An Army of Normal Folks - Mike Flynt: The AARP Member Playing NCAA Football (Pt 1)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Mike Flynt got kicked off his college football team for one too many fist fights and lived with the regret of letting down his team for decades. Until, he forged one of the greatest redemption stories you will ever hear, becoming the oldest linebacker in NCAA history at 59 years old! And he's now the subject of Angel Studios’ latest film The Senior. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I let you down. And had I been there, it would have been different. And I said, you know what gets me more than anything? I still think I can play. Well, he was looking at me, and he said, why don't you? And I said, I'm 59, and it was three, four decades ago. For me, I knew that I couldn't change the past, but I thought I can change the meaning of the past. if I can help a bunch of young men now and substitute it for those guys that I let down,

then for me that changes the meaning of my past. 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'm a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part a few years ago somehow led to an Oscar for a film about a team I coached, that movie's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems are never going to 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. Guys, that's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, you know what, maybe I can help. Maybe I can be a solution. That's what might be.

Mike Flint, the voice you just heard, is done. Mike got kicked off his college football team for one too many fights, and he lived with the regret of letting down his teammates for literally decades, until he forged one of the greatest redemption stories you'll ever hear, becoming the oldest linebacker in the history of NCAA football at 59 years old. It's the subject of Angel Studios' latest film, The Senior, and I cannot wait for you to meet him right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.

In the chaos of World War II, a king dies under mysterious circumstances, and his children never stop searching for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. Time's running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa, to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House.

I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, Why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before.

The entire series is available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know. There's a lot of people battling some of the very big. There are you same things you're battling, and there is help out there.

The Good Stuff Podcast, season two, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own mark to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission.

Don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Would you guys consider anything less than a championship to be a failure from this year?

I wouldn't say anything as a failure, especially because we all grow every day. Obviously, the goal is a championship. that's, there's no doubt in that and that's the goal. We want to win a championship. I'm Christina Williams, host of the podcast in case you missed it with Christina Williams. The WMPA playoffs are here and I've got the inside scoop on everything from key matchups and standout players to the behind-the-scenes moments you won't find anywhere else. It's really, really hard to be the champions, but we have to remember how it feels and embrace

the new challenge that we have. For all the biggest stories in women's basketball plus exclusive interviews with the games, brightest stars. So to be here, I think it's one that we definitely don't take for granted. But we also know, you know, that's just one stop along the way. And we're hoping to, you know, make it run. So listen to, in case you missed it with Christina Williams, an Iheart woman sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on IHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was

going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating

you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iheart radio app afo podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being left. loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mike Flint, welcome to Memphis.

Thanks. Glad to be here, Coach. How is the ride down just from Nashville area, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a great drive. Beautiful drive, yeah. It's a gorgeous day. Fall is in the air. That means football. That's right. It's like I was telling somebody this past weekend was my Christmas, you know, his first weekend for football

and his high school football and college kickoff and everything else falls in the air. That's my Christmas. I mean, I'd like a kid in a candy store when football starts. So thanks for joining us. Everybody, Mike Flint is an interesting

dude and you're going to love his story. It's a little outside of our normal service stories, although his story, is packed with service to his teammates and redemption, candidly. But we talk a lot about an army of normal folks how it's never too late. And Army of Normal Folks is about normal people you've never heard of doing extraordinary things in their communities.

And we tell the stories trying to inspire our listeners to understand that if this average normal person can do something, well, so can you. And there's no need to have trepidation or fear. All you need is a little bit of courage where you match your passion and your abilities and area of need and do things that hopefully inspire others. And then one of the taglines to that that Alex and I always talk about is never too late. It doesn't matter if you're 60 and hadn't involved yourself in some philanthropic project you can. It doesn't matter if you think the opportunities have passed you by to do extremely. extraordinary things. As long as you wake up and the sun's up and there's any in your lungs, it's never too late to make a difference in your world. And I think you're the epitome of that.

I can't even believe I'm saying this. Mike is, and I remember your story. I remember watching on the SPN and thinking you were half out of your mind, but also cool and crazy too. Mike Flann, everybody, is the oldest linebacker in the history. of NCAA football, at 59 years old, he used his last year of college eligibility playing for Sullivan Ross State, affectionately known as Sol Ross State, in Alpine, Texas. There have been people that have kicked and punted that were old, but this dude played the linebacker. He is now the subject of Angel Studios' latest film, The Senior, which is in theaters on September 19th, and I think it's opening in your hometown of Franklin,

Tennessee, right? Oh, yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah, it is. It really is. Yeah, that's pretty special. So we're going to get to your story, and we're going to start at the beginning, because I think a lot of the way you came up really unpacks what you ended up doing.

But you also wrote a book, and the book is titled The Senior, My Amazing Year, as a 59-year-old college football linebacker. I just, I can't even matter. I just turned 57, and I think if somebody hit me hard right now, I would disintegrate. It's 59. But to give everybody a glimpse into the world of the book, your story, the movie, and what led to it all, I think I'm going to read the Ford to your book. It was written by this, some guy named LeBron. James, some dude named LeBron James, wrote the forward to your book?

That was him, yeah. Before I read it, how did LeBron James write the forward of your book? How did you make that connection? LeBron and his Maverick Carter, who was manager of LR, marketing, contacted me during the season, that, you know, amazing season that I had in 2007, approached me about coming back to Cleveland to a game, watched LeBron play, they wanted to talk to me about a management contract. Very cool. So that's how the relationship started.

And then it was in 2008, after I had signed a management agreement with LeBron's company, that I was working with Don Yeager that was co-writing my book with me. And we reached out to LeBron and asked if he would, you know, we sent him some, you know, chapters, you know, from the book so he would get an idea of where things were going with it. And he loved it. And he said, absolutely, he'd write the foreword. So here's what LeBron James writes. When I grab a book or magazine in search of a little mental escape, I'm always looking for a good story. I want to read about others who have overcome obstacles about people who've shown that limits are something you place on yourself. I read to be inspired. That's what

drew me to the story of a 59-year-old man trying to make a college football team in South Texas. As soon as I read the story in a magazine, I wanted to know more about him and why he was taking the risk. The more I learned about Mike Flint, the more I wanted to learn. The more of the story I knew, the more I wanted to help him tell it. When I started my management company in 2005 with childhood friends, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted our approach to be seen as visionary in the business world and totally different than any other management company out there. I had complete confidence in my plan, but I knew I needed to surround myself with people who shared my values, people of character who inspire and

help others to be better. That's why Mike Flynn's story is one that I chose to highlight as the first of many we hoped to be associated with our company. Mike never gave up his dream. Even at 59, he never allowed anyone to take away that dream. him, no matter how old he was or what he went through, and that's why I was so inspired by his determination. I first met Mike at one of my Cleveland Cavaliers' home games in November of 2007. I had a chance to talk to Mike after the game, and I told him I thought he had an incredible story to return to college and finish his long-delayed senior season of football after

nearly four decades was amazing to me. he was a grandfather who was eight years older than his head coach and had two children older than his teammates reading smike's story reminded me a lot of my own story had many obstacles to overcome in my youth and like mike always believed that one day my dreams have come true still there are so many people across the country who need what mike has to offer in this book to help them win their own personal battles i'm about the same age as many of mike's most recent college teammates, so I can relate to the impact he had in their lives. I know that in my busy life, someone might tell me something valuable, and it may go in one

air and out the other, but when you tell me a great story, you have my attention. This is not just a feel good story. This is a story of redemption and giving back. Pretty high praise from LeBron James. Well, it was very humbling in what he wrote, and the thing about LeBron that kindred spirit that we had as I said I spent a lot of time

with Maverick and Maverick grew up with LeBron and Maverick told me about an eight-year-old boy the first day of third grade, the teacher had everybody sit down and she passed out a three-by-five card

to everybody in the class and she told them she wanted to just number one, two, three on the card to put their name on that card just number one, two, three, and then write down their first choice or second choice and their third choice for what they wanted to do when they finished with their schooling and pass the cards forward and she would talk about them. Well, she was going through the cards talking about different occupations that the kids

had written down and how much schooling was required for those different occupations. And then she comes to this one card and she looks at it and she looks at the class. she looks back at the card and she said, okay, someone has written NBA, NBA, NBA for all three choices. She said, I need to know who wrote this card. And he raised his hand. And she said, first of all, you have any idea how difficult it is to make it in the NBA, to even make the college basketball team, but to make it in the NBA is almost impossible. and she said, you've got it listed as all three of your choices.

Why is it all three of your choices? And he said, for me, there are not any other choices. That's what I'm going to do. LeBron James knew when he was eight years old what he wanted to do, and he was sold out to it. And living on the streets, the things that he went through as a young boy, to date, he has no idea who has. dad is. He had no idea. He was going to be 6'9, weigh 250 pounds. His mother, I've met his mother,

a small woman, you know, but LeBron was always studying, always took care of class work, but he was always on a basketball court somewhere. No matter where he lived in different foster homes, there were a group of people that actually took care of him. And, but out of high school, He was drafted, number one, by Cleveland Calvilliers. And so, you know, LeBron, whenever LeBron wrote what he did in my Ford, I didn't appreciate it to the degree that I did after Maverick told me that story. And then it took on a whole new meaning for me because this was a guy that everything he described in me, he was basically himself.

He was in spades, you know. He just saw so much of his relentless pursuit of his goals in the story of a 59-year-old guy and a ruthless pursuit of his. And I was so honored and humbled by what he wrote. He's just, he's an amazing guy. And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the Army. at normalfolks. Us.

By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or, if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back. In the chaos of World War II, a king dies under mysterious circumstances and his children never stop searching

for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. Times running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now.

Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick, I'm the CEO of One Tribe. foundation and I just want to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast season two takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front

lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and the traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff.

Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Would you guys consider anything less than a championship to be a failure from this year? I wouldn't say anything as a failure, especially because we, all grow every day. Obviously, the goal is a championship. There's no doubt in that and that's the goal. We want to win a championship. I'm Christina Williams, host of the podcast in case you missed it with Christina Williams. The WMBA playoffs are here and I've got the inside scoop on everything from key matchups and standout players to the behind the scenes moments you won't find anywhere else. It's really, really hard to be the champions, but we have to remember how it feels and

embrace the new challenge that we have. For all the biggest stories and women's basketball plus exclusive interviews with the game's brightest stars. So to be here, I think it's one that we definitely don't take for granted. But we also know, you know, that's just one stop along the way. And we're hoping to, you know, make it run. So listen to, in case you missed it with Christina Williams and IHart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment on IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming. conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to

to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed.

There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order criminal justice system is back.

In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Pretty cool. That sets up your story. Already our listeners are going, Bill, are you talking to a crazy person? And yeah, I think all of us have a little crazy in us, but you have to be a little crazy to just go after it. But set us up.

Even how your parents met is kind of an interesting story, I think, and kind of how they met and where you come from and how you were raised. because I think that's germane to a lot of what happened later in your life when you're married. Yeah, absolutely. My dad, born and raised in Mississippi. Heidi, tidy, old miss, hidey, tidy. I'm an Ole Miss guy. Yeah, yeah. But I think he was from Hattisburg, so he was closer to Southern Miss.

Yeah, well, you know, he had a third grade education, and so, you know, he loved football, and always thought that he would be a good football player, but that was never in the cards for him. World War II, you know, he enlisted, was shipped to England in preparation for the D-Day invasion. During that time period, they were there for almost a year. He met my mother. She was born in Nottingham, raised there in...

Robin Hood. Yeah. Is that the same Nottingham? Name Nottingham, yeah. I'll be that go. Yeah. And so they met in London. He came in on, you know, various, they would get time off, leave or whatever,

and they would come into London. And he always told me that she was like a porcelain doll. The first time you ever saw her, you know, he absolutely fell in love with her. English Rose. Yeah. And so they spent a lot of time together, and then he was shipped out for D-Day. went over the D-Day in Normandy, then on into the Battle of the Bulge, and he was wounded.

Your father was in the Battle of the Bulge? Wow. Yeah. He ended up losing a leg to the injuries he had from the Battle of the Bulge. But he was shipped back to London for rehab, and he reconnected with mother, and they got married. then he was shipped back to the U.S. Mother had to wait until the wives and children and whatnot of soldiers, American soldiers, that had married foreign women could be, or they could be shipped to the U.S.

And I remember him telling me that he received a telegram that morning saying when mother would be in, when the boat would be getting in in New York, and he received a telegram that night saying that Patricia, their daughter, had been run over and killed by a truck. In England? In England, yeah. Your sister?

Yeah, my older sister, yeah. How old was she? She was only two. She just had started walking. My aunt was watching her. Reconstruction was going on. It was just chaos all over London. And mother was working.

Patricia got out, a truck backed over and killed her. Oh, so terrible. My mother left her country, everybody that she knew, moved to a foreign country with only my dad there. And my dad's family did not accept her. Because she was English? Because she was foreign. Oh, they felt like she had basically. tricked my dad into, you know, a relationship in marrying her.

But it wasn't until I was probably five, six years old that I kept looking at this little girl, picture of a little girl on my mom's dresser. And I knew it wasn't my older sister, and I knew it wasn't my younger sister. And so I asked my mom, I said, who is this little girl? And then she sent me down and told me about Patricia,

what I've just shared with you. And that was the first time that I realized. People have asked me, you know, throughout my life, you know, who are your heroes? You know, it's never been a doubt in my mind. It's my mom. It's always been my mom. Because of everything that she went through,

what she was able to overcome and deal with through the loss of her daughter. and moving to a foreign country where she wasn't, you know, embraced with open arms. And I've never known anyone that worked as hard as she did, you know, worked two jobs. And she was always happy. Always, you know, she was the favorite of all my friends. They love just sit and listen to her talk. I bet. That English accent, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and it was so funny that she told us all how to play cards. And the guys had come over and they, mom had to be there to play. Mainly because they wanted to get their money back. It's interesting. I think of this rough and tumble guy from Mississippi with a third grade education who came up blue collar and probably with very little. means and the battle of the bulge and all the toughness that you think of when you think of that.

But in hindsight, maybe it's your mom with the real toughness. She was amazing. She really was. But that was how my parents got together. My dad worked in a cabinet shop there in Hattisburg, and things were slow. And he was hearing about West Texas and the oil. boom that they were having out there, and, you know, people needed cabinets. And so he loaded up, um, they moved to Odessa. It doesn't get any more West Texas than Odessa.

It does not. So we were right in the middle of the oil fields and, uh, but that's, that's high school football country right there. Oh, yeah. And see, that's where it's a religion. Yeah, we didn't know that at the time. After we got there, you know, it was, it was still not apparent at that time. Um, but It was big, because we put the pads on in their third grade. When I was in the third grade, they had a head hunter award, and it was a new helmet. There were three guys selected off the third grade team that got new helmets if they were a head hunter. Did you get one? I got one of those helmets.

I got one of those helmets. You know, I think I've read or Alex told me or something that, Your dad actually had you boxing at six or seven years old. Well, yeah, he, my dad loved me very much. And my uncles, his three brothers, told me after I was, you know, a young man grown in my 20s in talking with them how World War II had changed him and that he was a totally different man when he came back from. And they certainly didn't have. what they have for service members today in terms of mental health help. It was called shell shock back then, and you just grit your teeth and bared it.

Yeah. Well, what he did is he took so many things that he learned in the military, and he felt like that it was his responsibility in West Texas, because you've got cowboys out there in abundance. You've got the roughnecks in the oil field, and then you've got football. It's tough. And so, yeah, there's fist fights. I mean, it's a regular occurrence in West Texas at that time.

And so he's going to train me. And when I was six, he handed me, I can't call me in. I was out playing with some of the neighborhood guys. He called me in. And how many boxing gloves? And we started that day. It went on for seven years. And he called it boxing.

And I was young, but I was pretty sure, what we were doing was fighting. Really? Yeah, yeah. Because... What did your mom say about all this? She would intervene... If it got too rough.

Yeah, when blood, when my nose would be bleeding or my... He'd bust my mouth. And she would step in and she'd get upset and everything. He would, you know, get him a drink of beer and say, he's tough enough. He can take this. And I could. I was always okay. You know, I knew that I could.

But we boxed for seven years. No kidding. Yeah, but Bill, the thing that had the most lasting impact on me was it wasn't the physical training. It was the mental training. We would sit sometimes for hour, two hours, and he would, I called it mind games. I named that that years later but he just called it being ready and he would sit and groom me

here I'm 8, 9, 10 years old the only bar I've ever been in is it's the American Legion when they'd take us out there with them he would start telling me about where I needed to sit if I go in some place and there's a crowd of people and there's people drinking

with your back to the law you sit in the booth you don't sit on the inside you sit on the outside where you can get on your feet. You never respond. If you're sitting down, if somebody says something to you, you sit there and just ignore it, whatever they say, until they step away where you can get on your feet.

It was always about positioning and things that I would need to do to recognize who troublemakers were. Because Daddy was, he was hard and fast about troublemakers. He said, if I hear you starting to fight, boy, you get in a whipping when you get home. And if I hear somebody's starting to fight with you and you don't fight, you're getting a weapon. You get a weapon. You get a weapon. You get home. And so I had to mind my own business.

Don't start a fight. If someone starts with you, you better win. Got to win. Otherwise, you're getting a whipping. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's old school, tough stuff. And I never ever condone the idea of me justifying starting to fight. It wasn't there. That just, it's not there. But if somebody needs your help, if you see somebody, one of your sisters or somebody, somebody's bullying them or trying to hurt them, you better jump in. You better, you better take care of business. We'll be right back.

In the chaos of World War II, a king dies under mysterious circumstances and his children never stop searching for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. Times running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan

and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now.

Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this, like, overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation. And I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast, season two, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a nonprofit fighting suicide in the veteran community.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month. So join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the first. front lines of one tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran and he actually took his own life to suicide. One tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't want to have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to season two of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like like go you go blank yourself right it's easy it's easy to just drink the extra beer it's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is

easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Would you guys consider anything less than a championship to be a failure from this year? I wouldn't say anything as a failure, especially because we all grow every day. Obviously, the goal is a championship. There's no doubt in that, and that's the goal. We want to win a championship.

I'm Christina Williams, host of the podcast, in case you missed it with Christina Williams. The WMBA playoffs are here, and I've got the inside scoop on everything from key matchups and standout players to the behind the scenes moments you won't find anywhere else. It's really, really hard to be the champions, but we have to remember how it feels and embrace the new challenge that we have. For all the biggest stories in women's basketball plus exclusive interviews with the game's brightest stars. So to be here, I think it's one that we definitely don't take for granted. But we also know, you know, that's just one stop along the way and we're hoping to, you know, make it run. So listen to, in case you missed it with Christina Williams

in Iheart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the T.W.

the UA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even hard.

order to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, on the face of it, when I heard you boxed from 6 to 13 with your dad, here's an admission. I boxed. I wasn't six or eight. I was. was more 13, 14. And I actually enjoyed it. It made me more confident, candidly, because I didn't really fear getting into a fight because I'd been hit.

I know what it tastes like to munch on aluminum foil. If you've ever been hit in the face, you know what that taste tastes like. And I wasn't great, but I felt like some jackass on the road I could defend myself, you know. So that was good. And so I wanted my children to learn. Well, I wasn't going to box with them. but I did buy my kids boxing gloves when they were 11 and just had them spar with each other. And Lisa would come out raising hell if anybody got a bloody live.

But I just wanted them to learn how to just be able to defend themselves and everything else. And we had some of the same rules. You never start anything. But I don't think I took it to the extreme your dad did. But anyway, on the face of it, it seems extreme. But candidly, when I hear the rules, they're just old-school. do the right thing rules, really. He was so clear in the pictures that he painted and where I wasn't here.

Again, I'm a kid. I've never been in a bar. I don't know, but he had been in plenty of them. And then he would tell me stories about different things that he had done, fights that he had been in, how he won those fights that maybe he should never have won. And so I had all this stuff that I was processing, and I learned that it,

didn't start to kick in for me until actually I was almost out of high school. Because I never drank. I was such a puritan in my body and working so hard always to try to improve myself that the last thing I was going to do is drink, you know, alcohol, you know, of any kind. But then when I stepped into that environment, into that world, all of that came back, all of those mind games, all those things. begin to find myself when I'd walk in someplace, I could tell you in five minutes where the troublemakers were. Really? I could pick them out. So was it a good thing or a bad thing

the way you were brought up? I'm not sure I feel it yet. From a mental standpoint, it was a good thing when I learned to channel it because there were so many of their other areas that I could use that same technique, that same, I did it in football. I had 24 tackles in one game. But what I finally learned to do as a linebacker is once I had game film, once I could watch the offense and the quarterback, then I have my own game films. I have my own mind games that I'm playing. Every step that I make, everything that I do is successful. I sack that quarterback again and again, I get into coverage, I intercept passes. I do all of that in preparation. So now when I go out on the field, I've already got this mental approach.

It's funny. I've always talked when I coach football. I almost think mental reps are more important than physical reps on a football game. Yeah, it's especially for skill players. You know, the thing about the mental reps is you always win. That's right. Yeah, you win. That's a good point. Yeah, you win every time, and the mental reps you can do again and again. And once you become disciplined in it, you take advantage of those opportunities where you're alone to do just that. And it served me well in that regard. There were other times that I feel like in looking back on my life, and people have asked

me if I regretted a lot of the things my dad did. And I don't. I really don't because of God working on. all things, you know, together for good. And, you know, that verse, train up a child in the way he should go. And even when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Well, that's a double-edged sword. That is a double-edged.

And so, you know, that was something as I got older, and particularly when I got in my relationship with the Lord, I had to change some things about the way that I looked at things. I could no longer walk in a room and start saying, okay. that negative approach that when I was younger was dominant. You had to retrain your brain. The last thing that I was going to allow happen was to someone surprise me. I knew better than to walk into that environment and not know who it was that I was going to be dealing with.

So you were 13 and you had your last boxing match with your dad. How'd that, why was 13 the magic number? It was really baseball game of the week. It was a Saturday that he was trying to watch. He was still down on his knees boxing with me because I was still too small to him to box with standing up. I begin to notice that every time that he would look over at that TV set, he'd separate his guard.

And so, you know, I sat my feet and I waited and he looked and I unloaded on him. I mean, I hit him full, flush and decide. of the face. And he had to catch yourself to keep from falling. And he got up, shook off his gloves, and looked at me. And he said, okay, that's it. You know, you're not big enough for me to box with standing up. You're too big, me to box with on my knees. He said, we're not, we're not boxing. You're trained up well enough. Yeah. So then, high school football. Yeah. Tell me about your world and high school football. Well, we had a group of coaches that had been there for a couple of years at Permian High School.

That's Friday Night Lights, isn't it? Yeah. The real live Friday Night Lights. Yeah, the real deal. Wow. And so I was not getting the attention that I felt like that I should have because of the player that I felt like that I was. But I was, at that time, I was maybe 5'8, about 140 pounds.

You might have been hellation. saw in high school, but that doesn't equate Division I type linebackers. No, well, I was a defensive back in high school. But still, even so, 5-8, you know, there's just not a lot of 5-8 guys playing Division 1 Division 1 football. And going into my senior year, Gene Mayfield comes in. They fire the whole coach and staff. Gene Mayfield comes in and calls a meeting, team meeting.

he tells us he said okay we're going to be a defensive football team if you can't score on us you can't beat us so we're going to play defense and he said i want to tell you right now the stories i've been hearing about this football team and the players on this team the country club set is what people call you sit around the pool and drink beer he said no more he said you're going to everybody in this room is going to have a chance to start on this football team everybody's going to have to prove that they have earned their spot the minute he said that I thought okay this is all I've been waiting for I was the starting defensive back all district defensive back on that first state championship football team at Permian high school that

started Mojo and that winning tradition that inspired the book in the movie Friday Night Lights. No kidding. Yeah. That is so cool. Yeah. All right. So football, you're in it. You're taking care of your body, everything else, and you want to go play college ball.

Yeah. I don't have a lot of guidance at home. Daddy's a workaholic. Mom works as well. And, you know, they're so excited about me, and I've got multiple scholarship offers. And I ended up going to a junior college. One day at practice, we were having, Coach Hensley, in fact, Coach Hensley is going to be my last living high school coach

is coming to the premier September 8th. Yeah, he called me yesterday. He and his wife are going to be able to make it to the premiere. That's fantastic. But he called me, I'd already finished my eligibility. We won a state championship. having spring practice, and he called me into the coach's office that morning, and he said, do you think you'd have time to come out to practice early today? We need a defense. We need some

guys to play defense. We're going to have, you know, running backs and everything, going through drills, and we want somebody, I want somebody to pop them. And they said, you come out there. I said, shoot, yeah, absolutely. I love to do that. So I'm out there. Well, Coach Robinson from University of Houston is there, and I didn't, I had no idea he was there. Billy Dale, all-state running back that we had that was a all-conference running back at the University of Texas on their national championship team. They handed him to ball. It was a, you know, a fake pass and handoff to the running back.

And I read it, you know, and I mean, I was at full tilt when he hit the line of scrimmage. And he went one way, ball went the other. And anyway, I jumped up and they were helping Billy Dale up and I looked and Coach Robinson was walking off. He just left, left practice. And I thought, well, that's weird did he just give the life, leave practice?

I think that's all he needed to see. Yeah, that was it. Coach Inslee came up to me after practice. He said, Coach Robinson said that you've got a full ride at University of Houston. He said, that one tackle was all he needed to see. He said, you're his guy. Well, I ended up going to.

Ranger Junior College. Why didn't you go to Houston? G-I-R-L. I'll do it. Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it. That is not an acronym, folks. I'm telling you, it was one of these stupidest decisions that I've ever made, because I had other offers, too, you know. Where? Well, Arkansas and then SMU. You could have played at SMU or Arkansas or Houston. You went to junior college over a G-I-G. G-I-R-L. Coach Frye told me at SMU, Hayden Fry. Boy, that's a legend. Yeah, yeah.

He said, you can play, you can play for us. He said, have you had any other offers? And I said, yeah, I just got an offer from University of Houston. He said, University of Houston offered, played you a full offer. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, will you come to SMU? And I said, well, you know, I see, I had all these plans with this girl. and she was going to go to a junior college.

I was going to go to a junior college, and we were going to go off together. And so that lasted one semester. I went to this junior college, and it was a nightmare. It really was. But the thing about it was, is I met, for the first time,

I met a bunch of black athletes that, see, I had never, in West Texas, we didn't have any black athletes playing on any. of our teams. Well, there weren't many black people in West Texas anyway. No, no. But so I get to Ranger Junior College, and we've got half of our team, our black guys, and then we've got the basketball players that are all black.

They're most of them are from New York. And so this is a whole new life from me. Here's a kid that's dad is from Mississippi that's raised him. So all of a sudden, I'm in this environment. It was amazed. I realized that all the things that I'd been. told as a young man about that in the racial issues, it was a lie. It was all a lie. It totally changed me as a man and as a person. And so that one semester, you know, I said was a absolutely

abysmal decision from a athletic standpoint. It was one of those life lesson opportunities that I wouldn't trade for anything. It was amazing. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Mike Flint. And trust me, you don't want to miss part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country. But it starts with you.

I'll see in part two. This is an IHeart podcast.