The Shintaro Higashi Show - USA Judo Beef Behind Closed Doors - Nicole Stout

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

In this special extra episode, Shintaro sits down with Nicole Stout, a four-time national champion and USA Judo board member. Nicole opens up about her fight for transparency and reform within USA Judo's leadership, offering an inside look at boardroom conflicts and governance issues affecting athletes. From advocating for athletes’ funding and transparency to addressing conflicts of interest on the board, Nicole sheds light on what it takes to push for change in a complex organization. With upcoming elections, she also shares her vision for the future of USA Judo and her hopes for elevating American judo on the world stage. A must-listen for anyone invested in the growth and integrity of the sport! (00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:20) Concerns Over USA Judo Leadership and Budget Cuts (00:02:54) Challenges with the CEO's Fundraising and Priorities (00:04:55) Board Divisions and Removal of Members (00:09:18) Ethics and Governance Issues on the Board (00:12:35) Nicole’s Perspective on Transparency in Board Meetings (00:17:05) Differences of Opinion Between Nicole and Colton (00:21:11) Financial Transparency and Budget Concerns (00:24:23) Problems with Current Size of USA Judo Membership (00:28:02) Board Members’ Roles and Conflicts (00:33:02) Nicole’s Endorsements (00:42:44) Nicole’s Future Vision for USA Judo

So what are some of the things that Colton might say that you agree with? And what are some things that you disagree with, with Colton? So when you bring this up, people are like, oh, whatever. Or they're like, oh yeah, we got to do something about this. Like what is the... Generally, they don't care until they know that the number is six digits long. Six digits? Yeah, total, to be fair.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro higashi show with peter yu today we have a very special guest nicole stout she's a four consecutive four-time consecutive national champion current on the international circuit representing the united states also getting married in 16 days congratulations and she's on usa judo board of directors as athlete representative. And I hear you are ruffling some feathers behind closed doors. Is that true? Closed doors, open doors, every window, every rooftop. I am relatively controversial because I'm not afraid to say what I feel and what I see.

Okay. And you're up for election now. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And you're up for election now. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. So you're fighting for your position. What are some of your things that you want to see happen in the next four years? Well, part of my major reason for running is I am genuinely concerned in the direction that the current people in charge want to take us into 2028. When I asked our CEO, what was the first thing he would change? Considering you haven't meddled or even come close the last two Olympic cycles, and those have been the last two Olympic cycles he's personally oversaw. What would he do different with an Olympic cycle we're hosting in the U.S.?

Yeah, very important. And his first answer was to cut the athlete budget. Okay. That was his first answer. And I couldn't believe, I mean, this is someone that is not an athlete this is someone that has never done judo this is someone that's put on a gi exactly once to receive an honorary black belt he he's never expressed an interest in judo he's actively been derisive in terms of referring to the U.S. judo culture and our and our coaches and as if it was somehow less than compared to other sports and

i just i think we need an entire overhaul because if that's the first thing you think we need going into the hour olympics you're clearly not fit for the job yeah well you did say something i so the whole thing i'm on this election thing is because I saw your video on Instagram and Facebook. And then you did say like the CEO's job is to raise money. And I had a conversation with Jimmy Pedro, who's also running up for election for the coach's position. CEO's job is to raise money. And whether an athlete, you know, wins the Olympic gold or not, sometimes the CEO doesn't have a lot of control over it because he's not the guy in charge of the athlete's coaching or the athlete's fund or the high – what is Eddie Liddy's position called? High performance director.

Yeah. He's not the high performance director. Yes, they all should work together. But yes, he should raise money. And you made a point that he was supposed to raise an X amount of dollars and then he didn't. Is that correct? He didn't. Yeah. So in his initial interview, and then I've talked with several people that have been on the board and were at his initial interview.

And the reason he got that position over someone we all know very well is Corinne Shigemoto. She was one of the last two. Her and Keith Bryant were the last two considered for CEO. Wait. Corinne was up for ceo position yes interesting i did not know that yeah so there's a lot of things that i found when i joined the board three and a half years ago what's going on now being told um i believe right now she obviously has left usa judo the last couple years and right now she is working

in tandem with the ijf to help run the uh world veterans in las vegas so she's been instrumental in that and unfortunately usa judo is entirely uninvolved so what i learned three and a half years ago when I first joined the board was one, of course, there's a learning curve. And two, oh, my God, there is so much we don't know. And no one willing to tell us. Yeah. I never found out any of this stuff until recently. I started digging a little bit.

And then I spoke to Chris. I spoke to Colton on this podcast. He's going to be on. It's going to go live soon. Jimmy Pejo, you're on now. And then Matthew Walker or Matthew Parker. Parker, yeah. Yeah. be on he you know it's gonna lot go live soon jimmy pejo you're on now and then matthew walker or matthew parker parker yeah yeah so i'm making my rounds now through the thing and i'm getting a lot of interesting detail and uh i know you don't see eye to eye with a lot of the people on the

board currently correct yeah about half i hear more about that yeah yeah yeah okay about half okay so the board is split into two right now basically yeah it's two halves and it's not even over the issue of like all right what should we do this olympic quad or like all these things that it's not like the stuff you know yeah you haven't even gotten to that that's what colton told me and that's kind of nuts but somebody was removed recently from the board so that's also a controversial topic because in our bylaws um i want to say six point i want to say 6.56 um in our bylaws it says that a board of director a board member can only be removed um with cause by a two-thirds total power of the board. So we have a 12-person board.

I believe that is eight votes or minimum seven for sure. Okay. But so essentially they initially did this vote for this man. The vote failed. Six, five, because they said, you know, he couldn't vote for himself. Okay. Yeah. The vote failed, 6-5, because they said he couldn't vote for himself. Okay, that makes sense, yeah. And then because that vote failed, they sent him to ethics and grievance under the guise of having ethics and grievance suspend him, which was basically seen as a workaround. His lawyer attended that session with him.

They heard him out, and then ethics and grievance basically stalled out and never made a decision. Is it because he was in an independent position and you're not supposed to be an athlete or a coach if you're running for that position? And then he is an athlete. if you're running for that position, and then he is an athlete. And he has a, yeah.

So when he was first put, so he was first put into the independent role by Mark Hill himself as when he was president of the board. He initially ran, I believe, as the at-large. But because one of the independent positions on the board requires someone have an extensive history and experience in finance. And he is a CPA for one of the top companies in the world. So he very much fulfilled that qualifying. And Mark Hill had the nominating committee at the time. Look at the fact that he had a life membership with the USJF or a, I don't remember. Um, and he was a current veteran competitor at the time.

And they said, because it's not, um, it's not based in any like financial gain. He's just, they, because in our bylaws, it says that there are guidelines.

So it doesn't say it's a rule. You can't be an athlete or a coach or whatever. It says that the nominating committee considers these guidelines when looking at a person and basically it's whether they think are they receiving some kind of like if they're a coach are they using their would they use this board position to potentially get more athletes to their dojo you know because they're a board member or something like that or you know are they making money as an athlete leveraging their position on the board things like that so that was considered

at the time the nominating committee came back with yeah he's good mark he'll put him in the position of independent um then the next year because i mean we're talking like December, so then January comes and we need a new chair of the board because Mark Hill leaves. And Mark Hill is now the co-chair of the Ethics and Grievance Committee. So who gets to choose? Who's the president of the board and the chair of the board? So the board votes. The votes, okay. So any time, like let's just say theoretically,

right? You're in the room, alright, we need a new president. Nicole, you're up for the thing and let's vote and then you could potentially be the president of the yes yeah it's that simple and then but joe reagan is now gone right so um everyone voted unanimously for him to be uh the president blah blah blah um year and a half goes by he's up for his i want to say sixth degree black belt whatever and one of the stipulations is that along with your safe sport and everything else you have to have your basic coaching certification to be a sixth degree black belt yeah so he he does that blah blah blah nothing comes of it until six months later we have a board meeting to review Keith Bryant's performance.

And already whispers in the wall, it's not going to go well. And apparently at some point, and this is coming from Jeff LaForse and Dave Johnson, two other board members themselves saying that they came across an email from Joe Reagan talking about looking at other options for CEO. And they disagreed with this because they really like Keith Bryant. So before we could even start the meeting, I just remember being so confused because all of a sudden, Jeff LaForse cut in before we could even start.

He was like, I need to talk with Joe right now on the phone. We were all like, what the fuck? Like that's never happened before. That's so weird. I remember we were all just making awkward conversation waiting for them to come back. And then Joe and Jeff came back and then Joe went to continue the meeting

and all of a sudden completely cut off. Jeff LaForse is literally screaming about how he has this coach's certification. He sent an email to everybody he should disappear from the board so are you pro joe reagan or no i am in support of joe reagan maintaining his position because i don't feel we followed the bylaws in removing him so i mean are you allowed to say who doesn't want him there? Sure. So it's very, all of our minutes should contain our votes. And I think it's very fair to say that the people that voted to remove him from the board would be people that want him gone.

Why? If they're going through digging the bylaws, how can we get rid of this guy? They're definitely planning someone like a takeover. get rid of this guy they're definitely planning someone so it's because it's it's it's because they know that he was a part of the half of the board that includes me that wanted to see the ceo changed and their half of the board likes the ceo let me ask you a question who likes keith bryant right now i'm just curious sure um it's those same people so it's uh jeff laforce um dave johnson shannon hondle who's the other independent yeah um it would be uh ben goodrich our paralympic representative uh marty malloy the other athlete rep and colton brown the other athlete rep they've

all um when it when we all gave our ratings they all rated him very positively and then the side of the board i sit on um our half i guess you could say um was me uh ari miller jerry navarro june chi and joe reagan we all were in favor of we need we need to cut this guy loose and find somebody better okay so when does it go to a vote whether or not to keep Keith Bryan on or not? Well, so in the last board meeting we had, they refused to let Joe Reagan into the room. And even though he was invited to the meeting because that's standard practice.

And they refused to let him into the room because they said that... Zoom meeting. Yeah. Yeah, because you do two in-person meetings a year yes uh we do two in person in may and one in november so the one we just had literally last friday was a zoom meeting and um while he was invited like a normal board member keith is the one that hosts the rooms yeah and all of our meetings also are supposed to be open and only the last two meetings

i could go into the meeting and listen in on this oh wow how many people listening on it i'm just curious there's 12 people normally zero but i've been that's crazy yeah and but in our bylaws you can see worse of every meeting is default open to our members. I can't say anything. No, unless we ask for questions or something. But the important part is that in order to cultivate a culture of transparency and accountability, our members have to be involved. But part of the issue is that for whatever reason, the board in the past wasn't interested in having the members see what they do. Yeah. And it's only been since I've been on the board that apparently we've ever had open meetings.

Our first one was May, the in-person meeting. I told as many people as I could last minute to come into the room and watch so that you can see exactly what's. And it was so embarrassing. It was two hours of complete cluster it was awful but at least we had people to witness that's good and so um the last two meetings well i guess i shouldn't say two wait let me ask you so if i go to president's cup in november right i'm not gonna but like if i go i could just walk in and be like oh yes i'm here to sitting on the board meeting and nobody would have an issue with that yeah they probably ask you you know who are you and just to make sure you're a member yeah yeah yeah yeah but i mean you know anybody can sit in any member can sit down and listen to what we have to say

unless we go into what's called executive session which is where only the board talks to each other about something really like you know like a safe sport thing like a really private thing about something really like, you know, like a safe sport thing, like a really private thing. Are you a lawyer by trade? Me? Yeah. No.

No? No. You're heavily involved in the political side of this stuff. I mean, you're very – Yeah, I didn't used to be, but as I've been on it longer, every year I've seen myself more and more into it because I was realizing that no one else was doing it. Maybe a career in law after judo. Yeah.

That's like, you're actually the fifth person to tell me. There you go. That's your calling right then and there. I'll, I'll, I'll think about it. It's really expensive.

I gotta, I gotta think about it. I gotta do the judo thing first. That's true. That's true. Wow. Okay. So keep Bryant.

You don't think he raised money. Is there a way for the board to be like, all right, listen, man, you got, you got, you know,

two months to raise. Yes. At any point, at any point they can do that yeah so in the last meeting um his contract was supposed to end at the end of september it's september right now right i was advocating we let him go yeah uh bring in corinne shigemoto to run the ship in the meantime then after the election let the new board the new people that the athletes and the coaches and the referees and everybody have gotten to voice they want in charge let them pick whether they want to continue with keith or if they want to hire somebody else and let it be like that and um lots of disagreement. Yeah, I bet. Especially because now they won't let Joe into the meeting

because they're saying that he's default off the board, even though that doesn't exist. I'm trying to get him on the show too to kind of like talk to him about it. Yes. You should. Yeah, and I'm a little bit more. I would try to get every board member on here.

You know, I want to because this is the thing, right? Like, obviously, I have my, you know, there's factions in U.S. Judo. You know what I mean? Of course. I'm friends with Colton. I've always been for a very long time because we're both New York, New Jersey guys. Of course, yeah. I trained at Jimmy's for a year during, you know, the period of leading up to the 2012 Olympics.

So it's like I've come from that sort of group. And then a lot of the other side I'm invisible to. Like I don't know those guys. I don't really know what's going on. And I don't want anyone blaming me like, oh, you're only platforming these guys. And partially that was also why I really wanted you on this thing. Because I was like, all right, I know Nicole has some alternate views about this stuff. Yeah.

So the people who you kind of want, maybe you can advocate them to like come on the thing so they can have their voice. You know, I'm trying to be as neutral as possible yeah trying to be a journalist i think everyone's viewpoint is important to hear very important because we all one interpret things very differently and two we all have we all see different futures for judo and we all see different ways to get there yeah yeah so i'm sure. So I'm someone that's very linear. I tend to be very linear. So if there's a rule set, we abide by the rule set. And if someone is not abiding by the rule set, now I have problems.

That's true, true, true. Okay, so Colton came on the show. And then we had a very good conversation. And his thing's going to air next week. So yours will probably air right after or one or two afterwards. So what are some of the things that Colton might say that you agree with and what are some things that you disagree

with with Colton? Because you guys sit on the board, you guys have conversations, you guys must know what the other person's thinking. Yeah, I mean, Colton's a bit more difficult because he's one of the more quieter board members. He's Colton's a bit more difficult because he's one of the more quieter board members.

He's called quiet. Really? I know. I didn't say either. Yeah. But for the most part, he lets he he he he is active in every vote. Speaking wise, there says man, a very few words. Interesting. Yeah. I'm sorry. Who's the loudest by the way i'm sorry who's the loudest probably me no who's second loudest um probably jeff laforce okay i'll get him on all right so you and colton views yeah so where we agree we agree in every time there's ever been a question about a tournament getting points a tournament tournament getting approved by USA Judo, we've always...

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Generally, anything that is for athlete funding, being able to fund juniors, cadets, that kind of thing, we'll agree. We disagree on a lot and i we used to be i don't know that we can still call each other friends now but we used to be friends when we traveled together um oh wow i'd say the board has probably ruined any friendship we may have had. And I understand that part of it is my fault because I was very active in speaking against him running in the first place.

Why? Because he is a paid official coach by USA Judo on international trips. And I am... You're very much so a conflict of interest person very i because i i've never made okay i've made zero literally zero only ever spent money to usa judo as you know judo is expensive as hell very expensive yeah i you know are you a member are you a new york athletic club athlete or no am i what sorry new york athletic club athlete or no? No. No. So I, you know,

I, everything, any money I do get is either because I worked or sponsorships, which luckily this year has been pretty good about, but you know, it's all corporate, you know, all it's,

it's me. So it's, you know, I'm very strict about any kind of conflict, especially with the athlete directors, because there's extra in our bylaws that dictates that we can only get money in our capacity as athletes. It says that specifically. So anyone that reads that can interpret that getting money as a coach is not in the capacity

of you as an athlete. Sure about seminars i think jimmy talked about this too it's like oh you know people shouldn't be i guess he argued okay you could so okay this really is up to interpretation yeah but i i would say seminars for sure is somewhere in the middle yeah that's cool um because i mean it straddles the line between coach and athlete. So I can see that. It's the getting paid to coach specifically. It's not like you're there to compete. You're there to coach. You've been retired and you're sitting in a coach's chair and you're being paid for it.

So I opposed him running at all. And that probably sent our friendship down the tubes very quickly yeah i mean you know you're my friend which i don't blame him because i probably also i would have probably also been offended frankly we've never talked about it but it's very easy to tell a uh a difference in how you interact with somebody and that difference was made very clear very quickly like immediately so um he ends up he he he he gets elected blah blah blah i still i'm also on the audit committee so that means i'm also privy to a lot of financial information information that gets to the board eventually anyways yeah but i've discovered over the last few years that no one actually has been

looking at these things. They've all just been like, yep, good, fantastic. Next, next, next,

next, next, next. It's just done. But especially in the last like year and a half, I'm, I'm not a finance person by nature. I've,

I've started, but I do find it fascinating and so i've started a mba in finance and i'm oh good i'm uh i've been able to talk to a lot of people that do have expertise in that field and they help like kind of guide me because you know you show me an excel spreadsheet of numbers initially i'm i don't know what i'm looking at that's what that means right and so between that and between actually getting to talk to people and kind of have them walk through it and just so much self-study like i probably have read the bylaws through completely at least 50 times damn wow it's and it's a long

document so i've i've started doing that with our financials and i started realizing one the audit committee is not being sent everything. So if you actually went through, you'll see, you're like, okay, there's like a whole bunch of money and it's just other. And it's like, okay, what is that for? And so it's been this, and that's part of the reason I'm also disenchanted with our CEO is because I've spent literally over a year now trying to get those documents for the audit committee for because we're supposed to do an audit of our finances every year yeah and just because i'm trying to take the reins and do a more like an actual audit like be more thorough i'm getting a lot of a fight i'm it there's a it's a you'd think i was pulling teeth it was really bad you know not sure like uh you know

are you saying that there's something to be hidden with the way money is being spent or misappropriated I see very concerning things in our budget with no explanation are you about to talk about it I I'm allowed to talk about what I see. I think where I'm restricted is like specifics. Don't like incriminate yourself by saying something that you're not supposed to. Please. I get sent to the ethics and grievance committee probably once every other week. So it's fine.

Because at the end, you know, for me, it's like, okay, it's fine you know for me it's like okay it's okay if I because the the the pendulum has always been in everything is hidden from everybody all the time yes and I like this route you know now you're an NBA you probably know Ray Dalio and his radical transparency thing so like yeah I'm for that you know I that should be right but you know like yes we're radically transparent but no one knows and there's zero people watching in on these meetings. That doesn't good for nobody, really. So if you guys are listening, this is a pretty big reach for this podcast. You guys are listening.

You could listen in on the board meetings of USA Judo. And then you could call Nicole and be like, hey, this is my view. Can you make it known that, you know, and then we could impact. Yeah. Right. The decisions by that's what you guys are elected officials right yeah we're representatives for a reason but you're the athletes representative specifically i am but at the end of the day all of us on the board

represent the wishes of the 12 000 members that we have yeah that's too small 12 000 come on you know i have been i have oh my gosh i have a whole thing where I – that's a number that gets bragged about a lot, and then I get angry every time because I'm like – I'll tell you this. Tiny. This is what bothered me with Keith. I said, hey, man, how's it going? I saw him at the New York Open, and then I was like, how's USAJudo doing?

And he goes, well, you know, given that our membership was 8,000 before now, membership is 12,000. We're doing fantastic. I'm like, where is that 8,000 coming now membership we're doing fantastic i'm like what where's that 8,000 coming from it's like right around covid time you know pre-covid or whatever covid or and i was like well you're comparing the numbers now to covid times get out of here with that stuff you know what about 10 years you know 20 years i mean i really have no clue what the numbers are do you uh so uh so maybe you do. The issue is that the numbers, so I've argued this forever. Our

numbers are being misrepresented one because they exist on our website. But if you look at the fine print, right. Cause it says year number, year number. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. The number, if you look at the fine print, it doesn't say, you know, it's not a consistent. Anyone that's ever done statistics knows you have to keep the things the same. So if I'm looking at, you know, 2023, I'm expecting, you know, December 1st of every year or something. If you look at the fine print, it says it's the best number from the entire year. Oh, wow. That's interesting.

Why did they do that? Why did they that yeah so you can and that's public that's on our website it says yeah it's the best number from that year and keith a few years ago implemented temporary memberships so when we broke the agreement with the usj and the usjf in order to recoup some of those memberships for tournaments we said you can buy i think it's like a month or something a super cheap one month like membership right so right before senior nationals you're gonna get a bump in those memberships and then that's when you pick your number so now for for so for two weeks yeah so for two weeks it looks like you have a million members, right? And so that's the number you put next on the website.

But then, you know, a month later, it goes back down to the number from last year. Yeah. So I've been arguing that these numbers are being misrepresented, but that hasn't got me very far. Wow, that's very interesting. Yeah. So it's on the website. Anyone can check for themselves. All right.

So what are the things that you are really opposed to the board right now? We have four different board members that are receiving money. They have not declared these things as conflict of interest, which means that we are technically in violation of Texas non-profit law. And if they found out, we would lose our non-profit status, which means USA Judo would not be allowed to be the governing body under the United States Olympic Committee, and USA

Judo would cease to exist. Ta-da! That's a lot. Yeah, that's my big beef right now. So, what do you mean receiving money from US Judo as coach? Two of them as coaches, two of them as referees. Okay.

You want to elaborate on that? I mean, there's four. You said four people on the board. There's four. We're talking now if we are. So if we accept that Joe was removed from the board, more than a third. More than a third of the board. I have. There's a seven page.

Really long. Audit committee report. That was signed off unanimously by the audit committee stating their concerns because the nominating committee released a statement saying it was a laundry list of people of the the four board members and then like 10 billion people from all the different committees that are receiving money that technically in our bylaws you cannot receive money even on a committee unless you get express permission from the board. And then board members can't receive money at all. Yeah, but receiving money at all from those duties is different from receiving money as a referee flying to a tournament and then refereeing. But the issue is, right, Texas nonprofit law doesn't give a shit about the difference between a referee and someone that's – all they see is that a board member is getting paid from the very organization that they sit on the board of.

Right? That's what they see. Now, it does say they cover – It does say – Sorry? No, so when you bring this up, are people like, oh, whatever, Or are they like, oh, yeah, we got to do something about this? Like, what is the- Generally, they don't care until they know that the number is six digits long. Six digits?

Yeah. Total, to be fair. Combined. Combined. Combined. Between the four over the last three years. It's six digits. That's a good amount of money.

So normally it's a, ah, because you're allowed to have reasonable expenses paid for. Okay. Right? You're allowed to, if you have a flight paid for so that you can get to the nationals meeting. Totally allowed. Your hotel covered, that's fine. Okay. You know, reasonable stuff.

Yeah. totally allowed your hotel covered that's fine you know reasonable stuff but it's when it's at the point that in almost it's roughly three years we're talking between four board members and no other board member has gotten any money right we're talking zero but more than a third now but four of them have received an amount that adds up to a six digit number. Damn. That is concerning. It is. Yeah. And when,

you know, when you look at that, you start saying, okay, that surely at some point this starts to look like a conflict. A little bit. Yeah. Oh man.

Oh boy. So, and you're saying remove those four people. Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, boy. No, you're saying remove those four people. Yeah. What I have been trying to say is... Who are they? What I've been trying to say is have the four removed and let them go through the nominating committee,

announce their conflicts, have them re-evaluated, and then re-run. Have those positions open to run. Colton's one of them because you already mentioned that. Marty's another. June Chi is another. Marty's not on the board though, right? Marty's on the board. She's rerunning.

Okay, she's rerunning. Yeah. So, Marty and Colton and then June Chi and Jeff LaForse. Okay. So, Chris Round's position where he vets the candidates whether or not they're eligible to run for it like yeah he didn't catch any of this stuff have you spoken uh he was on the document that did

catch it actually he did uh he was part of uh the reason why any of this got kind of shown in the first place nobody had any idea and then part of the issue was our board is continuing to be non-functional and the nominating committee which includes chris uh basically sent us this long list of concerns saying what do you want us to do and then the board my my the board that i'm on is worthless and never replied and And so what they had then decide was, do they enforce it on their own without board support? Or do we do what we've been doing this whole time, even if it's against our own bylaws? So they chose the second. Okay.

And so they said, whatever, because we can't get a response from the board for guidance. They went with, we'll go as we've been doing, even if it's against the bylaws, so we don't have any direction and we'll just let everybody run and we'll figure it out later. Okay. That's interesting. That's, that's kind of the direction that it's in because our board continues to be non-functional. All right. So do you have a slate of people that you want? Like if you have an endorsement, like, Hey, these are the people I'm running. These are the people that you want me to, you know, what, what does that look like? Um, in terms of, uh, athlete representatives, um, it's me and Ari Berliner. Um, he's been on

the board previously. Um, and he has always been a really big proponent of support for athletes um and he is even more present on the international circuit than i am and so and i saw him at worlds he looked pretty good against that russian kid you know yeah yeah he did good yeah and what i love is i believe we need more active, just like we need more active participants from our membership to be involved in our governance. I want to see more active athletes on our board because it's, it's totally different when you've been out of it for a few years versus you're literally still in it. You feel the immediate effects of any

decision being made and you're around everyone that is currently also feeling those effects. And you can, it's easy because very few athletes have ever called me and told me an issue, but so more than I can count have come up to me at a tournament while we're waiting, you know, to be called into the shoot to be like, you know, I didn't like this, this and this, or I'm having a problem with this, this and this. Can you, and then absolutely. Yeah. I think that like FaceTime and just being there and also knowing that you're affected by everything is a really helpful viewpoint. And then just having a, uh, an active male as along with me, who would be the active female,

I think brings a good balance as well. Okay. All right. So who else? I believe for the coaches, I, I'd, I'd like to see Ari Miller reelected.

I think he's done a very good job of speaking up and doing his best to refer to the bylaws. I'm again, I'm a stickler. I love if there's rules, I follow them. I don't like making exceptions. Okay. Because for me,

that just starts creating. So you're a pro Ari Miller over Jimmy Pedro. Yes. Because of the bylaws, just frankly bylaws. Just frankly, bylaws. If you are getting any kind of money or have any kind of contract at USA Judo, you should not be allowed in our own bylaws to run. So American Judo system is a conflict of interest, you think, with USA Judo?

Massive. Massive. We're talking like an extremely, extremely, extremely lucrative contract. It's extremely lucrative. And I've had to sit through several, several, several meetings where they've tried to have, as any business would, get more contracts with us and more money and all of this. and all of this. And I think having one of the co-owners of that company with a very lucrative contract with the organization beyond the board is a clear conflict. Are you able to say how much that contract is worth? Well, what's funny is that's one of the documents I've been trying to get from Keith Bryant. I can't actually seem to get the original contract from him, which is funny because as a board member and as an audit committee member,

I have a right to see it. And I've only been verbally told. So from what I can see in the finances, they get a significant amount every year because they are getting a percentage of our membership every time. And then they also get a flat amount every year. And it's a lot of money. It's a lot. Do we go about 10 grand, 20 grand? Oh, way more. Way more.

Interesting. Yeah. Oh, no. You need to add another digit. Yeah. It's a lot more so it's i mean we're when i say lucrative i mean lucrative so it's like it's not like he's getting like 10 bucks a month for this it's it's this supports a family or two like it's significant

wow interesting wow okay so that so you're saying it creates a conflict. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I, I would, if someone told me that if I, Oh, Nicole, you make, I don't know. Uh, we'll just say an even a hundred thousand dollars every year from your Nicole Stout judo contract. When you say judo, you shouldn't run because it's a conflict. How, how can I possibly argue? It's not. So who's in charge of like telling them that it's a conflict how how can i possibly argue it's not so who's in charge of like telling that it's a conflict and you know like who's in charge of that chris john

well the the first group that is in charge of vetting that is the nominating committee that's but again yes but again the nominating committee and i don't know if it's because chris round is is on and i believe new to the committee or whatever but this is the first year they've actually caught everything and we've realized now chris is thorough he's thorough if anything he's thought oh yeah yeah and i mean i i assume that that's the entire reason the concern came out at all but when you have a precedent set even if it breaks the rules, you're going to follow the precedent. And that's what they've done because I, how can I blame them? They've heard nothing from the board.

Yeah. Okay. So who else do you want? Like, who else is your people? Trying to think, um, um,

oh, I would obviously Jason Morris, right? Because that's your, I was going to, I just remember like how you brought him up last. Oh yeah. This guy, you know, I to, I just remembered. I like how you brought him up last. Oh yeah, this guy, you know.

I'm tired. I forgot. Yes. I obviously vouch for Jason Morris. He was on the board once as an athlete. Now he's coming back, man, maybe 15, 20 years later.

And I think that if anyone knows how to stir change, it's him. And I think that if anyone knows how to stir change, it's him. And I think that there's nothing more USA Judo needs right now than a change and overhaul. Because obviously what we're doing right now isn't working. Why Jason? How is Jason going to make a difference? I'm curious. Jason is someone that is not afraid to say exactly what he thinks and yeah but will he execute though that's that's the question he he he's

definitely someone that likes to tackle things come hell or high water i'll tell you this right you know because there's jimmy ped's Jimmy Pedro and Jason Morris through that era. You know, they're very easy to compare. And then so that contrast to me, you know, it's very apparent. You know what I mean? Jimmy, Fuji Sports, Hitachi Sports, Fuji Mats, American Judo System. He's an American businessman. He's an entrepreneur.

He's, you know, all these things, right? And then so when he got on the podcast and he's like, well, listen, these are the things I'm going to get done. gonna do this i'm gonna do that these are the execution points and that right jason what is his plan obviously they're running from the same position and even jimmy endorsed jason but i'm curious to see like all right you know well they're both um they're both friends but they're they're both, they're both friends, but they're both very, they have skills in different areas.

Jimmy is great at running and marketing his business. That is what he's really good at. Very good. And what Jason is good at is developing athletes. He's incredibly good at developing senior level athletes. He's incredibly good at developing senior level athletes. We just, just having been, having the Jason Morris Judo Center be half of the Pan American team,

Pan American championship team for the last two, three years, I think is a good indicator. And all of us having come from all kinds of places but having had the opportunity now to train with jason for almost a decade and i've trained literally all over the country um every dojo i can imagine i've visited quite a few looking for what i needed for that kind of next step from where you're visiting from well Where are you originally from? Well, I started judo in Oklahoma. Oh, wow. Not quite known for judo. Oh, I know.

There was literally, I think, like two clubs. There might still be just two clubs. I think it was Pat Burris' and Brian Piccolo's. Oh, I know both of them. Yeah. So, yeah, they're in Oklahoma. I visited a few places in Texas. I ended up moving to Florida.

I trained at, for six months, I trained at Panthers in South Florida. Visited Budokan a couple times. Visited Kichisai tons. I trained mostly at Sasaki Judo for a few years. Okay. Yeah. And I trained at a whole bunch of different places in that area, but I was with Sasaki Judo.

And then I traveled to the OTC in Colorado while that still kind of existed. And I traveled to Jimmy Pedro's. I traveled to Mile Quanch in jimmy pedro's i i traveled to mile quanchi in rhode island for a couple years i i traveled all over the place just trying to like figure out i just was i don't know i was looking for that kind of that instinctual feeling of okay this is where this is what's going to take me to that next level, I guess. Okay, so I got that. Very nice. So if I'm listening to this, right, and I'm obviously first time really having a conversation with you, I've always known who you were and all this stuff.

But if I'm listening to this, I'm like, okay, Nicole is a stickler for rules. She likes the bylaws. She's up for reelection. When she gets in, it feels to me like you want to clear out all the nonsense and then everyone should be there for the right reasons right no conflict of interest but what about taking the judo to like a greater heights of like more membership for the athletes coaches like what are your views on some of the non-bureaucratic non-political side you know what i mean to grow usa judo what are your views on that yeah well i think um, a lot of it does stem in the bureaucratic side because the fact that we're bleeding money in all these different ways, it comes directly out of the athlete pool.

Like the budget that that comes out of is the same budget that goes towards athlete funding. Yeah. And that needs to be prioritized. Like at this point, I would say in terms of getting athletes to be able to medal at the 2028 Olympics, we're probably not going to grassroots create an

Ono in four years. It's probably not going to happen. In terms of giving ourselves the best shot at 2028, we need to be supporting the athletes we have now. The juniors and the seniors, particularly. I think we should be absolutely doubling down

and instead of, we've only ever reduced the ways you can get funded. It used to be top 30, top 25, and it just got more and more limited. Let me ask you a question. If there's more medalists in Olympics from the United from the united states we get more money from the olympic committees yeah a lot more or a little bit a ton ton more really our money has been going down every single cycle because we haven't done anything yeah that's true if we if we especially in our own

we're already gonna see a little bit more money because of an Olympics in our own country. That's just natural. Um, and that's part of, I, I am assuming, but that's, that's part of why I assume so many people are fighting so hard to get on the board. And I imagine it'll be even worse in two years, uh, when the other half of the board cycles off, um, because we're naturally going to see more money. That's just a natural progression. But if we got any medal at all,

our money would probably get doubled, honestly. Wow, that's great. Yeah, it's a huge, huge difference. So the future of USA Judo absolutely could hinge on if we could get a medal because if what we're receiving and and what the usoc pays us is easily 70 80 percent of our total revenue yeah that's what they say what is it like 800 grand or something that us gets from that yeah well it used to be i

don't know if i don't think it's that much anymore but yeah i mean it's yeah because it's been reduced massively but you know to run an organization like USA Judo, it should be $5 million, $10 million. You know what I mean? What does swimming get? What does US track get? Oh, right. But they're also winning. That's true.

We've got to get winners out there. We've got to get some champions out in the US from the US. So I think short term, what we need to be doing is overhaul everything so that we actually can actually focus on what matters. And that's fund the absolute crap out of our current athletes so that we can find our athletes that are in the country that have the best chance and have the most experience being able to compete against their international competitors. Right. Then we get more funding from the usoc usopc and with that easily can now start funding and being able to work on grassroots judo once that that bag has been secured basically um in terms of um trying to like not lose my train of thought sorry no um in terms of like uh yeah athletes funding growing

judo as a whole in the united states oh right so grassroots comes after the winners the other thing we've massively failed to do is any kind of marketing at all past our social media pages there's nothing literally nothing no i mean yeah because i'm like in judo i don't know if you know this is what i do for them i have two dojos you know like i do this podcast and have a youtube channel i do like everything you know tons i'm like a judo guy you know what i mean yeah no no clue about any of this stuff chris is like you got an election this and he's like talking my ear about stuff on my election because none of it is promoted And the fact that we aren't taking advantage of the popularity of BJJ and the fact that we're not taking advantage of just these easy...

What about my $500,000 per month reach? I get $500,000 eyeballs on my platforms alone. And USA Judo should be sharing. And you know what? I offer my services. I offer my services many times. I call Nicole. I call Keith.

Hey, let's do something. I have this massive platform. I'm more than happy to share USA Judo stuff. And guess what? Yeah. They said, you know what? We don't have a budget for you. You want to do it for free?

And I was like, no. Of course not. Who wants to do anything for free except if you want to be on the board apparently. Yeah, yeah. That's all you. You have fun with that. I don't know. That's – But yeah, definitely a all you, you have fun with that, you know? I don't know. That's, but yeah,

definitely a marketing issue. They should definitely dedicate some. I know they just hired Hannah Martin for social media. They did. And she's a Jason Morris gal. So you must be pro Hannah. Uh, yes,

but I disagree with her running for athlete director. Yeah, she is running. I, I, I agree with... I've always lauded her career. Is it because she's getting money from the

U.S. judo or social... Yeah. I have very straightforward views. If you have a contract and or you are getting money directly from the organization for something that is not within the capacity of governance or anything else stipulated in the bylaws.

You should not be allowed to run because that is what our bylaws say. It's, you know, we are teammates. She's recently retired and she's doing a phenomenal job with the social media. She's doing it. She's doing it. I love that. So where do people find you to be able to voice their ideas and concerns to you, maybe even lobby you? Where do they find you?

Sure. I am on every social media platform under the handle Nicole Stout Judo. N-I-C-O-L-E-S-T-O-U-T-J-U-D-O. Great. I try to keep it really simple. My email is Nicole Stout at iClown.com. If you still can't find me, then that's a problem. And you should tell someone close to me and they'll let me know.

I want to say thank you to Drew, Jason, and LeVon for sponsoring this podcast. Just a little plug here, commercial here. JudoTV.com. You know JudoTV.com? They also sponsor this thing. Discount Coach Shintaro. HigashiBrand.com. Nicole, thank you so much for being here. You were absolutely amazing. I'm excited for more

content, you know, because I'm telling you, you started this whole thing for me. And you know, there's going to be some criticism like, oh, Shintaro, I don't want you getting involved with the politics and stuff. But I really just want to kind of get both sides out. And I've never really expressed my opinion on who I'm going to vote for and whatnot. You know what I mean? I just want people to have their place to say these things. And then for USA Judo members to be informed. Right? So voting happens when?

October 7th. I believe it ends October 10th. But why wait? October 7th, make sure you go into your email if you've registered. And make sure you have a ballot. Because if you don't have a ballot in your email make sure you reach out to uh any of your representatives any of the athlete representatives be it me or marty colton ben goodrich um and make sure you get a ballot because

that is anonymous correct it is anonymous it's completely anonymous no one will ever know who you voted for it gets sent to a third party i didn't like the last third party i had we have a brand new company that works with the usopc with other sports real sports so it's they're sending uh all of those votes go directly to them the board none of us ever see it you just vote they send us back who won how many votes blah blah blah that's all we see great that's exciting stuff nicole thank you you were awesome Thank you so much.