into the decision for you to start something of your own, essentially bet on yourself after college, and not try to join another agency.

Deshaun:
I was fortunate to graduate from UCS, uh, early. I came in a, as a transfer. So, uh, I originally started at community college. Um, I came out of high school, didn’t get into the universities. I wanted to, I was able to do two years in one at a university about 64 units in a year, transferred to University of California, San Diego, and do two years there. Um, but I, I had that extra year to kind of like, Hey, I graduated early, what do I do? So I decided to get my master’s, within that year, I got it from Cal Baptist University and communications. And, um, just thinking about the basis and the fundamental elements of me as a human being. So for me, seeing an understanding of generational and incestual sacrifice internally and externally has led me to two words that I live bought its purpose and obligation.

Deshaun:
Resonating and witnessing underserved and underrepresented individuals within our space and the communities around it has gotten me to a life of servitude. Um, and in ways, if you think about it now, agents are the perfect service for athletes and, and business businesses and, and business professionals and, um, athlete professionals as I like to call them. Um, so from professionally to personally, I’ve set out to use, you know, my, those two words to my advantage, but also to implement them in everything I do. When I saw the glaring inequity within the sports world, um, and after interviewing for, uh, two of the top three sports agencies or the larger agencies within our business, I realized that I couldn’t get to that goal as quickly as I wanted to because, um, one, there’s only 186 certified black agents within this space, um, out of 400, 440, um, and only 7.5, 9% of them even represent athletes that look like that.

Deshaun:
Oftentimes it’s not a sole representation or a point of decision where I’m an athlete or a representative who clearly reflects the communities and the social-cultural lifestyle and understanding of these athletes can have, um, decision-making, that’s impactful within their day-to-day lives. So when I realized that, and I, and when I realized that I couldn’t get to that goal as quickly as possible, I decided why not take ownership in my own hands, um, and not only implement a system that can create true change, um, and not only sports, but academia and society, a light, but that can educate, empower and Edify, um, athletes. And that was, I was kind of the basis of starting my own agency and really inviting others within the agency to do some of themselves, um, and implement their own dreams and hopes of, uh, you know, uh, equality and, and really empowerment to all, to all athletes. So,

Tyrese:
Well, I want to say congratulations on, you know, you and your business and what you able to accomplish so far to Sean man, Mike, especially as what you said with, with the lack of, black, especially black, agents in this business, you know, um, there’s not that many, so, you know, just for you to be, take the initiative and start your own business, I know it’s tough and I know it’s rough, but I know you had your own trials and tribulations on, you know, contact and players and getting business off the ground. So how does the whole conversation between you and players start, do you reach out to them? Do they reach out to you? Who contacts, who first,

Deshaun:
You know, Tyrese, I’ve been very fortunate because I’ve grown up in this space. I’ve grown up in this space. Not only has my father had been a fixture within the space and the basketball community, uh, but my brother was also fortunate a top 100 basketball player. So a lot, a lot of my relationships are true. They’re genuine and they’re built over time. Um, so, uh, a lot of them are, are, are families that have experienced the same thing as me, the same things as me, or have witnessed, um, things like. So I’m not only coming from an agent’s perspective, but I’m truly coming from a brother, a brother perspective, a family member’s perspective and, and someone who’s seen the in and outs of this game, um, from a, from a personal and social standpoint. So with that being said, I’m thankful for those relationships, but oftentimes it’s not.

Deshaun:
I mean, there, there are a lot of cold calls and, and relationships that still need to be built, but I’ve had the fortune of having organic relationships with people in this space and, and, uh, families that are ascending within the space and in want to be involved professionally, whether that be in the NBA or overseas, um, or within the women’s space or, um, or in the G League. So all the way around, I’m just fortunate to have organic relationships with, with true and real people, um, within this space without having to weasel my way around or, or, um, interject in a, in a negative way. So would that being said, if there, if there, if there are any new people that I do reach out to, um, it’s, it’s, it’s usually through commonality or someone that I already know within the space. Fortunately.

Bailey:
Now Deshaun, I’m curious about, what do you look for in signing clients? I think younger basketball, specifically high school and college, there’s so much more popular now with social media. I mean, we just saw top-class come out on Amazon prime with the whole documentary on Sierra Canyon and just the exposure that these young athletes are getting is incredible. And I think that could be a good and bad thing. Are there any specific traits that you look for signing certain clients, or do you spend time, uh, watching highlight reels or checking in with them on their social media? How does that process go?

Deshaun:
Bailey, it’s funny that you mentioned top class, great production by I am, I am DB. Uh, my brother was actually featured in it. Uh, the Rancho Christians here get Sierra Canyon games. Uh, Oh, that’s right. Those are, those are great battles. Those are great battles. I love the, I love the platform that they gave Sierra Canyon. To answer your question, I truly look for a great human meaning, um, the agreement being that, that, that that’s all that matters. Someone who cares about the progression of themselves, the progression that people and, um, the progression of, of them as an athlete. So who’s a hundred percent committing to being the best version of themselves as a, as not only an athlete, but, uh, a brother, sister, cousin, uh, et cetera. So I think that’s my, that’s my biggest and main qualification. Um, one, do you hold yourself accountable to grow a, as an athlete, but also as a person?

Tyrese:
Great answers, man. Great answers. I definitely agree with those statements. Definitely want those types of players, you know, in your corner, especially, you know, especially as clients, you know, you definitely want somebody that has the same drive as you and your business and, um, you know, you represent each other equally in the same way, because not only are we recruiting them, they’re recruiting nuts. So we have to be up uphold. We have to hold ourselves to the same standards, you know, that, that, that there, that we required. So, um, and, and, and like they say iron sharpens iron, and, um, no matter how old it is, it’s still hiring at the end of the day. So as long as we’re looking to stay sharp, then, then we’re all going to be successful.

Tyrese:
Great words, man. Great word and I can definitely tell you that. Um, I can definitely see that, you know, you were very, um, very people’s person. Um, I can see why a lot of clients, uh, you know, definitely, um, want to work with you and, you know, just by this, by, you know, you’re just, like I said, the initiative to have you say until, you know, for you to have your own business, you know, you’re taking your own initiative to work with these guys, you know, they, they, you show, you know, all the capabilities of you becoming a great agent in this business, with that being said with your business or with you being an agent, what’s been the best part of it so far. I know you probably travel. I know you met a lot of people, as you said, networking, you know, talking to new people, maybe players, coaches, but what has been the best part of being an agent for you first?

Deshaun:
Thank you. Thank you for the wise words and the kind words. Um, I would say there have been two great parts of it. Uh, first is seeing families and, um, uh, athletes in the business professionals and athlete professionals realize their dreams and goals and achieve them. That’s, that’s the most important, rewarding part at the end of the day, seeing someone sacrifice and go through the Hills and valleys to eventually reach the mountain top. And secondly, it’s really just being in the gym, being in the gym with, with, uh, with everyone, like, like I said, I’m 24 years old. I’m 24 years old. I’ve been around the game. I’ve I play the game to a decent extent, but I stay in the gym with my players. I stay in the gym, everybody, if, um, throughout the summer, we’re up at 5:00 AM getting it in, in the gym, I’m there with them catching balls. Um, there’s nothing like that, that grind that and doing it together with somebody and then gets into that journey at the end of the day and, and, and then being successful. So I would say those are, those are the two parts then them being successful, but also that grind, that everyday grind being there together, seeing the, seeing the blood, sweat, and tears that they’re putting out every day and then just being a part of it, you know.

Bailey:
Deshaun, what makes a great agent, has there been someone you met in this industry that had certain qualities that stood out to you where you look at them and say, wow, that that’s a great agent right there.

Deshaun:
You know, I am. I think, I think that could be an ambiguous, ambiguous question in a way because I think everyone has their own answer. So I can’t, I would say a great agent is one who is determined to uplifting the game to uplifting whatever, whatever sport they’re, they’re participating in to truly uplifting it and making sure they’re doing it with morals values and, um, those who push diversity and inclusion, and those who are committed to, to really ensuring that everyone is becoming a human, being a better human being at the end of the day. So I’ve definitely had, um, great conversations with other agents. Uh, I definitely respect everything that they’re doing in the space. Um, and I just look forward to collaborating with, anyone along the way, and seeing them succeed as well as myself. So I’m, I’m, I’m really ruined for, um, the success of, of all agents, but I would love to see, um, more, more agents that look like our athletes come up and, uh, and implement themselves within the game and, and collaborate with RDS that was agents as well. So to answer your question, no one is knowing and specific, but I’m just excited about those who uplift the game and those who promote diversity inclusion along the way.

Tyrese:
And once again, great answers, man, especially like you said, we’re all in this together on what you definitely want to see. A lot more of, as I said, a lot more people of color, um, and you’re in this business, especially in sports business, um, not just athletes, but journalists, agents, doctors, and more people as well. But, um, continuing with, um, you know, with you being the agent, as you say, you just mentioned all those things and Bailey peeing off back on, um, what Bailey said, what are some do’s and don’ts for any young and upcoming people just as us, you know, just as you know, just as I mentioned, I’m 22 years old, I believe you and Bailey are 24. Can you give any advice to any young and upcoming agents on some do’s and don’ts of this business and how can they be successful?

Deshaun:
I would say the biggest dues, um, and this is something that we’re all constantly going through, right. Is, uh, sacrifice hold yourself accountable. Um, but also I think the man greatness out of yourself really really know that age is, is no true correlation for how successful you can be, but the progression is the main barometer. Um, and I would say for a lot of athletes, just to keep the main thing, the main thing, because at the end of the day, if you’re successful in your sport, um, everything is everything’s going to come after that. So if you’re a winner and, um, you PR you promote, you promote winning and you, and you contribute to winning, uh, either, either individually or within a team environment, then the Duso, um, I would say some don’ts is, is really just really, really don’t allow anyone in your circle, um, that doesn’t reflect your, your, your morals and values. Don’t be deterred by, anyone that doesn’t reflect your morals and values. Don’t collaborate with anyone that doesn’t reflect your more than values. And, um, always be creative, always be creative, I think is another dude. But I think that’s the biggest, don’t really just don’t, don’t sell yourself short, be all. You can be, be all you can be in this business. Um, and, and don’t settle.

Tyrese:
This conversation has been so refreshing for me. I don’t know why. I just, I feel like a breath of fresh air. And, Deshaun, I just love what you said in the beginning about your two most important words is purpose and obligation. I think that really goes a long way, not just in sports agencies, but just in life. Just having that purpose within you and understanding who you are and what you do. The amount of passion you have for this business is exemplified in your work. And I do hope others that watch this understand, uh, a lot of what you said, and it drives home the point. Uh, there needs to be more diversity in these agencies because it’s mainly represented in the athlete. So I, I completely agree with that and I want to make sure our audience checks out intrusive sports on socials, Instagram, Twitter, and Deshaun. I really appreciate you taking the time today.

Deshaun:
Appreciate it, both of y’all. And I’m so excited for your guys’ future within this business. Like you said, Bailey and Anton Greece, we’re a community. And as far as everyone goes, uh, as far as the PR, as far as our collective progression goes, so we can only, we can, our job is solely to continue the, the sacrifices that the generation before has had, um, whether it’s journalists or athletes alike, we have a job to, to, to leave behind something valuable and the people that come behind us. And, um, I think that’s what we’re doing.

Transcript of Interview Below

Bailey Arredondo:

All right. Okay, here we go. Back for another edition of Listen Up and we’re heading back to Arizona and spring training as baseball season is upon us. We are joined by Tyler Freeman of the Cleveland Indians. Tyler, thanks for coming on the program today.

Tyler Freeman:

Thank you guys for having me.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s start with California in you. We’re both Cali boys, so you grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, correct? Were you born and raised there?

Tyler Freeman:

Yes, I was. I was born in Rancho Cucamonga, lived there pretty much my entire life. A couple of years ago, I just finally, I moved out to Texas, but growing up in California, it was awesome. It’s about hour east of Los Angeles, and just like you said before, the weather is perfect.

Bailey Arredondo:

What sports teams did you like growing up? Did you have any favorite athletes?

Tyler Freeman:

I was a diehard Dodger fan growing up. I didn’t really pay attention to any other sports. I was a big baseball guy. Me and my dad … Me and my family would always go to Dodger games. In Rancho Cucamonga at the time, it was the High A Dodgers who were there. We would go to all the minor league games pretty much every day and every weekend. It was fun.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, something about Dodger games that a lot of people have talked to me about is Dodger Dogs. I mean, do you think it’s just a glorified hot dog or do you think there’s something special about a Dodger Dog?

Tyler Freeman:

There is something special. I think it’s maybe when you’re sitting down at the field and enjoying the game, it just tastes a little different. It does for sure.

Bailey Arredondo:

Right. Now, your high school baseball team was really good. You ended up winning the state championship your senior year, but your brother also played on that team too, correct? What was that experience like?

Tyler Freeman:

Oh, it was the most fun I’ve had playing baseball. I mean, it was playing with my brother was the icing on top. Playing two years with him and he was a second baseman and I was a shortstop. We were always smack talking, we were trying to pick each other up too all the time and you it was fun. Then when we won the whole thing, we got to actually go to Dodger Stadium, and win it there, it was surreal,

Bailey Arredondo:

Oh man, I mean, childhood dream right there sitting in the stands and you get to actually take the field as so many great Dodgers have. Speaking of your brother, your family is really good at baseball and softball, right? Your mom played, did your sister play?

Tyler Freeman:

My mom played, she was an alternate on one of the first USA softball teams. My dad played a little high school baseball. He claims that’s where I got all my talent, but I think it was the mom, and my sister, she went to Grand Canyon University. Played softball there for a couple of years and then transferred over to the University of San Diego to play her last couple of years there. Then my brother’s with the Rangers right now. He’s catching there.

Bailey Arredondo:

Wow. Who’s the best athlete in the family then?

Tyler Freeman:

You know what, I’m sorry, my brother keeps … He’ll always say it’s him, but I think it’s me. I think it’s me.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, what led you to playing shortstop? Is that just the position you gravitated towards when you were younger or was there a specific reason for it?

Tyler Freeman:

Younger, honestly, I didn’t really touch the outfield when I was younger. It was mainly the infield. It was short, third, bouncing around, second, first, even I caught like a little bit, not much, but it was a majority up the middle and I just kind of just stuck with it. To be honest, it’s been the same since.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, I’m curious on that transition from high school to when you know you wanted to go play professional baseball, who was the biggest influence and had the greatest impact on you getting to the majors?

Tyler Freeman:

That was my dad, for sure. He would always tell me, hey, like it was maybe my sophomore year of high school. He was like, “Hey, you can go far in this game, as far as it’s going to take you.” I’m like, “You know what? Let’s get going. Let’s work for it.” He guided me the entire way. I give much credit to my dad. He was pushing me day in, day out. He’s like, “If you want it, I’m going to push you for it,” and that’s what he did, and I give lots of credit to my dad.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, you played for a variety of teams your first few years in the minors. Was there a team or season that stood out to you and why?

Tyler Freeman:

Probably Mahoning Valley season. It was my first short season. Just getting my feet wet in pro ball. It was like the first stadium setting. It wasn’t like the AZL, where it was just the AZL, but it was, we got to travel and stuff, which kind of brought my adrenaline going and kind of really feeling like pro ball for once. Once we got going there, it was fun playing for a great manager, a great team. I mean, we had a really good team there, and that was probably the most fun.

Bailey Arredondo:

Did you have a specific moment or pitch maybe where you realized, “Okay, it’s not high school in Rancho Cucamonga anymore? This is the pros.”

Tyler Freeman:

Definitely. It was as soon as I got drafted in the AZL. My first at-bat was against Sam Hentges. He threw a fastball probably 97, 98. I’m like, “Okay, welcome to pro ball.” Then he threw that big hammer curveball, and I’m like, “Yeah, this is pro ball.”

Bailey Arredondo:

How long did it take you to get adapted to that? Did it take just a few games? I mean, baseball’s such a repetitive sport. I’m sure it didn’t take too long.

Tyler Freeman:

Right, the Indians, they do a great job of getting guys going pretty quick. We got many live at-bats before I got in my first AZL game, and they prepared me from the start. I felt like from my first game, I was ready to get going.

Bailey Arredondo:

Nice. Now, I want to talk about 2020, I mean, worst year ever. What went through your mind when that total season was canceled? Did you have any doubts about baseball or what your plans were?

Tyler Freeman:

I remember when it happened, we were in a meeting and I think the basketball case hit first, and then it started hitting us like, hey, this could be real. They might shut everything down. Then we had like another meeting the next day saying, “Hey, you guys are going home,” and that hit me. I was like, “What am I going to do? We’re not having a season this year? Are we going to have a lost season because of it?” Even when we went back home, nothing was … We weren’t allowed to do anything because everything was shut down. Then luckily, I found some low-key spots to work and train and stuff. Then get the call saying, “Hey, we’re going to put an alternate site,” and then the rest is history.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, did you go back to Texas during that time? What kept you in baseball rhythm?

Tyler Freeman:

California shut down a little bit more, so I went back to Texas and like I said, I found some great guys that just opened their facilities for me and some other pro guys. Obviously, we were being super careful and stuff, but it was much credit to them. It was one of my good friends, Dustin, who opened up his facility and then Rocky, who opened up his workout facility for us to just prepare for maybe a season that could happen or not.

Bailey Arredondo:

Right. How have you liked the Texas lifestyle? A lot different than California?

Tyler Freeman:

It is different for sure. I can wear a cowboy hat and stuff, and I feel a little more comfortable about that, but no, it’s a much different vibe than California. California’s got that perfect weather. You can go outside and wear a tank top, whether it’s in the morning or at night, and in Texas, you got to adapt a little bit. It could get cold sometimes, but for the most part, it’s good weather out there.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah. I went to TCU up in Fort Worth, and I have to say Texas food is no joke at all.

Tyler Freeman:

It’s no joke. That’s where I was committed. I was committed to TCU.

Bailey Arredondo:

Oh really?

Tyler Freeman:

Yeah, out of high school. Yes. Yeah.

Bailey Arredondo:

Okay, nice. If you didn’t go to the pros, you would have gone to TCU?

Tyler Freeman:

TCU. Yes, sir.

Bailey Arredondo:

Oh, wow. Okay. Good stuff. Well, hey, TCU’s lost, so I think you’ve made the right decision. Let’s talk about goals for this season. I mean, what areas of your game are you looking to improve on? What are you most excited for?

Tyler Freeman:

It was every part of my game I can improve on. Definitely want to improve … Been improving and working on the arm strength a lot. Felt like that’s improved probably the most out of my game. I know a lot of people talk about strength and power, I kind of view that as it’s going to come with an age, definitely working out and stuff, getting stronger for sure. I put on about 10 pounds of muscle, but I know I’m just going to let that play out. Just crafting in on being more fluid in the infield, more versatile than bouncing around from second, to third, to short. I’m learning those positions well, and just keep swinging it. Just been working on the swing, sticking with the line drive approach. It’s all been pretty much working out.

Bailey Arredondo:

What’s the experience been like since you’ve gotten to Arizona for spring training? What can and can’t you guys do? Are you getting a lot of on-field reps on?

Tyler Freeman:

We really are. Like I said, the Indians, do a great job, even just for keeping everyone healthy. They’re reminding everyone to wear your masks and they want to keep everyone on the field, for sure. We haven’t really took a step back. We’re getting many reps, many swings, many ground balls, and it’s been great. Getting a lot of work done here.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, let’s end with this Tyler. Now that you’ve had a few years under your belt, a few seasons, what advice would you give yourself coming out of high school, knowing what you know now?

Tyler Freeman:

Oh man. Definitely, in high school … I definitely, you see the Scouts in the stands, you see all that stuff and maybe in high school, I would tell myself, “Hey, just relax a little bit. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen. Just keep doing what you can as in working hard off the field, doing extra. I mean, if you take an extra round of BP or get that extra lift in, keep crushing that stuff. Keep doing what you can off the field and let the on the field stuff handle itself.”

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, your journey is just getting started and that’s one of the beauties of coming out of high school, going to the majors. You have so much time to room and grow in baseball. Tyler, good luck to you the rest of the season, and we look forward to keeping in contact. Thanks for coming on the program.

Tyler Freeman:

Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me on.

Interview Transcript Below

Bailey Arredondo:

All right, okay, here we go. Hello everyone and welcome back to ListenUp, one of the freshest new interview series here at Stack Sports. Today we’re heading back to the tennis court and we’re joined by Dave Mullins, the Managing Director at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, commonly known as the ITA. Dave, we appreciate you taking the time today.

Dave Mullins:

Definitely, Bailey. Thanks so much for having me and putting a light on college tennis.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah, let’s start with how you first got involved with tennis. Did you play tennis growing up? Does your family have a background in tennis? How did you and tennis cross paths?

Dave Mullins:

Well, I grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and so the popular sports there are soccer and rugby and we have some national sports, hurling and Gaelic football as well. People should YouTube those, they’re pretty exciting sports. But yeah, tennis wasn’t really on the radar until I went on a vacation once and had nobody to play soccer or rugby with, and just started hitting a tennis ball against the wall at the camp site and fell in love with the sport.

Dave Mullins:

Started taking it very seriously in my teenage years and got to travel and play in Junior Wimbledon, Junior French Open, got a college scholarship to Fresno State in 1998 and played four years there, played a little bit professionally. Very fortunate now to still be working in the tennis industry all these years later.

Bailey Arredondo:

So, is that what brought you to the states was tennis?

Dave Mullins:

Yep, tennis scholarship. Really, my parents weren’t going to let me turn pro out of high school or nor should I have. Education was very important to them as it is to me. But if you wanted to continue to play at a high level, I just couldn’t stay in Ireland. There isn’t the infrastructure there, there isn’t any funding, so I really had to kind of getaway. Most top Irish tennis players do the same.

Dave Mullins:

So yeah, very lucky. There was no internet back there, couldn’t really research where I was going, just kind of fumbled my way through and ended up at Fresno and had an amazing experience. Met my wife there and a big reason why I stayed in America, and just fell in love with college sports. I just thought it was amazing, there’s nothing like it in the rest of the world and couldn’t believe that you could be a college tennis coach and get paid to run a team of whatever, eight to 14 individuals. So, I actually ended up becoming a college coach and coached for 12 years.

Bailey Arredondo:

Wow. I actually find college tennis and college sports in general a lot more relatable than pro sports. I believe that sports on television is one thing and watching sports live in-person is another. I’ll never forget when I was young, I went to a tournament at UCLA with my dad and we saw Marat Safin warming up before one of his matches. He had a backhand, his famous one-handed backhand down the line, and it was so powerful that it went through the fence and landed at me and my dad, and it’s actually in the case behind me.

Bailey Arredondo:

I say that for the reason that, at that moment, tennis was taken to a completely different level for me, it almost seemed like a superpower in some ways. Do you have a moment in your life where tennis was taken to that different level?

Dave Mullins:

Yeah, it’s funny you say that about the pro stuff, there is something about that, right? Growing up in Ireland, we’re just a short flight away from the UK obviously and got over to London with my mom, we had some friends over there in London. We went to Wimbledon the day before it started, and somehow my mother BS’d our way in. I don’t know how she got us in there, we had no right being in there, but she got us in there and just walking around and seeing the players prepare.

Dave Mullins:

My hero at the time was Stefan Edberg. I don’t know if you remember him, an amazing player. I think six or seven grand slams to his name, serve-volley player, kind of very old school. Him and Michael Chang were just practicing, and I remember sitting there just watching those guys practice, just enthralled by it. They came up and they chatted with me, they gave me a tennis ball. From that point on all I’d wear would be Edberg’s gear, I’d try and copy his game, I played with his rocket, even though I wasn’t skilled enough at the time to play with it.

Dave Mullins:

Yeah, it’s amazing you say that, because I haven’t thought about that in quite some time, but definitely a fond memory and something that kept me engaged in the sport for many years to come and still engaged in it.

Bailey Arredondo:

Right. Those moments, they won’t ever leave you, those are something that’ll just keep in the back of your mind forever. I want to transition to the ITA and how you guys have adapted through this pandemic. I find it incredibly interesting how you guys put on so many tournaments throughout the years, specifically recently the indoor tournaments in Oklahoma City. How has your guys’ life changed throughout this pandemic in terms of what you guys can and can’t do?

Dave Mullins:

Yeah, I think we’re still learning through it, and obviously we’re at the mercy of decisions being made at the local level by County officials, obviously, but athletic directors and presidents and what’s happening from one campus to the next. We never wanted to limit the opportunity. So we were determined, if a coach or a campus or a facility could do something for our college athletes, then we were going to support that.

Dave Mullins:

We have a summer circuit that runs … started very small, many years ago, but has expanded to where they have these tournaments all over the country throughout the summer months, combines junior players, high school players with college players, and maybe former college players, maybe some pro players. So we actually extended that into the fold, because most college seasons got shut down in the fall and college players were staying at home with their family, they weren’t going back to campus. But they were able to find some tournaments close to home and continue the competition, hopefully, continue some of their training as well.

Dave Mullins:

So we extended that up through November, that was very popular, and we had some other events where we really targeted some of the top players just to, again, showcase college tennis. So we had a combination of the top college players, some former players that are now pro, offered some prize money. We had great sponsorship from Oracle to help with that. Then moving into the spring, at division one level we do what’s called a kickoff weekend, so it’s kind of a qualifying for our indoor championships. Yeah, if you talked to me in December, it looked like a long shot, but somehow it happened with very little drama, very few instances where teams had to drop out or anything like that.

Dave Mullins:

It happened, and college tennis is moving along. I’m heading to D2 now. This week, unfortunately, we had to cancel division three, just a lot of programs still uncertain about what their spring’s going to look like. Many of them may not start until a conference season or may not start at all, but we’ve been determined to support college tennis obviously in any way we can and provide opportunities for student-athletes at every corner. But it’s been a challenge, it’s been a struggle, but I think we’ve managed it about as well as we could or any organization could. We’ve been fortunate not to have to let go of any staff or furlough any staff and stay committed to the cause.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, building off what you guys provide for student-athletes, I want to get into the service program at the ITA that you’re actually involved in, the Tennis for America. Truly a life-changing service program, a year of service program designed for former college tennis players. Dave, how did Tennis for America begin and what was the goal in creating it?

Dave Mullins:

Yeah, it’s pretty amazing project and a big undertaking for a coaches association. We’re very unique, and maybe we’re a little bit over our skis with this one, but we wanted to try, we wanted to pilot it. How it came about, there’s a gentleman named John Bridgeland. He played tennis at Harvard, he worked for Obama administration, Bush administration, is now CEO of an organization called Civic, doing amazing work throughout the world.

Dave Mullins:

He won our ITA Meritorious Award several years ago, and he, I guess, threw down the gauntlet to our board of directors and said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be amazing if the NCAA offered a year of service program for all NC athletes? We have Teach for America, which most are familiar with, what if we did the same for NCAA student-athletes because of the experience they’re having, the growth that they get to take advantage of during their four years as a student-athlete.”

Dave Mullins:

At the time, the board of directors like, “Oh, it’s a nice idea, but we just don’t have the bandwidth to do it.” But through the years as other projects were tackled, we felt like, okay, we now have the space to explore this. We successfully applied for AmeriCorps VISTA Funding, which is a federal program to fund 12 individuals. We started it last summer, so the goal was to have 12 of this Tennis for America VISTA Fellows start the year of service in June. COVID hit obviously, we had to make some adjustments, we ended up with eight. So they’re more than halfway through their year of service now, and we’re opening up applications for year two.

Dave Mullins:

We have more cities involved, so now this year we have eight cities instead of four, we hope to have 12 VISTAs start work in June and July. Then in year three, we’re going to do our best to expand it to other sports and maybe try and get two or three other NCAA sports involved to pilot this. We’re committed to a three-year pilot, and if we could demonstrate that this is feasible, this is doable, that it’s worthy and impactful for not just the people doing the service, but the communities that they’re trying to help, then I think it will continue in some form or fashion. We’re just not exactly sure, we’re still learning a lot of lessons.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, you guys partner with various tennis organizations around the country. To name a few, the Junior Tennis Champion Center in College Park, Maryland, Inspiring Children Foundation in Las Vegas, New York Junior Tennis and Learning in South Bronx, and of course the Sloane Stephens Foundation here in Compton, California. What kind of impact do you see coming from being a part of so many great cities around the country?

Dave Mullins:

Do you mean the impact to the people serving or at the specific locations?

Bailey Arredondo:

Both.

Dave Mullins:

Both. Yeah, I mean, for those serving, again, what a weird year to be starting anything new, and so the experience that we thought they were going to have obviously looks different. They’re doing the things virtually as we’ve been discussing, rather than being out in these communities, out at schools, training volunteers, recruiting volunteers, teaching them how to teach tennis and do afterschool programs.

Dave Mullins:

But they’ve adapted, they’ve been doing things virtually, creating curriculums that they can do online to keep kids engaged in healthy activities and learning after their traditional school hours, which are also happening virtually. So they’re also helping with fundraising, grant writing, with social media, marketing, updating websites, things like that. So depending on the location, they’re asked to do a lot of different things. Like any non-profit, I mean, everybody’s stretched thin, everybody wears a number of hats. I think these 23, 24-year-olds are having a life-changing experience and will be well-prepared for what’s next to come.

Dave Mullins:

The goal of the AmeriCorps VISTA program is to help expand the capacity, build the organizational capacity of any organization these VISTAs are a member of. So if you think about say the Sloane Stephens Foundation, okay, they only have two or three full-time employees, but if you’re able to add one more person, it’s amazing, right, how much more can be tackled.

Dave Mullins:

So all these projects that the Sloane Stephens Foundation wanted to get to, needed to get to, but just didn’t have the human resources to do so, they’re able to now do that and free up some of their more experienced people to go tackle that big donor or that big grant or whatever it is. Then that filters down to being able to offer more programming, having more kids involved with their program and attempting to fight poverty through better educational outcomes for these kids.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now you deal a lot with coach education, and I’m curious on how those conversations go and what languages you use. What are you exactly educating them about?

Dave Mullins:

A whole host of things. I mean, one of the things I started with was just a podcast, because I started my coaching career as a 25-year-old and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I feel terrible for the kids I was coaching at the time. Anybody’s listening, I apologize, but I really learned from speaking with older more experienced coaches and just throwing questions at them, throwing scenarios at them. So I felt like with the podcast medium, why not have these conversations and share them with all these coaches that may not have access to some of our more experienced, more “successful,” I put that in air quotes, coaches.

Dave Mullins:

So we try and release one of those every couple weeks, and it depends on the background of the coach. It might be we focus on the X’s and O’s, player development, or it might be fundraising. It might be community engagement, it might be what did they do in their first three months when they took over a program? How did they manage their career? What is their coaching philosophy? Really, what I’m trying to do is pull out all the core competencies as to what it is to be a college coach and a successful one at that.

Dave Mullins:

So we started putting together a masterclass, which may turn into a college coach certification so that those interests in becoming college coaches could actually go through a certification program to hit the ground running when they get that job, as opposed to me flailing around not having a clue what to do. So we also started a mentorship program, so we match, again, experienced coaches with younger coaches coming through the system, and we put them through the Celia Slater’s True North Sports Coach Development Academy, we pay for that.

Dave Mullins:

We have an annual coaches convention that we do. We did that virtually this year, which was a big hit with our coaches, because it’s expensive to fly to a convention, so we’re able to capture a lot more of our membership and something we’ll look to do in the future again.

Dave Mullins:

So yeah, a lot going on, Bailey, but really what we’re trying to do is give coaches at least a start, especially new coaches, a starting point so they know what those first weeks, months, I guess, years on the job will look like and where they should be focusing some of their attention.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, I think it’s incredible, the versatility. We’ve talked about student-athletes, children, coaches, and I think you guys at the ITA really get it in terms of the impact tennis can have. Let’s end with this, Dave. Fast forward to the end of the year, December 31st, 2021 seems like a lifetime away, but what would make you and the ITA the happiest in accomplishing by the end of the year?

Dave Mullins:

Yeah, I think a big thing that we didn’t touch upon, Bailey, is just the current state of intercollegiate athletics as a whole, and maybe the fuel that COVID has poured on certain trends. We could say at the university level, that might just be virtual learning, right? It might be kids not coming to campus and paying for a dorm and food and the same tuition because they’re studying at home. What does that look like going forward? Then how does that trickle down to an athletic department?

Dave Mullins:

Decisions athletic departments are making, obviously, through this, we’ve seen that they are more than willing to double down on football and basketball and invest more money, and non-revenue sports have been suffering because of that. I mean, I think Iowa’s a great case study where you see them counseling I think four programs, men’s tennis being one of them, but giving pay raises to their assistant football coaches. So, that’s a trend that we’re obviously very concerned about.

Dave Mullins:

If you said what does success look like by the end of 2021? It’s that no more tennis programs have been canceled or eliminated, and we’ve actually added some programs and have a better understanding and a better outlook for non-revenue sports, not just tennis moving forward. And is there a new model? Is there something that the NCAA is willing to change or do to ensure the long-term viability of Olympic non-revenue sports for decades to come?

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, Dave, what you and the ITA were able to accomplish this year and really are set to embark on in 2021 are really remarkable and exciting for college tennis and really the nature of tennis in general in this country too. I think so many points that you brought up were important for our audience to understand. I want to make sure they check out tennisforamerica.com, because I do think that the application process is important. We’ll get you guys more involved with the outreach too of how many different states you guys have become a part of.

Bailey Arredondo:

Wherever you’re located, if you love tennis, that’s going to be a great opportunity for you to get involved, even if you’re not already a college athlete, like you said. It was great catching up. I appreciate you taking the time and we look forward to keeping in contact, Dave.

Dave Mullins:

Definitely, Bailey. Thanks so much again for having me on.

Transcript of the interview is

Bailey Arredondo:

All right. Okay, here we go. Hello everyone. And welcome back to Listen Up. And we have a very, very special and exciting episode today as we head to the baseball diamond for a little baseball talk and we are joined by one of West Fargo’s finest and now second baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks Mr. Andy Young. Andy, we appreciate you taking the time and let’s start right off with the North Dakota lifestyle and experience or would you rather be in North Dakota right now or are you okay being in Arizona?

Andy Young:

I love North Dakota but in February you can’t beat Arizona and especially if you’re playing some baseball, it’s a good spot for baseball too. So I’m pretty happy where I’m at.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah, I’m sure the Diamondbacks organizations would agree that it’s better to have you in Arizona. Let’s talk about the last few weeks and what’s that entailed for you leading up to the start of spring training? What are practices like? What can and can’t you guys do?

Andy Young:

So, today was our second day of official spring training so we’ve been a little more strict with COVID protocol. A lot of masks, a lot of testing, we get tested every two days. But I guess leading up to it, we still worked out at the complex but it was a little less official. At times we couldn’t go in the locker rooms but we could still use the outside facilities. And then we were only being tested once a week and it was voluntary. So, it’s a little more strict now that we’re in the protocol of the MLB but I mean it was great just to be able to get on the field prior to spring training too. So they did a good job of letting us on the field.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah. A nice return to normalcy is great for all athletes because I bet all you guys are just itching just to get out there and play. Take us back to the young Andy. I’m sure you liked to play other sports growing up but why baseball?

Andy Young:

I think my dad just played baseball. He loved baseball, it’s his favorite sport. I think my grandpa loved baseball so he just got a pass down. And I don’t know, we just played a lot outside in the summer and he was the coach of our little league team and we just rolled from there and it was just a passion of his and then it became a passion of mine. So it was passed down.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, I’m curious on what the baseball culture like was in North Dakota. Did you have to travel a lot to other cities for camps or bigger games? Who did you guys watch professionally growing up? I mean, what was the whole cultural mindset of baseball where you were in North Dakota?

Andy Young:

We did travel a lot. I mean my dad and Todd Rowe were our coaches since we’ve been 10 years old. They did a really good job of understanding that you can wait in the spring until the snow melts and you’ll just be behind or you can travel south and play. So we traveled to Omaha and Sioux City and then South Dakota. So we just traveled everywhere and it was nice to do those trips. I felt like it gave us just a little headstart on some of the northern kids and then it showed in high school, our high school class won a state championship and stuff like that so that was really cool. But yeah, you have to do a lot of work inside in the cold months, and then when spring rolls around in down south and you have to go south. And then as spring hits the north then you can move back there. So it is a lot of traveling but it’s fun, it’s fun to go to Omaha and match up with other teams too because you see where you stack up. So it was a lot of fun.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now who was your favorite team growing up?

Andy Young:

The Angels, the Los Angeles Angels. Yeah so Darren [inaudible 00:03:40] was a North Dakota kid and he went one, one in the draft and my dad actually coached him at Jamestown. So we would always come down to Tempe, Arizona, and watch the Angels play in spring training. And then I just liked the Angels growing up. I’d say a lot of the people up there are Twins fans but I was Angel’s fan.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah. I was thinking the Twins are the closest that you’re nearby. So, but you were the only Angels fan that you knew of?

Andy Young:

No I think there’s a big, North Dakota does such a good job of following their athletes that I think there was probably a lot of Angels fans. The whole city of Jamestown, there’s a billboard of them up. So I mean, I think that a lot of people listened to games. I know everyone in my family and our circle really liked watching them play for the Angels.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now let’s talk about your time coming out of high school and going to Neosho Community College. You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that that was one of your best player developmental experiences that you had but was there a moment that you felt like that might’ve been the farthest you’ll ever get it?

Andy Young:

I don’t know. I’ve never really felt like that. I just have tried to always stay at the level I’m at and thinking I want to compete with these guys and I think that I never thought too much ahead. I got there and I was like, “Hey, I want to play with the guys on the field and I think I can.” And then the next time, next year then you’re going to Indiana State and you’re going on recruiting trips and stuff like that and then you get there and you have the same mentality. So I never really thought I was going to be done and especially since I was going there for one year to try to go to a bigger school I hoped at least that I would go somewhere else. And then I was fortunate to go division one but I never really thought I’d be done as a sophomore in college.

Bailey Arredondo:

And then how did Indiana State change your baseball life?

Andy Young:

So I mean, it was just another level. So I went from an NAI to a division one junior college and then I went to a division one and it was a really good competition. We played Vanderbilt when they won the college world series, I hit against Walker Buehler. That competition was just different and then I was there for two years and we didn’t do as much stuff because the NCAA has so many regulations. In Juco you can just play all day. We practiced for like six hours a day so that was kind of crazy but a lot of fun. And then the NCAA, it was a little bit more refining skills and playing better teams and it was just different but they’re both really, really good for development.

Bailey Arredondo:

So, undrafted out of high school, played all three levels of college ball, NAIA, junior college division one before getting attention from the pro scouts. And then it took until your senior year where the Cardinals took you in the 37th round. Where were you when you found out and what was your reaction like?

Andy Young:

Oh man, I wasn’t even watching the draft actually. I got a call from my advisor who is basically an agent before you turn pro. So he called me and said, “Hey, we have a few teams talking to you. It’ll probably be a last day thing around 30 to 40.” I was kind of watching it but I was in Minnesota with some friends and we were just at a lake cabin and doing our thing. And then I got a call from I think St. Louis farm director and he was like, “Hey, we drafted you and you’re going to be in Jupiter, Florida here starting rookie ball in three days.” So I was like, “Oh man.”

Andy Young:

So I got in my truck and then obviously my dad called me immediately and he’s like, “Hey, you just got drafted” And my reaction, I was obviously very happy but it was also like, “Man, I’ve got to go find my glove.” I didn’t even know I was going to get drafted to be playing in professional baseball in four days in Florida and I’m in Minnesota on a boat. So, it was exciting but it was also like, “All right, let’s go get back to work.” And I remember I drove back to North Dakota and immediately after I got that call and I went to the cage with my dad and we were swinging trying to get back into it. So it was hectic but it was a lot of fun.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah I’m glad you found your glove because that was pretty important to get to that level. But what I’m curious on is was there a wow I’m in the majors moment? Has there been a pitch, a team experience, a personal experience where you’re looking at yourself or thinking in your mind, “Okay, this is it.”

Andy Young:

I don’t know. To be honest I don’t think I’ve really had one yet just because I’ve played against these guys coming up and as you’re coming up you get really familiar with these guys so you get to play against people that you watched which is really cool. Like playing with Madison Bumgarner last year he pitched in the world series when I was growing up I watched him throwing in San Francisco and now he’s sitting across from me. Stuff like that is so cool and I guess that is a moment like that but there’s another piece of your brain that’s like, “Hey, I’m trying to compete with these guys. I can’t be star struck if I’m trying to get ahead or I’m trying to play defense behind them and stuff like that.” So it’s both ways but I don’t feel overwhelmed by like star struck but it is definitely really cool to see those guys and share fields with them that’s for sure.

Bailey Arredondo:

Right now in 2018 you were involved in a trade that sent you to the Diamondbacks and sent Paul Goldschmidt to the Cardinals. What was your initial reaction to that and that you were heading to Arizona?

Andy Young:

This is another funny story. I was actually, I was hunting and my phone vibrated and it was in my pocket and it was vibrating and I was bow hunting and it was super cold outside. So I was like, “I’m not going to get it.” And then I just looked at it and I got a text too and it was like, “Hey, this is Mike Gersh GM of the Cardinals call me.” And at this time I think I was in maybe a little AA time so I was not that close to the big leagues. I mean, I went maybe high AA. So if you’re in that level you don’t talk to the GM very much if ever.

Andy Young:

So I was like, “Man, this is probably important.” I remember it was snowing and windy and I was a half-mile away from the truck. And I was like, “Man, I can’t talk to him here.” So I started walking back to the truck and I got there and I called him back and he’s like, “Hey, we appreciate everything you’ve done. You did a great job. We’re trading you to the Diamondbacks. I can’t tell you who for it’s going to go public in probably 20, 30 minutes.” And I was like, “Okay.

Andy Young:

And it was during the winter meetings so my agent was there and he was like, “Hey, you’ve been traded for a pretty notable player. I don’t know who it is yet but just get ready.” And so I’m just sitting there waiting for this to go public. And then it was Paul Goldsmith so obviously it exploded which was kind of cool because it was on ESPN. I was doing an interviews with [inaudible 00:10:38] Sirius XM radio and stuff like this. And so, I was hunting with my friend and he called me and I answered the phone I was like, “What’s up?” And he was sitting in the same tree row as me he was like, “Hey man, I just shot a buck.” And I was like, “You just shot a deer?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Oh my goodness.” So I’m driving my truck across a plowed field on the phone with MLB Sirius XM radio. My stuff is flying everywhere. Now I’m looking for this deer. It was just a, it was a fiasco but it was definitely memorable to say the least.

Bailey Arredondo:

Wow I was just about to say so lake cabin for when you got drafted and then hunting when you know you got traded. So you were probably pretty excited both times but also thinking, “Okay wait, this is happening right now.” And welcome to the pros, that’s how major league baseball works. This is a must know question and truly one of my favorite parts about baseball. What is your walkup song? How did you decide on it? Has it changed throughout the years?

Andy Young:

Yeah, it has. So man, I’ve had a few. I liked May We All by Florida George Line a few years ago. There’s a few parts in the song, so you only get 15 second so it’s not really how good the song is you have to pick the best part. So I really liked that. I walked up to… What else did I walk up to? Oh man, I can’t remember like Tumble by Kendrick Lamar. I’m all over the spectrum, everywhere, I’ll go country, I’ll go rap. If I’m not hitting well I’ll change my song so there’s a lot of them. But yeah I don’t think about it too much I just pick something. Riptide by Vance Joy. Man there’s so many of them that just during the streak you just like a song and you switch it and you’re like, “Man, I’m feeling this.” I don’t know, it’s fun.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah. It’s one of the fun parts about baseball is you get to express yourself a little and let the crowd hear hey this is what pumps me up and gets me ready for elite 15 seconds. That’s a tough amount of time to pick something.

Andy Young:

It’s a harder thing to pick than you’d think too.

Bailey Arredondo:

Yeah because people are going to know.

Andy Young:

So it’s like do you want to do something that you love or do you want to do something that you know the crowd will love? There’s a lot that goes into it.

Bailey Arredondo:

Right now I want to get into a little game that was played on August 9th of last year between the Padres and the Diamondbacks and something happened in the ninth ending. Do you know what happened that day?

Andy Young:

Is that the day I hit a home run?

Bailey Arredondo:

That is your first career home run.

Andy Young:

I remember that day.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, there’s a lot to breakdown there because I’ve got a lot of questions because I think it’s one of the craziest things I’ve heard about for a lot of reasons. The first part of the question is when it cracked off your bat did you know it was going to be a home run?

Andy Young:

When I hit them like that they normally are home runs but San Diego the air is so heavy with the ocean there that I didn’t really know. And with the first one, you’re definitely going to run out of the box but initially, I thought it was going to be if that makes sense.

Bailey Arredondo:

And the second part of the question, the home run landed at the feet of Padres relief pitcher Matt [inaudible 00:14:09] your former high school teammate. And I’m going to go out on a limb that there’s not a lot of North Dakota products in the majors. I mean, do you believe in a higher calling? Do you believe in spirituality? I mean, there’s no way that was a coincidence, right?

Andy Young:

It couldn’t have been and I think there’s only two. So it was me and Matt at the time and it fell at his feet and then after the game he… What was it? It was top nine and I think we lost. The game was over almost immediately after I hit that ball. And I was looking for it as the bullpen, our bullpen guys came in and they were like, “Hey, we don’t have it, whatever, whatever.” And they’re doing whatever and I went back to my locker I was like, “How did they lose that? It was in the bullpen.” I went back and then they were like, “Hey, come back on the field.” And it was kind of cool, Matt was standing out there with the ball and took some pictures and he said, “Good swing,” and I stopped and it was nice to nice to catch up with him. So he gave it to me in a pretty cool way so that was definitely memorable as well.

Bailey Arredondo:

And last part of that, where is the ball now?

Andy Young:

It’s in a case. So it’s preserved and it’s in my room and I’m just trying to figure out what I can do with it. I might throw the lineup card in there too and make something cool but I haven’t done it yet.

Bailey Arredondo:

Nice. That’s something that can’t be replicated. That’s one of one. So better keep that under a tight security.

Andy Young:

Yeah, seriously.

Bailey Arredondo:

Now, what are you most excited for about this season? I’m curious on are there any areas of your game you’re trying to focus on? What are your expectations for 2021?

Andy Young:

I’m just trying to be a bigger piece of the Diamondbacks. I think every year you make strides to leave a good impression and become a bigger role. Last year I hit against left-handed hitting, I’d come off the bench. There would be times where I sat on the bench lot. I go up and down between AAA and the big league. So I think that you just continue to try to increase your role until you are at the next step, then the next step. So I’d love to be a contributor on the team, I’d like to start on the team. So those are the things that you think about and those are the goals going into the year.

Bailey Arredondo:

Let’s end with this Andy, from 2015 to 2020 a five-year span, you were at Indiana State then you were on different AAA, AA teams for the Cardinals, then you get traded to the Diamondbacks and now you’re gearing up for spring training. What message would you have to any young baseball player, maybe in West Fargo, maybe didn’t get that division one scholarship right off the bat coming out of high school or even get drafted out of high school as many baseball players do, what message would you have to them to inspire them to play in the MLB?

Andy Young:

I’d tell them it goes fast. I mean I feel like Neosho County and Jamestown was not that long ago. So first of all, I’d tell them it goes fast and secondly I’d tell them to just don’t look at going from high school to MLB, I’d say pick your next level and compete there. Don’t look at the whole thing, go to a junior college or go to whatever school wants you. I didn’t have any division one offers. I just went to a junior college and I said, “Hey, I want to play at a higher level than this.” I didn’t know where it was, I didn’t know what state, what level, but I just knew that I wanted to play more. So with that mentality it’s pretty easy because it’s a bunch of one-year contracts. “So man, I’m going to play well this year and then maybe I’ll get to play somewhere else.”

Andy Young:

And then Indiana State, I was thinking the same thing, “I just want to compete with these guys right here.” And the MLB or the professional baseball never really crossed my mind. I knew I wanted to but in the years I was there it was just a, “I want to be here on this team this year in this moment and succeed with these guys.” And when you think like that I think it’s easier to succeed but when you’re in North Dakota and you think, “Man, how do I get to the MLB,” that’s a long ways. But if you break it down year by year it’s a lot easier and now that Strom did it and I did it there’s a little recipe there and I think that those kids can follow it.

Bailey Arredondo:

Well, it’s certainly a mindset and you’ve exemplified that. And Andy, your journey and story are nothing short of inspiring and I think the best part is that there’s still a lot to be written in the Andy Young baseball book. So good luck to you and the rest of the spring training and throughout the season and we really look forward to keeping up with your baseball career.

Andy Young:

Yeah. Thank you for having me.