I listen to your podcast every morning when I'm getting ready, I'm scrolling through trying to find one. I love listening to it, and they inspire me because when you most every person that has done something extraordinary has had a story of some kind. Rarely do you hear someone who's had this perfect life. And that's the normal people. You know, what is normal, I guess is different too, But I was inspired by every time.
And then also Wilson Society.
I do that as our service club here on campus, and all of them have done something in their community generally as well.
And I thought we'd be inspiring for them.
To listen to these and see rather than me just saying pick a podcast.
This way they're getting something.
A lot of them are faith based, which was again a great segue into what we learn in our class as well.
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 coach Inner City, Memphis. And the last part somehow led to an oscar for the film about our team. That movie is called Undefeated, y'all. I believe our country's problems are never gonna be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us,
just you and me deciding hey, I can help. Today, we have an outside the box episode. Really, you're gonna meet a whole bunch of high schoolers and their teacher who used an army of normal folks in their class. I cannot wait for you to meet this class from Briarqust Christian School right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. I know sitting here is a little weird, and you're probably all like, this is kind of cool,
but kind of weird too. If you don't engage with me, I'm gonna make you engage with me, which is more embarrassing. So talk, engage, chill out, have fun, don't be geeks. All right? See this is bad. See see that really uncomfortable silence. We're not gonna have that sound. So here's how this is gonna go.
Take your jacket off.
Here's how that's gonna go. We're gonna engage for about ten minutes, and then we're going to talk about a lot of the stuff you guys have done with your assignment with the podcast. And I have some excerpts of some stuff you've written. I don't know who wrote it, so I'm gonna read it and say who wrote it?
And there you go, you who wrote it.
No, we'll have more fun this way. We'll say that, and I'll say, Okay, who are you? And tell me what you were doing with it? And you got to say your name. And this thing is going to come around to you. You are either a passive or if you guys are close together, you guys can pass it around. Yeah, you just pass it around, but when you speak, don't hold it over here while you're talking actually speaking to it,
so it picks it up. Because there's gonna be thousands and thousands and thousands of people to hear this thing. So we need Yeah, you're special, so we need we need you to use your voice and speak up and talk with me. The other thing is, don't talk quietly to me because I'm deaf in my right ear and I really can't hear you. Are you really? Wow?
I got hit baseball last year right here, and it's like.
Okay, Well, the reason I'm deaf is because of the same thing, except for football. I have nerve. I have nerve damage. Actually, right now I can hear about four percent of any noise, what brand whatever. My wife told me to bout hang on what.
I have them too, but I don't have them in right now.
Yeah, So it was nerve damage, right, No coke, clear implants, nothing can fix it. You're deaf for the rest of your life.
It's either a broken cole a bone or permanent nerve.
So your official meat heead. Yeah, that's why it works. All right. I almost heard everything he said. So you've got to speak that loud or louder when you talk with me. Okay, okay, okay, thank you so much. All Right, you guys haven't been in a lot of these things. I do need to tell you one other thing. This guy's the producer. That's Alex Cortez. On some of the things you've listened to. You may have heard me referred to Alex before. That's who he is. He produces a show,
he makes it happen. Everything else. One of the things you need to learn about show biz is producers are complete pain in the button. They're horrible. They're not fun to deal with. They're awful, So just ignore the weird looking man in the corner and everything will be fine. Good. I gave it to him. You see what they got. I slept those things all the way here for him, and I was again, you know, I out of kids, and I'm sorry, just setting up pictures. I don't know
what you're gonna do with it. Give it your diet. He can read it to you. Is that okay?
Good coach?
Herring can come in unbelievable. Hold on, we can't start yet. Yeah that right there, y'all was a dog back in the day. Y'all need to know, an absolute dog. What was it twenty six, twenty seven when you got your first date? Someone actually went out with a bat? Then about then? I cat right there, y'all. Don't look at the old gray hair. He could go. He was an athlete. He was a good coache. Yeah that's right. Yeah, all right, Well you are precious, all right, honey, we'll see you later.
Bless his heart. All right, So go ready, you're gonna have fun. It be a bunch of dufuses and just sit there like knots on a law. What do you do to your wrist? Low cross did to your wrist. You's got to speak up. My teammate hit me in the wrist. Oh are you kidding? Yikes? Can you still play with that thing on? That really stinks, doesn't it? Sorry? Okay, uh, all right, ready, all right, here we go. Jenny Manguno is weird? How are you?
I'm good? Thank you.
You're weird because you emailed Alec and then you emailed me and you said something like this. I've been listening to your podcasts for several months, almost every weekday morning, and I'm consistently inspired by your guest and even your story. My story is quite similar to yours. And you went on to talk about teaching a dual enrollment oral communications
class at Briercrest High School in Memphis. You invited Alex and me to kind of discuss with you that you actually you made your students in your class listen to an army of normal folks. We found that really really interesting. And you're also the librarian, and you're weird because you're using a podcast in your class and oral communications, and
Alex and I thought that's cool. So for those listening today, we are at Briercrest High School in Memphis with your class, with your enrollment oral communication class, and there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, there's about fifteen kids in here.
Say hi, kids, they're happy today.
What in the world inspired you to say? I'm teaching oral communications class. I'm going to make these kids listen to an old person's podcast, which had to have been miserable for these kids.
I think they probably thought it was going to be miserable to start, but then they wound up loving the assignment they do part of the curriculum that we have. They actually did their own podcast. We have a podcast small studio here on campus, and so they each had to record a podcasts with a partner. One group had a group of three. But anyhow, they were doing their podcasts, and so I was just asking who listens to podcasts and there weren't.
A lot that before this time.
I said, then y'all need to listen to a good podcast, and I love yours. And so that's how that came up, as like, choose one of these, and being a teacher, I made sure it was ones I had listened to, so that I would know for sure if they had done the assignment or not.
What where do you come from. What's your story?
Does that mean?
Oh my god? Should I answer it now? Answered? It's your wife? Answer answer on air?
Oh yes, sweet.
This is my fortieth year in education, so I've been teaching since nineteen eighty five was my first year to teach. So I've been doing this a long time, between high school, college and now back to high school. So doing doing enrollment gets you to do a little bit of both.
So what brought you into teaching? Tell me how you came up. Tell me a little bit about you. I'm curious because you said my story is quite similar to yours. I want to hear about that. How are we alike?
Okay, I don't know if the students know your whole story. I don't know if they know my whole story. So I'll just kind of share. So I grew up and I went to high school in Pearl, Mississippi, which they know.
All about because I asked them.
I always ask them bonus questions about my life, Like if I say something in class and their bonus question comes from that, like what was what was my high school mascot?
Do y'all remember?
Now?
Pirates? Very good?
See, like they remember pirates?
The Pearl pirates.
Yes, anyhow, so we.
Use that in the class a lot. So I'm from Pearl.
My parents divorced when I was nine, which is unheard of in nineteen seventy two, you know, like that just was not something happened. And then later my dad died. My mom was a teacher, and I thought I would never be a teacher. She had a very unconventional life and made a lot of poor relationship decisions that in today's world would probably be much accepted, but in Pearl, Mississippi in the nineteen seventies was a very difficult thing.
But did that put a stigma on you as a kid?
Oh? Absolutely, uh And I've said this often. I have one wonderful friend that I'm still best friends with today. But if I invited a friend to spend the night, it was always maybe you could come to my house instead. No one was ever allowed to come and spend the night at my house, which looking back, I don't blame those parents. I mean, I'm a parent now, and I get that.
Doesn't make a sixteen year old fillony better about it, though.
No, no, And by that point, by the time I was like middle school, early high school, I had a great friend. Her name's Diane, and my mom would say things like, find somewhere to go this weekend, you can't be here, and so pretty much every Friday afternoon I would just go home with Diane, and then on Sunday about seven o'clock, my sister would come pick me up and we'd go back home. And so that's who really raised me, is my friend's mind.
That has to make you feel alone as a kid.
I think you know, in the seventies, there was no DHS. There was no talking about this. These aren't things that you talk about. They're just it just was your life, and you do it, and dare tell someone that your life wasn't perfect, because that's not the way life was. But there was no protect there's no foster system, there's no DHS or nothing like that, so you just go on.
But my mom was a.
Teacher, and of course I said I would never be a teacher, but I had a teacher in high school. I don't think I've told them the story, Missus Robbins. She was my speech teacher, my most favorite teacher. I had her three years in a row, and she just she was that teacher that called you out when you. You know, she told everybody what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong, and she didn't think twice about it, and she was She made a big impact.
In fact, i'm talking with Alex I told him she's she had three students who became speech teachers.
That's just like you count yourself as one communications.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and all taught high school and college. It's just been af She just made a huge impact in my life. Went to college, didn't ever plan to be a teacher, and got certified just in case from one of my roommates said, I think you'd be a good teacher. You should just get certified. And I was like, oh, I'll get certified. And then I did my student teaching and fell in love with teaching. Never had plans to teach, and I've been teaching now forty years.
How long have you been here?
I've been full time here ten years.
Got it? For those who don't know, my mother was married and divorced five times. My fourth father took out a thirty eight caliber pistol one night after finishing off about a half gallon of US or Scotch and shot at me down the hallway. I had to dive out of window to save myself that night. So I was surrounded with dysfunction trauma, and as a person your age was kind of lost trying to figure out, you know,
where where do I fit in this world? And I'll tell you something else that happens is when people come in and out of your life consistently, and the only thing that is consistent is inconsistency, you start to wonder about your own value. You know, why are you not valuable enough that someone is willing to invest in stay in your life? And it has a profound effect. And you can either come and be a victim to that dysfunction or you can decide to be a rock that
that dysfunction breaks itself on. There's really two choices. Sure to tell you that a teacher who passed away not long ago, actually my football coach told me that who I love, did you feel the dysfunction?
I think it's just one of those things where it's just your life like And again, you wouldn't talk about this.
This was the seventies. There were no TV. Every TV show was you know, the love boat or.
What is something fantasy island?
Fantasy Island that shows the cleaver road.
Yeah, it's just everything's.
Perfect break yeah, yeah, yeah, So you just thought, well, it's just not the way I live.
But you wouldn't dare talk about that.
You're now People talk about the dysfunction in their family and there's ways to deal with it. But I assure you there were people who had it worse than I did, much worse.
I coach and teach and do a lot of what I do because I'm still a fifty six year old fill very real about the pain ifl and I feel like in teaching and coaching you have an opportunity to maybe exact some measure of positive change on some people who may be going through maybe not exactly what you're doing too, but a similar amount of suffering, pain, questions, whatever. Do you feel like that's what draws you to continue to do this year after year.
I think I think you hope that you're making a difference in some way. I mean, a teacher made a huge difference for me, So you hope in some way you're making If you make a difference in one person's life, then you've done something.
I mean, that's so true. But then you look out at the people you're trying to make a difference in life. And there are a bunch of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old meatheads like these people out here, and you actually wonder if you're getting through you do sometimes Yeah, I mean there's this kid over here at Tucker. I don't know how you get through to that guy, this Tucker kid. Oh, you're going to act right because your dad's in the room.
Now what you're gonna do. You're just gonna sit there. We're going to take a brief intermission in the middle of this. This is not a commercial break. Say what up? Coach? Brandon Tucker just walked in. And Brandon Tucker is one of the finest people on the face of the planet. I've coached against him, I've coached with him, and I love him. And his son happens to be in your class.
And so there's Brandon Tucker over there. Pretty good math coach, pretty fair football coach, but a pretty extraordinary human beings. Good to see you, brother, And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first, we're thinking about launching a few local chapters of the Army this year, and if you're interested in potentially leading a chapter in your community, email Army at normal folks, dot us and Alex would
love to connect with you. We'll be right back kind of give me and our listeners just a quick purpose of the dual enrollment Oral Communications class. I keep having to read it because I don't even know how to remember all that. But what do y'all do? Well?
Because it's dual enrollment, they're getting college credit through the University of Memphis by taking this class, so they take discounts. They have to have a fine art to graduate from high school, so they take my class for one semester and then first semester they took music appreciation. My first semester class takes theater appreciation this semester, so it just depends on where they fall. But they're getting college credit. The hope is that they don't have to take this
in college. Most of them, the seniors and the seniors will see most of those have on their senior shirts today. But we just did a what would you call what I did last week? A seminar I talk about college and try to help them learn how to do course equivalency. So if I took this class in high school, how's it going to help me in college?
How's it going to transfer.
So we have a lot of dual enrollment classes, but this is just one that they can take. And so we follow the curriculum from the University of Memphis and then I do a high school portion of that as well. And they've learned how to do an informative speech. Yesterday they did elevator pitches. I think that may have been their favorite. They're like, no, no, they did the persuasive podcast. Help me out what else they impromptu speeches? They're just nodding.
There a lot of communications, all communications skills, all right.
So in the context of understanding the class and soon everybody, we're going to talk to these kids, and I expect that's going to be fun or maybe it'll be awful, depending on how big a goofballs they are. We'll find out there's four hundred there's four million, five hundred podcasts on the face of the planet. How inside are the construct of the class? Do you decide to I'm an army of normal folks as part of the curriculum. That's weird.
That's why I said you were wor you said I was weird, Well, because I listened to it.
Weird in the fondest sense of Okay, okay, I.
Listen to your podcast every morning when I'm getting ready, I'm scrolling through trying to find one. I love listening to it, and they inspire me because when you most every person that has done something extraordinary has had a story of some kind. Rarely do you hear someone who's had this perfect life, and I guess that's part of them.
There's no such thing.
Yeah, and that's the normal people.
You know, what is normal? I guess is different too. But I was inspired by every time. And then also Wilson Society. I do that as our service club here on campus, and all of them have done something in their community generally as well, and I thought I would be inspiring for them to listen to these and see so almost very rather than me just saying pick a podcast.
This way they're getting something.
A lot of them are faith based, which was again a great segue into what we learn in our class as well, which.
Is interesting, by the way, all of our listeners and you guys in here, it is interesting that a lot of our guests end up evoking faith during their conversations. But we are not a faith based podcast. I'm a Christian,
but we are not a faith. I'm certainly not going to tell somebody don't speak about your faith, but we don't ask people to speak about their faith, but it is it has become very interesting d alex in me that I don't know what the percentage is, but four out of five probably end up evoking faith in their conversation and all the time that faith is not necessarily
just their Christian faith. But it is interesting to me that as we talk about a group of quote normal folks, that the vast majority of them evoke faith when they talk about the work that they do to serve their community. Which it's interesting you picked up on that, and it's not it's not part of the context of the show, but it almost invariably comes out, which I think is interesting when people talk about themselves. I think it speaks to the power of faith in what we do in
our lives. Does that have a component of what you do every day?
Yes, so our career.
I mean all we teach is faith based here, you know, everything, we want everything to come from a Christian worldview. So hopefully when these seniors leave that they they're solid in their faith and they know what they believe, and they believe it because they believe it, not because their parents believe it, and so when they get out into the world, they are able to make the decisions that are going to support their faith.
Okay, So the assignment was listen to pick any episode off of the catalog of an army normal folks, listen to it, and then do.
What write a essay about it.
Okay, So the first one, I don't know who did what. I just got a bunch of students looking at me, and I have a small piece of what each of you wrote. So I like this one. This is what was part of what was said. We're going to go over all these, but I'm going to start with this one because I think it speaks to goofy sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds. I went into this project not wanting to do it. I love that, but I came out enjoying it. I've learned that podcasts do not have to
be strictly business. Talking about stuff that the average person can relate to makes it more enjoyable for the listener. I honestly did not know this is who wrote this, but I guess it fits. So who went into this not wanting to do it? East I love the honesty admitted that they didn't want to do it. Uh, oh, speak up, No, it's on, you got to speak Okay, who is.
Mem Hudson Tucker?
What Hudson Tucker? Hudson Tucker didn't want to do this? Okay, so before we go on to what Hudson had to write about, who else in here? Honestly raise a hands. Really didn't want to do this.
The whole class, Okay, their seniors and out bloom them and tomorrow is their last day of school.
They are not wanting to being a senior in high school and classes ending. You're getting college fever. You're thinking about where you're applying to and what's next and everything else. And then you, uh, you got to listen to some old dudes podcast. What were you well, you actually like rolling your eyes and at your teacher, going come on, it's late in the year. This is a bunch of crud pretty much.
And they're long too, just so you know, they're not like ten minutes long. That was that was their other complaint.
Yeah, we make them, we know how long they are. We have to listen to these things. Yeah, so you didn't want to do it?
Huh, I did not know, sir.
But tell me what you found out. What would you listen to?
And I listened to God's million dollar Company and how he.
Donated Alan Barnhardt fifty.
Of his profits. Yes, sir, and then I really enjoyed. Just like at first I didn't want to listen to it, and then as I started listening, it was just like it wasn't like it was all business. You were just having a good time, just talking about life and how he kind of was able to use his platform too.
Everyone told him wasn't going to work, that he was going to lose money in the end, but he ended up just like trusting in God and having faith and he was able to actually give money to a lot of people to help him out.
Hudson, would are you a senior, No, sir, I'm a junior. You got one more year left, yes, sir? All right. Did listening to that podcast and that episode in any way make you think more deep deeply about what you're gonna do in your life or how you're gonna approach your life.
It kind of made me just like realize that like God has a plan and then like it's not gonna be my plan, like he everyone was telling him that it was not gonna work, not gonna work, and then he kind of just had faith in God and then it all worked out for his good. And so I just think that going into my senior year and then going into like the job search, that it's just gonna work out. Just got to keep living in him and the right path be made.
What do you think about a guy that has a business that does a billion dollars a year in sales and still doesn't pay himself much more than one hundred and six thousand dollars a year.
I think that's, uh, it's pretty impressive. Definitely, not too many people that would not give themselves a lot of money. And I think it speaks as him as like a man, mister Allen, and like how he really cares about other people, and how his whole life is just revolving around other people and people around him.
Do all you guys know the story that this guy built a business from nothing, decided with his brother that every year they were going to give away fifty percent of their earnings, and only a couple of years ago his business did a billion dollars, y'all, and he gave the company away, didn't take one Dollar gave it away.
Yes, yeah, so name, My name is Lance Bryant, but Alan Barnhart, that name popped up. I didn't listen to the episode, but my dad is in a group called C twelve. It's a Christian CEO group, and Alan Barnhart is actually in it. So my dad has actually told me a lot about him, and so I thought that was really cool that my dad is in a group with a guy that you did a podcast with.
It's pretty cool, all right. Next one Joe and Kelly Carson. I learned a lot about how easily, how easy it really is to live in a sort of comfortable bubble. Inspired me to look beyond my life and to see what the norm is for other people who might not have as much as me. I also learned that it's very possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. That storytelling is very powerful way to get the message across. In a podcast, who wrote that, Oh my gosh, so tell me about it.
So you know, I listened to that podcast and it really stuck with me that like their son went out and did something and it actually changed their mindset. So like he went out and he lived on that flat in Chicago for a year, and he spent that weekend homeless, and you know, it was really inspiring to hear that.
Like his parents kind of realized that.
Like through him, that they were kind of living in ale and their their dentistry and stuff, and they realized that God did want them to sell their business and go try to make some things happen, and so God kind of paid the path for them, and that was really inspiring me.
For those of you in the class, the takeaway here is this guy not much older than you. Part of his requirement was to go to a thrift store and get some ragged clothes and with no money in his pocket, go on the streets of Chicago and be homeless and have to ask for his sustenance to truly experience what homelessness feels like. Can you imagine doing that?
Now?
Do you remember what his experience was when when he was on the street. Yeah? Yes. And remember now, this is a guy who comes from a background just like each of you, a fluent, nice place.
He was I believe he was a student at Baylor, wasn't he when he took this year off?
You don't remember that from the that's right?
So what was his experience.
So this part actually really stuck with me.
So he was he was asking these people for money, and this this one lady that that he had asked for money, she said, uh, you know, you go get a job whatever. And I think she actually ended up giving him to three dollars or something and she said, Oh, you're probably just going to go spend this on alcohol and drugs. I don't know why I'm giving you this money anyway, And Kelly Carson was like, Uh.
She got on the call with her son at the end of the week.
I think they get one call a week, and he told her about that and she started thinking.
She was like, I've done something similar to that before.
Like and now he met me on the street that day.
Yeah, she said, he met me on the street that day, and so that really got her to thinking and then she made some change from that.
It's a pretty cool story, pretty cool takeaway. It's easy, y'all, coming from affluence or relative safety when you're driving around in some of the more urban areas to see someone that is slovenly and be dragged and on the street with their handout. It is pretty easy to sum up based on popular narrative what that person is an alcoholic, a drug addict, a loser, whatever. But it's a reminder
that every face has a story. And since we're in a Christian school, you might remember that Christ didn't show up to a place that looks like Briarcrest. He surrounded himself with fishermen and hookers. So the question is, is, young Christian folks, who are you called to interact with if you are in fact to be christ Like. I think there's a big takeaway there. We'll be right back, all right. What I learned is no matter what someone has done to get themselves into prison, they still have
aspirations and they want to achieve. I just thought that once you're in prison, that's it, and that you just have to put your life on pause until you get out. The podcast showed me that it's possible to continue to live while incarcerated, and that there are people out there that don't immediately need to be judged. Yes, hi name and loud, Hey Hannah, tell me about it.
I thought it was interesting how he like didn't really know what he was doing it first, and then he just felt called to get like a degree in ministry.
And then somehow I pulled into like the like jail scenery, and then like he decided to actually do something with it and not just like teach them like how to actually be something more than like just like their time like in jail, and how like that how he taught other people and that there the people that he taught like continue to teach others like it was like a train.
Don't say anything, Hannah. What's your name, Zachary? When you think of the people in two oh one Poplar, I want straight talk. When you think when you think of the people in two oh one Poplar with a rap sheet, tell me what you envision quickly. And I picked him for everybody listening, I just picked Zachary out of the group. He's this was not planned By'm putting you on the spot.
Well, I actually do know a guy that went into a one popular for getting in a street fight. He now is permanent brain damage and he lives with his mother full time.
Now.
He's from Binghampton, but he he is a very kind guy now that he learned his lesson, But going into it he was angry and just probably scary interesting guy to talk to.
I can forget him macro level, I.
Would say, very scary.
You know, well, I wouldn't want to surround myself with them life losers.
Yeah, you, sir, deserved what they deserved, what they earned most likely, yes, sir, you break the law, you go to jail, and when you're in jail, you know, to a one poplar people are dying in that place. The doors don't even lock. They've got six people in a cell built for two because it's overcrowded. There's not good food. Do you or people around you have the mentality that, well, that's what they get. They don't want to deal with that, don't break the law.
I mean, yes, sir, I think it's you know, right that we separate them from society so that way they just don't harm it even more.
But as a group of people, is it fair to say that your first instinct just kind of say too bad and look down your nose? Hannah, tell us why we have to from what you learned, tell us why we have to be careful with that judgment.
I think it's because like we all were like born, like we're all the same, like no matter like where we come from, we're all human. And like the people in jail, like they didn't they weren't born a criminal, Like, yes, they chose to like make the decision to get in jail, But that doesn't like mean that they're just like forever
a bad person. Like there is like redemption in that, and like I just think that there's like like that can be any of us at like any time, and like you never know if like you're gonna have to make a decision that's going to get you in jail, and like there's like no need just to judge to.
Judge, Hannah, where were you born?
Memphis?
Where Caryville? That's not Memphish? Do you understand what I mean? Yes, sir, Okay, tell everybody who's listing that's from all over the world where Caryoville is like.
A suburb outside of Memphis suburb?
Right? Are there shacks out there? No? What are there houses?
Like?
What kind of houses?
Big houses?
Are there? Hoopedies riding up down the road very often?
What kind of cars like audis like nice cars?
Yeah, BMW's. Are there many households out there that refrigerators are empty? No? Do most households have at least one college graduate in it? Maybe two? How many households do you think have non high school graduates, not a lot, very few. It is the police department pretty robust and doing a good job, I think. So is it safe?
Yeah?
Have you ever experienced a drive by?
I had a gum pulled on me one time in Caryville.
Yeah, Okay, that's fird, but but in general it's.
Nice, Yes, sir.
What if you were born in Orange Mound.
That's like a whole different area, that's completely different. I feel like I wouldn't be me if I was born in Orange Mound.
What if you had one parent in the household who did not even graduate from high school, and that is what the entire block and neighborhood you lived in looked like.
That wouldn't be like good, I guess like it wouldn't be like like.
I don't know the word.
So my question is if you were hungry and you had no future, and you had no hope, and you were just enfranchised, you think it's possible that Hannah from Caryoville, in a completely different atmosphere might have ended up into a one popular for sure. Would you want a second chance?
I think everyone wants a second chance, and I think everyone deserves a second chance.
So when you say you learned it no matter what someone has done to get themselves into prison, they still have aspirations that they want to achieve. Did you ever win listening to that? Try to put yourself in that position.
I don't know if I tried to like put myself in like the mentality of being in jail, because like I don't want to go to jail, like that's scary, but like I think if I was in that position, like I would definitely like try my best to like act like like get on parole, I guess, or like just get out as soon as possible. And I mean there were some people in that story who didn't have
that option. Then we're like in jail for life, but they still like did something and we're like and had like dreams and still achieve stuff while being in jail.
So jail, after all, isn't full of society throw away zombies that we shouldn't care about. They're still human beings. Next one, I learned how easy it is to make an impact. Monica worked hard, but she framed the story in a way that was encouraging to those who see a wrong in the world that they want to make right. Who wrote that? Who wrote that?
You know that maybe Finley and she she had to take a test today.
Yes, okay, well she's fired next she had ap test.
Oh whatever, she's a loser for not being here. The content was interesting as it gave me an insight into the into a life that I do not experience. I think the speakers were able to connect to the audience. Personally, I cannot relate to what they're talking about, but there are people out there who did. The student also talked in class about the alarming rate of students who can't read and cited the statistics. It made an impact. Who's that? That was me? Okay, who's you? My name is Hans Solomon,
all right, tell me about it. So the Nanodkas Khalil Sweeney klise.
When the main podcast was the boxing gym, that were no one boxes, which I found found very interesting because he realized that there was a need for helping kids graduate high school. Uh he was, I believe in the high school, maybe his only twenties before he learned how to read, and someone took him in and taught him how to read.
His childhood growing up was very rough.
He did not grow up with his parents, and so that was interesting how he realized that. I assume it was mostly young men who he was focused on because that's what the boxing gym comes in, And so he talked about how he had to find something to get the young men in there, because if he has had a reading and writing center, no one would show up.
But if he had a boxing center, He's.
Like, I will teach you how to box if you show up and do your homework first, which I found very interesting.
He kind of had a hook, didn't he, And yes he did. Now I read your comment it said personally, I cannot relate to what they were talking about, but there are people out there who did. Has anybody ever heard of coaching for literacy? All right, Well, there's a guy in town named John Wilfong. If you were a little older, you'd remember him. He was the shooting guard for the University of Memphis back in the day when the University of Memphis was always in the sweet sixteen
Elite eight. He's now a financial advisor. His son was a pretty fair basketball player, ended up playing at SMU and coming up John coached aau basketball with his son and a bunch of kids, and there was a kid on their team named Frank Big Frank. He ended up playing football and playing football at LSU. But back when they were twelve thirteen years old doing au ball, every time they'd go to a restaurant after the games, Big
Frank would just order whatever john Son ordered. So if they were at Applebee's and John said, so I want the chicken figures or fries and some ranch, Frank would say, that's what I want. They thought at first was because just Frank and John were tight, but what they found out was Frank was eleven and couldn't read.
They would talk about that in the podcast.
I'd forgot about that until you just mentioned that, but he talked about how lonely you feel when you can't read them in you and you're going out and you're like, oh man, let's get what you have.
And so I'd forgot about that. But that is another part of it.
So when John found out out his son and he started this thing called Coaching for Literacy. And if you ever see a coach football or basketball coach in pros and college wearing a little lime green ribbon kind of like the breast cancer ribbon, but this one's lime green. That's a coach supporting coaching for literacy. And here's the demographics. A kid who does not read on grade level by third grade is sixty five percent more likely by his
eighteenth birthday to be incarcerated third grade. They can actually tell, going unto the fourth grade by the ability to read whether or not this child is going to have a job or be in prison. So how important is the work that he's doing to teach kids to read.
Uncountable. I mean, it's truly amazing what he was doing, what he's doing. And so they talked about in his podcast, but I think the age twenty one, you had like an eighty percent chance if you can read by grade three, to be incarcerated or dead by the age of twenty one. And so he talked about going back to like loneliness growing up. He was he did what he felt like doing, which could lead to prison. Things like that, because he already knew, or felt like he knew, his life was set.
He was going to be dead or in prison by twenty one. And so him getting people into the boxing gym, getting their homework done. It may not be like straight a's, but you're teaching kids how to read, which is getting them into the job. Field and keeping them out of prison or keeping them alive.
And that concludes Part one of my very cool conversation with a bunch of kids and their teacher from Briar Crust Christian School. And I'm telling you what, don't miss Part two. It's now available to listen to it. Together. Guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in Part two.