Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 58 Rhett & Link “Sports” - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: February 27, 2015

In this special Rhett & Link-only episode, the guys take a trip down memory lane to share their experiences with recreational sports from childhood to parenthood. Rhett discusses how being successful in sports helped shape him into the person he is today, while Link examines his sports experiences as a case study in anxiety. From basketball, to soccer, to baseball, and golf--the listener will hear about the first punch Rhett ever threw, how he had a tantrum in a basketball game that lead to a broken toe, and why Link received the most massive wedgie of all time. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to go to podsurvey.com slash biscuits. Thanks for being your mythical best on with the biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. Joining us today at the round table of dim lighting is us. It's a Rhett and Link only Ear Biscuits. So no buttons joining us. We're joining each other.

Here we are. Hello, Link. Join me, Rhett, here at the round table for a discussion about sports and our interactions with said topic over our lives. Yeah, just to clarify, this is just before you tune out if you're not interested in sports, this isn't like, hey, let's talk about the Yankees,

you know, or the summer ball. Well, we can't do that. This is- you're not interested in sports. This isn't like, hey, let's talk about the Yankees, you know, or the summer ball. Well, we can't do that. This is- We're not capable. We're talking about us and how we've interacted with sports throughout the years. So now that you understand we're gonna be talking about ourselves, now you can tune out. Yeah, yeah, go ahead

and tune out now, right. And make an informed decision to de-biscuit. De-biscuit, that's what it's called, huh? Yeah, when you get out early, you're de-biscuit early on. De-biscuit, that's what it's called, huh? Yeah, when you get out early, you're de-biscuiting. I will say I'm not too active with sports these days. Last time I kicked a soccer ball was over the holidays though, because I was staying with my sister and brother-in-law

and my two nephews, and I was outside in the yard with a soccer ball and the neighborhood kids came and joined me and me and like eight other neighborhood kids. Were your nephews outside too or were you just out there with a soccer ball? At first, one of them was out there and then it was just me and all the neighborhood kids.

And it was one of those things where I had a soccer ball and I was like, you guys think I can kick it through that tree? There's a tree that had like a Y shape in it. You guys think I'm trying to impress a bunch of kids basically is what I was doing. You guys think I can kick it? And I always do this because if you do it on the first try,

they never forget it. 45 minutes later. Even though they don't know you, you'll be like that mythological guy that was at their neighbor's house who kicked the soccer ball through the V in the tree on his first try. And they're gonna remember that the rest of their lives

is what you're thinking. This is more revealing. Do you remember what it was like growing up? There are things like this that you remember. Okay. When a stranger comes out of a house and kicks an amazing soccer kick. I mean, if you're wearing a cowboy hat maybe,

or like there's something else a little weird about you. No, I'm tall. Okay, okay. And this is a familiar concept to me. But hold on, but you didn't even know because after 45 minutes in every kid in the neighborhood. The concept is familiar. Before you tell me what happened,

the concept of setting up a physical challenge like this is familiar to me because you did it our whole lives. We'd be walking down the street before we had our licenses. You'd be like, let's pick up that rock and I bet you I can hit the O in that stop sign from a hundred yards away. Well, think about it though.

Let's spend the next two hours trying to do it. And what happens when you do it? It changes your life. Exuberance. And everyone around you. So what happened? Well, 45 minutes later, I did it. 45 minutes in the front yard, kicking a soccer ball with strange kids minutes later, I did it. 45 minutes in the front yard, kicking a soccer ball with strange kids.

Well, I did it and every kid did it. And then eventually I kind of got tired. The mom from one of the houses came out and started talking. I talked to her for a while, the kids tried it. And then I went back to trying it and eventually I got it. And I'm sure those kids' lives are changed. So that was your recent- When was the last time you kicked a soccer ball?

Huh? I do have a soccer ball in my garage, but we got it out the other day and it was like totally flat. It had died. The soccer ball had died. Well, you can revive it pretty easily. You don't have to perform a miracle. You can just like get a pump. That's a good point, but I wasn't willing to do that.

So you just took my temperature on organized sports right there, you know? Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a trip down memory lane with our involvement in organized sports. I think there's lots of places that we can go, some sad, some happy. And see if there's any lessons to be gleaned

that I think ultimately may apply to us as dads and having kids and their involvement or lack of involvement in organized sports. But first I wanna talk about underwear for a second. Oh really? Well, yeah, I can always talk about underwear and you guys know that we like to talk about MeUndies. But since we're talking about sports,

I'll go ahead and relate the two. My high school soccer coach, Coach Brandl, never wore underwear. How do I know this? Because he always wore like soccer shorts and some days they were white and they were old. Oh man. They were see-through, dude.

Really? And yeah, my first, as a freshman, I sat the bench and where's the bench? It's behind the coach. So I'm like looking at his behind. Well, you should be watching the game. Well, I'm like, put me in coach so I don't have to look at your behind

through your see-through Umbro shorts. The dude needed underwear. Well, I like to think that he never wore underwear because he couldn't find the perfect pair link. Oh yeah. What did he need? He needed to know about MeUndies.com. MeUndies are the most comfortable underwear

you will ever wear. I'm wearing a black pair right now. And yesterday I was wearing a camouflage. I'm wearing a red pair. Wearing a red pair just in case I'm in an accident. You won't know it. Like if I'm shot in the butt, I guess. Like if your groin is bleeding, that's horrible.

I mean, I don't know what could happen, man. It's just Los Angeles. But I will say one of the things I love about MeUndies is they are environmentally friendly. Materials used are sustainably sourced from the Austrian Alps. So think about this, Link. I've never been to the Alps.

Never been to that part of the world, to be honest with you. But your skivvies have. Exactly. When I put these on, I feel like a mountaineer. I feel like somebody in the Alps doing one of those calls. What do they do? Yodel?

Like a yodel. I can't really do a yodel. So anyway, if you can get that middle picture of me on top of the mountains in my underwear looking good. They use a carbon neutral process. So there's low carbon footprint and they also save water and energy due to their spun dried fiber process.

So you feel good wearing MeUndies and you feel good about wearing them. They've got cool styles for both men and women. They all look great. And here, we're gonna make it easy. Go to MeUndies.com slash Rhett and Link and get 20% off your first order and free shipping. Save even more when you buy a pack of them.

They guarantee you're gonna be happy with them or your first pair is free. And once you feel MeUndies on your body, you're never going back. All right, to get that 20% off, make sure you go to meundies.com slash Rhett and Link. I think it's gonna become pretty clear as we take this trip down memory lane that,

I know for me, it's gonna be a case study in anxiety. So I'm gonna go ahead and throw that out there. That's what sports has meant to me over the years. So, and I'm ready to unpack that a little bit. And I will say that sports more or less defined my childhood, definitely my adolescence in a lot of ways. Well, growing up in the time and place we did. So in a little town of Buies Creek, North Carolina,

and I'm trying to figure out what year this was. I mean, we're talking the late 80s being like starting to get into recreation sports. Everybody- Mid to late 80s. Everybody, you know, if you were a kid, it was automatic. You were expected to play recreation sports. And the biggest one in Buies Creek was soccer. Baseball was big, but it was interesting

how big soccer was. I think it was the start of that recreation soccer boom, but I started playing from like seven years old. Oh yeah. So maybe even before I met you. And I did not play, you know, we moved to North Carolina in 84. I did not play soccer when we lived out in California,

but it's interesting because we both got involved and we were both on the same team. We had a weird thing going because I'm a little older than you and they were the same year in school. So we would be on this- Your birthday's in October, my birthday's the next June. Right, so we'd be on the same team one year

and then I would age up. Yeah. And so there was this alternating thing, but the first coach that I remember is Tony. Oh yeah. Coach Tony. I can't remember his last name right now, but he was this very charismatic, super friendly, awesome guy.

He's a black guy with jerry curl. Yeah, he had a jerry curl at a time when, I mean, it was like, I guess it was a little bit out of style. It was a dying art form. But it was still, it wasn't just like crazy unacceptable at that point, it was just like, oh, this is still almost in style.

We never thought anything of it. No, I mean, but it was very much like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. Yeah, but it also had a mullet built into it. I remember that specifically, a jerry curl that went into a mullet built into it. I remember that specifically, a jerry curl that went into a mullet. And he called me Link Sausage. Well, of course, it's creative.

So he had nicknames for everybody. So that was a good first exposure to organized sports for me. But I mean, I liked soccer. I think it was when I got into baseball that it started to get into problems. But you had some problems on the soccer field, right? Yeah.

Like social problems. Well, no, this is actually, you may have heard, and let me just give you a little disclaimer here. We're gonna tell a number of stories on the show this week. And we're probably going to tell some stories that you may have heard if you've been listening to us in the various forms that we have told these stories in the past.

We've been doing this for a long time, so we may end up repeating some things, but you're gonna hear them in their proper context. So the first fight I ever got in was at the recreational soccer field, which I might add was sloped at least 10 degrees. I mean, this thing was so sloped and we played sideways on it,

so if you kick the ball straight towards the goal, it would roll down the hill out of bounds. Yeah, you had to, that's why they started bending soccer balls, you know, bend it like Beckham. To counteract the slope in the Buies Creek field. Yeah, it originated there on our field. But there was a guy, John Carson,

shout out to John Carson, I don't know where you're at. Don't even know if you're still alive, hope you are. But John Carson was on our team. He was a big guy. He was a big guy and let's just face it. I don't remember him being a nice guy. No, he was a jerk. I'm sure he's nice now if he's still alive.

Right, right. But then he wasn't nice even though he was alive. He was not a nice guy back when he was a kid, but then, you know, lots of kids had issues and weren't very nice, but we were friends at the time and John Carson was picking on you. And we were doing that drill where you're standing in a line. I don't know exactly what you learned in this drill,

but they set the ball up at the top of the box and you just run up there one at a time and kick it in. No goalie. Can you kick it in an empty goal? That's the skill we all need to know. Yeah, you gotta set the bar somewhere. But we're standing there and John Carson starts making fun of you.

I honestly don't remember what he was saying, but- I don't remember any of this by the way, but I'm, except through you retelling it. And he was picking on you and you weren't doing anything about it. Now we've established before that you're not, you're not a meek individual these days, but as a child you were.

And so you didn't do a lot of standing up for yourself. Well, he was three times my size too. He was pretty slow though. But I was big, you know, I was tall at least. Yeah. I wasn't big around, but I was tall. And I just, I remember, the only thing I remember is just looking at him and punching him,

the first punch I've ever thrown, I ever threw, and I punched him in the gut. Right in the stomach. And he was a rotund fellow. Do you remember saying anything to him before you punched him? No, it's completely caught him off guard. So that's what's called a sucker punch.

Sucker punch right in the stomach, it sunk in. Bloop. Into his, I remember the light blue Buies Creek uniform. Oh yeah. And then pop right back out. And he just got this look on his face. It was like a delayed reaction. And he just sort of looked at me

and he put his hands on his stomach and then he walked away. And he sat down and never made fun of then he walked away and he sat down. He never made fun of you again. Thank you, Rhett. And he still doesn't make fun of me now. No, he doesn't. And just think, he'd probably be here right now at the table. Apologizing.

Making fun of me if you hadn't punched him back then. He'd still be here. He'd be like the monkey on my back making fun of me constantly. Think about how my life would be different. I doubt that's true. You talk about those jerseys. If you can go to my house right now,

I have all of my Buies Creek jerseys. Not surprised. And I was number five or number 55 and I kept them and Lando sleeps in them now. I mean, soccer was an important part of my life. You had to be five or 55? Yeah, that was my lucky number, five. So I got, you know, you got to choose your number

and I always try to choose five in it. Interesting. And I kept all of them and now Lando sleeps in them. And as he continues to get a little older, he can sleep in the larger ones because they get bigger as I got older. And I just somehow kept them because it was special to me that time in my life,

even though I didn't particularly enjoy it, enjoy it, soccer stayed with me. Now baseball, as I said on the other hand, was not good. I distinctly remember being a Yankee, you were on this team wearing the black and gray outfit and outfit called a uniform. Yeah, we call it a uniform where I'm from, which is the same place you're from.

Ken Crowe was the coach and I could not hit the ball. I could not keep my eye on the ball. So I just remember swinging and there's so much anxiety because everyone's looking at you trying to hit this ball. It's not like soccer where the ball goes to you and then you hit it somebody else and then it comes back and you kick it. Yeah, there's a lot of focus on you.

There's a lot of focus. People are actually saying batter, batter, batter. That's you if you're the batter. I could not focus on the ball. I figured out if I get beamed, if I get hit with the ball by the pitcher, because we had a pitcher by this point, you get on first base.

And the only way I got on base, no exaggeration, the entire season was by getting beamed. Hold on, but this is a bold move. I mean. I would stand really close to the plate so that I would get beamed. That's crazy. It's sad, isn't it? Well, it's just- Because I would swing

and it would be like guessing on a test. I never understood that I could actually watch the ball fly out of the pitcher's hand and then make contact with it with the bat. Like I never learned how to do that. And I just thought I'm not as lucky as everybody else. Most kids are scared. I was even scared of the ball.

I didn't like that hard ball going by me like that. I was frightened of it. And I had long arms, I could stand away. I was more afraid of the embarrassment of striking out. I struck out so much that I got fed up and then I was like, bring it on, hit me. Just hit me, I'm wearing a helmet. I don't recall this, did this ever work?

Did you get on base? I never discussed it with anyone, I just did it. Yeah, I got on base. And sometimes I would get to second base. I don't recall ever getting to home base. I wasn't good at any aspect of this sport. But I remember in the outfield, they put me in, which is the one where they don't hit the ball to you?

Right field? Right field is the least likely to hit any place. That's where I was. And I literally prayed to God that they would, the ball would not be hit to me. Like if you like had spy glasses and you looked at me out in the outfield, you'd see my lips moving. Like that's how strongly I felt about baseball.

I did not want, I didn't want to be put on the spot. Well, you know, it's interesting because- No confidence. I feel like I had the strong feelings, also as strong feelings as you did, to not be embarrassed and all this. But the way I didn't want to be embarrassed is by not succeeding, not doing something.

It wasn't necessarily, well, don't hit me the ball. It's just like, if they hit me the ball, I better catch it. But it wasn't pray I don't get the ball hit to me. Yeah, I just didn't, I didn't want to pass the test. I didn't want to be tested. Now you said Ken Crow. The coach, yeah. The coach. And there was another guy that was with him.

There was a pair of guys that came in, like they came in like in the night and then they left again, you know? Like Tony was there for years. Benny Inzor also coaches for years. Ken Crow and this guy, they were in for like a year and they were gone. But did you know the other thing that they,

I just remember this as we were kind of thinking about this today. The other thing that Ken Crowe and this other guy did was karate. They taught karate. He seemed like a military guy. They got a crew cut, red hair. Red hair, red hair crew cut. You know those guys are always into martial arts, right?

He didn't teach me karate, I didn't take that. Well, they said- I might would have excelled at it. No, they said karate is being taught. And I was like, well, I need to learn how to do that. I gotta defend Link against John Carson. So I went and took the class and I remember, I made it to Yellow Belt, which, you know,

most of you probably know, that's not real far. That's like a couple of weeks, maybe. Okay. But the thing that happened is, you gotta understand, we come from Buies Creek, North Carolina, very conservative part of the country. And Ken Crow started talking about like the mindset of karate, like getting into like the dragon and stuff.

Getting into the dragon? I don't even remember what it was about. All I know is it kind of got into some Eastern philosophy. And at that point, kids started talking to their parents about this dragon fellow. King Crow had to fly away. Next thing you know, King Crow was gone. Oh.

And they stopped with the yellow bell. We don't wanna know about this Eastern stuff unless it's Eastern North Carolina barbecue, you know? So King Crow came in, he left. King Crow, if you're out there, if you're still alive. This is, you know what? We should just stop the whole thing about whether or not they're still alive.

Right. Because what if they're not? Right. thing about whether or not they're still alive. Right. Because what if they're not? Right. Well, they're not listening for one. That's true. And so it's like talking to no one who's hearing. We should just stop the whole bit. There's lots of people who are listening.

We should probably talk to them. Yeah, we should. When did you get into basketball? I got into basketball, you know, on my own. We had a basketball goal at home, even when I was in California. And then we had a basketball goal at home, even when I was in California. And then we had a basketball goal that my dad took pains to build on the road.

You know, remember this, we let it on the dead end and he just built the basketball goal on the road. So I played with my brother. There was no opportunity to play. There was no rec league basketball. Until we got into middle school. Yeah. And that was coach Royal, who was our history coach

and PE coach, was your basketball coach. You said history coach. Come on, boy, what's the capital? How long was the year of the war of 1812? Come on now, come on. Answer me now. He was a history teacher. But he was a PE coach.

Yeah, he was. Well, I call him PE teacher for that too. But he was the basketball coach and he was the soccer coach. Now, the thing I remember about Coach Royal with coaching soccer in middle school was, you were the goalie. I was. And I was a defensive man. And if he got mad at us during a game,

he would clear the bench. And he would do this in basketball too, but in soccer, there's 11 people on a team. Yeah, that's big. He would take the whole team out. He didn't take me out, I will say that. Cause there was no other goalie. Well, cause the goalie has like gloves

and you know, it's weird to change the goalie. He would take 10 of us out then and bring in the 10 people who were on the sidelines. Like the- It's a good strategy. And just to prove the point- Fresh legs, you call that fresh legs. Just to prove the point that we sucked and we needed to be out of there.

And then of course we would start losing because we would be decimated by the bench. Yeah, and he did this very same thing in basketball. He also had a thing that he did when he got really upset at PE but also in basketball where he would throw the ball at the backboard. Oh, like trying to break it? We would all be sitting there and he would throw the ball,

he'd be standing like at the three point line and he would, I'm so mad I could just, and he would just throw the ball at the backboard and it would bounce back and he'd catch it. What? And we'd be like, whoa, that was impressive. And that was the whole point. Did he ever kick a soccer ball through a V in a tree?

Probably. The point was not to scare us, the point was to impress us. And let me tell you, I don't know what- If I can do this, you can remember how long the World of 1812 was. Yeah, right. And so he adopted the same strategy for basketball.

But the thing I remember about my eighth grade year of basketball was, now you know anything about Buies Creek, you know that that's the home of Campbell University, the fighting camels, the colors are orange and black. And the gym where the camels played was, you know, like a nine iron away from where the demons played. We were the demons, the Blue's Creed demons.

Blue and gold. Blue and gold demons. And the whole court, of course, is blue and gold. Well, one year Coach Royal comes in there and says, guys, I am very excited to let you know that this year we have new uniforms. And you know what? They are the Campbell University uniforms.

So- At this point, you don't know what to say. Couple of things to note. A, these were university uniforms for people who were in college and we were in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Okay. So they're oversized.

So they're a little big. Now I was a big guy, so I actually got one that fit. But half of the guys had this uniform just falling off of them. Now it was like 1988 or whatever it was. So the shorts were still really short, but they're really big and we're playing in these orange and black, well really orange, they were orange with black writing,

but they said Campbell on them. So we got some moms to get this black, they actually printed Buies Creek on a black T-shirt and then cut the black T-shirt out in a square. Oh wow. A rectangle and sewed that onto the uniform. So we played in oversized orange uniforms that had Buies Creek sewed over them

and we played on a blue and gold court. That was eighth grade for me. Which made my vantage point as the official scorekeeper of the girls' middle school basketball team. The girls didn't get those uniforms. It made my vantage point. It seemed like I was in the right spot. I did not have to wear a uniform at all.

I could wear anything I wanted. I got into the games free, which is why I became the scorekeeper. And then I, cause I wanted to be able to not pay to get into the guys games and I could go to the away games and- How did you get roped into this?

I volunteered. I was like, you know, I- Were you good with stats? I'm good with pencils and I'm good with numbers and I'm good with numbers and I'm willing and no one else wants to do it. Was there a girl on the basketball team that you were interested in?

No, I wanted to see the, I wanted to watch the basketball games without paying. And I also got to travel. It's like a dollar to get in. I got to travel with the basketball team to the away games and be involved. Okay, it was your way of being involved. But it was being involved.

You know, I didn't wanna be a loser, because again, it was, in middle school, if you didn't play sports, okay, then you did nothing. It wasn't like, well, you'd be in drama or, I was in band. But we didn't have drama or theater. There was that. We didn't have that until high school.

But did you, okay, so. And I didn't wanna keep score from the guys game because I just wanted to watch it. So I kept score for the girls and. Am I talking, are we talking down to the minutiae, like rebounds per person? Like, no. Because you were keeping the score of the game

because that was a person that was hitting the buzzer and stuff. I was keeping. You had a little pad. I was keeping score by player and assists. What about rebounds? And fouls. Rebounds? No, I didn't have capacity for that.

You didn't keep it with rebounds. I did not. That's like, how did you know when somebody had a double-double? We didn't. Maybe we did, I'm pretty sure we did. If you weren't keeping up with rebounds, then you shouldn't have been doing that.

And Coach Rowe's daughter, Elizabeth, she kept score, it was a team thing, so she would keep score. She kept up with the rebounds, right? She keeps score for the other team by us to keep the other team honest. Honest. Yeah. Okay.

And it was cool because we got to meet the really cool people from the other schools, namely the scorekeepers from those schools. That's the cream of the crop. That's the top of the social pyramid. We had our own little identity, it was cool. Did you get free popcorn? You remember the popcorn machine?

No, I didn't get free popcorn. But you do remember the popcorn machine. They would break that sucker out at every basketball game. Oh yeah. And when I think about that time in my life, I smell popcorn in like locker rooms. Well, does the opposite happen though? When you smell popcorn, do you rooms. Well, does the opposite happen though?

When you smell popcorn, do you start wanting to do layups? I don't know. That's a good question. Bring some popcorn in here and I'll tell you. That's probably a no. Like when you go to the movie theater, you don't wanna put on your fighting camels uniform. But okay, so then of course, after middle school,

we've got high school. And high school was a bit of a breaking point for me. Not breaking point, probably the, it was a turning point is the word that I was looking for. Because it was a time in which I began to seriously consider. But hold on, you did break something. I did, and I'll get to that in a second.

I began to seriously consider, am I going to be a basketball player? Yeah, well, I mean, you're so tall and you had a goal in front of your house. Am I gonna play college basketball and maybe beyond that? Like, is this gonna be what my life is? And starting my freshman year and really moving into my sophomore year,

it became a thing where, as we've talked about before on Ear Biscuits in the context of another story, I would spend hours every single day during the summer when we weren't playing during the year practicing basketball. With those shoes. Strength shoes, the shoes that had a special platform on them, the big ball,

which is an extra large basketball that my dad bought that gets you better with a regular size basketball. So the ball was, it would still go through the hoop, but it was bigger than normal. It was like 1.5 times the size of a regular, it's called the big ball. So then when you use the regular ball, it was just like a-

No, this is so easy, the ball is smaller, which it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like peeing in the ocean. Yeah, right. Maybe. And, but I would do the AAU team thing during the summer and my life was sort of bent towards doing this and I took it very seriously.

Now, to get back to what I did break, I took this very seriously, this responsibility to be a basketball star. I took it very seriously and my dad would film the game so that we could send them off to potential colleges for recruiting. Right, and this is by like junior year. And I think that this is probably caught on tape, but hopefully that tape is gone.

But we were playing at Triton. Remember Triton, the big rivalry. Sure. To rival to the Harness Central. And it's a close game and Coach Gage takes me out of the game. I may have made a mistake or got a foul or something like that,

but it was like a crucial time in the game. He takes me out of the game and I look at him and I just kick the bottom of the bleachers. I was there. I remember seeing you go back to the bench and from my vantage point again, I would describe it as a tantrum. Yeah, I was pitching a fit.

You kicked the bleachers. I kicked the bleachers and then I sat down and as I sat down, I was like, well, I did something. I did something? I've done something. I've done something to my toe. But of course, a couple minutes later, he's like, Rhett, get back in there.

I get back in there and I'm hurting. I'm having trouble getting around, but I'm like, we gotta win this game. I think we actually lost. I think I missed a shot at the end for a chance to win. It's a sad story. But after that game, I was like, damn, my toe really hurts. He said, we'll take you to the infirmary tomorrow.

You know, we could go to the infirmary on campus at Campbell. Because he worked there. Because he worked there. For free. And they take me in. Did you keep your shoe on until then? Or did you take your shoe off that night? Nope, I took it off.

I took it off and it was a little bit swollen, but it wasn't black and blue. But long story short, I had split the bone right down the middle. What? The big toe bone. Now it just cracked. Lengthwise? Yeah, lengthwise it had cracked,

but it was still intact. And that's why it wasn't like super, super painful. And I ended up playing the rest of the season. They just put like a little weird thing around it. And you could go ahead and tell them about your records or the record, because I know you want to. Oh, I wasn't even gonna share that. But yes, I will say that unless it has been broken this year

and I don't think it has, going on 19 years now, Link, I hold the single season three point record for most three pointers made in a season, 77 my senior year I made. Now I will say, so- And you tie someone with number of toes broken in a game probably. Right, yeah, one, one total toe.

Somebody's probably broken more. That's true. You probably don't own that one. If you're out there, if you're playing basketball at Harness Central, I give you every opportunity to beat that record, good luck. But so I took this very seriously, but I was thinking there's another story

that involves both of us, which is an indication of how towards the end of my time in high school, we got involved in other things. We started a band, the Wax Paper Dogs, and then we suddenly thought we were gonna be rock stars. And we were making videos with that camera that your dad was filming you for recruiting. We would take that video.

So we thought we wanted to be filmmakers or rock stars. So your commitment was waning. It was waning, but we were still a really good basketball team and I was still a really good player. And we were in the state playoffs, first round of the state playoffs. I can't remember who we were playing,

but we were playing the team that would go on to win the state championship. Spoiler alert, we lost the game, but here's what happened. We- You're gonna blame me for you losing the game? Is that what this story is gonna be? The game was at that night at like six or seven o'clock, right, and of course school gets out about 3 p.m.

and this is senior year so we both got our licenses, we can drive. Somehow, now I'm gonna say that this was your idea. Okay. We're like, you know, it was getting warmer because it was like March. No, it wasn't even March because the state playoffs would have been in February, it was February, but it was like March. You know, it wasn't even March because the state playoffs would have been in February.

It was February, but it was a sunny day. But it was a really warm day. Warm day in February. And we love to swim in the river. And so first warm day of the year, we haven't been swimming in the river, like all fall and winter. It's like, well, I think we should go today

to the Cape Fear River and swim. Let's break that one open. Between the game, between the end of school and the game. Yeah. And let's not go to the normal spot where we swim. Let's go to a place that we've never been. Let's go up the river into the woods and drive up to the little creek

that comes off of the side of the river. Yeah, so. Of the Cape Fear River. Let's not only go swimming, let's get lost first. Right. And even though it was warm, the water was nowhere near swimmable temperature. It's February in North Carolina.

And I remember, you know, this is a story in and of itself, but we jumped in and the water was so frigid that all the blood goes to your vital organs and it moves so quickly that you can no longer like paddle with your arms or walk with your legs, you can't move your extremities. Well, I was standing behind you and you jumped in thinking I was like, oh, he's gonna jump in as two or three feet deep.

Link completely goes under, he gets completely submerged and then I just jump in after him and here we are swimming for our lives to make it across to an island that was actually in the middle of the river between this creek and the river. And we nearly died because I could not move my arms to crawl out of the water. We expended a lot of energy just getting out of the water

and then for the next- But then we got it off, yeah, but we made it across. Two hours. Onto an island. No doubt this was two hours later, we were going up this island, crossing over successive areas of the river, these little shoot offs of the river, offshoots of the river. And it was getting to the point where,

we didn't have a watch and we didn't have cell phones, nobody had any of that kind of thing. And no water, by the way, or food. Or shirts, because we took those off before we jumped in. We finally make it back to the car at which we look at the clock inside your truck and realize I've got like an hour before I've got to be warming up for the game, the state playoffs.

And then that was when we had a little trouble getting out of there, right? We were stuck. Yeah. You ruined, you tried to back up, we had the door open, you ruined your speaker. Anyway, I expended all the energy that I had built up for the day trying to save my life in the river

and subsequently had a poor performance in the state playoffs. And I'll never forgive you for that. But we didn't, I don't think we ever told anybody that's where you'd been, you know? Rhett just looks a little sluggish. Okay, I'll own that one. I think it might've set the trajectory

of our lives and career. We may not be here if we hadn't gone to the river. Think about it. We would have won that game, we would have gone on to win the state playoffs. Would you? I'd be in the NBA right now. Waterboy.

I could be a scorekeeper for the NBA. You could, you could. I mean, that'd be pretty sweet getting into the NBA games for free. You gotta keep up with rebounds though. Oh. You really gotta, they probably just have a rebound guy. Oh, right, right.

You could be that guy. I could specialize. I could be that guy. Yeah. Soccer for me in high school was still the thing that was part of my identity. You know, again, I didn't wanna be in the drama club and I wasn't gonna keep doing band. So I was good enough at soccer, so I did that.

As a freshman, they had a hazing technique, I guess is the only way to describe it, where the upperclassmen would put all the freshmen in their place. And this was before the days where bullying was such a hot topic and hazing was, I mean, this basically happened every school in America, every sport. And you knew joining the soccer team

that at a certain point, there was gonna be one day that you went to practice and all of the upperclassmen were going to haze you on the cross country course. Before every soccer practice, the beginning of every soccer practice was running the three mile cross country course. So you run the three miles.

It's like around a farm. Around a farm and a couple of country roads and then come back and have your an hour and a half of like doing your soccer drills while John Carson sat there holding his belly. No, he wasn't. He wasn't in the picture anymore. And I remember the day, I remember we,

you know, you'd start the cross country course and upperclassmen, a lot of them were better runners than me and they would always be ahead of me. But then I noticed that they were all hanging back and come to find out they went through a shortcut through a field so that when we went the long way around, it was like a scene in a Western movie. We're running on a dirt road and we come over-

In umbros, just like every Western movie. Yeah, I did have on underwear and we were- Umbros. Oh, I was thinking about Coach Brando. He wore umbros just like every Western movie. Yeah, I did have on underwear and we were- Umbros. I was thinking about Coach Brando. He wore umbros with nothing underneath. I remember running and kind of coming up a hill and as I started to rise on the horizon, I saw all the upperclassmen lined up

like prepared for war across the dirt road. Can't get by. And I remember turning to a couple of my friends who were freshmen, Michael Juby, I'm like, this is it. Today's the day, this is the moment. And so I just kept, you just kept running. You just run right, you know, the running certainly slows to kind of like a trot

and then a walk. We're just walking right up to them and say, all right guys, I don't know what they're gonna do exactly. They're gonna just like start pummeling us or something. And I think it was Jody Yarbrough who engaged with me. And what that meant specifically was turning me around and giving me the most atomic wedgie I've ever known possible in the history of man. Did he pull it over your head?

That's what we were doing. That's what they were doing to all of us. It wasn't punching, it wasn't hitting. So it was innocent in a certain way that we were all getting wedgies, but he was giving me, he grabbed my underwear from the back of my pants if you need to understand the anatomy of a wedgie, and then he just pulled and pulled.

And I remember bouncing off the ground, like a foot off the ground every time he would yank and it didn't stop, just kept going. The wedgie went on forever until I heard a huge rip. Ooh. And it wasn't a fart, it was my pants. It wasn't your skin though. It wasn't your actual legs.

It wasn't my legs. Your actual body coming apart. My groin coming apart like your toe. That would have been bad. It was the waistband of my underwear. And so then I, somehow they, like it ripped and then I turned around and he had them in his hand. Like a trophy. Like he had like a- Scalped somebody. and he had them in his hand. Like a trophy.

Like he had like a- Scalped somebody. Like he scalped somebody. Yeah. Yee, kind of a thing. Yeah. And then he throws them in the dirt and then I pick them up and I-

Picked them up? What do you mean? I picked them up. They were my underwear. I picked them up. But they were ruined. Well, I picked them up. I mean, I'm not gonna litter.

And then I didn't have- I'm sure that's what you were thinking. I didn't have pockets. And I ran the rest of the way in with my underwear in my hand. I listen, in that case, my pride is on the line. I'm leaving the underwear in the field and the farmer can take those and use them as fertilizer.

Well, let me tell you, I still have those underwear. You are kidding. I'm not kidding. Now, okay, since I moved to LA, I'm certain that I've thrown them away. But I know that when I went home from college, like back to my mom's house, and when I was gonna get married and all that stuff,

I still had them and I kept them- As a keepsake. As a keepsake in a box with my, this makes it even more appropriate, with my Science Olympiad medals and my Science Project ribbons and my ripped up underwear. Your high school experience in a capsule.

It was a rite of passage and it was in that box, that keepsake box. Because that's when I became a soccer player. Now I know for a fact that while you may have received this punishment, as you matured in high school, you became a jerk in this sense. Like you became the guy on the soccer team

that the underclassmen didn't want to cross when it came to this kind of thing. Yeah. Not because, I mean, you weren't a big guy, you were about the same size as you are right now. Yeah. But- I was mean. You were mean.

Well, I felt like, you know, if I endured that, then I get my turn as an upperclassman to inflict that same love, that memory on someone else. And like I said, it was meaningful to me, but yeah, I mean, that memory on someone else. And like I said, it was meaningful to me, but yeah, I mean, I wanted my retribution. And so I gave my fair share of wedgies. It didn't go beyond that. That was the extent of it.

That was the extent of it. But- And you know what, I will say, I think that if quote unquote hazing was limited to that kind of thing, there wouldn't be this big issue that it is. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's the fact that it's taken to places that are just over the line and inappropriate. Giving somebody a wedgie, I mean, come on now. You know, let's have a little fun here. But it's just, it becomes abuse. Right, so I was a jerk, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't anything like that. And I did have my, that wasn't my only reputation.

I was also, I had my accolades. I had, well, okay. I had the one game, right? I had, over the course of my soccer career, I started playing a little bit sophomore year, but junior year is when I got some points on the board for the first time. Because you had been playing defense.

Well, I'd been playing the bench. Well, you didn't play a lot, but then when you did get to play, a lot of times it was defense. Charles Fleming was the right wing, and he would get winded, and so I would come in off the bench and replace him and you remember this game, you were in the stands. Well, I came to all the games.

You know, I came to support my friend, Link, as he played. And yeah, I can tell you, we sat together, all of us who were not on the soccer team, which usually was me and like Chris Gardner and like a bunch of girls, you know, everybody else seemed like was on the soccer team. And you got in there and I will say that I wish that these two things had coincided.

I wish it had coincided with the period of time in which my dad was the announcer for the soccer games. Yeah. But my dad got fired from being the announcer for the soccer games because all he would do the entire time he was announcing is talk about you. Whenever I was in the game,

he would give running commentary of only me. He was like, the linkster gets the ball, linkerino. Because it was when the SNL thing was popular. But he got fired because he would also talk about, he would get Coach Brando to put you in. How about putting the linkster in? He would give advice. He was the announcer.

He's supposed to be announcing like special events and like the score. Right. So they fired him after a few games. But anyway. How about putting the Linkster in, Coach? So unfortunately. How about wearing some underwear, Coach?

Those two things didn't coincide. But I do remember this game that put you in and within minutes of you getting in there. It was a corner kick. And I remember thinking, all right, I'm on the far side of this corner kick. When this thing comes in, I just gotta, you know. Anticipate, be ready.

I remember closing my eyes and flailing my legs. And I remember feeling. Oh, come on, you gotta give yourself more credit than that. The ball was coming in and I was just like, I'm just gonna throw my foot up there and it made perfect contact with my left foot, which I'm right footed and it just zinged right in there.

I first goal ever scored in high school history by me. And we went nuts. I also went nuts. We went, in the stands, I mean, of course, there's not a lot of people there. It is a soccer game in North Carolina. But we were going nuts because they put you in there and you scored.

First score ever and I was, you would have thought that I had scored the winning goal in the World Cup final. Like I was running around, I didn't take my shirt off, but I was running around and giving everybody five and just like, you know, just exultation. And then it was- Not three minutes later.

It was not three minutes later, there was, you know, we were pushing in on the defenders and the ball ekes through and there's like this, a scrum, I would call it. Like people just kind of scruffing around right in front of the goal line and the goalie didn't have the ball ekes through and there's like this, a scrum, I would call it. Like people just kind of scruffing around right in front of the goal line and the goalie didn't have the ball, he had it for a second and he lost it.

And then I realized that the ball is at my feet and I walked it into the goal. I didn't even kick it. But no, but the last thing, foot that touched it was your left foot. Oh yeah. Yeah, I walked in and it was my left foot. It was like, I'm not even left foot and I've kicked, I've made two it was your left foot. Oh yeah, yeah, I walked in and it was my left foot. It was like, I'm not even left footed and I've kicked, I've made two goals with my left foot.

The only goals you ever scored, by the way. I never scored another goal, but I had those, that was my, that was my accolade, that was my game. We were freaking out. Two goals, one game, one foot, the off foot, the left foot. And I went into celebration mode again, and I'll never forget Josh Young, who was a friend of mine and the forward at the time,

striker, you know, we get back and we're setting up after I score that second goal and he leans over and he says, when you score a goal, you should act like you meant to do it afterwards. So I guess the way that I was celebrating, everyone could see the look of surprise on my face as I ran around like, did you see that? I scored, you know, kind of a thing.

Josh Young, a funny story about him. Eighth grade, I'm playing baseball and I hit a triple and he's playing third base and he was a little guy. He was super little when he was in eighth grade, I'm playing baseball and I hit a triple and he's playing third base. And he was a little guy, he was super little when he was in eighth grade. Yeah. Of course, this was we're playing against Andrew so I didn't really know him.

And he's looking at me and I say, what are you looking at? And he says, I'm trying to figure it out. He was so sharp, you know, and I had nothing after that. You had nothing? I had nothing, I had no comebacks. But you had to stand there on the base beside him. That little guy got me. He became a great friend later.

A great friend. Okay. Yeah, he taught me a lesson. Yeah, when you score a goal, act like you meant to do it. I never played soccer in high school. It was mostly basketball, but I do have a cross country. I was on the cross country team because Coach Gage was the cross country coach. And so he asked us to run cross country

as a way to stay in shape in the off season. All right, cross country, in my opinion, is like soccer without having to do any of the soccer. Because I ran your course, I got a wedgie on it. And then- I got no wedgies. Then actually I spent another hour and a half doing the actual sport. But- So you would just do the course

and that was your sport. But- Did you get a wedgie? I wanna give you some perspective here of how I'd actually do that because it wasn't that difficult to run the 3.1 miles, you know, the 5K. But even during the meets, the competitive meets,

the parents would come out, they would all sit in the stands because you would finish the race. In the football stadium. In the football stadium. Football field. Field, yeah, not really a stadium. And go around that last 400 meters

so everybody could kind of see you and you come across the finish line. I was so concerned about how I was coming across, I didn't really care about winning. And you don't mean coming across the finish line, you mean how you looked. How I looked finishing. So what I would do is I would take off real fast. I'd get out there and I'd be like, this isn't worth it.

You know, what was it for a trophy? I would've said, well, I'm not here because Coach Gage wants me to be out here. And I would end up walking during the middle of the meet. And they pretty much let anybody on the cross country team. So even when I would run and then I would walk, there would still be some people who were kind of in the same pack with me.

And then we would get to- Well, your legs are so long, your walk gait. True. It could be someone's run. I can keep up pretty quickly. So we get to the very end of it and I'm like, here's the part where we're coming in and we've got the parents and everybody watching.

And I would get right to the football field and I would turn it on and I would just sprint that last 400 meters and I would pass like 12 people. And they'd be like, boy, that guy's coming out of nowhere. Just to give you some perspective that, I mean, I'm not prescribing this. I'm not saying that you should do this. Because I was still like not anywhere near the front.

Right, so what were the spectators thinking? What were your parents thinking? Your parents- He finishes strong. Well, if they weren't your parents and they didn't remember you starting, they would probably think, that guy's amazing. He just showed up late. He must've been delayed.

Yeah. If he had started the race on time, he would've been the gold medal. My dad knew exactly what I was doing. He says, you're not running in the middle and then you're running at the end. I wasn't impressing my dad. He was smart enough to know what.

But that didn't change your approach. No, I kept it for the whole season. I never ran without stopping. The one other sport that I did play my senior year was golf where there was a golf team. And the thing I had observed from our friends who were on the golf team is like, these guys are never in class.

You know, golf season rolls around. These guys get out early. When they play a golf match that day, it's like, these guys are never in class. You know, golf season rolls around, these guys get out early. When they play a golf match that day, it takes so long to play golf, they're gone all day. I mean, this is the life and I like playing golf. So I wasn't very good at golf, but I knew Coach Coleman, Johnny Coleman, Jimmy Coleman, well enough to kind of talk my way onto the team.

He was the father of a friend. Okay, so. well enough to kind of talk my way onto the team. He was the father of a friend. Okay, so. And they let me play in one actual match. Because I was always on the rotation squad, which you didn't get to play unless somebody was hurt, but you got to go and kind of drive around. But they let me play and actually keep my score one time.

And I can't remember which course we're playing at, but we're playing at this, on a hole, where there's this huge dog leg to the right, so far to the right that you can actually drive over the whole dog leg and drive straight from the tee to the green if you can hit it a long way. And the one thing I could do- So you could, you mean-

You could bypass the whole hole because it was shaped like an L. You could drive a shortcut. Yeah, drive a shortcut to the green. Take the corner off of it. Yeah, and all I could do was hit it a long way because I was so tall and I could swing. So I was like, well, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go for it.

Maybe I'll get a hole in one on a par four, who knows? And coach- And you probably needed it. Coach Coleman and the coach from the other team were standing in the tee box behind us just off of the side of the cart path. It's kind of hard to understand the visuals here, but basically what happened was, is I aimed towards the green that was basically

on the other side of some trees. And I just, I absolutely ripped it. But I hit it a little bit too far to the left, didn't hit it far enough to the right. And I hit the sign for the hole, the hole that says like, hole 10. So like three feet in front of you?

No, it was like one tee box down in front. So, you know, probably 20, maybe 30 feet away. I hit that thing and I knocked the crap out of this ball. The ball deflects directly back at eye level and goes right in between the two coaches who were standing right next to each other. It went right between their two heads and if it had have hit one of them,

it would have killed them or it would have seriously injured them. Man. So the only, this is like the only opportunity I ever had. When that happens, what do you say? Four? Four is too late. Well, everybody started laughing. And then I just hit it.

I didn't go back and hit it again. I just hit another ball because I was OB, you know? Starting two behind. That's my golfing peak. No records were set. If I had killed one of the coaches or two coaches in one, that would have been a record. But that's where you learned about tobacco.

Yeah, I was also, this is, gotta give some context here. This is Eastern North Carolina. I actually had my first experience with dip tobacco from the golf team. They did that on the golf team. They did that on the golf team? They had mint flavored tobacco. They're like, you should try this. Was that Jody Yarbrough?

He was probably partially responsible. By the time I was playing, I was a senior, so it had been passed down. They all did it, everybody did it. Didn't that make you sick? The mint flavor wasn't as strong. We weren't doing Skol out there, at least I wasn't. Oh.

But yeah, so I had a little bit of a habit, which sounds crazy. For people to hear that, that we did dip, but you gotta understand that everybody on the golf team was doing it, and I did it for a little bit and realized this is a habit that needs to break, so it didn't last past golf season.

Yeah, that's good because you don't really pull the ladies with, I guess you could in our high school. Yeah, back in the day you could maybe. I think, I mean, after that, in terms of organized sports, I mean, I certainly wasn't gonna play soccer in college. I did move to a defensive position where I wasn't able to score with my left foot by sheer flukes, but it just wasn't my thing.

Yeah. And you let go of the basketball thing. Yeah. Even though you could have played basketball and instead we both went to NC State and kind of put it behind us. There was no more organized sports for me since then. I think I played Frisbee golf with Todd Smith in college.

That can be organized by a small group. Like we'd organize meeting up and then we would play. And I should get back into that. I don't know if there's a course around here. But we never did like the ultimate Frisbee thing, which was like big in some places. I played a little intramural basketball and that kind of thing, but it was,

not a lot of sports happened. So for me, it wasn't until we had kids. Yeah. That sports started to become Back into the picture. A part of our lives again. Right, back in North Carolina, before we moved out here, they had intramural basketball and I was like,

okay, Christy, let's get the kids involved in that. So Lily got involved in intramural basketball and then the next year, I mean, she didn't love it, but she did it and it was good learning experience. So the next year we got Lincoln to do it and I guess, let's see, I mean, he was like on the youngest team, so we're talking six or seven years old, so just getting started.

And we get up that morning for the first game and he's just upset, he's refusing to go. I'm like, well, son, I didn't wanna push him too hard because of all of my experiences, but we couldn't get him to articulate why he didn't wanna go. And then finally, he's like, I wanna wear pants. He's like, what?

He's like, I wanna wear pants. I don't wanna wear shorts. Cause they had a uniform, which was- Usually has shorts, yeah. It had shorts and a tank top. Right, that's pretty common. And he said, he was hung up on the shorts. He would not wear the shorts.

And we said, well, you wanna wear pants? He said, yeah. And so we put him in some, we didn't put him in jeans. We had put him in like warmup pants. And then he's like the only kid out there. Who's constantly warming up. Constantly warming up. It's an excuse for everything though.

I'm just warming up. If you don't do well, yeah. Oh, the game started. Yeah, so he was the kid out there in the warmup pants and that solved it. We never got to the bottom of really what was going on inside of his mind. Like it wasn't, I mean, he wears shorts now.

He went a whole season as the warmup guy. He went a whole season in just pants and we were fine with that. Did he do well? No, but there was, and he was fine with not doing well. And then when he played soccer, like a year later, he wanted to wear pants for that too. And we were like, you're gonna be too hot.

And so we talked him out of that. So we did get him into shorts when it came to playing soccer. Victory. And then we moved out here and there was no basketball or no soccer for either one of them. They play baseball in Encino, it's like a big thing, but they just don't wanna do it.

They don't wanna join a team. I think it's not knowing the kids and it's just intimidating to kind of get involved. And I think for me, because there was always so much anxiety, especially with, I mean, it was anxiety with soccer too. I can say that I never really loved it. I was just decent at it.

If you want to be generous with the term. But baseball, I was very anxious. And so it's kind of like, well, if you don't want to do it, I get that because I did it and I always wished I didn't want to do it. It's just a question of getting them involved in something but. Well, it's funny

because I almost feel like there was more pressure in North Carolina to get the kids involved in something. And also because we had done all this stuff, you feel like, well, I feel like my kids should be doing something athletic. Right. And so we did the same thing. The same two things that you mentioned

in a different order, we did recreational soccer and then we did the same thing. The same two things that you mentioned in a different order, we did recreational soccer and then we did basketball. And this is how it went. This was just Locke. We didn't do this with Shepard. Shepard's too young. Soccer with Locke was this. Whenever he got close to the ball,

made contact with the ball, he would look at the sideline. Like look at you? Like look at who was watching him. Kind of like me in the end of the cross country course. Uh-huh. And we're talking like a three or four year old out there and he'd get the ball and he'd run and then he'd start looking at the sideline.

And you could tell he was running in a way that he wanted to look cool in the way that he was running and then he would lose the ball because you can't do that. You can't look cool and keep the ball. And I was like, and we were telling him, Locke, you gotta be focused on the ball. And he was too young to really articulate what was happening, but he was so focused on what people were thinking about him

that he was incapable of playing the game. And then we played basketball, and I was actually the assistant coach for the basketball team. I remember you got roped into that. And I had to wear my shirt tucked in, talked about that on a Good Mythical Morning at one point, but one of the early Good Mythical Mornings.

I remember that, yeah. Yeah, because- They told you you had to tuck your shirt. I was like, I'm not a shirt tucker, man. I'm not that guy, I don't do that. I'm the coach that keeps his shirt untucked. Well, you got it, this is the standard here. So I wore shorts and I tucked my t-shirt into them,

which is, hadn't done that in years. Wow. But anyway, I was a coach, assistant coach. I was okay as an assistant coach. My son, on the other hand, was not great at basketball. He didn't score. And I remember there being this thing inside me that was like, you know, I'm a little embarrassed.

I want my kid to succeed at this and I don't even know why, but it was all because of me. It was all because of my reputation and wanting to seem like I've got a kid who's athletic. But that was the end of Locke's organized team sports. Oh, that was the thing. Whenever you found out that he couldn't score, you took him out.

No, he didn't care about it. He didn't wanna do it. I look horrible as a dad. You can't do this to me. It's one of those things where if we're like, we've gotta go out of town this weekend, you're gonna miss your basketball game. We'd be like, oh great. He didn't wanna do it. Yeah.

So, but then when we moved to California, because things have changed quite a bit, we moved to California and we moved pretty close to a public pool and Jesse's like, you think we should get him, they've got like a water polo team and a dive team at this thing, you know, what do you think he should do? I was like, well, he loves to jump off of stuff.

He's already broken his arm jumping off of something. He might as well land in water. Yeah, and so we take him over there and let him jump a little bit off of the board and next thing you know, he's on the dive team. Fast forward, so that's like how long we've been out here? Four years? Almost four years, so it's probably three years.

So yeah, we probably did that about a year in. So three, fast forward three years from that point, and now he's on like a legitimate dive team. He practices five times a week. And- This is a high level of investment here. And as soon as we finish this Ear Biscuit, I'm getting in the car with my family

and I'm driving through the desert to Las Vegas to a dive meet that he's gonna be in for two days. Now let me preface this. He's 10 years old. And as a family, we're going out there. This diving has become this thing that he is all about. And it's so weird because I never was able to do a flip. I couldn't do a flip,

never done a flip off the diving board. I've always been big and unable to do that kind of thing. I have no insight into this sport. I can't help coach. All I can do is encourage him and be there. But he's suddenly become like like this is like the thing, he's like, Dad, I wanna dive in college. I wanna get a scholarship and dive in college.

He's really good at it. Yeah, and he's good at it. He's naturally good at it and he's self-motivated. He wants to do it. So that's what my sports have become is going to these dive meets. In Vegas, do they dive into like a slot? Yeah, they do. Like coins? Yeah, and you can- Like a pool full of- You can hit slot? Yeah, they do.

Like coins? Yeah, and you can- Like a pool full of- You can hit the jackpot, you can. That sounds dangerous. I thought you were gonna say, do they like dive into like a really shallow body of water and then charge people for it or something like that, but you went with a slot joke.

Yeah. I didn't think of Vegas was a place to take a 10 year old, but I guess if you put them in a Speedo, then it all works out. Yeah, well, that's- How did you navigate the whole Speedo thing? Because he has to wear Speedo. Do you have to tuck your shirt in?

No, the dads do not have to tuck their shirts in. But the dads all have to wear Speedos. No, they don't. All dads have to wear Speedos. How did you navigate the Speedo with him? Was there like a? Didn't care at all. The first thing that he had to wear

was what they call jammies, which looks like biker shorts. Tight, but they go down your leg. Okay. But then it's funny because there's this culture within diving. And it's like, if you're serious about this, you wear the speedo. And so now Locke will go to the pool near our house,

the public pool, and he'll wear his Speedo to go and dive. And he's like, I'm like- It's like a status symbol to him. Locke, you're not self-conscious about this? He's like, no, Dad, because that's what real divers do. And then he says, and Dad, by the way, once you get up on the board and you start doing all these crazy dives,

everybody's like, oh, that kid's legit. And of course he can wear a Speedo. So he's not self-conscious about it. Does he have to shave the legs? Well, he's 10, so it doesn't have much of a problem with that, but I don't think that divers have to shave the legs. I think that's a swimmer thing.

I don't think it matters how quickly you enter the water, but I don't know. I don't know, we'll find out about that, I'm sure. I think he'll be shaving his legs and his arms. But why do you need that for diving? Well, exactly. So you need to be doing your research and thinking about this.

As a father, you gotta know what he's getting into. Well, but that's the thing. Because he's gonna be like a biker, man. I went from- Biker shaved their legs. I remember the first time we went to a dive meet and I was like, oh, is this what our weekends are gonna be? I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna be committed to this kind of thing.

Right. But then the next thing I know he's up there diving and there's like another kid that he's competing against. I'm like, oh, that kid falls. I'm like, the competitive nature that I have starts coming out and now I want him to be as good as he can at this. And he's kind of like I was at that age.

So he's self-motivated. I don't have to tell him to take it seriously. He just takes it seriously on his own. And I'm a diving dad now. But it's interesting. I mean, there's certainly, it mirrors your experience a little bit in that, okay, you found basketball, you were really good at it.

Your dad identified that and he started laying the groundwork for you to be able to play on a collegiate level. And so that conversation, even though he's only 10, like he started to say it. And so- And that's the way the people around him talk too. It isn't like, hey, Locke, I don't tell him, I do now, but I didn't start by saying, hey, this could be,

you could do this to get a scholarship. He's 10, I don't know, that's too early. But at the team he's on and the program he's in, that's how they talk about it. And so he's into that. He's on the right team where that is an actual possibility given the type of training that he's doing now. But from your perspective, I mean,

do you see it kind of being a replay of your own situation? And then how do you navigate that as a dad, kind of knowing how you and your dad interacted with it and how he was excited to enable that, but then at a certain point you had to break away and say, you know what, I don't wanna play basketball in college. So how do you, what's your approach? Well, my approach is I think about the way that,

and you asked me a question, when we did the first ever Rhett and Link only Ear Biscuit, you asked me the question, do you resent your dad or whatever for how he pushed you? And I answered the same way I'll answer now and I don't. Because I feel like there was something about my personality and what I needed. I needed to succeed at something like that,

even if it was just something, what some people would consider as frivolous sport. I think it actually helped shape the way I approach things. And I don't think this is necessary for everybody. I think it's healthy for every kid to be involved in something, you know, whether it's music or some kind of art or sports

or whatever it might be. I don't think it has to be sports. But to be getting better at something and focusing on something and something that's difficult and something that causes you to face fears. And I think that the diving thing is way more strategic than basketball ever was for me. But like, as I got better and better at basketball

and I put work into things and I saw results, I said, I'm gonna commit this summer to getting better at this. And then the next year I was that much better and all my stats went up. I think that that mentality is something that it translates. It translates into the success that I've experienced later in life.

Being able to be successful in college, to be an engineer for a little bit, even though it was a short time, to now doing the things that we're doing. I think there's just a mentality of working on something, putting effort in and then seeing a result. Yeah, I think it's- And so it translates.

Right. I think it also resonated with your personality type. So it was, it translated and it resonated, you know, or it translated because it resonated with you. So those two things work together. If he's not, if he doesn't wanna do it, if he, like, now there's been a couple of times where, because this is a difficult thing, this is, there's do it, if he, there's been a couple of times where, because this is a difficult thing,

this is, there's a lot of time involved. There's been a couple of times where he's kinda wavered a little bit and I'd be like, Locke, have you, you haven't been doing this for long and I don't, and his reasons for what he was upset about or whatever weren't really to do with diving, it was some different issues.

I've been like, Locke, I think if you quit right now, you would regret it. And he's more into it now. But if you know what, as he gets older, and he becomes more able to think about these things for himself and to make all these decisions, and he's like, I don't wanna do this. I mean, if he doesn't wanna do it,

we're not gonna make him do it. But as he's doing it right now, I'm like, listen, if you're gonna do this, you need to be as good as you can at it. You need to put the time in. And my instinct is that that is gonna translate into other things. And it is currently resonating with him personally.

Yeah, and maybe your challenge as a dad is to not, you know, to not to push him based on your desires, but to be sensitive to his. I think for me, it's kind of the opposite, is am I not encouraging my kids to get involved in sports because I hated it so much and it was always such a source of anxiety for me. So if they express they don't wanna do it,

I'm like, of course you don't wanna do it. I didn't wanna do it either. But there's certainly the biggest challenge is not letting ourselves get in the way of what our kids need to be doing. But there's also finding the thing or the things that resonate with our kids because they're their own individuals.

They're their own people. And we want, whether it's, you know, there's benefits from doing sports, even if it's not their thing. So by the way, I feel like Christian and I are talking more intently about, I think we should make them join some sort of a sports thing, organized sports for one, at least one term, just to see.

Season. Just to see. Maybe you shouldn't. One term. But I think the bigger question is getting them involved in a number of things so that they can discover who they are, you know, it's what resonates. It's not that it has to be a sport. Yeah, it might be like,

I wanna master this musical instrument or it might be that I wanna paint or I wanna draw or I wanna start making videos or I just feel. And we're certainly seeing those things. I think, you know, I can go ahead and check a number of those boxes, which aren't sports related, but I think it's interesting that we, you know,

we came from a place to where those boxes- The only thing that you could succeed in was sports. Or academics and then- But no, but think about it for a second though. In Buies Creek in 1985, 1986, it wasn't gonna be like, I'm gonna be a piano player. Like that wasn't an option, especially for a boy. If you were a boy, it was, and I'd say even a girl,

your opportunity was, I'm either gonna be, I'm gonna excel at sports and including cheerleading, you know, that was your real opportunity. And sure there were other things that you could excel at, but it was kind of, those were all extracurricular. You know, I feel like it's just a different time. I, you know, to me, it wasn't the pressure of, I had pretty much come to the conclusion

that Locke wasn't gonna do sports. I mean, cause he was, in my mind, kids who are really good at things these days, they start, you know, right when they're barely walking, I was like, sports aren't gonna be Locke's thing, he's gonna be into something else. And this kind of things have just sort of turned out that way that he's so into this.

But to me, I think that what's important is them just finding something that they can excel at. Like if it involves practicing and putting time into something and then seeing a result, if kids aren't doing something like that, you know, and your kids are doing like piano lessons and all that other stuff, you know? Oh yeah, all that other stuff.

But yeah, and I, you know, I feel like our experience and where we are now in our careers certainly has impacted the way that we want to help enable our kids to discover who they are at an earlier age. We just kind of backed our way into it. A lot, of course, everything we do, none of it, the paradigm for it didn't exist. Beyond just being entertainers or filmmakers

when we were middle school and high school. But that's the thing I want to instill in my kids is self-expression and understanding yourself and having opportunity to explore things and fail, to find the one thing that you succeed at. Maybe we should just invent a new sport. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's a sport where you wear pants.

That's part of it. You have to wear pants. Just call it pants. Pants the sport. And it's just how quickly you can get on the most number of pants. Okay, or it could just be the art of wearing pants and it's not a sport.

It's like- You walk around, that's modeling. Oh yeah, that's true. Maybe that's he wants to be a model. How you feel about that? Feel great about it. Good looking guy. They make lots of bank and they get free clothes.

You know, you walk right off that runway and just keep going, you keep the clothes. You know, technically that's not true. Yeah, I know, technically from the tax- They're not tax deductible. Right, but I'm saying if he just kept walking- He could, he'd steal clothes. You know, technically that's not true. Yeah, I know, technically from the tax. They're not tax deductible. Right, but I'm saying if he just kept walking, he could steal them. He could steal them.

He would be a thief. So that's really the moral of the story today, kids, is if you're a model, you should steal the clothes. And parents, you know, we don't envy you because we are one of you and it's not easy, but you know, we screw it up and just don't tell anybody. Yeah, and I will say- You don't have to talk at length like we do about it.

Yeah. Show your hand. You really can't, I mean, can you really get, if you've got the best intentions and you care about the welfare of your kids, can you really screw it up that bad? It's just like- Cavemen raise kids, man. Cave, but they were cave kids in fairness.

You know, they're- Using words like. Their etiquette around the cave was just embarrassing. But I mean, they've been doing it for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years and you know, it's not that big of a deal. So I think that we'll be talking to someone besides each of us in the next Ear Biscuit.

Yeah, hopefully. But there will be other ones where we're talking to you. So if you wanna give us feedback on this Ear Biscuit, please do. And if you wanna hear us talk about something else, specifically, where should they comment? They could comment on this SoundCloud. SoundCloud would be a good place.

Or you could do that on iTunes. Yeah, but tweet at us and let us know. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, that's really the best way. Leaving a review on iTunes is fabulous and really helps us. You can comment along on SoundCloud. Thanks again for hanging out. And as we went down memory lane, I started with underwear around my underwear place.

And now they're in my hand. Here they are right here. And I'm gonna put them in a box. Link does not have his underwear. I'm gonna keep them for years in my hand. It's a metaphor, he's not really holding his underwear. I can attest to that.