An Army of Normal Folks - Bob Muzikowski: If I Get Half, My Neighbor Gets Half (Pt 2)

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

After accidentally moving next to the worst housing project in America, Bob Muzikowski dug in. He started a little league for its kids, then intentionally moved into the hood on Chicago’s West Side, and started the largest inner-city little league in the country there. Finally, when Bob sold part of his company, he donated 50% of his earnings to build a world-class school there called Chicago Hope Academy. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Bob Musikowski, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Okay, new year, fresh start. And honestly, I'm starting with dinner. This year, I'm being smarter about where my energy goes, and dinner was taking way too much of it. I just signed up for Hello Fresh, and they take Fresh start to a whole new level. Fresh, high-quality, ingredients, delivered right to my door, locally sourced whenever possible. Everything pre-portioned, nothing wasted. Now, I'm not dragging myself through weekend grocery runs or panic staring at the fridge at 530 trying to make something out of random leftovers. And I'm definitely not tossing out food I never used or falling back on expensive takeout apps

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from any suffering as you could possibly move. Right? That is so true. Yeah, you don't want to be down there. And, you know, I have my, I had someone call me to go, so we live a mile from the United Center where the Bulls and a Black Hawks play. And people say, well, I got off the highway earlier. I mean, this real bad neighbor, I'm like, that's my, you're on my corner. It's going to be okay. You probably don't know this, so I'm going to do it with you real quick. The whole reason this podcast exists is because that Catholic over in the corner, otherwise known as my Pain in the App Producer.

And the Reason is a Pain in the App Producer is because all producers are that. Interviewed me. And I, you know, he, I was frustrated that day and kind of got on my soapbox. And I said there's neighborhoods that we drive by in every major metropolitan area all over the country every single day. We don't want to have a flat tire. That's where we don't want our car to break down because we're convinced if we have to get out and change flat tire here, we're going to get mugged and lose our life and our wallet and everything else. And then as we pass by safely, we kind of exhale.

And as we look down that road or over that viaduct and we see all that despair and all that disenfranchisement, sadness and poverty and loss, we think to ourselves, man, somebody ought to do something about that one day. As if the government's going to swoop in after being woefully inadequate for the past 10 decades, they're all of a sudden going to swoop in and become effective. Or maybe the people on CNN and Fox are going to swoop down and help us. And the answer is, we need to tilt that rearview mirror to the left about 15 degrees and maybe think, Maybe I could do something about that one day. And you can't.

And you don't have to do, like everyone thinks that's macro fix, the inner city and crime. It's islands of strength and hope, right? Little parishes, little church, Lawndale Community Church in Chicago. They own like 15 city blocks worth of houses and pizzeria. Those guys are really down and dirty doing it, you know. And so it's islands of strength and hope, little churches, little youth programs, sports programs. We just need 10 times more of those. Little spots of need and community.

Little young life, fellowship with Krishna. Chicago, our athletic center, our athletic facilities are nicer than anything in the nicest suburb of Illinois. All right, hold it. We got to get to that to explain it. Yeah. So you get married because you get set up on the New York dating game where 30% fit. And you're making, I guess you're making some money again now. Yeah, my wife's mic.

And so, but I want to be out of New York City. So we move because, you know, alcohol is anonymous. I say stay away from people, places and things. People used to hang out with places used to go. Which is that your entire world. And even in New York's a big city, we could still bump in on an old girlfriend, right? So we moved to a victim. No, I remember.

So we moved to Chicago because the only other place you could trade foreign currency. She's got a new job offender up. Old buddy of mine has a new office in Chicago, Tom Mitchell. So we move out. figuring we're going to stay for a year maybe. And we have just a day to look. And on Saturday, we find a beautiful rehab brownstone, two stories, three bedrooms, two beds, fireplace, like a thousand a month. In New York, it'd be 5,000. So we take it. And the next morning, I go for a run and a block away, I come around a corner and there's, you know, 20, 15-story projects,

Cabrini Green Housing Project. I had moved by mistake a block away from the worst housing project in America. Is that really true? Yeah. You didn't know. Yeah. So people... I mean, you're a smart guy.

How'd you not know? We came in from the, as he knows, from the lake side. Seriously. Yeah. I mean, we had a U-Haul behind it. I had a couple phone calls. So this is 33. So, and the building is still there.

It's gorgeous where we were living. So, and I'm at night, I'm sitting on my deck that night and here, and I'm thinking this must, it was May. It was around Memorial Day. And I thought this must be a patriotic neighborhood. So I go for a run in the morning. Division and Sedgwick. So on the corner are two baseball diamonds with high grass.

It's called Carson Field because a police offer named Fred Carson have been shot dead on the field. And it hadn't been used in a while, you could tell. And so I went for a run and the cops. It was Sunday morning. I could see the Sears Tower figure I'm going to, I'm going that way. And the cops pulled me over and said something like, what the fuck? What the hell are you doing here?

I actually said, what the fuck? So I said, I just moved here from New York and they're laughing. I go, this is Cabrini Green, pal. So a couple months. The bottom line is they saw a white dude running around and they're like, you're going to get killed. So, which isn't going to happen because if you're white or you're using, you're a cop or social work or something. If you're a thousand times safer if you're white. You know, I'm definitely not a vice lord or a gangster disciple, right?

Yeah. I don't fit that. So that's an illusion that because you're white. they're going to want, you know, anyway, that you're more muggable. And a guy running is not. He doesn't have a wallet probably. So I start to have a catch with some of the boys. We're working.

You start to have a what? A catch. There were a bunch of kids on the corner. And a guy was playing baseball. He had like six kids. Al Carter, he was playing baseball with him. So I went over, started to help him out. I bought a box of balls, a bunch of baseball gloves.

And I'm goofing around with these kids. Sold it. You see these kids running and you just go. home and say, I'm running and I see every time I'm running or going by there on my car, there's a bunch of kids on a field. Not about like six or seven. Yeah, so you're like, I'm going to buy some stuff and go through. Yeah, and I play baseball. And I played freshman through college, so I'm decent at baseball.

So I said, I gave him 50 flyers and scotch tape and said, look, take these flyers and put them on a telephone wall and I showed them how to do it. Little League try out Saturday 10 a.m. Maybe we'll get some more. Maybe we get six or seven more boys. We could have a team and we'll go play my friends in the suburbs. their kids. So that Saturday, 300 kids show up. 300. Yeah. And so we were part of Williamsport. You know what that says that there's nothing else to do for these kids? Yeah. Well, not that. On the field there. And it's right there and it's a baseball diamond and

the kids want to do something organized. Do you have any help? Yeah, I had about four buddies. You and four guys. Paul O'Connor, Joe Guy, and Tina. So that, I went home that Monday. And I went home that Monday. And I was. bought 40 Little League Baseball bats and I put them in long stem rose boxes, right? And I sent them to the 40 guys I knew who either liked baseball or cared about poor kids or something. And at that point, I'm only in Chicago for you, not even a year. But I knew a bunch of guys because they were my clients and friends of friends and all kinds of stuff. So I invited

them to a thing at the nice little health club that has a bar restaurant and buffet. And I signed a Batman. So I said, you must come. So everybody shows up or has a their assistants show up with their goofy baseball bat in a long stem rose box. And I said, I need you to sponsor a team. It's $1,500 for uniforms and equipment. And I need somebody to coach it. You can't just give me money. So they said, well, where is it?

And I said, erasure. You said, well, you've been bumbled it. And everybody knows Cabrini. But we made the fields look really nice, two diamonds. And so a bunch of guys, everybody, Antied up, Northern Trust, Northwestern, Northwesterns, all these companies were coaching the, The first year was 16 teams, and then it grew to 64, shrunk a little bit with COVID and making a comeback now.

So nothing to do with baseball. It's about how would a guy from the Board of Trade or a guy, one of my coaches was in residency, played baseball, Boston College. He's an orthopedic surgeon. How would a guy like that ever meet a Cabrini Green kid if he wasn't his coach? Explain what that is. So you're never going to meet a kid from Cabrini Green. Yeah, but I don't even know what that is.

Cabrini, explain that. Cabrini Green. Named after Mother Cabrini. There's a movie about her. Shear-right. She was canonized. It was an Italian project that became this, the one by White Sox Park was the biggest. But the worst, most notorious housing project in America was Cabrini Green housing project. So. And when you say that in Chicago, everybody, shriek. Everybody knows. And everybody goes, ooh, that's worse. Which is now completely knocked down and we moved everything to the west side,

three miles by. Cabrini Green now. CBS used in a national story on it. Our current field, a two-bedroom is 500 grand. there now. Wow. And they did a great job at mixing, so every fourth unit in the rentals is for someone who has no money. They did a pretty good job of providing for people, you know. And actually, if you said, well, people were saying, well, I've been there 20 years. I'm like, well, if you haven't paid rent in 20 years, you really don't have too much to say in my mind, right? Right. So, um, look, you just, it's like you said earlier. So now the baseball thing, my friend Paul O'Connor adopted three of the kids. He's got grandkids from these kids.

So, and we started a high site scholarship program. A lot of good things came out of that. All right. So you were 30 or so when you did this? Yeah. All right. So basically, let's just be kind of melt this down. You're going on a run.

Some cops say you're crazy. You notice some kids. You have the kids put some flyers out. And within a year, you've got 14, baseball teams. 16 being sponsored by and coached by Northern Trust, bankers, guys you'd never think. So now you're introducing people to one another who would never have cross paths. That's right. And it's getting a lot of notoriety, not by my choice. You know, when you give quietly so you're left hand, because it's a big corner with two diamonds on it and you got a kind of dead end

in it to go to like, so it's in a visible spot, right? So the day, of the game won Lakers Bulls. I remember it. Jordan, it was the first year the Bulls won at 1991. So this won the league started. And actually, the Lakers won the first game.

And then the Bulls swept them. But we were on ABC 7 right after the game. They did a little special on a three-minute thing on it. Well, that's huge. Yeah. And so it got out there. Sports Illustrated, diamonds in the rough and a lot going on.

So we did. Yeah, I know how that works. I was mind and my own business coaching a football team in Memphis. And sometimes things. happen. Yeah, people find you. And you know what? If it inspires some good people, I'm alright. Because then we did the East Harlem Little League

and we did it in the South. So they, so the league grows second year by, um, we had five kids killed in the first season. One of my, Brian Dicks, Bill Ramos and I, who was an orthopedic surgeon. I tell you,

what age of these kids? Little League Baseball, 9, 10, 11, 12. And you had 9, 11, 12 year old kids get killed? Oh, yeah. I had water, you know. We bought a kid a bicycle for his birthday and they killed him for his bike. Brian Dixon. Yeah.

What does that do inside you? Me? It pisses me. I was going to say. I was going to say, you're the guy that grew up next to the dude who got 60 stitches from Muhammad Aunt Lee and got anybody said he did that. Yeah, but then nobody had a gun. The way you grew up.

Nobody had a gun. You could just get your ass kicked. Yeah. Nobody got shot. No, the point is who you are and tough Catholic kid and all. all that, how you grew up, all that. When I hear that, it breaks my heart, but it also pisses me off. Yeah, look, the gang, look, I'm in my 60s, I could kick these guys in.

Skinny little, before this, the older gang guys in their 60s and 70s, they had to be like Mike Tyson to be out of the game. Right. Sam Dillon lived in my basement. He was head of the Blackstone Rangers, then got born again and saved with him. And so we had an apartment downstairs that are, so we moved to the west side. That's because I'm, let's move to a bad neighborhood, make it good. Plus, we built a brand new brownstone.

If you do it in a bad neighborhood, you know, it's half the price. We'll be right back. So we started having kids, and I had a basement apartment for recovering guys. And Sam Dillon lived there. When he got out of prison, a guy asked, could you help this guy out? He's born again, coming out of jail. And so I had lunch with him. And I said, I went to jail.

I'm trying to relate to him. I went to jail for two days for a bar fight, right? He says, I said, what did you go in for? He goes, actually, I could cook, cook. had a stutter, but he was jacked, jacked up, muscled up guy, maybe in his 40s. I could kill around about 20, but I just got caught under one. So people said, why? You got to let those guys live in your basement?

I'm like, man, the toughest guys in the neighborhood live with me. Who's going to mess with you? Like that and a fiercely protective. What you're saying is these guys today, they're just shooting up stuff. And they can't even shoot. Look, if you got 16 bullets in there, you might hit with one, right? So, but there's just a bunch of, God, I don't know, they got. Sorry, ladies.

It's true. Sorry, that'll be bleep. There's a bleep. Is there a bleep thing? Yeah, we'll bleep that. And, you know, fatherless boys, in 1960, 87% of black children were born to married parents. Now it's 25%. And white people are any much better.

So, uh, that's it. You know, even a bad dad told you, pick up your shoes, clean your, take a shower, wake up. There's your books. Right. So now there's, most of the kids are raised by women. So I don't really know, right? And we have some super moms, great mom. I'm at a 43 year old great grandma. Do that. What? Do that math. It's like 14, 14, 14. So, you know, the kids are, they're not being. And you can say whatever you want or how bad the schools are and all. But the number one school is in your house. Right. So, and it's really been tough like that. I mean, I could be politically incorrect. I don't care what I'm running for office. although they've been talking about to me about that. So that's the issue. Look, all morals aside, two people banging away at one rent and one car payment.

It just works. It just works better, right? And like you said, it can actually be fun. Yeah, it could be fun, right? You've got to be. Here's what Wayne Gordon, Lawndale Community Church told me. Your kids need to know they're part of something bigger than themselves. And that they're your most important.

kid, but they're not the only important kid. And I think my kids growing up, my own kids, and he had grown up where they have. So I have seven biological, and I've been legal guardian for four African-American boys, one formally. So Tyrone, who's doing great. So I kind of, and I live in a, what was a mostly black neighbor. Now it's a lot of Mexicans. They become, I think, a larger portion of the city than African-Americans now. And so Chicago Hope, outside of my own kids was an all black school. And now we're like 40% Latino. We hadn't even gotten to that, Bob.

So anyway, you keep screwing up a whole story. I'm really excited about that. Okay. So now the Lill is growing. You got the baseball. Yeah, things happen. Pick it up there. So they start to knock a briny green down.

And so we moved to the west side. We're just having our second kid. And my wife decides to leave work and we build this house on the west side of Chicago. And what people would think is a bad neighbor. So, and so Iron Mata is like if the Lord of the Universe came down to Earth, he had a pretty nice place, I think, heaven, pretty nice place. It's all right. And comes down here, he gets his ass kick. It doesn't like, it doesn't look so go so good, right?

You see the passion of crime? I mean, it's not going too good until he rises from the death. But it is. So if he could do that, come down here, the least we could do is downsize a little bit, I think. And like you said earlier, we didn't need a bunch of people to do this. And so now we got a bunch of people drinking the Kool-Aid doing that. kids out of Wheaton College, Notre Dame and stuff. They're phenomenal. They don't, they're fearless.

My kids are crazy, fearless for Jesus. So my son, so my kids were like the Jackie Robinson's of the Little League. Only they were the first white player. It was the inverse. And they were all stayed in track. They go, how do your sons get so fast? I'm like,

a group of a black neighborhood. He better run. You've got to get fast or go home. So my son, Ike, is the principal Chicago home. They all went. went to Hope. And so he, um, his roommate just married my daughter Scout, who was Notre Dame's rugby captain. So he was living with a guy, Ricky. Time out. You have a daughter named Scout. Yeah.

Is that to kill a mockingbird? She very much like that character too. When she had, she had a wedding gown and all the kids went, Scouts wearing a dress. Is that where it came from? Oh yeah. Yeah. My favorite character. One of my favorite. My favorite. Bob. Atticus. Atticus, Finch. I use the word temerity to describe courage all the time. because of Attica's Finch. Yeah. And I wanted my, we have four. I wanted to name my second daughter, Molly.

I want to name her scout. And Lisa wouldn't let me. I love that name. This is my sixth. So we run out of names at that point. So she, but she's very much like that character. So she's Notre Dame's rugby captain.

So Ricky Mansea. Your daughter? Yeah. That's cool. So she, this kid comes in, who I know since he's 14, came in as a gang banging,

Latin King at Hope gets born again, baptized him and his mother and his sister, and is dating my daughter, a place for Carthage College, small school football comes back and last year asked me, could he marry him, Scout? And I said, Ricky, I'm not worried about Scout. I'm worried about you. You see her greatest hits film? So they get married, so he was living with Ike and moves out. So my son, Ike, has a three-bedroom condo in the hood.

So you know what he does? He meets a Venezuelan couple begging for money and there are two kids. he takes them. Those are his roommates then for the last year. You're kidding. He must have been paying, his name Isaiah from Isaiah 58, but we call him. So he must have been paying attention to the sermon, right? So, and these people go to work every morning at seven and a chicken plucking factory and work there. Right? And so, and their kids get dropped off. And at Hope, we're a high school.

But after school, there's always 100 little kids running around because the parents, if they're working or something, if we don't pick you up or if not, just go to Hope. just go there we still hadn't gotten to hope how it started so so we moved to the west side and we're homeschool so we homeschool K to 8 and my wife

so my wife's pretty smart if you could afford one parent to stay home it's pretty good it's what everybody did for centuries before the last 150 years right they homeschooled a kid so that went well and then when the local Catholic school closed

look one of those 100 or whatever St. Calist. I'm supposed to love the Lord, my God, with my whole heart, mind, and so I love my neighbors myself. So my kids could go for high school to St. Ignatius or Latin, or I could move to Wheaton, where everybody, all the Christian people. These are good schools. I could do that. Or, and then all their teammates from the Littley, they got to go to Farriot, right? Or Juarez or some Crane or Manly or Conlon. So how is that? Are these bad intercity schools? How is. Manly is where Arsha Cooper went, who we had on the podcast. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's right, manly.

So Archae Cooper's a great guy. Arshae's Little League coach, Ken Alpar. Arshae played in our little. Ken Alpar, yes. Ken Alpar is my Jewish run. That is crazy. He rode for Penn when they won a national championship. Yes, I remember that.

So again, there's, for those of you listening, go back and listen to the Arshae Cooper episode, and this will connect. So Manly crew. Manly was rough. His birth out of the little league. because Ken Alpart coached in the little league, and he rode for Penn. That's the connection. Unbelievable. So, and I still talk to him once in a month.

So your kids are about to go to high school. Their options are infinite, but their friends' options that they've come up living with around are manly, which is where Arsha went, which is terrible. So I had just sold a business to National Financial Partners, and I paid off my mom's house and my mother's house, and did the 50-50 thing and bought the local Catholic school to open up.

Holder you bought the school? We're the first ones they ever sold to. They rent a lot, but if they sell, that's emitting defeat, right? So because the Little League was so strong and we had a good reputation, they sold it to me for a million nine. And I would have paid five million. I'm talking about church, rectory, convent, school. The structural engineer when he came there, he said, Bob, if there's a tsunami,

come here. This will be the last building's thing. This thing is. So the Italian artisans building. built it really well. So we open up with 120 freshmen. All of the kids are from the little league. The whole school is that come out? Hold on, hold it. You buy the facility for me and not from the Dossies. All right. That's a lot. Got to rehab. Then that means the bureaucrats are going to come in and tell you about the asbestos and everything. Oh, yeah, that happened. How much did that cost?

I was like 100. I was really surprised. It was mostly in the tiles and wrapped around the pipes. Okay. So now you got two million in the school. Yeah. Here come 125 kids. And we had to guarantee all my stuff on that loan too. I did that and then I told. When these kids show up for school, listen, the $2 million is amazing that you did that.

But here's my question. There's operating expenses coming. How does that get covered? We spent my friends. This is a private school. We're independent school. My friends and I put in another three or four. So when you put an air conditioning because it didn't have any, you've got to cut a hole in every single room, man.

And a whole bunch of things like that. So now we've got, and we did it in about six months, we made this school ready looking beautiful, right? So we start with freshmen and sophomores. And we're playing football right out of the gate, right? So I have nobody to play. And he knows his story because it has to do with his alma mater. So, and his uncle. So.

We're talking about Alex the. producers. Alex, the producer, Cortez. So we have nobody to play. I actually scheduled we had one game and Brentwood Academy. We're going to play Thanksgiving weekend and come down here. Just play them a JV game. I was about to say, what the hell of Brinwood's Academy is good. Yeah, they would have scored 100. So we open up, somebody dropped football a month before the season, one school seat in Academy drops football. So that means there's nine teams out there with an empty day. So I'm calling, hey, I'm Bob from Chicago. I see you're empty on November. So I got my nine games.

And I opened up with St. Ignatius College Prep. Who's coaching these kids? We had Renee Stewart who played in the NFL. And Chicago Hope has always had great staff and great people. Got it. And I came up from Brentwood. And Brad Perry, who was at Brentwood Academy. No kidding.

So they came up and lived for you, came up for a year or just eight four year and got us going. And so we open up with St. Ignatius. And it's when it was the new field, the new estrogen. to our field and track they had just set up and Steve Cortez was coach of the JV team and said look Bob I know you're brand new and if it gets ugly I promise not to run up to score so I did use that in a pregame talk so my wife's at the game and some of our donors come at halftime and it's 267 are going well that's not that bad and he's no we're win we ran them off the field so we beat him like 48th you did Chicago Hope beat the 16 on a student

St. Ignatius. Now, they're not a football power at that time. They've gotten really good, but the fact is we won the game, which was really big for us. So, picture you're playing, I have great pictures of that game with the Chicago Skyline in the background with this beautiful 100-year-old Catholic school, and you kick their So we're fed. Speed kills,

right? And a bunch of wealthy kids kicking their ass. We had like four plays. That's right. Run the beer. So there's unlimited plays you can do when you're running. Yeah, that's true. And we had Romel Robinson, it was later to have to that. So we had a good team. And we're all boys, most of them I know since they're nine or ten,

because I know them from the baseball program. So we really have good relationships going. And then we've had one losing season in the 20 years. We're good. I want to go back to, I get you piled a bunch of money in it, but how are you operating this thing, the operational cost? Because it's a private school, and I don't guess many people are paying tuition. Yeah.

No, everybody pays. And if I had a billion dollars, you'd pay. So right now, cost about... Because you want everybody. Have a little skitt of a game. When it's no one in Chicago, the public school kids often don't show up. When it's no one in Chicago, the Chicago Hope kids show up because grandma's going. I'm paying $200 a month.

Get your... Right? You're going. So you got to own it, right? So... And no one's ever been kicked out for money. We make them work in the summer. So, and so I got to get the rest of it.

So I'm getting two or $3,000, and I got to get... 16. So we raise a bunch of money from February. Is that what it cost? About 20 per kid. About 16. 16. So I'm 13 short this year times 300. I'm 4 million short. So we raise a bunch of money from mostly my clients because I know what they have. I invest their money. I'm like, don't give me no $10,000. Right. Not that. Missing a zero pound. Right. Right. So. You manage their money. I know what they got. And we've done a really good job with Yeah. You're missing a zero, pal.

So, and we have that kind of relationship. And I like guys. I have never asked anyone for money. I just tell the story. And at one point, they're going to say, how can I help? Right. There's an awkward silence going on. Her gift, and the problem is with our pastors that my gifts are exhortation and compassion and hers are discernment.

And those two bang heads, right? Wow. So, but her passion was a school too, right? And so she's very involved, right? So, um, my wife is wicked smart. She's a smart girl in homeschool. We'll be right back. Okay.

New year, fresh start. And honestly, I'm starting with dinner. This year, I'm being smarter about where my energy goes. And dinner was taking way too much of it. I just signed up for Hello Fresh, and they take fresh start to a whole new level. Fresh high-quality ingredients delivered right to my door, locally sourced whenever possible. Everything pre-portioned, nothing wasted. Now, I'm not dragging myself through weekend grocery runs,

or panic staring at the fridge at 5.30 trying to make something out of random leftovers. And I'm definitely not tossing out food I never used or falling back on expensive takeout apps because I ran out of ideas. Yeah, that happened a lot. Just simple, stress-free recipes and meals. that helped me save more. Waste less. And for the first time in a long time, I actually look forward to dinner. Get your fresh start right now and get 50% off your first box plus free sides for life with HelloFresh. That's right, free sides for life. Go to Hellofresh.c8 and use code

mom 50. That's hellofresh.c.cate code mom 50. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is you can decide who takes home the 2026 IHard Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at IHart Podcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeartpodcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google doc and send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder,

after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that way? one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your

podcasts. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. Did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy.

Did you know Doll got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.

Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl starting January 19th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you get control the behavior of anybody around you, What kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user-made. for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP.

It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting January 20th.

Then the banks, it was the big short, right? So the banks started to donate foreclosures to nonprofits with audited financials. So I have a guy working for me, Kevin. He's one of those guys. He played rugby at Williams and University of Chicago MBA crashed and burned. He's been with us from day one for 20 years. And he's one of those guys. You put him in the woods.

He'll build a house. I think you kind of probably like that. So we get the first donation from the bank and a foreclosure, put in 20 grand, sell it for a buck 50 and go. So we just flipped our 500th house. We're the largest nonprofit receiver of four close homes in Chicago. You are kidding. So the real estate business pays the teachers plus the tuition plus donations. So when you put someone in a house, it's a big deal.

So, I mean, I'm like George Bailey and it's a wonderful life when someone gets their house. Remember that Mr. Mancini? Like, you own a house? Hey, you want to get conservative. You see black people who own their house. You want to see people turn Republican quit. You want some, you want stop and front. frisk on your block. When people are getting high on your doorstep, you want the cop to stop and frisk

these guys. And if you get five or six houses on a block, the block turns. When you own it, you fix it. You go down the street. I'll tell you who's renting and who's owning by the garden in front of your house. That's true. So, and so, and we flip the house in Hyde Park for a million one. It's not all like inner city house. Wow. So, and we're the banks, CRA, they have to do community reinvestment act. They don't, they give us like a six and a half percent. They're doing anything, right? They're acting like they're doing us a favor, right? Community reinvestment.

They don't give us money. They just lend it to us. And we have investors. So I got a dozen guys who put it from $100 grand to a million. They get a 5% coupon every year. They get 5% interest. Most of them rip the checkup. If I'm delivering that check in person, they're ripping that checkup.

That's important. But some of them take it. I'm like, my family office guy did it. Like, well, your family office guy. So then they get a deduction if they don't take. And if 5% looked great until the last three years, right? 5% was when interest rate for 3 or 4%. 5 look great.

So you're really strong arming your clients out of their money in the name of Jesus. Pretty easy. And the fair catch. Which I guess, I have to report it to my broker dealer every year. And so I don't really talk, you know, just say, am I on a boy? Yeah, I'm CEO of Chicago. Chicago up Academy, but I don't talk about that that much because I would guess I'm technically, you know, we're getting money from people who are our clients to do some, but that's their

call, right? It's a 501c3 audited finance. And the people in my business, a lot of them support it, right? So, so that's, it's kind of wonderful. We're employing a bunch of guys. How long has the school been out? You're 20. It's your 20. Yeah, Chicago. 20 years. And how many? What's, give me the, 30010, we're high school, right? And we turned down 150. kids last year. You turned down? Yeah. Because I just don't have the room. So I have a 24-acre across from our new Little League fields, which you picture four Little League diamonds where the center fielders are

back-to-back, right? On that beautiful field, Alex knows about it. Steve Cortez's uncle coach there for a couple of years. On that feel, we put our football field, right? I got 124 yards. So you better, that's why you got a helmet on. You hit that brick wall two yards to be on the under. Sure, right there. Squeezing across the street, 15 years ago, I see this beautiful building going up. It looks like a warehouse. I go in there.

Michael Jordan's trainer, Tim Grover, builds the nicest basketball facility you've ever seen. Across the street, 50 yards from our Little League field. And he goes bankrupt and we buy it out of foreclosure. So Chicago Hope, our gym is as nice as any suburban gym. You have four full NBA courts, mahogany wood locker rooms. Oh, my gosh. Chubb, cold plunge, you name it. Built for the NBA guys, and we buy it out of a room with a batting.

Our weight room looks like Clemsons. And so it's home for Special Olympics. They put it in. They stroked a check for a couple million dollars going in there. Joe Mowgliah made the down payment on the gym. We ended up buying it for seven and a half. He was CEO of Ameritrade, and now he's head football coach at Coastal Carolina. I know that story.

Yeah. He's phenomenal. head of football operations because of his asthma, he can't be down on the field the last three years. So how much do you think this thing costs to build this gym? He built it for 12. We bought it for seven and a half. Looks pretty good. And then we put it in a beautiful set. We have 24 acres there with a beautiful track and that's where we want to build a new school and we go to six or 800. I can't imagine that every kid on earth wants to be in the school.

Pretty easy to recruit there. And we have kids that can barely read. We have a trades program now. We're in a second year of that for electricians. Why can they barely read? Because they can't, they got passed through grammar school and shouldn't have passed. Can you catch them up? Yeah. So there's that great philosopher, Chris Rock, said this. The great philosopher.

If Johnny can't read, that's mommy's fault. If Johnny can't read because the electric bill hasn't been paying the lights around, that's daddy's fault. I'm daddy. And so the kids come in. And then I got my valet attorney went to Stanford last year. I got kids at Brown, Columbia. Yeah, we got a couple of Vanderbilt. So our best kids are as good as anybody's.

And then we got a bunch in the middle. We have two stationed in Poland right now in the U.S. Army. I don't know if you know we have 20,000 American soldiers in Poland. I didn't know we had 20. We must think something might happen. Might as much. I knew we had a bunch. So anyway.

Let me, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Bob, but when you started, you had, how many kids? Was that first year? 90 kids. How many were white? None. One, Sammy, my daughter, Sammy, was in the first class. Your kid? Yeah.

And my second year bow came the night. What is the demographics at school now? 60% black, 30% Latino, 10% white, Asian. You know who comes to the white kids who come with a home schooler? No kidding. You want a place that's serious about Jesus and the athletic side of it. We're good. We play the big schools.

We were beating Whitney Young. It's a big notorious. public high school in Chicago. It's a test in school. So it's for the smart kids. And so all the smart black and white kids go, you know, and so we, we opened with them this year. We were meeting a 40. Have you ever thought about boarding at all? We did board some kids. We boarded and we had kids coming in from Vietnam, South Korea. We had a big house that we boarded them in and they stopped coming because of COVID. And I'll mix them in with like homeless black kids and I love this stuff, right? I picked this kid up at O'Hare Airport from Vietnam.

So obviously if they're coming here, they're rich kids, right? And they're coming to a Christian school in the hood. And we have them in this beautiful building. And the kid has cranked up, chants the rapper. He's never been an American in his life. So I'm roaming him with Tyrone. Right? Tyrone's math scores go up and this kid's gutting hip.

So. Todd Rose math scores go up and a kid for Vietnam. They learn all these funny little math tricks and stuff. So look, I can't remediate you to Harvard, but I can make you a good man, right? We've probably six or seven hope graduates who are police officers now.

I was just playing in the gym with one of them the other day. So, you know, a great thing about our facilities is everybody could come. So I'll see a kid in there who's 30. graduated 12 years ago. He's just in there working out, hanging out. I'll see all these little kids running around. It's a huge facility.

The NBA draft combine is often in our gym. That's how nice it is. We have to shut it down for four days. They give us $25,000. They should give us a quarter million dollars. I think they should give you much more. So, yeah, I haven't gotten to them yet. At a zero, pal.

Yeah. So, but it's sort of a notorious place. You know, I'm three miles from downtown. What's your budget? Budget is... Well, we're on the gym. Tell them who played there. the night before the election and that whole...

Oh, okay. So I get a call the Sunday before the Iran election at my House Secret Service calls that Obama wants to play basketball at Hope for good luck the morning of the presidential election for his second term. So we say, yeah, they got snipers on the roof, dog sniff the building.

Arnie Duncan was there. Pippen, some of the bulls came. Obama comes. He says, you look old. I said, I don't see no crowd around you neither, Paul. Remember that from Rocky? So, and he said, Smokes, cigarettes.

So he's playing basketball. He's a lefty. Obama's probably 6-1-1-70. He's a lean guy. So he could, you know, we weren't allowed to hit foul. Does he have a good shot? Yeah, if nobody's on him, he could hit it. Okay.

Arnie Duncan, the head of education, can still play good, right? Janullis, who's Secretary of State, could dunk. He's like 45. So they're all playing. But he asked me, hey, Bob, what's your secret sauce to having a great inner city school? And I said, Barry, if you want to fix an inner-city school. school, put your own kid in it. He ain't doing that.

We ain't doing that. You know who my black friends say the first black president was? Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, yeah. Yeah. Jason and women, single pirate, grew up. Play saxophone. Astroof in the bed of his truck.

I'm glad this is a private show. We could say whatever we want. As long as it's true. My black friends in Memphis when talking about Bill Clinton said, Yeah, we knew he was a scally wagon, a dog, but he was our dog. Yeah, that's right. That is exactly how the black folks in the South felt about, at least my friends. He went to, yeah, he's smart.

George Town and Yale right? Yeah. And he come from trailer park, just like J.D. Vance. Yeah, it's true. You got to love that. The amount of color, you are, same trailer. So my question is this. What is the budget of this school?

Oh, the budget is about $5.5 million. Okay. tuition brings in about one and a half. So I got a four. There's a $4 million dollars. But we make about 500 net renting that gym out for different things. So now you're 35. Yeah.

Now I'm 3.5. We'll probably net a million and a half in real estate. Okay. So now you're two. Yeah. But that's just to stay flat. So right now, we now have about 40 million in real estate, the school loans, and about 15 in a bank. So where does the two come from?

You're not getting interest. I'm not. I'm getting money from friends to Mowgli. A lot of people give us $5,000, $1,000. People want to support it. We got a couple of big guys. I give $100. All right.

So what about school voucher thing? Wouldn't that be a big deal? Oh, my gosh. So we had that for five years in Illinois under government. You had it? For Bruce Rounder, yeah. You can take 5%. It was called Invest in Kids.

So Illinois State income tax is 5% flat. So if you're making a million dollars, you pay $50 grand. You could steer that to Chicago. and people, I was like shooting fish in a barrel. And when Rounder lost to Pritzker, they didn't have the guts to take it away. So now there's 25,000, mostly black and Spanish kids on these scholarships for any Catholic school, independent school in the city. And so, and it's, you know, it's like $50 million. It's not going to break the Illinois budget.

They're given 10 times more of that to the Venezuelans. So Governor Pritzker, who's heir to the Hyatt company, our 400-pound gold, governor who talks about COVID and health doesn't put it in the budget so they just didn't put it in the budget so it didn't get voted down so last year it ended so it's gone now yeah we picked up a million seven off that last year and we lost it but to be fair we did it for 15 years without it but it put some little catholic schools out of business because they got used and you can never get used to the government money there's a big there's a big governor bill lee here in tennessee is a huge school voucher guy did they have it here um

kind of, but not how he wants it to be. But they're working on it. And look, I get both sides of the argument. One side is if you strip that money out of the public schools, you're just going to make them even worse. It's not true. It's not stripping money. They're having one less kid. So the kid is going.

The money's following kid. But that's the argument. And then the other argument is if it costs $13,000. per kid in the state of Tennessee to send them to public school. If they choose not to go to public school, give them a $13,000 voucher to spend at any private school they want to and let them choose how they're educated. Right, exactly. That's the idea. So we're 16, right?

The public schools in Chicago spend 30 per kid. There you go. And the results are bad. The results are bad because it's from tough families, really tough situations. And the good kids are going to the magnet and the other chart. right the kids who a parent has some kind of which means that public school in the inner city continues to get degraded but here's what's happened now Chicago nobody wants to say it our local school manly where our Shea attended when he was there were 1,600 kids right it's a big

school there's 90 kids in there 90 just plain 90 they've gotten the charters and I haven't seen a big black family in 25 years I used to see seven kids they might have three different dads but the lady's having a baby and if you had mentioned to her the word abortion, she might punch your lights out, man. Right. And I did it. It was an article on Sports Illustrated 15 years ago called the Vanishing Black player, and they wanted to talk to me about it.

So they're saying, well, it's money. There's no money for fields. And I'm saying, no, that's not it. It's a father-taught game. And if you don't live around that guy. A grandfather-father, you're probably not going to play baseball. You're going to want to play 80-79 basketball. Give me the ball, right?

So, no, they go, oh, that made them uncomfortable. Whatever. It made them uncomfortable. Comfortable. So anyway, Giuliani comes to opening day. He was the mayor. So we throw out the first pitch.

There was a major, Paul O'Neill, there was some Christian players there from the Yankees. But everybody's gone by the 3 o'clock game, right? The 3 p.m. game. And I'll remember, like, we had guys from the drug and alcohol rehab with the umpiring crew

from the Christian drug and alcohol rehab. So their umpiring. a game and I'm hearing pop pop pop pop and it's a shooting battle going on from one rooftop to another one the field's in the middle but they're shooting out people over there and I'm at midfield with these guys and they're debating between innings what caliber of weapon it is and I'm like the score's four three you know I'm umpying behind the plate which I love doing because you get to really control what's going on you got a big strike zone because you don't want kids walking all over the And so I just looked at them and like, forget it.

We didn't even call anybody or something. The cops came at one point. But that league was phenomenal. That was great. And a bunch of people that really took it on. So that's why the Johnny Appleseed, they start one in Nashville had one for a little bit on the other side of Nashville. What, um, are you the CEO? Are you the grand pooh by the school?

What? No, I was, I was CEO of the school until three years ago. of my son, I, Brian Sir, retired chief operating officer of Guggenheim, who bought the Dodgers. So he did the Dodger deal when they bought the. Guys in Chicago own the Dodgers. Really? Mark Walter. So Brian is now chairman of the board.

Because there's a movement Bob Euford started called Halftime. What are you going to do? You made a lot of money. You're going to go golfing in your 60s and 70s and 80s and eat dinner at 5 o'clock. So with all that talent you have and money. So Brian, sir, is now chairman of the board of Chicago Hope. And we've got. And your son is the president.

The principal. Yeah. My daughter, the Notre Dame girl is at Mission. So what are you doing? Just hanging around? I have, I have influence. I still get the vote. You still are routing up checks.

Yeah. I'm still in mind. We say we have to stop becoming fob, friends of Bob. So, but, you know, I'm happy to do it. And there's no mention a retirement of Bible, right? We're going. If you're working out hard, I'm going to bench and squad. Complacencies for retirement.

So we can't run with the kids. If you're careful, you could still live with the kid. I'm going to bench and. squad 315 this year. And I'm an old... Come on. Yeah. Are you really?

Yeah. I got $2.85 the other day. They put on more and I felt like a truck was on my chest. But you're careful. You don't blow your shoulder out. At 65, you're going to bench. Really? Yeah.

I kind of hate you right now. Yeah. And I was a tight, I wasn't an ad line. Yeah. Well, I wasn't either. I was a safety. Be careful what you see today. But that's...

But that's, I had your guard now, man. You know, pull it guard. But that's, uh, that's, uh, that's a, That's something you should still. They'd help everybody that. You should be lifting weights for older people. Grandma broke her hip. Why?

She doesn't have any muscles around her head. When she fell, she had no muscles around. So we're supposed to stay fit. You know, I'm walking that thin line. I don't know if you've seen these pads thing, these electric pads. So instead of putting heavy weights on, you have these electric pads on. Right. Tyson used to.

When's Tyson fighting that guy this week? Yeah. Did you see him yesterday or the day before or something? I really like Mike. He actually punched the guy. Yeah, I like him a lot of Tyson. He's a really sympathetic character, right? Yeah, it is a sympathetic character.

You know, my favorite quote is from Mike Tyson. What is it? Everybody's got a game plan until they get punched in the face. It's true. I have one more person come up to me. Oh, we have a passion to start at inner city school. I'm like, I come here, I'll talk you out of it. And if I can't talk them out of it, then they're going to do it.

Is it? It'll take your whole life. It'll take your whole life. But would you give it again? Yeah, I would have done it a little differently, but I would have done it. What would you do different? I wouldn't have had us be selling off because it's three blocks from my house. All my kids are there.

I know all the kids. It's all the neighborhood, right? So for me, I could roll with that because to whom I was forgiven much. And my wife's a little bit. So it was a little more painful for her a lot. I had 95% of the stuff she wanted to happen, happen, but some didn't. Like Brentwood Academy, we can't. Like in our handbook, if you cheat or you steal, you're kicked out.

Well, freshmen always cheat or steal because I don't know. We have no locks in our lockers. We just don't steal. And if you do steal, I would come to the Micah Chappell and say, I have to, I'm responsible for it. So if somebody's iPad got stolen, I got to pay for it. Only bought. So you could only steal from Bob, right? And the freshmen inevitably steal because I don't get us yet, right? So, but my wife would be like, well, why do we have a rule book then? If the kids, because the kid's kicked out, he's going to join the vice lord, right? So let's make a mop the floor for two weeks, right? So there's a lot of,

on the main thing, the Christ's center place, the scriptures on the walls. You're walking. We're solid like that. We'll be right back. Okay, new year, fresh start. And honestly, I'm starting with dinner. This year, I'm being smarter about where my energy goes, and dinner was taking way too much of it. I just signed up for Hello Fresh, and they take Fresh Start to a whole new level.

Fresh high-quality ingredients delivered right to my door, locally sourced whenever possible. Everything pre-portioned, nothing wasted. Now I'm not dragging myself through weekend grocery runs or pay. panic staring at the fridge at 530 trying to make something out of random leftovers. And I'm definitely not tossing out food I never used or falling back on expensive takeout apps because I ran out of ideas. Yeah, that happened a lot. Just simple, stress-free recipes and meals that help me save more, waste less. And for the first time in a long time, I actually look forward

to dinner. Get your fresh start right now and get 50% off your first box plus free sides for life with Hello Fresh. That's right, free sides for life. Go to how to Hellofresh.c8 and use code mom 50. That's hellofresh.cate, code mom 50. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 26 IHeart Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at IHeartPodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.com.

Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audio books, podcasts, and original all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at Audible.com.

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up

that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.

My name is Evan Ratlift. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, After hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman, there's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game.

This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A. agents in small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy?

Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either.

Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a Congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever?

And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is true. stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl, starting January 19th on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?

When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your car? cult. NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness.

Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to mind games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, starting January 20th. We got approved. We're the only ones in history to get approved to be a charter school, 8,000 a year per kid.

And then the women came from the city hall, take the scripture off the wall. You can't have chapel until after school. Yeah, so no charter. You can't have hands on a kid. So the parents. We ain't kicking Jesus out of our school? Unanimously, in a pack chapel, turned the money down, $8,000 a year per kid at that time.

And I'm all choked up that we're standing for Christ, and we're not going to take their money. But behind it, I'm Jerry McGuire. Show me the money. No, not show you the money, Jerry. Show me the money. Say it, Jerry. So we don't take the $8,000 a year per kid,

under Mayor Daly and Arnie Duncan, who Mayor Daley said this. I don't care if you're calling it. Jesus Christ, high school. You guys do great work. You should get it. I love Daley. Mayor Daley.

He gave us the park on the corner. They were going to take the park. He gave a Christian school a park. Daly was great. Okay. If you do a good work. Yeah. His Fob, Mass, every day.

The only thing he would come to every day, his assistant said that he asked to go to because he has to speak at so many events as the opening day of the Little League to throw out the first pitch. Because he's, no one. bothering him. He's eating hot dogs throwing her. I mean, his father was mayor for 24 years, and he was mayor for like 25 or something like that.

Right. So his father, here's a great Richie Daly's senior story. The ACLU in the 70s, their law was passed, no manger scenes or minors in public buildings anymore. Yeah. Right. So the ACLU lawyers are up in D.C. So Daly invites, this is the father, early 70. He invites the head of Moody Biden Institute, the head of the archdiocese, the head of the Jewish name, and all to this meeting on a Friday afternoon with the ACLU up from Washington, no more major scenes in public, no more minors. So they're all there. A guy who was personally there was the assistant to the head of Moody Bible Institute.

So there's 10 Christian and Jewish people sitting in there while the ACLU is telling them. This is the 70s. Chicago's roughest now, right? So they always nodding his head Say, okay, do you understand this, Mr. Mayor? Yes, he understands. On Monday, there was a manger scene in a menorah in every single public building.

How? He just flipped them off. He just said, I understand. He told them what they wanted to air. You come take them down. And what happened? Nothing. And they're still in there today?

So. That's good leadership. That is good leadership. But that's also seems like. like it's the stick of your school, too. Yeah. So what's next, Bob? We'd like to get this new campus built.

If you have a $40 million check, I'll accept that. It's about $40 million. We've been approved. You're going to have to drop a few zeros, pal. I'll take four. Hey, it's better to get 100 guys with $10,000. It sure is. If the big guy leaves, you got problems.

So what are you going to do? You're going to build a whole new campus? Yeah, we have it already been approved. We have it all designed. What about the gym and all this stuff you've done? It walks right into the gym. Oh, you're adding to the campus. Our 24 acres, yeah, we're currently eight blocks away from the gym is our current school.

So our kids have an eight block walk every day to get the practice. So are you going to try to connect that? Are you buying the land in the middle? We'll make the current school a K through 8 and build a high school over there. I see. Yeah. So we already have all the plans. And the board said this, look.

What about the funding, annual funding for all that? Well, we've got, we're flipping houses. and raise the money, and people are giving money to stuff like this, right? So the voucher thing could come back. But I think that you have to go out on faith. And that's how everything got done. Look, we start, when people come who haven't been around for many years, like Brian Tamponi came a coach, you're like, are you kidding me?

You're still open? Like, that's crazy, right? A private school for poor kids. So, but there's a lot of people want to fund it. We have actual results. I see a lot of people getting money from, what's the, wife and the other, I mean, ex-wife who, God bless him, give her, to stuff like, that's not effective.

They just got a million dollars and they don't, I know what they do, right? The Obama Foundation always, you know what the head of the Obama Foundation gets paid? 750. I'll take that job. 750,000 a year. To be the head. So people do all the, and all the building is a giant museum on the park. So, I don't know.

I just think you come to home. This guy, Mike Kaiser, he's one of the best golf course builders in the world. He built band and dunes in Oregon. And he pops by. I love this guy. He's got a 12-year-old car. He's worth of fortune. He goes, I love hope because when I come by unannounced,

when I come by at 3 o'clock, there's 50 things going on, right? And you come, don't tell us you're coming if you're going to just come and see the show. Because we, it's had a prison fellowship comes out of there, Special Olympics, the cops run break. There's 20 cops that lift in our gym, right? They'll come at lunchtime. That's awesome. They're in lunchtime with packing. They're on the bench with their guns.

Our gym's like the safest place in the world. So it's really, there's a whole bunch of things going on there. So, and we rent it out to Suburban because you hit a button and you got eight volleyball courts. And it's all of a sudden three nights a week the gym gets white like from eight to midnight. And he's volleyball group. They pay us $25 grand a month to rent. So we're really scrambling and hustling. We got a little bit of a cushion now.

And I think we really need to have something on. I think God called us to build on that land with having a really good trades program part of the school. And we can go to, you know, we'd be 600, 800. When you and your wife, gosh, what's her name? Tina. When you and Tina take stock of this facility and what's going to be that you're raising money for. realize it started because you went on a run and noticed six kids on a stoop one day. What does that do for you?

What does that make you feel like? You know, it's good you ask me that because we don't celebrate the victories enough, you know? You should, though. You're always like pushing. You should allow yourself to. Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm better at that than she is. It's like now, remember Michael Jordan when he was playing?

Nobody except Rodman had crazy hair, right? Right. So I'm in the wait room. It's up to $250 to get a haircut. No kid will take me. They got those dreadlocks in their eyes and stuff. So when I left as seat president, I let that slide because I used to make the kids get haircuts, white or black, right?

So now almost, I would say more than half the kids have that, right? That takes a lot to maintain. And the reason why, black people told me that it's because they're raised by women. So you're in front of the mirror since you're three years. Oh, aren't you cute, oh? And so that's why they have all that look. And that just blow. Now that's an interesting perspective.

blows my wife's mind that blows my mind too. And so it's not at the core with her son, this is our son letting that slide, right? Because he doesn't think that's important. So he's in charge. So I'm like at the job interview, you know. But I think that the most important things matter. And there's a bunch of little things like that that just piss her off.

But so she's all hoped out. So she's taking a step back. We're always involved in fundraise and people for dinner and that kind of thing. But I guess what I'm saying is, do you realize, are you able to celebrate? I mean... We've got to do that more. There's a FCA that comes out.

Our defensive coordinator has had an FCA Urban, right? He's our defensive coordinator, too. So you come, the whole back of our scoreboard is on the Eisenhower, one of the busiest house highways in Chicago. So it's really a visible. Now, a lot of people don't know. They think it's a charter school. or whatever.

But I think we just need to do that more celebrating. And we get to celebrate in heaven, right? You do get to celebrate in heaven, but Jesus wasn't a fun hater. I have a blast with that. We have a saying on the, BJ passed away last year, the guy who'd let me say, so it's a beautiful monument with his picture on

and it has a little story about it. And it says his favorite saying was, we didn't become Christians to be miserable. That's right. And so I don't want you to paint a picture With all the tragedies, we have hundreds of good things going on for every bad thing that happened. And we have a blast. We are in the football.

My head coach, Chris Millett, African-American guy played for Princeton. And he was head of gang intervention under Daley and then Rahm Emanuel. And Chris is about 53, 54. And he's a badass. But it's all about leading kids to Christ, the whole pro. And so, yeah, it's, you walk in the gym, it says in huge letters to whom much is given much as required. And so, yeah, we got to celebrate a little more and just have a little more fun with it. I'm better at that because in the wait room with the kids, I have a blast.

I just think you, my goodness, you know, half is a lot. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it should be celebrated. And I think maybe if you celebrate it, maybe you bring more people into that tent. Yeah. Yeah. And where would Jesus live? Your whole point would you be in the McMann? in the suburbs. Yeah, he'd be there. I think we might make a little, uh, make people uncomfortable sometimes, right?

So I've been great. I spoke down here in Nashville for some Christian equivalent of an inner city school there. 18 years ago, and somebody sold their house after that talk and gave it a like a big number. So he should give the house because then he doesn't take capital gains. You don't sell any, But I get your point.

I think that I don't think we've even tapped the people who could support this. A lot of it just coincides like that. Joe Mowgli, he's an old friend for many, many years. Grew up. His father ran a fruit stand in the Bronx. Those Spritzker could do a lot for you. Yeah, they could do a lot. Mark Walter Guggenhungi guy, big giver to us, a million dollar guy.

Wow. A year per year. And so, Joe, 500 a year. There's a school here in Memphis called Pure. athletic, pure academy. The guy on it was a guest, Melvin Cole,

and he is doing a private school, not charter, and it is all boarding because he has to get his kids out of their environment. And they just, very similar, a city school that was closed

because of lack of student body, they bought it about three or four years. ago and they're now rehab it and they're trying to do it and it is just you know i it is so much money to get the facility right i should meet that guy you should meet that just to encourage him his name is melvin cole and he was he was he was uh reach out to him after this bob in case you have time on the show yeah maybe we go by his his uh he was a he spent time in prison drug guy actually flew back from Atlanta with a bullet in him bleeding wrapped tight from a... The bullet was from Chicago.

Right. And he got sent to prison and he watched a man get raped. And he made a deal. He said, that can't happen to me because I will end up dead. If you can save me from that when I get out of here, I will dedicate the rest of my life to making sure kids don't have to come up like I did. Right. And he did.

And he started this academy and he's got kids. Are they open now? They are. And he's trying to go into the new villa. He is, but he's got 30 kids. He bought a small piece property and house and started a boarding school and a house. Built a campus out of it has now bought this school. And is they are right now rehabbing the school to be open next school year on a full campus.

Right. And boarding and everything, and he is killing himself. Are there people like that, Kemin's help them? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that's who needs to be helping. Yeah. You know, a good friend of mine support is Bill Haslam.

Yeah. Who was a governor here. Yeah. Bill Haslam's a good guy. Great guy. Great guy. He'd act like a 7-Eleven checkout. You would never know.

No. I love guys. He's also a guy that can add a couple of zeros power. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just wish more people knew about Melvin. Maybe with your connections, and I know where your heart in place is.

Maybe you could be encouraging to them. But maybe also there's other people that might be interested in his school. Yeah, no question there are. And there's usually local people. Although I would say half our donors are from New York because I'm a New York guy. No. But the thing is, it's just the pool of people in Chicago, New York to give to a school like yours is a hundred times the size of the pool in Memphis. But even in Memphis, there's some crazy old money here, right?

Oh, there's some crazy old money here. Oh, there's some good people here. Like Kevin. He's good guy. So if you're not a believer, how about it? Load up. But if you're a believer, and then my wife would say the problem with the Bible belt is everybody thinks they're Christian.

So you don't really. The other problem is the most segregated day in the South of Sunday. Yeah. But there's a lot of compassionate people who would give to it. Well, look, he's had some progress or somebody's giving him money. He's had some progress. Somebody is giving him his money. But I just hear your story and you are aware.

he wants to be. Yeah, so we're just making it up as we go along, right? I move to the wrong neighbor. I don't have a passion for inner city. I move to the wrong neighborhood by mistake. I'm loving my neighbors myself. They happen to be black and poor. If they were Afghan, I would help them, right? Or Irish or whatever. So, but there's other. And to be fair, my business is to find wealthy people investor money, right? I don't have just wealthy people, but in general, my job is like keep rich people rich and make them richer, right? So that trade, don't get in finding out. Which means you can tap into them.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, most guys, our peer group, won't do that because then you used up a chip. Yeah. Right? You used the chip and you would have done a business deal with them, but he gave to your charities and you can't ask them for something else. Yeah.

So. Apparently you feel like you just keep going back. Look, if you ask me, what do I want to be in my 50s and 60s? I wanted to manage New York Yankees, but they didn't call me. So I got to raise money. You would think of something you would rather not do than raise money from your friend. Oh, my gosh, that's the most horrible thing you'd ever want to do. But the calling and the mission is bigger than Bob's ego.

Ego, A-A has so many great. Edging God out, right? Ego, Eging God out. So I have never, ever asked anybody for money. I just tell the story and we talk about it. And then eventually they're going to say, like I said earlier, how can I help or give you go away money. Right?

So where do people go to find out more about this school? Chicagohopeacademy.org. Chicago Hopeacademy.org. Yeah. And they can help if they want to help. 312519-6500 is my cell. That's a pretty cool sell. Say it again.

312-519-19-6500. Why is that a cool sell? Because it's, you know, 6,500. Oh, it's so. because you can snap it. I got it. I thought maybe the numbers meant something. I mean, with the stories of your life, it could always mean something.

Bob, from a dude who grew up in a rough New Jersey neighborhood to what you've accomplished through Columbia and your marriage and your family and the Little League's and the school, as good a shape as you're in, I can't wait to see what you do next. Yeah. I'm going to do what he tells me. Man, thanks for coming to Memphis, telling your story. Thank you, guys.

Appreciate you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Bob or other guests have inspired you in general or better yet to take action by donating to Chicago Hope Academy, starting a school or a little league, by volunteering at one or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks. And I promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to our podcast, rate it, review it.

Join the army at normalfolks. Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. the more people, the more impact. Thanks for our producer, Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. I'm John Polk.

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Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet.

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