Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Yearbook - Chapter 7: What The Living Can Offer

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

The basketball season comes to an unexpected ending, and Chad confronts his dad about a powerful moment in their relationship. Chad wants to close the book on these memories, but Dax and Monica push him to dig deeper on exactly what happened all those years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm a writer and endings are difficult. When I think about the ending of this story, I keep trying to find something poetic to put here in this final episode. Something that wraps it up neatly and puts a pretty bow on it because I want closure. Because I want to put it away. I've been living in this story that this is the year that made me how I am. I've said plenty about how losing Alicia affected me. Some part of me still wants Alicia to see me as someone special. But beyond losing Alicia, I can't deny that the way

that our basketball season ended still means a lot to me. The irony is maybe even because of doing this show, now I do an NBA show. I'm working with a couple of my high school teammates on that show. Doing this has resurrected basketball in my life to some extent. I can't put it down.

I'm still chasing the high of what it felt like to run with these guys on a state finalist basketball team. I remember how hard it was for people to get in. Because if you came to that game 30 minutes before tip, you weren't getting in. You know what I'm saying? Like, the place was full. The gym was packed.

It was jumping through the roof. It's 640. Our lines is tight. We are dunking on the rim, skying. You got the girls screaming your name. It's packed every home game.

But just even going back to layup lines, you have to get in there because the layup lines was the show too. I'm dunking crazy. I'm dunking crazy. I'm dunking crazy. And you peek your head to the opposite team,

they looking at us to see what kind of dunks we doing. So we already got them before tip off we went something like 30 and 2 on this run we were whooping ass there was a force of energy around us it was a run to comcast we would break the huddle and say one two three comcast before each game listen to theo talk about it what do you remember from our experience going to Comcast? And what is Comcast? Comcast is like the big finals tournament like you've seen on Hoop Dreams. We were fighting to be the best team in the state from our division.

So when we get to Comcast, we won the first game against Largo, which was a big deal. I remember them talking basically, no Montgomery County team about to beat us. That's right. And we did beat that ass. We beat that ass. So the confidence is on a thousand right now. We're feeling like we're going to win the States. Just like we had unfinished business shirts at the beginning of the year, we knew we were supposed to win States.

And I think one of the two times I cried in high school was losing at Comcast in the second game in States. Looking back, I still think we could have won that game. We made a run to the state championship and we lost. Fucking lost. Still kills me every day. Yeah. I mean, 40-year-olds are going to listen to this and be like, why are these dudes in their early 30s still hurt by this? Because they've never been there. Right.

Right. It felt like it had the wrong ending. What did you learn from that adventure of going all the way to the top of the mountain and then falling off at the very top. I'll never forget leaving out the locker room. I was just in tears. I thought that we were just the best around, without question. One thing that comes to mind when I think about that game is just legacy. If you look back at Blake 05, second, are you kidding me?

That's our legacy. When you walk into the gym, you're going to see the banner that don't say state champions. And I see that often because I work at Blake, the building. As much as we want to tell guys that we were the champions,

we're not. We're not. We're not the champions. Show me. Where's your hardware? Right. Where's your ring? And it hurts to this day that I'm not sitting here at this round table with four rings right here. That's right. Right. This was probably one of the first moments where I realized that how I was supposed to feel was not how I felt.

I certainly felt disappointed that I wasn't going to leave this experience with a championship ring, one that I no doubt would still be wearing to this day. It probably would get cooler year over year as I get older and look less and less like an athlete. But some of my teammates were devastated. They were sweaty. They had been out there on the floor. I still had my warm up on. I felt flat. I felt unhelpful.

I didn't feel what they felt. I felt like a phony. Felt like I was faking sadness. What I really felt was individual scarcity. Sometimes part of a team and sometimes part of an entourage. Sometimes a part of a culture and sometimes a hanger on. I wasn't on the floor and that killed me because the man I looked up to the most, my father, he was always on the floor in high school and basketball was our language. It was how we communicated. It was how we could understand each other. There was a particular night we had gone down to the sugar bowl oh new orleans for the band right and as i remember it we didn't give coach piggum a lot of notice that we were going down there because we knew coach piggum would sit me if he knew i was going to be taking time off so when i came back

it was hard for me to get back into the rotation yeah And I remember one particular night I didn't play and you were upset. Probably the most, honestly, the most frustrated that I've seen you around basketball. And for context, I'm going to tell everybody, you played ball in college. Basketball was a tool for you that did a lot in your life. So it's very important to you. But do you remember that night? I do. Can you describe that night and what was really going on? There was a game that I know it's going to be played by everybody but you. And I just remember talking to the coach's program afterwards. And what he told me was Chad never told me that he was going to the Sugar Bowl. So I think he was trying to be a coach and saying,

you can't just not show up. So yeah. But in my case, having played basketball, having been a point guard for my high school team, playing in college, always having control over my playing time. I'm not trying to boast, but I was one of the best point guards in the city of Detroit. I knew what I could do, and I was not going to be benched. But to see your son not get a chance to show his skills,

that's hurtful to a father. But at the same time, I never wanted basketball to be something that you felt like it's all or nothing, which is why we had you do so many other things. I don't want to bear down too much into this moment because it was a tough moment. And if you would rather not just not go on the record, that is fine. But I do remember it was, I think, the first and only time I ever saw tears in your eyes. I think you were sad and angry. We were in the car together. Yeah, I remember that.

In the garage. It was so human. Honestly, Dad, that's one of my fondest memories of you. Oh, really? Wow. I should have cried more often. Well, I felt like you were letting me in and it was so real. It gave me permission to feel sad and angry, which sometimes I'm going to feel. It made me as a kid feel like in that moment,

I was like, man, I wish I could fix this for him, which is probably what you felt as a dad all the time for your kids. But it was just so human. And I've always wanted to tell you, I really respected you in that moment because you were vulnerable. You showed it. Yeah. Well, it was one of those moments where I just felt for you. I didn't want you to be disappointed. I didn't want you to feel like you weren't given an opportunity that you had earned because you worked real hard. I mean, it was spontaneous. It just happened because I just felt so sad for you. The only time I have seen my dad cry was after a game in which I did not get to play. And he was very frustrated and very disappointed.

So on one hand, I felt like it's kind of coach's fault that he's crying, but it's really my fault. If I was better, if I was taller, if I was faster, if I had more skill, I would be out there and my dad wouldn't be crying. And I've only seen him cry once. That leaves a mark. My dad wanted it so much for me and he had put so much into it for me. And sports, I'm talking about you, me, a lot of us. It was like our lives in a lot of ways. It was a job on top of school. And then it was also, I'm probably the best person on this team at a lot of things, and none of those things matter. The only thing that matters is who throws the alley-oop and who catches it. It doesn't matter that I can play the trumpet. It doesn't matter that I can write. Nobody knows. Nobody cares.

And it's weird to be a part of something great and not be the catalyst for it. It's making me wonder, just as an example, would I rather be a writer on a show that wins an Emmy or have my own show that has a very small audience and nobody gives a shit about? And a lot of times I feel like honestly the latter is what I would rather have. I can't stop seeing myself as the skinny, short, 10th man on the bench who couldn't go out there and put any kind of an impact on the actual game. I run into some of our younger guys who went to Springbrook. They won the chip.

And even still, there's a respect. There's a presence that they command because they finished the job. We didn't finish the job. And I'm still out here. I wrote a book, but I didn't make the New York Times bestsellers list. I made a podcast that got nominated for the thing, but it didn't win the thing. I sold a TV show that didn't get greenlit. There's a story that I tell myself that who I was as a 16 year old, that's who I am now. I'm still the guy who gets to the room but doesn't get the trophy. As much as I want the trophy, whatever

that trophy is, what I want more is I just want to quiet that story in my head. I want that way more than I want the trophy. I don't want to lose the memory of that season. I would love to lose the memory of that day. But even as I say that, I'm like, if you woke up tomorrow without that memory, how would you feel? I would feel incomplete. I think that closes the book on the basketball elements of this, but there's still not finality here because so much as I feel a wanting to have the driver come and sit down with me and talk through the moments of that night, he did that already. He put it in that book for Alicia's mom, which was, I would say, incredibly gracious of him. I can understand why he doesn't want to come

up here 20 years later and have this conversation with me again. I was ready to sort of close the book here. And I spoke to Dax and Monica, the other executive producers on this show. And every time we would submit one of these episodes, Dax and Monica would FaceTime me. And on almost every single episode, it was enthusiasm about what we'd made, some ideas on how to tweak. And on episode eight, it was different.

It was like a halt. There's something very important that's missing here. You don't get to make this show end where the punchline is, this is how Chad got closure and got to move on with his life. The point is not just to get something off of your chest. The point at the end of this, and these are their words,

this needs to be a gesture. There's somebody missing here. And this person's story was missing the whole time. It was missing 20 years ago. It just like, poof, it just fucking disappeared. The person disappeared. Not the deceased, but the stabber. And she's a part of this too.

She was doing teenager shit. She dated somebody on the football team. There was an issue with another girl. We're in the parking lot. I was there. I had dating issues at that time. You heard my boy say, I could have got put down

in front of my ex-girlfriend's house because I was popping off so crazy at a guy. We were all living this life, this frenetic, teenage, chaotic, hormonal life. And we were living it expansively. And what happened is with the most distinct and human level of respect to the deceased and to her family, what happened is a teenager on the other side of this thing did something stupid and afraid and she stabbed somebody and that person was gone in minutes. And then they were both gone.

The court's named the stabber Juliana. We can't lose her in this story. This story needs to be a gesture of grace to her as well. So let's go back to the facts for a minute. Here's part of the Washington Post article that came out after the incident. A 15-year-old girl was charged yesterday with second-degree murder in the death of a Montgomery County ninth-grade girl who was stabbed after a high school football game Friday night, police said. Kenesha Neal, 15, died after being knifed in the parking lot of James

Hubert Blake High School about 8.30 p.m., police said, during a fight between two groups of girls. Authorities would not release the suspect's name because she was charged as a juvenile, but they said she was an only resident who attended Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring. She's being held at a youth detention facility in Rockville. The whole time that I have been working on this project, this has always been the fear point, the dark spot. That person, she is out there somewhere, presumably back home where my people live. As we searched for her, I felt every time I asked someone, do you know anybody who knows something? Do you know someone who might know someone who might

know someone? There was always a little, just a, just kind of a, and I didn't want to push it because I just feel her. I don't want to live in my worst moment for the rest of my life, but there's no way around it, man. It's that conflict of what do I owe myself? What do I owe my hometown? What do I owe this woman? What do I owe the craft as a writer, storyteller, journalist, whatever I'm doing here? It's been conflict the whole way through. And there's been some moments where Dax and Monica have asked me, can you open up this conversation with this person? And I've pushed back in some moments because I don't know if I want that in this. But on this one, they're right. You tried to talk to the driver and he didn't want to talk. You got to try to talk to the girl who did this. And when they said that, I felt this

charge of energy. I was like, I'm going to find her today. And I warned Dax and Monica every which way that I don't think I'm going to be able to find her. I've already seen that people aren't trying to tell me where she's at, but I knew I had to look. First, I called Principal Goodman. She said she thought she could connect me to one of the teachers at Sherwood. And for whatever reason, when she said Sherwood, it was like this light flashed in my head. Sherwood High School is synonymous with a guy who played quarterback at that school. He was also the shooting guard on the basketball team. When you think of a high school superstar, it's this guy. And then it clicked that one of my best friends plays on a men's basketball league with that other dude.

So I texted my friend and he reached out to that guy, the guy who was leading Sherwood in whooping our ass that night when the stabbing happened. And it so happens that he had dated the young lady who committed that stabbing. And they're still in contact. He said he was willing to come talk. He was going to tell me about what happened that night, what happened thereafter, and what happened to, quote unquote, Juliana, and who she became became thereafter and what it was like for her being in detention and their relationship now. I told the guy, I said, hey, man, I'm so excited. I was going to tell him, yo, man, I looked up to you back then. On some level, I was like, I can't even believe I have this guy's number. This dude was such an athletic hero around where we're from. I couldn't even believe I was going to get to interview him.

At the end of the conversation, I said, hey, you know, if y'all are still in contact, you and this woman, quote unquote, Juliana, then when you get in touch with her to tell her you're going to do this, could you ask her if she'll come on as well? He's like, yeah, I'll ask her. I got you, bro. Like, I got you. Just the coolest, most polite dude in the world. That night, I researched what I could find about Juliana as a person. I found an appeals case document that mentions what she was like during her time inside juvenile detention. It said, Juliana continues to excel in the program,

and she's doing exceptionally well both behaviorally and academically. The entire treatment team has stated that it is a pleasure to work with Juliana and that she is a leader and a great help to the staff and the other girls in the program. Juliana has poured her energy into her education. She earned the credits necessary to graduate from high school. She competed in the Department of Juvenile Services oratorical contest and won first place. She is currently studying to take the SAT.

I could see myself, like, if I were ever in there, objective one would be figuring out how to survive in there, and objective two would be figuring out how to learn and keep being creative. This is a good student. This is a person who wanted to learn and was good at performing. If that's who you are, that's what you are. Doesn't matter if you're in a jail cell. You're going to do what you have to do.

Her psychiatrist then wrote this to the court. Prior to the killing in September, Juliana had no history of delinquent behavior. She was an honor student with no involvement in antisocial activities. She enjoyed the role of peacemaker when others would squabble. She reported a close relationship with her mother and sister. Indeed, her mother visits twice weekly, never misses a visitation time. Juliana has not abused drugs. In essence, she displayed none of the risk factors for delinquency. Talking about the killing has been very difficult for Juliana. She's been very tearful. She clearly feels very badly about what happened. She continues to suffer from guilt. At this point,

she is still struggling to figure out how she's going to live with her involvement in the killing. Clearly, her behavior during the incident does not fit with her values. She is able to acknowledge that she feared for her life during the incident and that she might have been killed had she not used the knife. However, she reports that the guilt is so difficult to bear that she wishes she had never had the knife, even though it might mean that she would have been killed. Juliana's behavior on the unit has been exemplary. I've seen enough of Juliana to believe

that she represents no risk to the community. The next morning, about 9 a.m., I got a text from my guy. It said, morning, bro. So I reached out to her. And as I thought, she's not open to speaking about it. She was also a little concerned about this project as well and doesn't really want me to speak on her at all either. So I think if there's any other topics or anything you need me to speak on, that's fine.

But out of respect for her, I don't want to touch any of this stuff regarding the incident. So I called him. I wanted to respect what he was saying. I wanted to respect what she was saying. And I felt like I have just this one last modicum of journalistic responsibility. I have to ask him, hey man, how about if you just come on

and we just talk about what it was like for you to lose someone you were close to to the juvenile system? No dice. Kind as hell, polite, but solid. That's my friend. I care about her. She asked me to stay off of this,

so I'm going to stay off of this. When I hung up the phone, I was disappointed because it was like, ah, this thing that just felt like it fell on my lap, this perfect moment, it's gone. I'm standing in my kitchen. I'm looking at the kitchen. I'm looking at the phone. I called Monica to tell her about this. And the mandate here was make this project

some act or gesture of kindness to this person who committed a crime, served out her punishment, and wants to go on with her life. When her psychiatrist took the stand during her appeal case, the psychiatrist said this, a person's character is determined on what they do every day. And certainly there are extraordinary circumstances that people can come across in their life in which they would engage in behaviors that are atypical for them. And it's my assessment that that's what happened here. That we have a girl who was in a situation that was extraordinary and engaged in a behavior

which is not typical for her. Something extraordinary had happened. And what's interesting is that extraordinary circumstance felt distinctly un-extraordinary at that point in time at my high school. Principal Goodman called them popcorn fights. There were fights like that busting open every week at the football game all over the place. There were dozens of them. They could have been any one of us. Her atypical behavior kept her locked up from September 2005 until her release in June 2008. And from what I hear, she has a job.

She has a life. She did everything she needed to do to move on. And so is the driver, you know, because something extraordinary happened to him too. And the driver was friends with Rob Klimko back in high school. And I recently found out they're still in touch. So have you been around him as an adult? Why did you have his phone number? Do you know him? What's your contact with him today? Yeah, he was my realtor. He sold me my house two years ago. Were you able to observe anything about how he is today as an adult? Did he seem fine? Did he seem adjusted? I reached out to him because I followed him on Instagram and I saw that he was selling houses and he seemed to have a good relationship with his clients. And I was a little

bit curious about what he was like as an adult, honestly. And if there was a window to talk about what happened, because I'm a journalist, I was interested in talking about that. But there wasn't. And I think he's very careful about that. He kept it very professional. We talked a little bit about back in the day, but he's not a back in the day guy, how I'm guessing. But if you go through something like that, I think you just kind of put up a wall. And that would explain why maybe he had some awareness of you in high school, but he wouldn't now.

Yeah. And you are a journalist, which is why it's both why I know that you probably hyperanalyze this interaction and also why I know you're going to be careful to be thoughtful and responsible about how you psychoanalyze this person. But I really do want to know, what did you observe about the man? Did it match the kid that you knew 20 years ago? Was it the same guy? Did it feel like you could have guessed this is who this person would be today? You know, it was a guy who, you know, he wore the baggy black jeans and he kind of hung out with some guys

that you knew you could get weed from. I don't think I imagined him being like a buttoned up realtor, you know, who's always on time and has all your questions answered about the properties. So no, he wasn't the kid I would imagine. If you asked me what he was going to be like when I knew him in high school before everything that happened, I would not have said that he would be like this person that I met two years ago.

But I don't want to read too much into that because we're all so much different than we were in high school. I graduated from Blake High School with a 2.1 GPA. Nobody thought that I would be a journalist with any success, right? So, you know, it could be that different things happened to him that have nothing to do with Alicia Betancourt. I mean, we all grew up in different ways and for different reasons. I really just am trying to get a sense of, by anyone who's been around him as an adult, who is he? What's he like? What kind of vibe did he have? It sounds like he seemed professional.

It sounds like he seemed pleasant. Did you guys have any kind of human interaction, connection? Did you get a sense for, is he happy? Is he sad? Is he like all of us kind of up and down every day? I don't know. Yeah. I couldn't speak to whether or not he was happy or sad. He pulled up in a silver convertible. He still loves cars. And he was pretty matter of fact in terms of his interactions with me. I mean, he wanted to make this happen for Dana and I. And I think he did appreciate that I knew him from childhood and reached out to him. I don't imagine that there's a whole bunch of people that went to Blake High School who hang out with. And so I think there was a level of appreciation there with the familiarity.

But there was a wall. He was not going to let us get into what happened. there was a wall. He was not going to let us get into what happened. The driver who you heard Rob Klimko say helped him and his family buy a house. He's helping people. He's helping families have a home. He's helping families be families. Elise's mom said it to me in our conversation. Dax and Monica said it to me in a different way. I think what they're telling me is I'm not supposed to, quote unquote, leave it behind. I'm supposed to turn it into something that can be a gift to somebody else. The way Alicia's mom put it is. I do believe that things are connected. We're all connected in this world,

one way or another. And when you're confronted with something as the death of a best friend, it's about what you do with it. It's not about what happened to you. It's about what you do with what happened to you. And that's Rabbi Kushner, not my words. So maybe it's this podcast. I don't know. Maybe something else. But we're all connected. I hope that the thing

that is good that comes out of this is the people where I'm from feel seen. If they want to be seen, feel remembered. If they want to be remembered and that wherever we can find the capacity to extend empathy to each other for whatever part we played in that year. I hope we can do that. And I guess that extends more widely to whoever's out there that's going to listen to this. There's a lot of young people more and more now than ever who are living with shame and guilt and sadness and broken self-images because the things that they do now are available for public consumption forever. And I hope that we can find a way

to give them some grace, give them a break, let them fuck up, let them be people, and then let them move on with their lives. To the driver, if you ever want to tell this story through your eyes, if you ever want to tell someone what it's like to be a teenager who commits an act and then has to live

with that for the rest of their lives, I am here. And if you never, ever, ever want to talk about it ever again, you will never, ever hear from me. That's a promise. Juliana, if you're out there and you hear this, I just connect to you. I feel you. I would have been that kid in the same spot doing the oratory contest, trying to figure out, scrambling, how do I get my life back to what it was going to be? Even though I'm trying to close the book and say goodbye to this year, we're all still writing this story by the way that we live our lives. There are people around us all the time

who are just like the driver, just like Juliana, just like the families, still trying to find peace in something that happened so long ago. The lesson for me is that every day I'm encountering someone like that. And if I can just give them one moment of peace

by the way I treat them, maybe that helps them close the book. Thank you for inviting me to do this. I'm very honored. It was really fun remembering a lot of things that we haven't talked about in a long time. I went through all your books last night and you're just a treasure. So congratulations to you.

Thank you. You're a treasure. Thank you. I was laughing the other day because I did some interview thing. And the Hollywood folk at the end of everything, they always tell each other they love each other. Do they? And sometimes I'm like, you just met this person, you know, 10 seconds ago. But I actually do love you. You're my mama. You know I love you for sure. Thank you.