An Army of Normal Folks - Shane Young: Inner-City Rugby (Pt 1)

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Shane is the co-founder of Memphis Inner-City Rugby, which has brought a sport that was pretty darn foreign to the inner-city to 2,400 students! 100% of them have been accepted into college or the military, 60 of them have played collegiate rugby, and they've helped their players receive more than $5 million in scholarships.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm saying all these words like reliable consistent authentic talented competent But what does it look like? Well, here's what it looks like at 3.30 afternoon at power center academy one the bell rings I'm busting through the lobby teachers coming away. You got to talk to you got to talk to this kid He did this and he's playing rugby. I know he was playing you got to talk to him about this Okay, where is he? I'm finding him boom this kids on the way out the school with this girlfriend But we got practice. Whoa, where are you going like we got practice? So I'm going him. Boom, this kid's on the way out the school with his girlfriend, but we got practice. Whoa, where are you going? Like we got practice, so I'm going to McDonald's. No, no, no, you're not going to McDonald's. It is just like a a battlefield for like 20 minutes after school just to get kids to show up. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father.

I'm an entrepreneur and I've been a football. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've been a football coach and intercity Memphis in the last part. It unintentionally led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather

an army of normal folks us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Shane Young, the voice we just heard is done. Shane is the co-founder of Memphis, inner city rugby, which brought a sport that was really foreign to the inner city to 24 hundred students with a hundred percent of those students be accepted into college or the military. Sixty of these students have played collegiate rugby and they help their players get more than a million dollars in scholarships. I can't wait for you to meet Shane right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Choose Business, not boring, with programs ranging from fashion to finance,

culinary to commerce, or golf to global business. Apply now at Humber.ca slash business. A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is 1800, a city hall, New York. The first murder trial in the American Judicial System. A man-sense trial for the charge of murder. Even with defense lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case,

this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden violent brutal death, I hope you'll think of me, starring Allison Williams. I don't need anything simplified, Mr. Hamilton, thank you. With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton, don't be so sad, that front. It doesn't suit you. Written and created by me, Alison Flock.

Why are you doing that goal, I'm crazy. Listen to E-Raced, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl. Until she met that man right there. On the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Apple Murder! Hey there podcast fans, Michael Lewis here,

host of the Pushkin Show, Against the Rules. I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing, called Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Backman Freed. SBF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came a part of the seams. And now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate.

Judging Sam is the place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October the 2nd. Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Beckman-Freeze, in the Against the Rules Feed on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I gotta tell you, I am excited today. We've got a guy who if you looked at him, you might think was on a surfboard in L.A. somewhere and I've met him before. I know his heart and I haven't even spent some time just on the side chatting about some amazing things this guy's accomplished and I think you guys are going to be absolutely floored by Shane Young. How you doing, buddy?

I was honored to be here, Bill, and thanks for the intro. Super honours to sit down with you. Well, that's humbling and thanks. Dude, which come from? I mean, you're here in Memphis, but where'd you come from? Well, I was just thinking because you said to surfboard, which is what the kids say about me right now. They say, you know, you're here in Memphis, but where'd you come from? Well, I was just thinking, because you said to surfboard, which is what the kids say about me right now. They say, you know, you're like, look like a surfer, because this long hair, my family, which I'll get into, is from New Jersey. They haven't seen me about six months,

so they don't know I look like this. The kids, after the summer, were surprised to see me like this. And so I'm getting that a lot right now, also getting edgier in a lot for those years. Well, you're pulling off ginger strong. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No problem. The mustache is even bread. It works. I mean, you got a, yeah. And listen, a fat red edit dude, a free shake. A good looking ginger like you. I mean, you

keep it. You keep, you keep us validated out there in public. Man, what an honor. I really appreciate it. And it's all coming to an end, unfortunately, this weekend, because I have to go officiate a wedding where I can't quite look so much like this, I guess, but yeah. So that a lot of people will be happy about that. But I grew up in New Jersey, like I mentioned, and my parents and my brother, that's my family,

I have one sibling and older brother, two years older than me named Ryan, my mom and dad brother, that's my family, I have one sibling, an older brother, two years older than the minion Ryan, my mom and dad, Steve and Donna. They all live down in Southwest Florida now in the Naples Fort Myers area, which is where we all moved together when I was in high school, ended up doing the rest of high school in college in Southwest Florida at Florida. So you did do the beach thing, kind of. I guess I did. I guess I did.

Now is the west coast, you know, Gulf of Mexico side. So, you know, there are no waves over there. It's like a big pond. But I went to Florida Gulf Coast University and then graduated when I was 21 or 22 years old there and moved straight to Memphis with TFA. So that's kind of my. So tell me about what your, what's your mom and dad do for a living or how home makers are work? What tell me about what it was like growing up in the young household? Wow. My parents are great parents, man.

My mom, you know, she's done a lot of different things from social work to I think she worked in a VA growing up, you know, but then she did get to, you know, raise my brother and I at home growing up while my dad was just being a maniac. Um, all over the place, you know, I'd say that in the most endearing way possible because he was a couple years before I was born, he was the mayor of Mind Hill, New Jersey. Of where? Mind Hill, New Jersey.

Population. Not big, not big. Small town in Northern New Jersey. I don't know the population, but, you know, but he was the mayor and it's amazing. The stories he can show me and even the newspaper clippings that we can see. There was like some controversy around his mayoral

candidacy and in compensate, evenippings that we can see, there was like some controversy around his mayoral candidacy and in compensate even though he was a small town, but it was quite a time there in the late 80s. You know, after being a mayor, he got into the insurance business and did that for a lot of the 90s, you know, and then in the mid and early 2000s, he was always an entrepreneur, the serial entrepreneur.

He was doing whatever. I mean, he was in insurance and then he got into some real estate and he was we opened up We moved to Florida. We opened up a restaurant my mom my brother and I we all worked at a diner went out of business And not everything worked right so my dad has been you know You can call him Dow Jones because he's been up and down in his entrepreneurial journey his whole you would love to meet him Bill because your story and so you know That's that's been his career. And he was also a rugby coach, you know, and when we moved to Florida, my brother and I were like teenagers in the middle of high school, a lot of friends and we were

playing rugby and then we got uprooted to Florida and we were like pissed at our dad, you know, because he pulled us down there and we can get it all the reasons why if you want. But he, you know, what we were trying to hold everything against him, like, you know, these kids in Florida are so stupid that, and like, you know, and like we're just like, and there's no rugby down here. You took away our favorite sport. I feel terrible, right? Because he was just being a good dad, like, doing what he had to do, and then we're giving him hell. But so what did he do? Starts a high school rugby team at our high school. And we all built and we all built it together. And so I got all this experience building an organization, a small one at high school rugby team, because my dad was like, yeah, say no

more. Did you go up playing rugby and yeah, exactly. And then we moved to Florida. And there was no youth rugby. It wasn't like, you know, it's it's a Euro centric. It's not it's not popular here in America. So don't find it everywhere. How did your dad coach rugby? Did he play when he was younger? He played in New Jersey, the Morris Lions old school. He was playing in the 70s and 80s. Back when I was super well. Nobody was playing rugby at the United States.

He was a rugby pioneer. Yeah. So yeah, he played. He really is an entrepreneur in sports and politics. And so tell me about the diner. That's it. Was that in Florida? Yeah, that was in Florida. I mean, I'm envisioning like Alice and Mel in the back

and kiss my grits and all that. Is that what we're talking about? It's it's it's not even funnier than that. I mean, it's called Park Place diner. And we opened it up being from New Jersey, you know, we loved a diner like that's Like, that's a northeast thing. Exactly. Not so much in Florida.

Like, give me the bagel, give me the breakfast at dinner, like, you know, the diner. And so we opened a park place diner with that, you know, in mind, and, you know, it was in this plaza, you know, next to a grocery store, in my brother and I, and all of our rugby teammates, the teenagers that we were recruiting and training and rugby and that we were playing.

We were the servers. We were the we were the busseries. And and we were often the kitchen staff. And I'll tell you, you know, my parents only now have started to learn this. Man, we'd come in for those Sunday, you know, Sunday after church, breakfast crowd. That's the diner's busiest day. Me and my buddies in high school were not up to all good stuff and we'd come in like, you know, like we had Saturday night a lot of fun, you know, together after our rugby games, you know, underage and everything, so not proud of that necessarily. We'd come to the diner the next day and we'd deliver, you know, we would do a good job, but my goodness, we were, we were not feeling good those days. But the diner, you know, it was it was a it was in a weird plaza. I didn't get a

lot of business. Turned out the guy we hired to manage it started, you know, it was, it was a, it was in a weird plaza. It didn't get a lot of business. Turned out the guy we hired to manage it started, you know, stealing some cash and booze a little embezzlement here and there. The food industry is brutal. And so this thing was closed after a year and a half, I think it was. And it costed my dad, you know, a good amount of money to get into that industry. And so that's one of those, you know, I talked about Dow Jones. He was up and down.

That was one of the downs, you know. That was one of the downs. Yeah. That was one of the downs. So, um, fair to say that there were good years and bad years, but you didn't grow up to silver spoon in your mouth. If you're working in a diner, I mean, your parents are middle upper middle class folks that are raising two kids. And that's how you grew up. It's funny. And, and my family's going to listen to this. And we're going gonna have a fun conversation and reflection of what they're gonna hear me say right now

because yeah, we're a middle class family for sure. Now, when I grew up in New Jersey, I had this little complex because as a kid, some of the kids I was friends with would say, that was a rich kid. And that is because my dad crushed it in the endurance industry after he was the mayor of Mind Hill and bought

a big house in cash and we lived in a nice area. Now, when I talk about the Dow Jones, that was a major up. And then there was a lot of years where sitting on that, leveraging that, not everything was like cash flow. And so, and so one time we got the Florida, we felt very middle class. And I had pretty much shaken that rich kid complex by then. And I think our life is middle class people. We're in army of normal folks at the young residents. Got it. So you, I guess Florida grows on you because you go to college there. Yeah. Yeah. And what, where, what was it called? Florida

Gulf Coast University for my Florida? I've seen that. By the way, isn't there a, like a resort area south of Fort Myers about 45 minutes? Well, that's that's Naples, Florida, right? And so that's one that there's even like an I Marco Island. Marco Island. Yeah, I got to tell you a quick story about where you're where I know a lot about Marco, yeah. Well, I almost don't know nothing about it, except it's nice. But I flew, Lisa and I flew to Fort Myers, Renekar, drove to Reneta, fortunately, while they had was a suburban. Right. So we're in, drove a suburban down, and the reason we were there is I did a speech, I had

a keynote for Firestone. And we, I had to show show up part of the contract was I showed up a day early. So I was there the day early. And the week before they were talking about this weird sickness people were getting in New York City. And by the time we flew to Fort Myers, drove to what's that island called? Mark O'Connor. Mark O'Connor did my speech. After the speech was over, it was a dinner speech,

went back to our room, and at 9.30 is when the world changed. Did you talk about like April 20th, 2020? Exactly when it was. And Lisa and I looked at each other and we were to fly out the next day on Delta. And it went from in a couple of week period from when we left a few people in New York

getting this weird illness, they couldn't figure out to a full-blown pandemic. And everybody was sick and I had friends and Memphis sick and everything else. And Lisa and I said, I don't, we didn't know. Nobody knew back then, right? So I didn't, I just said I'm not flying, I'm not getting on the Delta plane going to Atlanta, running through that big airport with all those people on the back. We didn't know if you got this, it was a destiny. I mean, nobody knew for sure back then.

So I don't know how far of a drive it is from that island to Memphis. 16 hours. Okay. So it was a 21 hour drive for us because, as we're advancing, we're getting calls telling us that nobody has Lysaur toilet paper anymore. So from that island to Memphis, every single exit that I had a Walmart or a Target for a

dollar general, we stopped. By the time we got to Memphis, we had a suburban full of rented suburban that I had to turn back into Memphis, changed all that. Lysol toilet paper and bottled water loaded to the hilt. This is pre-masked too. Yeah, right? You're not bringing back masks, so that wasn't a thing yet. Oh, that's right, all of it.

And then, in shortly after, like a few days after when everybody was talking about these toilet paper orders being the squards of the earth, and the Lysol holders being awful, and I felt bad. So then I brought most of that stuff to the office and gave it away to my employees. Nice. That, but that's my Fort Myers experience. I've been there for a day and a half and drove back. Well, you can have a, you can make a sub podcast where you just have people on for one minute, give me your one minute. Where were you when you knew the world changed, right?

That's it. Wouldn't that be a funny one? Yeah, it's true. It's people's little sound bites on. I was at a restaurant and I got a phone. I saw the NBA game get checked. You know, whatever it was. I was, I was in your old hometown for high school.

So you got a college. Are you going there? What's your degree in? What are you doing? Well, so barely got into college. I was a terrible student, right? When I told you about my Saturday night behavior, that kind of tracked my like achievement in college

in high school, like 2.8 GPA, so bad at math. Good writing, but writing didn't count on the, on the AC, whatever it was, ACTSAT back then. And so I got punished for my math, but I didn't get rewarded for my writing. It didn't count for this admission process. So my brother goes to Florida State in Tallahassee. Pretty tough to get into some of these bigger Florida schools,

especially UF Florida is like an Ivy League in terms of like admissions, like standards. It's crazy. It is. It's a lot like North Carolina. So I'm thinking I can't get into UF for sure, but I drive the Florida State six hours away and I'm going to the missions. I'm saying, Hey, I'm Shane. I know I don't have this in that, but I can be, you know, and it doesn't work. And I go,

I think if you had that haircut, but I can be, you know, and it doesn't work. And I go to, I, it might, it's like, I go to FAU, USF, UCF. I'm talking about Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, just trying to get into a school in Florida, because that's the whole reason we moved down there was the Florida Bright Future Scholarship. You know, it's like a low hanging fruit opportunity for students to get state fun, you know, you know, to get go to school affordably. That's why we went. And I didn't get in anywhere.

And I even got denied by Florida golf Coast, which had the lowest standards. So I was like, it was my nightmare because of social pressure that I was going to tell my friends I was going to community college. But that was what I was facing until I wrote an appeal letter to Florida Gulf Coast University and basically played my case and wow, it worked. So I got into the lowest standard state university in Florida. I went there and then I majored in political science because you know, the take math too much when you do that. And did you was rugby going on then? No.

So I played three years for the Naples hammerheads, a men's team. I was like the young guy on the team. It's a little bit of an older demographic. By the time I was a senior at the college, I had recruited enough of my buddies to go play for the men's team that we had enough to make our own college team. So I started the Florida Gulf Coast University men's rugby team. My senior year played and coached and captain and admitted administered the whole operation for one year before I moved to Memphis.

You graduate and decide you're going to be a teacher? Is that the plan? Well, so in the in the my last semester of college that spring I was looking at the military honestly, and you know that actually made my, made my folks like, oh man, you know, like they didn't love that, you know, but I was just looking to, I was looking to serve and I was looking to use my degree. Like I spent four years getting a degree. I barely got into college. I wanted my next thing to require a degree.

I didn't really care what it was. I had served tables my whole high school. Yeah, you weren't open in another diner. No, and I, and I, about even after the diner, I worked at restaurants my whole life. And I was like ready to do something that required a degree. I had done all these other jobs for so long,

bartending golf course, greenhouse, farming, restaurant, whatever. Sounds like you got some of your dad in you, Shane. Yeah, because I was doing everything. And I wasn't a broke college kid because I worked three jobs during college, so I was busy all the time. But anyway, I wanted to serve, I wanted to use my degree, so I was piling to the, I was doing military recruitment,

maybe I can come in as an officer, and then I started looking at Peace Corps, like international service assignments, and then I got turned on to Teach for America. And in my mind, I was like, oh man, we have so many issues in America. Why would I outsource myself to Namibia with a Peace Corps to go build a well

where surely that's an awesome service to do and those people need that and that service is valid. But I was like, what if I just stay in the States and try to invest and serve here? I thought Teach for America was a really cool way to do that. So I don't know how I do for those who don't know all about Teach of America. Or maybe heard of it or not heard at all. Teach for America is a bunch of young college grads going into typically inner city situations or underserved schools, than city urban or suburban or

rule or whatever and they're giving two or three years of their first professional lives out of college to teach and and and there's a community of these young people all over the place doing that now Some do their two or three years and move on to what they're agreed to do or go to graduate school and become accounts, whatever. Some end up saying, this is for me and stay as a teacher.

What I don't know is, do you choose where you go or does teach for America assign you a city? Oh, oh, in terms of the city. Um, it's changed since I applied. I don't know exactly how it is now. I know it's different. I'm trying to find you a city. Oh, oh, in terms of the city, it's changed since I applied. I don't know exactly how it is now. I know it's different, so I'll just give you what I do know,

which is how it was when I applied, which is that when you apply, you rank their cities, not all of them. You pick like a top five, and I would like to go to these five if possible, and then you pick like two that you wouldn't go to if you were accepted. And this is a funny story. I've told a lot of people. So some of the listeners

that are here because they know me will will will know that I picked Memphis because I was just in my college dorm of you know applying late at night. And I I looked at Memphis Tennessee and I thought Tennessee mountains. Oh, I love mountains. I don't I don't get I don't get mountains to other into the state. Bro. I know. We're the Delta. I know. I'm an East Coast kid and like I just didn't know better. And I had been to like Dollywood growing up on like a vacation. So I'm like thinking about Knoxville, thinking about, I think about mountains.

And I wanted mountains and, um, so I got sat down on the mud. So I put them on this. And that's all I got. That's funny because you know, I, I, I'll show up with white shirts on in black ties because that almost sounds like you're doing the Mormon thing where they, where they, you get, you get told where you're going and you roll. Yeah, pretty much.

And I actually, I need to, I need to interrupt your flow of questions for a second because I was telling somebody I was, there's no flow. No flow. Okay, well, this up as always, too. Well, my, I'm not gonna, there's no flow. No flow, I'm making this up as a joke, always do. Well, I'm turning a question back around to you because didn't you,

when we were coming into the city as transplants, like I got set up to have dinner with Joe Birch, it was like, you know, from the, from the church. Yeah, I love him. And it was just, you know, us like 22, 23 year old just coming into the city. It was like Teach for America's attempt

to engage us in local people. I think, and somebody told me that you sat down with a little cohort of Teach for America people, circle 11 years ago maybe. Yeah, I did. Yeah, okay, so you sat down with Andrea Wensitz, who is now the co-executive director of Memphis, Intercity Rugby,

and was a 2012 Teach for America member with me and my co-founder. Are you kidding? Yeah, yeah. was a 2012 teacher, America member with me and my co-founder. Are you kidding? Yeah, yeah. And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors, but first, given a shout out to my boy Badger.

Badger is a member of the army who emailed me and recommended that we set up a telephone number where you can leave voicemails with feedback about our movement and podcast. We've gotten a ton of emails and we really appreciate them, but some people have hard time when they're driving around or when they're engaged in something and they want to leave a quick voicemail about the feedback about our movement and our podcast, how an episode touched or inspired you or take action or even story ideas. Pretty much quick voicemail about the feedback about our movement and our podcast, how an episode touched or inspired you or take action or even story ideas.

Pretty much anything else, as long as it's not weird or creepy. So we thought it was an awesome idea. So Badger, this is for you and anyone else who wants to reach out to us through phone, rather than email. The telephone number is 901-352-1366. Call us, leave a voice smell about your ideas, leave a voice smell about anything as it pertains to the army, and we will get it, and we will respond. We'll be right back. Choose business, not boring, with programs ranging from fashion to finance, culinary to commerce,

or golf to global business. We deliver business education at its best, with authentic work integrated learning experiences that launch future entrepreneurs, business leaders, and global citizens. Come to Open House on November 18th and see everything we have to offer. Apply now at humber.ca slash business. A brand new historical true crime podcast.

The year is 1800, a city hall, New York. The first murder trial in the American Judicial System. A man-sense trial for the charge of murder. Even with defense lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case, this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden, violent, brutal death, I hope you'll think of me. Starring Allison Williams. I don't need anything simplified, Mr. Hamilton, thank you.

With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton, written and created by me, Allison Block. Listen to E. Rast, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl until she met that man right there. On the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Happy Murder! Hey there podcast fans, Michael Lewis here, host of the Pushkin Show against the Rules. I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing called Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Free.

SPF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came a part of the seams, and now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October 2. Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Freeze, in the Against the Rules' Feed on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We now return to me asking Shane, where he taught in Memphis. to me asking Shane where he taught in Memphis. Goodly elementary now known as Parkway Village Elementary. I was teaching third grade ESL. Third grade what ESL English as a second language. What is that mean? It means I was teaching basic English, but to all Mexican Guatemalan and Honduran students, you know, mostly the are you bilingual?

No, no, in goodness name, does that work? I had a pretty strong background in Spanish, just from the academic side, but I also, I worked in a lot of restaurants, speaking a lot of, you know, Spanish with people, I, you know, dated a Colombian girl for like five years and with her family a lot. So I had enough of a background to make it work. And boy, after teaching for three years in that community and becoming really engaged in that Latino community and that pocket of Hickory Hill, you know, Southeast Memphis, I was almost fluent by the end of it. What's the demographics of an area like that?

Well, it's interesting pockets of demographics. And because as we know, Memphis, the Latin population isn't huge. It doesn't compare, compare of course to the black and white population, but there are pockets where it's like super concentrated, and that's one of them in Hickory Hill. That's why if you go over there, I think it's similar on summer avenue people say, oh, there's amazing Mexican restaurants all now summer avenue.

Yeah, no, but exactly, and that's what Kingsbury is actually where we started the first Memphis Intercity Webby program, had a heavy Latin population, and that's where you see a lot of that over there, and similar in Hickory Hill. And so I think the school was like 40, 60, you know, African-American and Latin. How many white folks?

I think there were maybe only one or two in the whole school. Asians? About one or two. Maybe, maybe zero Asians actually. And that in that school. It was, that's the demographics. And I would say lower middle income. Definitely. Yeah. And that's, teach for America, they won't send you to white station. They can't, like, that's against their policies. Like what white station being a more fluent area. You're there to serve, right? You're there to serve, meaning you're going into lower income, right? So So you're struggling schools below. But you know that going in.

Absolutely. And you're excited about that because it's an opportunity to serve. Yeah. So how long do you teach and teach for America before you side? I want to start teaching some of these people rugby. Like negative one week because because during institute, I had met Devano Bryan, who's the co-founder of Memphis Intercity Rugby, and I only met him on a Facebook page where it's a little group where teach for America people were starting to coordinate and say,

who's living in midter, who's living here? Can we give you roommates? You guys are looking for roommates and friends and something or something. And trying to orient with like, people are getting hired at schools and others like didn't get hired yet. I haven't even interviewed anywhere yet. You got hired already here at a charter school. What's a charter school versus, you know, Memphis City Schools. It was all that chaos on these groups. And I saw that his profile picture was a rugby team. And I message him and just said, Oh, man, I see you play rugby like we should toss the ball around and me and Devon go back to that thread and screenshots of it periodically just to go, man, I see you play rugby. Like we should toss the ball around and me and Devon go back to that thread and screenshots

of it periodically just to go, wow, like look at what we did after just a little bit of a messaging of each other. So we decided really quickly to start a high school boys rugby team at the school. He got placed that, which was Kingsbury high school. Okay. So for those, or listening, Kingsbury high school is the school has been a Memphis school for years and years and years and years.

And I would say in the 60s, it was middle income, blue collar, heavily white school that then transitioned during busing into a very diverse school that was probably 50, 50 black and white, no Hispanics. And then over the course of time, it became a really heavily black school. And then that neighborhood started morphing into a really heavy Latino community. And now the school is, I don't know, 1%,

but very heavy Latino, isn't it? Very heavy. It's probably something similar to what like my good elementary was. Even though it's other sides of town, it's similar makeup. So 60% Hispanic, 40% black? Or the opposite. I'm honestly not sure. Somewhere in there, but yeah. But that's it. And that is one of the areas of the city that have been particularly hit hard financially. And there's poverty and there's disenfranchisement.

And all you have to do is drop up down the streets of the neighborhoods around King Sparrow. And frankly, the larger avenues around King Sparrow where you see all the major retailers have moved out and have been replaced by either nothing or, you know, tire stores or whatever. I mean, is that right? Yeah, yeah, and especially back then, you know, 11 years ago now, there was not much in that community. And I think since then, it's amazing. They've made a great investment in like Geisman Park, which is like a big central kind of trademark area of nut bush. And I think that's made a big difference.

But we used to practice at Geisman Park before any of that happened. And yeah, there was, you know, tough neighborhood. Tough neighborhood. So you're gonna start rugby in the inner city of Memphis, a town you know nobody that you just got to and is why? Why did we start that? Why did we? No, but not why did you start it when you and when you were talking about it, I mean, what was the purpose in starting a rugby team in the inner city? Why would you, I, I, listen, I get, okay, I'm gonna go coach baseball.

I'm gonna coach basketball. I'm gonna coach football. I'm gonna coach something that people know or soccer, that people know exist. Yeah. But when you're saying coaching rugby, you're also basically saying, I'm going to teach an entire community basketball. They probably never have seen of.

And this football that you guys use is like overweight. Yep, yep. So a couple of things. As we're transitioning into Memphis and learning about the city and learning about the economics and the lack of resources and different things like that, we're getting fired up to go make a difference. And that's part of the design of you know getting a bunch of young people

You know in to teach for America you're trying to educate them make them part of the mission You know make make a bunch make an army of mission aligned people to go make a difference in these schools And so I'm learning all these things and I'm getting mad. I'm getting mad at poverty You know, I'm starting to get mad that children don't have a choice whether they're born in the poverty or not and I'm noticing I'm noticing things about my own life I'm starting to learn a lot as a young man and I'm picturing myself in England at age 19 playing for the USA under 19 rugby team You know, I was I was a pretty good player But when we went over there we got beat a hundred to zero against

Did you really not against England against leads Academy against Lester Academy, you know, teams that are good in England, but those kids are and on their national team. They're hoping to get there. We were all on our national team and you all get. I'm going to be 100 100 100 zero. And most of those kids on the team looked like me white kids who had enough access proximity, funding, opportunity, relationships, network to get to the rugby camp, to get noticed by Sean O'Leary, to get noticed by Paul.

I'm name dropping old USA rugby coaches now, you know, helped me get there, and I'm grateful. But we got to be 100 to zero. And so I'm recognizing and reflecting on my own history. I'm learning all these things about poverty and Memphis and I'm getting ready to go become an educator and I have all this experience now coaching remember we found it our own high school team. I found it in my own college team now. Your dad started a team at high school. My dad is serial entrepreneur and a great leader and I've grown up with all that and now I'm coming in and I'm like I know how to start a rugby team and boy would it be awesome to teach our kids who have such little opportunity, a new game,

and go kick out of some of these other rugby teams, which the only other rugby teams within a thousand miles of Memphis are usually, you know, the opposite demographic. From a Flue and Eris. White, private schools, you know, kids who are paying the play with two Mary parents coming to the game with food and drinks for the coach. What do you need?

Can I get anybody around home? All the resources you know you could ever ask for. I'm like, what if we could do it from the bottom up with our kids, love on them, surround them with resources, great coaching, inspire them. They're gonna love this game. I already know that.

Once they get good at it, boy, we have some opportunity. And I had little visions and dreams of like, what was possible for the like, you know, macro impact and where we've gotten to now. But it was more so about, I'm just, can we do it? I only thought I'd be here two years, you know, because that's how the Teach for America program is designed. So, to assume you have a sign-up meeting with parents and everything.

Not even. We just asked the principal of Kingsbury, hey, you know, uh, it's just funny because we were so young. It was like a skinny old Devano Bryan who graduated from an elite Northeastern to school and he's down here, you know, he tells, he tells a hilarious story about how his job on day one at Kingsbury was to kind of, you know, um, tell kids to, you know, tuck in their shirt and like be the uniform standard person on their way into the school. And he's like 160 pounds straight out of college, like white guy from New York.

And he just tells a funny story about that. So even going to the principal's office, you know, as Devon, it's like, hey, I work here. I'm wondering if we can put a rugby announcement on the afternoon announcements, if I can hang these flyers up, but if we can host the interest meeting in my classroom for kids after school.

So it wasn't parents at first, it was just kids, you know, seeing who would come and you know, sign up. Yeah. And it just kids, you know, seeing who would come and, you know, sign up. Yeah. And it was like, you know, 25 kids, I think, showed up. And we put on a rugby video, we tried to get him excited about practice. I think we already had it scheduled.

We said, hey, guysman park, next week, we're gonna meet in the lobby. We're gonna be walking across Macon Road to guysman park, bring your cleats, bring you this. And then we learn really fast, falling backwards and all these services we provide. Now, of course nobody's got cleats. How does the kids say, bring your cleats, bring your this, and then we learn really fast, falling backwards in all these services we provide now. Of course nobody's got cleats. How does it say bring your cleats? Right, right. So cleats. We were learning about our own privilege and all these things like along the way. We'll be right back.

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Until she met that man right there. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Happy murder! Yes, yes, the Street Stoic podcast is back. One of the posts that came to mind here is from Drake. The lyrics that came up for me was from Beyonce.

I pulled a quote from just one of my favorite artists in general, Kid Cudi. We are combining hip hop lyrics and quotes from some of the greatest, to ever grace a microphone in it. He says, cause it's just waves. Gotta just float, float, and have faith. It's just waves.

It's the line that we've all heard before for Lauren Hill. And she says, don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem. Along with ancient wisdom from some of the greatest philosophers of all time. Xenica, right? And he says, your mind will take shape of what you frequently hold in thought. For the human spirit is colored by such impression. A stone quote from Epicetus, where he says, don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would,

but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will. Then your life will flow well. And let's say I know we all could use a daily shot of inspiration, so this is the podcast for you. Listen to season two of the Street Stoke podcast as part of the Michael Buddha podcast network on the IHR radio app Apple podcast or the ambient your podcasts. And so what does the first rugby practice look like in this area? I'm, you know, I'm envisioning the reverse of that show about the guy went to coach soccer

in England. What does that thing call Alex? Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso it, Alex? Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. I'm thinking Ted Lasso would reverse. I mean, just a complete disaster, Franklin. I mean, well, Devon and I were, we were good. We were good at what we were doing.

You know, Devon was a great leader and he, and he would, we immediately instituted like, you know, things about study hall before practice and we're gonna be checking your grades and you gotta be doing this. That was already ingrained in like what we thought was important and Devon was so good at holding that standards you know, things about study hall before practice and we're going to be checking your grades and you got to be doing this. That was already ingrained in like what we thought was important and Devin was so good at holding that standards.

And he was the one in the school. Remember, I had to speed across town. What's the problem? Yeah, because you're in elementary school. Right. So I'm speeding across town every day after school to get there to support Devin being the classroom, welcome to guysmen, be at practice. And I'm like a really experienced rugby coach.

I'm good. Like I don't, it's not really awkward. It's not clunky to get started. Like I'm working them and Devon's really good on the other end of it, you know, and a good rugby coach and he had experience playing in college too. So no, it wasn't as, it was just funny the way, you know, we were trying to imagine the dude look at the ball the first time. Oh, well, yeah, you would love it because you know, you're a football, you know, coach

and a player in rugby, you can't block. In fact, if you have the ball, I need to go get behind you so that I'm an option for you to pass it to. So I can't block for you because a, I need to be behind you to catch the ball and be it's against the rules. And that's the first thing the Kingsbury kids wanted to do is like, someone's got the rock. I'm running out to crack to crack block. So that kind of stuff you would see and it's just funny, you know, and they can't believe it's no pads. You know, I can hear me and the parents can't believe it's no bad because it's such a, it's a ball culture. They have no idea what this is. You know, well, I would imagine that it first parents were like, I don't

know about this. I interviewed a guy named R. Shayur. Yes. And from West Side Chicago, who was on the first all black row team and since it started all these all black row teams and it's an amazing story. Listen to the podcast. Yeah. We're not going to redo the Arsha Kupur podcast here. But one of the things that he said is that first day of signups was a disaster.

The second day of signups, they got people to come listen because they gave away free pizza. But amongst the students, unbeknownst to the coaches, they were all talking about, this is a white sport. There's something black people don't do. What are we doing with this? And I wondered if you had to bridge some social thoughts about rugby. 100% and it was funny because the first group we got out for that first week or two. By the way, I need to be careful with what I just said. I don't think

there's any such thing as a racial sport of any kind. I mean, I guess ping pong is supposed to be an Asian sport, but I love ping pong, and I guess rowing is dominated by white people, so they call it a white sport, but it low and behold, when black people get involved, they can do pretty well at it. And, you know, I guess what I'm saying is I'm repeating what was said, I personally recoil at the notion that anything is a white black Asian Latino sport, but unfortunately that's ingrained in societal preconceived notion. Well, and it's about access. Why don't you see a lot of people of color playing lacrosse?

Well, it's because lacrosse exists in elite communities where, you know, in colleges where you have to have a lot of money, you know how much cost to play youth LaCrosse? It's a lot of money. And so it is almost an institution that is exclusive to, you know, those are the resources. And so I think that, you know,

there's nothing wrong with naming that. I think that's totally true. And rugby's like that too, do a lesser degree, and we're trying to change that, you know, those are the resources. And so I think that, you know, there's nothing wrong with naming that. I think that's totally true. And rugby's like that too, to a lesser degree. And we're trying to change that, you know, at Memphis University, right? But I'm just saying, were the kids and parents kind of looking at you crooked a little bit?

Yeah, yeah, so, so, and that's what I was gonna say, like the first like 20 kids that came out, they were at that interest meeting at the first practice, second practice. We didn't have like, we were wondering if we'd get like some superstar athlete to come out, you know, because Kingsbury certainly had some of them on the soccer team, the football team, the basketball team.

There was some really, it's a big school, thousands of kids, lots of potential. And we didn't really get any big time athletes, so we were kind of, you know, working through practice slowly, building the skills, a lot of drop balls, things like that. And I didn't get too much of those comments, but a couple of weeks later, you know, Jakari and Chris Big Night show up and Anthony show up and they've played football. They've been in the weight room and they are the kind of athletes that can probably go D1 and something if they really apply themselves to it and pursued it all the way. And then we start cooking and that's when you start getting some of the comments like just

about, you know, they're asking about our background growing up and the teams they're going to play against if they're all white, you know, if we're going to be playing against other white teams. What other schools have this, you know, if we're going to be playing against other white teams, what other schools have this? You know, that's one thing they wanted. What other schools have this? And none of them did in our community. And so that that's why shortly after our first two months, uh, having the team at Kingsbury, I broke off from Devon and formed our first other team.

And that was that power center academy at charter school closer to where I was teaching. And then boom, now we had two boys teams that could play against each other. Have, did you ever hear the term church school? Yeah, yes. So when I was at Manassas, I heard that, and I think it's valuable to share. The church school term and vernacular

with our guests, we were my second year at Monassus. I was tired of playing what's called pay games where you go to a much much much bigger high resource school. They pay you $3,000 near their homecoming queen. And unfortunately, the Monassus I got to. That's the only way they could afford a little bit of equipment stuff they had. So we said, we're going to raise the money and we're going to start paying schools our own size and build up. And you know, six, seven years later, we were paying against the teams that used to pay us to come be beat and whooping on that butt. So yeah, beautiful. But you had to start somewhere and constantly,

I'm going to say this because this is what it was. The athletic department was pimping its football team out to get enough money to pay for uniforms and stuff. And the kids are not unaware. Definitely not. And what makes you think you're ever going to be the top notch, highly succeeding football team when the very school you play for is using you to make money. They know it, right? So we interrupted that by raising enough money and then leveling our schedule so we didn't

have those kind of games and eventually building back up and play those games again, but not for money, but to compete. But we had to start somewhere. So that second year and we scheduled games with some smaller private schools out and around the county I'm not gonna name any of them because I don't want to anybody's feelings and When the schedule came out some kids came to me and said Coach Bill, we're gonna play at these church schools and I said what? And they said you what? And they said, you know, the church school, St. this, St. that, first assembly, this,

this of God school. And it just struck me crazy that what I would call private or procual schools, the inner city kids called church schools. So I went to the principal that year who was a great guy, Joe Davis. I was there the first two years, and I told him about that. And he said, I guess it's time, and he and I had a lot of really good conversation.

He said, I guess it's time for me to give you a history lesson. And I'm like, yes, sir. And he said, you know what happened on April 4, 1968 in the town, right? I said, yes, sir, Martin Luther King was shot killed and assassinated here. He said, right. And he said, you know what happened after that, right? And I said, right? He said after that. I said, um, busing. He said, right. And he said, uh, which coincided with wife, flight. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, you need to go look up the charter dates of the vast majority of all of these schools. So I did. Yeah, yeah, 71, 72, yep. All the churches out in the suburbs started schools as safe harbor for their white students

from busing and black schools. Now that is an uncomfortable truth, but it is truth that the reality is the vast majority of these private schools were started by white churches in the suburbs, and as a result from the early 70s inside the black community, these schools are known as church schools. Ah, wow. That is super interesting. It is also super divisive. The one day in the United States that we should be the most

joint would be Sunday, and it is the most segregated day on the planet. Oh, absolutely, especially in Memphis. And it existed not only on Sundays, but every day as a result of, quote, church schools. Look up their charters, little shakies. Yeah. So when they said that church school thing I thought wow and and I don't know if they ever voiced it to you but I got to believe that when you started playing matches with these kids from power academy in Kingsbury they knew that they were going to play

church schools. 100% 100% they do that. We'll be right back. Choose business not boring with programs ranging from fashion to finance, culinary to commerce, or golf to global business. Apply now at Humber.ca slash business. A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is 1800, a city hall, New York. The first murder trial in the American Judicial System. A man-sense trial for the charge of murder. Even with defense lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case, this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden violent brutal death, I hope you'll think of me.

Starring Allison Williams. I don't need anything simplified, Mr. Hamilton, thank you. With Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton, written and created by me, Alison Flalk. Why are you doing that goal, I'm gonna be here! Listen to E-Raced, the murder of Elma Sands. She was a sweet, happy, virtuous girl. No! Until she met that man right there.

On the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm a murderer! video app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Happy murder! combining hip hop lyrics and quotes from some of the greatest to ever grace a microphone in it. He says, because it's just waves. Gotta just float, float, and have faith. It's just waves. It's the line that we've all heard before for Lauren Hill, and she says, don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem. Along with ancient wisdom from some of the greatest philosophers of all time. Xenica, right?

And he says, your mind will take shape of what you frequently hold in thought. For the human spirit is colored by such impression. A stone quote from Epicetus, where he says, don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will. Then your life will flow well. And let's say I know we all could use a daily shot of inspiration. So this is the podcast for you.

Listen to season two of the Street Stoke podcast as part of the Mike Bura podcast network on the IHR Radio app, Apple Podcasts or the ever you get your podcasts So first match you played who was it against oh gosh, um do you remember? It was against each other. I don't know first match outside of each other Oh, I think against Christian brothers high school. Holy smokes. Right. For people who don't know the Christian brothers is in the largest classification in the state of Tennessee. I think they have 2,500 students, 2,000 students, one-hub-set boys, multi-multi-multi-tens of millions of dollars facility and field and wait. It's as nice as it gets. And you could, it's one of the schools in Memphis, you could plop down in Texas and the facilities

and the kids there could compete on that level. It is an incredible, yeah, the campus. And you show up to, yeah, first. How'd that go? We got our butts kicked. Was it 100 or nothing? Something around there. I think more like 65 to 3 or something like that.

Well, they all performed your national team. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And this is where so much learning started because our kids were feeling out contact, tackling the rules, the referee. And so we're our parents. And you know, when our parents could make it to the game, they wanted to see our kids the referee. And so we're our parents. And you know, when

our parents could make, make it to the game, they wanted to see our kids win. And it wasn't happening at first. It definitely wasn't happening. We had so much catch up to do. We don't have the weight room. We've never played rugby. There's no middle school feeder team. It just don't even understand that the intricacies were exactly exactly. But they're competitive too. And they want to win. And so for, for Devon and I as coaches, it became such a exercise of healing therapy, patients, sportsmanship, and keeping our kids emotionally regulated after they were getting their butts kicked out of the sport, and in a sport they didn't really love yet. You know, it was super, super challenge and leadership.

And yet we were able to pull it off and the kids got blessed and we're so Resilient but they were figuring it out and and they weren't sure sometimes whether that tackle was extracurricular Whether you were supposed to rock me like that and is this a fight? I'm having this I'm having this and they have these trauma responses and they're not sure and then the referees blow in the whistle And then boom we're back 10 again. And then another penalty, I don't even know what happened there. Is this rep, that refs white, is he? Are they all, you see what I'm going?

And our parents too, what was that whistle mean? Why are our kids constantly getting penalty? These things and our kids were making a lot of mistakes. They're committing a lot of penalties. They were learning the game. So it was a challenge for everyone involved, opposing coaches, referees, us, our kids, our parents, to grit through some of

those first, you know, games and misunderstandings. And it was a difficult, difficult time. But it's fun too. But they kept coming back. You kept coming back, yeah. I have always said that the kids at Manassas kept coming back because they found an opportunity to be part of one positive thing in a very, very desperate life situation in area. Did you find that to be the case? Yeah, a positive thing. And also I just think it's so important that the person, the leader, the coach,

you know, the mentor is like, in Memphis, we talk about, oh, we need more mentors. We need more, do we? Do we? Because what if somebody? That's not just Memphis. That's everywhere. Well, that's everywhere.

But I'm saying like, sure, mentors are cool, but like we need people who are competent, dedicated, consistent, predictable, human, in touch, ready to really invest in kids. And when you say, hey, it was something positive for them, I would argue that they were coming back because of you coach. And and I think that our kids were coming back because they saw how genuine and dedicated committed consistent, reliable, and resourceful and helpful that Devon and I were, you know, with those first two teams.

Now, I don't think they loved the game right away. I don't think it was enough. I've always said that players win games and coaches win players. Fair, yeah, totally fair. Well, that's what you're saying. Yeah. Is it you won't win any games, but you're trying to win your kids?

Right. And what does that look like? Just anyone who's listening out there who's like a sports-based development or like a teacher or a coach? Like, you know, you might wonder, what I'm saying all these words, like reliable, consistent, authentic, talented, competent,

but what does it look like? Well, here's what it looks like at 3.30 afternoon at Power Center Academy, when the bell rings. I'm busting through the lobby, going at teachers, coming to me, you gotta talk to, you gotta talk to this kid, he did this, and he, I know he's playing rugby, I know he was playing,

you gotta talk to him about this. Okay, where is he? I'm finding him. Boom, this kid's on the way out the school with his girlfriend, but we got practice. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you going? Like, we got practice, so I to talk to him about this. Okay, where is he? I'm finding him. Boom, this kid's on the way out the school with his girlfriend, but we got practice. Whoa, where are you going? Like we got practice. So I'm going to McDonald's. No, no, no, you're not going to McDonald's. You know what I mean? Like it is just like a a battlefield for like 20 minutes after school, just to get kids to show up because like, no, you're

rounding up the doggies. I know exactly what it's like. Right. And then I'm taking, you know, I got Sam because he's a good leader and he loved, he already loves the game. So he's into it. So he's, he's interested in this too. So like, Sam, go, go down to the 10th grade hallway, round them up, do not let them leave that hallway, tell them they got to get changed. They're coming to practice. Boom. I got ninth grade. And, you know, and so it's just, that's what it looks like. You know, for those wondering what, what I mean when I say all these buzzwords about what, what keeps kids coming back all for the payoff of then getting you spend two to an hour's working for free to teach kids something. That's it, right? And then drive them all home, by the way. They then somehow get everybody home safely.

Yeah. Well, tell me about your two. You're two. Yeah. So it was really cool because, and this is where you start to see Memphis, Intercity Rugby as an organization, as an institution come to life. Well, and at this point, you didn't really have Memphis City Rugby. You were messing with two groups of kids as teams.

Once we got started with the first practice, we did make like a social media page, we did call it Memphis, Intercity Rugby, and my ex-girlfriend did make us a logo. So we did have that, but we didn't have anything else. And so in year two, we started to engage two of now my best friends, and they're still involved in my CR, Andres Lopez, another Teach for America, 2012 guy who we got to know well, who had a little rugby background graduating from UNC in Chapel Hill.

And he was teaching at a school in Westwood called Freedom Prep, another charter school. And we started to talk, man, what did you see what we're doing at Kingsbury and PCA? Like, what if, like, what if you added a boys team to the mix? And I don't know how we were able to convince Andres to do it. And at the same time, we had Brad Trotter, who didn't do Teach for America in Memphis, but he did in Chicago. And then he was down in Memphis because his wife was becoming a doctor at UTHC. And Brad became an administrator at Solzville in South City, charter school there. And so we're like getting Andreessen Brad on board. And they do come on board.

And they start a boys team at Solzville. And Andre starts a boys team at freedom prep. So all of a sudden from nothing becomes not a team but a league. Now we have four boys teams in this demographic under the realm of Neffes, Intercity Rugby under very talented coaches, Brad and Andre's world class. 100% minority. We had one, I remember, I remember Jaden Lingerfeld was a shout out Jaden. He was on my team.

He was a white guy and I think, and someone Kingsbury, you're one, but other than that, yeah, not, not, not really. No. Yeah. Hundreds of minority with the exception of a few. But yeah, Brad and Andre's, uh, and that's why, you know, I, I don't get too crazy about thinking about how we started all this, but I do think, man, Andre's North Carolina, Brad Chicago, Devon, New York, me, New Jersey, college at all different places, Teach for America, randomly, didn't know each other. And then, oh, by the way, we all have a rugby background, which is already like a, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean?

Here's the thing that I really want people to, to not miss. You're not from Memphis and neither are these guys. None of them. You don't, you don't know the power brokers. You don't know the administrators. You don't know the people to help you with them. You don't, you don't know the power brokers. You don't know the administrators. You don't know the people to help you with fields. You don't know the people to go ask for for donations for resources. You don't know any of that. Here's what you know. You love rugby. You have a passion for it and service. And I have said a hundred times, the magic happens when a discipline and a passion exist and it meets an opportunity. When you have a discipline or ability to do something, a passion for it, and you see the opportunity to employ that discipline and passion in something that can make a difference.

And if we're talking about an army of normal folks, they have four guys from, y'all didn't even know each other. You don't know anybody in town, and in the matter of two years, you're not teaching a few kids rugby and spending time with them. You create a league. Yeah. In a city you know nobody.

And I wanna emphasize that, you know, because this is one thing I'm really proud of, and I will always, I will always bang the table emphasizing this, because this is one thing I'm really proud of and I will always I will always bang the table and facizing this because you said it, but I like Brad Andre Stepanay, yeah, we didn't know anybody, but none of us come from a super, you know, crazy, you know, I can I'm a fan of you. A full web background, right? So there were, because a lot of people saw us, saw us really take off. This was, this was pretty successful from the start, you know, we had a lot of challenges. This was extremely difficult,

but from the outside facing in, if you looked at our marketing, if you look at our social media, we were successful early. And then we had these teams and we were scaling and then in 2015, we started Girls Rugby. And I think some folks, even friends that I have from back home thought that there was some shortcut that there was some, somebody's uncle cut the check or some, some big institution bailed us out. There was no shortcuts. We were going broke paying out of our own teacher salary pockets and bill, I'm sure you're familiar with that, you know, when you when you were coaching Manassas to fill gaps to have needs are crowdfunding campaign raised 2000 bucks just to get a bus to go to Murphy's bro to play a game

because we qualify for state like all this stuff. So no shortcuts. You're exactly right. No access. So 11 years later with with some foundations locally funding us in different levels of support in the city embracing us, we are thankful for that. And very proud that there was no foundation to start, you know. The point is, it was passion, discipline, and dedication, not money, organization, and help. And really special young men and women who embraced us and were courageous enough to try something new. And they are the trailblazers and pioneers who paved the way for now thousands of others. So I'm going to, I'm going to repeat some quotes. And then we're going to go into quotes, and then we're going to go into the girls rugby just kills me. And I want you to tell the story of the first black rugby scholarship

recipient, which I think is freaking phenomenal that doesn't happen without what you've done. But I'm going to interject a few of these for the remainder of time we talk, a player Memphis is top five in poverty, top five in crime. Things that could be preventative kids had a place to go and people that loved them. He's not talking about a rugby ball. He's talking about love them. Rugby can take kids off the street. I'm a witness because, listen, I'm not the richest guy in the world. I've had to work everything I have. Rake yards carry my lawnmower around. Rugby taught

me that you've got to be your own man. I didn't have a dad, and I was being raised by my grandmother. She was working, and so I was in the bad crowd. I did a lot that I regret. I vandalized houses, I beat up people, gang affiliation, but rugby changed all that. What does that make you feel when you hear that? That's how life changed your bro. Yeah, it's amazing because, you know, I know who that quotes from, you know, and that's, you share it. Yes, so that's that's Calvin Gentry who was on the first team that I coach. So when he was 14 years old as a freshman at Power Center Academy He came out to play and you know I talked about the Kingsbury group

We didn't have a lot of explosive athletes that came out in the first group Calvin Gentry was one huh? Calvin ended up playing pro rugby later in life and and he got recruited to play at a top five rugby school in the country He's he's one of the most explosive athletes. I've ever met in my life I knew that from the start when he came out, but he was also that he is so special to me in the organization because I think without Calvin, there's the Memphis and Recidivore always totally different because he challenged us in so many ways. Like when you talk about the services we provide now, transportation, nutrition, academic support, mental health counseling,

opportunities to get recruited, we're doing our own combine, we're doing everything we possibly can to give our kids access, support, love, but also a trajectory and an opportunity for upward mobility within the sport and I find it. You mean it's really not about rugby? Yeah, I was like,

I was like, I knew it's flash. But falling backwards into those services was a lot of Calvin, like the special kid so talented and such a big heart. And, you know, you know, he readily admits he was a game member. Yeah, and he banned the last house, as he beat people up. And he was always getting kicked out of class

and teachers had a really hard time with Calvin and he was just such a ball of energy. So Rugby really helped him as an outlet, but he also always needed a ride home. There was so many resources that he lacked. and so what we were trying to provide was a really great combination of things to help a person like Calvin who was difficult to help because of the resources he lacked and the challenges he faced and so it was like it makes me feel proud because and thankful and thankful because Calvin

did not receive the world class alumni support program that we now have codified, vetted in a budget that is prepared and it's designed and it is amazing. And we don't, we didn't have that for Calvin. We were just doing everything we could. And now because of what Calvin went through and the sort of cross he bared, now kids get that. Because Calvin, you know, you're reading a quote from a film that was made very much about him. And that film helped Memphis University raise money to then start girls' teams

and to then offer a scholarship and to then conceive a world-class alumni support program most of which he missed out on. Because he was already off to college. He was already off to his career. He's now a teacher and he's so special to me. So I could go on all day about Calvin, but... Well now you bust the bubbles, see, my as well, tell us about the film. Well, so I think the one you read is from a YouTube, it's a film called The Rugby Boys

of Memphis. And if you go on Memphis University Rugby's YouTube channel, it's like 17 minutes long and it tells a story of like our boys' team journey to the 2014 state jambe in ships. And Calvin was like a leader of that team. But then in 2016, some bigger, bigger, honestly, that documentary, something like I directed because I wanted to, I just wanted, I thought this team is...

You're making a video your book as much as anything. Well, but it really started. I remember going home for Thanksgiving, being in Florida, my team had already qualified for state and they were playing so good. And I thought it was such a special thing. I was like, I gotta get someone just to film the game so that these kids can get recruited for college.

And me trying to find someone to recruit the games with no money and no resources turned into this guy, saying, why don't I just film me all for the whole weekend? And that became that film called the Rugby Boys of Memphis. And then later on, because of the notoriety of that story, our marketing, our social media, a guy named David Darg called me, who was like, Emmy or Grammy, which one's not music? It's, it's, Emmy, Grammy's music, Emmy's TV and movies.

So sorry, David, if you're listening, but David Darg, Emmy award-winning filmmaker, humanitarian. I mean, this guy is a legend. You look him up, David, if you're listening, but David Darg, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, Humanitarian, I mean, this guy is a legend. You look him up, he's done some incredible things, but he called me, he said, I saw this, I grew up in England, I played rugby, and I saw this as a really special story, can we talk about making a film?

That became a film that is available on Amazon Prime. I don't know if it's live on there anymore, but it was 2016, and it centers around Calvin. And so, and I'm not too. What's it called? Okay, so I got this wrong. That's called the Rugby Boys of Memphis. Right.

The one on YouTube is called the Power of Rugby. So sorry. And the Rugby Boys of Memphis, I think, was even like sponsored by Gatorade or something. Yeah, Gatorade, like kind of funded it and yeah, got behind it. Okay, so let's recap. Yeah. First year, a bunch of kids at Kingsbury who don't know what's going on, second year power academy, and five years later, you got Emmy Award-winning movie makers telling your story,

all because four guys from different points of the world who were with Teach for America, with Teacher Sally's decide to invest. Yeah, lean in and not sleep a lot. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Shane Young in part two is now available and I promise you you won't want to miss it. But if for some reason you do, make sure you join the army of normal folks at normalfokes.us and sign up to become a member of our movement. By signing up, you'll also receive a weekly email with short episode summaries

in case you happen to miss an episode or you may prefer reading about our incredible guests. Together, guys, we can change the country and it starts with you. I'll see you in part two.