It is yet another day to keep getting better. Becoming Undone is the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Growing up in a family of rabid fans for their hometown St. Louis Cardinals, Rob Sims recognized his love for baseball early in life. However, after Rob's father passed away suddenly due to cancer when Rob was just six years old, baseball soon became more than just something to watch. It became something to live and something to be. Rob discovered peace and solace in the hours spent practicing and playing the game. Eventually those efforts led to success in high school which opened the door to an athletic scholarship to Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. After four years of hard work both on the diamond and in the classroom, Rob endured the painful crossroads of the nearly simultaneous end of his sports and academic career that had for so long been his identity. A career in sports media followed, eventually leading to a position as a sports information director at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Over time, he began to realize that his goals as a husband and dad were increasingly at odds with the demands of his job. He left to pursue a career in non-profit fundraising, ultimately finding success in helping clients raise more than $100 million in capital, while still getting to serve as a broadcaster as the voice of the Creighton Blue Jays women's basketball team for the past 21 years. Hear Rob tell the story of overcoming the painful loss of his dad early in life to eventually finding his passion on the baseball time, jobs in pro sports and a D1 athletics department and eventually a highly successful career as a nonprofit fundraiser in episode 23, getting hectic. Oh and my apologies on the day of this interview my voice was terrible. Stick with me I appreciate your patience. Today we've got a wonderful guest with us many of you who watch Creighton sports may recognize the name, certainly recognize the voice. Rob Sims has worked with the Jays for several years and has quite a storied athletic background of his own. So we're thrilled to have you here today, Rob. Thanks for having me, Toby. So Rob, you were a baseball guy growing up and my wife and your sister, great friends in college, and I've certainly kind of followed your career second hand through your sister and I know part of the story of the three of you, your two sisters and yourself. So we'll start there, start at the beginning wherever that was for you. Sure, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. So proud Cardinal fan. That's probably my earliest baseball roots. My mom was raised in Southern Missouri, so she was listening to KMOX her whole life and instilled that in me and Renee, you mentioned her and Susie caught a little bit of it, but definitely us two and then obviously me playing. And yeah, part of our story is my dad passed away from melanoma when I was six years old. So my mom had to raise, we were six, eight, and 11 at the time. So my mom is the strongest five foot tall woman that you'll ever meet because I don't know how she did it. I mean, she is an unbelievable woman. She not only raised us by herself, she went back to college. She got her degree. So she went to Duco first, got her associate's degree and then graduated with an early childhood education major. So she was doing all of this while raising three kids on her own while her husband, who was 41, had just passed away. Unbelievable. I don't know how she did it, especially now as a parent of three myself. I can't imagine having to do these things by myself and then also add on top the fact that I'm trying to go to school and make money and raise three kids. And she did an unbelievable job. We all pretty much straight A students, all graduated from college in four years, all. She's just an unbelievable woman. So I always credit her with anything that I ever accomplished. She helped me along the way. Did you catch that? Rob's father passed away at just 41 years of age from a battle with cancer, leaving his mother Earlene alone to care for, support, and raise Rob's sister Susie and Renee along with himself. Not only did Earlene manage to keep the family together and moving forward, she earned a college degree and started a storied career in the public education system in the process. Earlene is one of the kindest, most caring people I've ever met, and the way she was able to not just hold her family together, but lead them all to successful lives after enduring such trauma on her own, should be celebrated. Miss Arlene, if you're listening, you're an absolute hero and a rock star. So that's back then. Obviously, that baseball was always part of my life. High school played in college at a Division II school in Missouri, Truman State University. Played that for four years, and then I... it was over so yeah so I transitioned into working in the athletics world so that was a good transition for me to say okay my college career is over I and to be honest I didn't declare a major in college until I had to no idea what I wanted to do I just knew Truman State was a really well-known academic school and I knew I could play baseball there so I knew those are the two things I wanted out of college after that, I didn't quite know. So you end up being highly successful in high school, earn your way to a D2 school, but highly successful there as well. I have a son who's a junior in high school and we've done, we've dabbled in the travel ball scene. I've, I've resisted it as long and as hard as I could, but that's a whole thing and you didn't have that. You were raised by a single mom who, by all accounts, I mean, she was juggling a lot of chainsaws and doing it well. But how do you find success athletically without having that father figure in your life? Couple of ways. And I think now you look at what travel ball is now. And so part of my story now is I'm a head coach of a travel ball team. My son is in eighth grade and so this is his final year that I get to coach him. So I could sit back and relax after this, but you're right. That scene was not the same back in the early 90s, mid 90s when I was in high school and youth baseball. So that being said, it was kind of getting started then. I remember a couple of my teammates on my little league team also dabbling with the travel ball. I'm like, man, I wish I was doing that. I want to play more games. And it's kind of what I talk to the kids I coach now too, is that you have to do things on your own. You can't be, you can't show up to practice twice a week and expect to be the guy that's going to get that division one scholarship. You have to do things on your own. We had a house that had a porch with a cement wall that I would go out and essentially throw, I was a pitcher, and so I would throw, I would, I'd put up duct tape strike zone on that cement wall, and I would throw to it, and throw to it, and throw to it, and the ball would come back, and I would practice my fielding. So that, I'd throw against our chimney on the other side of the house, I'd throw against our other side of the house, and now that I know how awful that sounds on the side of my house, I think my mom is even more of an angel to put up with that. But a lot of that was doing it on your own, practicing on your own. I was kind of self-motivated as much as I could be. I wish I would have been more. Maybe I could have gone D1 instead of D2. But the other part is when you talk about the lack of a father figure, my mom did such a great job of raising us in the church. And I had a lot of great Christian role models, not necessarily baseball role models, but godly men that allowed me to see what a man should look like, what a man should do, whether that was baseball or not, but the more important part of life, that was a way that she instilled some father figures in my life. Right. Yeah. I think it's critical for us. I mean, I've got a family of my own, but that's not where my obligation should end. We're a community. And if I see a young man in need, then I need to step in. And I applaud those men who did that in your life. Obviously, it made a difference. So you find your way into high school and again, it's a different model then. You're not doing showcase tournaments. You're not part of elite travel squads. You're trying to find a way to get some recognition for you playing high school ball. How does that turn into an opportunity at Truman? It's interesting. My high school coach actually went to Truman, played at Truman, played football at Truman, so I had a little bit of a connection there. But I had, you know, both my older sisters went to bigger state schools in Missouri. I felt like those weren't schools that I wanted to try to play in. I kind of, you know, I was self-aware of my abilities to know that, you know, I'm not a, probably not a Division I prospect, but I just love baseball and I just want to continue to play baseball. So we looked at some of the smaller schools and you know I was visiting campuses more focused on academics than I was athletics. I just knew I wanted that to be a part of my life and so reached out to Truman's coach had him come look. I still remember it's a funny story kind of my college eventual college coach saw me pitch I pitched a complete game we won and I wasn't a flamethrower. I wasn't gonna jump off the page at you. I was just super efficient. And he told my high school coach, like, I don't think he'll work here. My high school coach wasn't very happy about that and told my college coach, you're crazy if you think he can't help you achieve what you're trying to achieve up there. So it was kind of my high school coach stuck up for me. And again, I loved the campus when I visited and fell in love with it and thought, I know the academics are great. I know the school and the community are nice. And if I can play baseball, great. And so he ended up offering a partial baseball at any level, it's just partial scholarships for the most part. So got a partial scholarship to go play up there. Yeah. So you end up at Truman, as you mentioned, graduated in four years, which for a student athlete, for anyone anymore, that is a remarkable feat. And that's in a pre AP and dual credit. You went to high school and then you went to college. You didn't go in with 30 credit hours, but you're a student athlete and you graduated in four years. Highly successful career, career top 10 school history of 44 appearances, school record for starts in a season. You were inducted into your high school's athletic hall of fame. What was that season of your life like, those four years at Truman, being an athlete, being a college student? I loved it and I will say too, because I'm always very quick to point out and to be self-deprecating, that I am in the NCAA record book. So that's the good part. The bad part is I'm in the NCAA record book for earned runs allowed in one game and hits allowed in one game. Hey man, a record is a record. So it was quite the performance through a complete game. One of those like, Rob, you're just going to have to eat it. You just go out there and just throw because we don't want to waste any other pitchers today. So it was one of those things where we had my junior season, we had one of the best seasons in program history. And I'll say this too, we still weren't over 500. So we were over 100 in conference, which hadn't been accomplished in forever. As I said, Truman is a great academic school. It's not known for baseball, but that didn't matter to me. That wasn't my objective. I wasn't going to school to be the most successful baseball player ever. I was going to get an education and play baseball. So I loved the structure that baseball and athletics put into my life, that it wasn't just I'm going to classes three, four hours a day and then what do I do? You know, I really enjoy that. I try to pass that on to my kids now when they're like, we can't be involved in this, this and this. I'm like, it actually helps you. It's better than coming home and just sitting on your phone and not doing it. I love that structure. I loved that. I love the road trips with the guys. I love sitting on the bench as a pitcher when I wasn't pitching, just chewing seeds and gum and just talking about nothing. I love that part of my college career. So your sister shared a story with me that convinced me in the moment that you were a perfect guest to be on our show. And she said, oh, that sounds like my brother because we went and we saw him pitch in his last game. And, you know, she had seen you throw from infancy all the way through all the little league teams, all the high school teams, now all the way through your college career. And you all kind of had this fear slash perception that this is it, this is Rob's last game. There's a finality here, right? And then I think the next week you graduated from college. These two things that had been absolutely central to your life, academics and athletics, were both over in a matter of days. And the question always then comes, now what? That structure that you mentioned. Hopefully it's taken root and it's taught you skills that you can now structure for yourself. But suddenly those are over with. Talk me through the emotions during that week, that month that followed. The emotion, first of all, of walking off the mound for the final time was overwhelming. Coach walked out there, he hadn't given me a warning like, hey, this might be your last inning or hey, one mound visit first and then he's gonna come get me. And I knew that was final. He came out and was like, all right, I'll take the ball. I'm like, that's it? That's all? And so I walked to the dugout and I couldn't do it. I had to walk down to the bullpen and I bawled and bawled and bawled. I could not get it together. Sometimes in life, our endings slip away slowly. We might not even realize the gradual fade as we naturally move from one season to the next. While in the back of his mind, Rob knew that his time on the diamond was coming to an end soon, he still wasn't fully prepared for it to be suddenly and forever over in the moment. For someone who turned to baseball as a critical piece of his identity for so long, the emotions that surfaced when he realized it was officially over were more than he could bear. So he did what so many of us do. He grieved. And he grieved as inconspicuously as possible, not wanting to be a distraction in the dugout as his team fought on, made his way to the bullpen and cried it out. While time has a way of allowing us a path forward, there's no doubt about it. Whether it's handing the ball to your manager for the last time, heading back to the bench after your coach has subbed you out, recognizing that you're taking that uniform off for the last time. The volume that such seasons can occupy within our spirit can be huge. And when they're gone, the void that remains can be difficult to take. So I did that. I knew that was it. And so driving home, we were in Joplin, Missouri. That was my final game. Drove home, you know, just hanging out with the guys one more time in the, shoot, I think we were in vans at that point. So just hanging out with the guys. And yeah, like you said, I think the timing was, it's been a while now, that I graduated there after the weekend after probably. And then it was, yeah, the finality of it was, now what? Do, where do I go? How do I get this part of my life satisfied still? Where do I find this? I'm aging myself and ourselves here. In the early stages of the internet, it was before Google was around, but there were job sites that were athletic job sites. And so I was able to find a position in athletic, in sports, that they hired me sight dancing for an internship in Nashville, New Hampshire. I was driving across country by myself from the Midwest to New Hampshire and show up to this host family and show up to this tiny minor league stadium that I've never heard of before and it was an awesome summer working in. It's kind of my start into my career of, that's where my next step was and still that was an internship. So I was like, is this it? Is this what I want to do? Is this going to be it for me? That was the next step immediately after. I think my story is somewhat similar because I felt like once athletics was over, I just, I couldn't get that drug out of my vein. I had to be involved in that team environment. So for me, it took the shape of sports medicine and athletic training. And we both know those minor league, in my childhood mind, like, oh, that's professional sports. This is elite. Like this is highest level. I worked with an independent league team and it was host families and it was guys whose diet consisted of whatever ended up in the dugout at the end of the game, beer and pizza usually. And there's almost like this reality check that does exist, you know, at the major league level, that money's there. But at the minor league level, this is a different thing. And do I want to toil in this for years, hopefully getting a shot and maybe never? Do I love it that much to make the sacrifice that it takes? I mean, the hours are abysmal. At those lower levels, they don't have a massive staff, so you become a jack or a jill of all trades. I've unloaded media guides and I've washed laundry and all those types. Pulled the tarp. Yeah, pulled the tarp. Am I willing to invest? Does this matter enough to me to keep doing this indefinitely without promise that there's going to be a payoff? Or do I just give up on this and get a suit, a nine to five, a regular quote unquote job. What was that like for you? Exactly as you described it, it was, I worked for an independent league. It was the Atlantic League. It was at the infancy, kind of the Atlantic League had been around for a few years and it had former major leaguers that were trying to hang on. So they had a couple names that people would, maybe if you're a diehard baseball fan, like you would recognize some of the names that were there. Pete Incavillia was on the team, what I worked for, Sam Horn, just some random 80s, 90s names that were just barely hanging on. So it was a renovated stadium that had been around since the 20s. It was, I did everything, but it was a great learning experience. I learned from a guy that was on the radio that he was also their public address announcer and he did their communications, which is what my background is, my degree is in communications. And so that's who I focused on. That's where I was like, okay, if this is a possibility, let's see what it looks like. And then at the end of that summer, so it was a summer internship. At the end of that summer, I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the people I worked with. New England is a different culture than the Midwest. So I kind of had fun hanging out with guys my age from a different part of the country. And then it was, hey, yeah, you can stick around if you wanna accept this very low salary and live in a area of the country that is the price of living is not gonna be supported by this salary. So I'm like, thank you for the opportunity. I will drive back to the Midwest and see what else is out there. So that's kind of, that was the end of that, but then it propelled me into a different part of athletics that I ended up sticking around in. So you move from that experience, you grow from that, you kind of see the inner workings of this media relations, like this is a thing. As a child, I think we conceptualized being an athlete, like what it would mean for me to play professional basketball or you to play professional baseball. But I don't really understand all the other people, the athlete adjacents that make that happen, right? And as you age, for me, there was an awareness that I have zero shot of playing as an athlete. But I recognize that there are other things I can do that aren't reliant on God-given ability or this insane Kobe Bryant work ethic. Like, I could learn my way into one of those jobs. And then learning in skill, maybe I find myself in the team photo anyway. I'm not in a jersey. I'm in a polo, but it's still pretty darn close and it's satisfying for me. So you end up at Creighton University, you end up at a Division I university, which is like dreams come true. What was that first day on the job like for you? When you got that bag with your first Creighton polo in it and you've arrived, talk me through those emotions. So yeah, when I got to Omaha, it was January of 2001, and I had never been to Omaha before. So they again hired me, phone interviews, no video conferencing back then. So it was a phone interview, I hadn't seen these people, I don't know what I'm getting into. I started as an intern at Creighton as well, driving from Kirksville up I-29 through Iowa and arriving, I just remember thinking, this is Omaha. There was one skyscraper at the time. Now we've got two and one on the way. But it was, OK, this is it. It was a, you know, at the time, and I'm still in Omaha and I'm still around Creighton. At the time, it was half the size it is now. There's a ton of new development. But at the time, our media relations offices were in the back of the public safety building. So we were buried in the back in this office, like this is it, this is what we're doing. I remember, I do remember this, it's funny that you asked about my first day. I remember for whatever reason, not thinking, I wore a red sweater. And if you know anything about Nebraska, the state of Nebraska, it is all Husker all the time. Unless you work for Creighton and you live in this little part of Omaha and people at Creighton do not like the Huskers. And so I remember a lady giving me a hard time like, what are you doing wearing red? What are you, what are you doing? I'm like, all right, I'll, now I'm, I'm ready for that rivalry. Okay, okay. I will never wear red here again. But that was my first day was overwhelmed. Never done what they're asking me to do. I've never been to the city. I don't have a place to live. I know a guy that lives in a dorm, so I'm going to crash with him until I find an apartment. But yeah, that was that was the first day. So you find yourself kind of working through the system, part of a staff of, you know, a team of media relations folks. You've worked with men's soccer, softball, women's basketball, all nationally recognized programs. You've been on the air. You've called games on ESPN. Would little Rob have had any inkling that he would have ended up on ESPN? No, I don't think so. I always, you know, I mentioned KMOX, listened to the radio because growing up there wasn't every game televised, so we listened to a lot of Jack Buck and Mike Shannon on the radio. I love broadcasts and I love watching baseball and I love being a part of baseball. I never knew, and the opportunities didn't exist necessarily, 20 necessarily 20 plus years ago that you could just intern or be you know an announcer somewhere and so I kind of lucked into it that when I started as it was sports information and media relations with Creighton that they needed me to step in and be the color guy on road trips so we have play-by-play guy that would come and I would be the color guy on women's basketball road trips that's how I kind of got started and even after I spent my I had a tenure at Creighton where I left and I'm still associated with them and still broadcasting, never would I have thought I would be on a national broadcast. I've gotten to do a broadcast on FS1 and I got to do a baseball broadcast on FS1 last year which was phenomenal. No, I never would have thought this would be how I would end up and it's, I really enjoy that aspect of what I get to do still. That's super cool. You also served on the media relations team for the College World Series. For those not familiar, Omaha is ground zero for the College World Series. It's mecca, it's people journey to Omaha who have a love for college baseball. So I've had several guests who have kind of this complicated relationship with their sport, something that fed their soul so well, sometimes painful to watch after it's over. And for me, I didn't want to watch basketball for a long time. And I really pursued NFL and D1 football for a long time as well. And there was certainly a time where I didn't have any interest whatsoever in seeing other people doing what I had one time had dreamed of doing myself. So I'm curious what that experience was like seeing college baseball at the highest levels through the eyes of a staffer. Was there any emotion associated with that or was that just something that you got to do that was a perk of being where you were? I love watching college baseball. I never and I went from Division II, my last year was 2000 and the next year I was at the College World Series at Division major leaguers play. So I felt that outside of Omaha and outside of college baseball, if you're not familiar with it, it's an enormous event here in this city. And having been on the outside, never really had watched the College World Series here and there, hadn't really paid too much attention to it. But then getting to watch people claim the national title and run on the field and dog pile. I've gotten to be on the field as that dog pile is running past me. Like, I've gotten to see that first hand. I love it. I absolutely, yeah, it's just a big perk of being in Omaha. Yeah, that resonates with me. There have been times in my life where something ended and I wasn't really ready for it, but I didn't have any control over it. Other times we take ourself out of the game. Other times we see it coming. You worked in athletics for several years, and for those that don't know, it can be a thankless job. It can be a grind. It can be really hard on a family, especially a young family. And you made a tough decision to transition. Now you you kind of get the best of both worlds because you still get to pick and choose you get to freelance a little bit. But you transition over into nonprofit fundraising. What was the thought process going into that decision? So the thought process was I had been in athletics at Creighton for 11 years. As you said, it can be thankless. I think the thing that people may not realize when they watch college athletics is, yeah, it's a moneymaker for a lot of programs, the ones you're watching on TV every night, those big, big time schools, but it's the head coaches that are getting paid and that's about it of a couple sports. It's not every sport. The staffers aren't necessarily supported all that well. So it was a fact of I had three young kids at the time. They're now, I have two 15 year olds and a 13 year old. So at the time they were really young and I thought, not only do I need to probably start making a little bit more money for my family, the thankless part of it too is, I worked every weekend between August and May. So, and most of June with the College World Series. So I had about a month off, you know, six week period where I could enjoy my weekends. And that was 11 years of that. Plus nights during the week, obviously watch TV every night, there's basketball on. So those behind the scenes people are at all those games before and after. So it was a grind that I'm like, you know what? We were in the Missouri Valley Conference still then. So I was taking bus rides from Omaha to Evansville, not an enjoyable trip, all of those places across the Midwest. And so I was like, you know, I'm in my 30s now. I've got little kids. I want to see what else is out there. I kind of ran into somebody that I knew from Creighton that was in this nonprofit business that I got into. And I said, you know, he kind of in passing one of those things where we were at the airport and he was on a, I was on a road trip with basketball. He was on a road trip with his work and he's like, Hey, you, you could do what we do. I'm like, he said, you should call me. Okay, I will. You know, it's one of those things where I'm passing on a few states, you should call me. I'm like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to call you tomorrow. So I called and kind of got the process started. And so the thought was, I want to be home with my kids more. I know I want my kid to play baseball eventually, my girls to play sports. And I want to be able to not only watch them, but coach them. I thought of, okay, I want to, I probably need to leave athletics behind. And do I regret it? Do I miss it? Absolutely. I ask my wife every March. I feel like March, you understand Toby, the crossover seasons between the end of basketball, the beginning of baseball, softball, it's an insane time for an athletic department. But I miss it. Like I miss Creighton women's basketball who I worked with. They made an Elite Eight run last year. I'm like, oh, I wish I could be there. I wish I could be watching these amazing performances in person. So you're right, I do get the best of both worlds. I get to freelance, I still get to broadcast, I still get to do these things. And it's basically, I tell everybody it's my paid hobby. So I get to broadcast, I get to get paid to sit courtside and watch these games. And I get to dictate, I can say no, like no, I don't want to work this game or I can show up an hour before and leave immediately after instead of three hours before and three hours after. So I miss it. But I also know my quality of life is better and my family's quality of life is better. And I really enjoyed coaching over the last six, seven years. That's so cool. What advice would you give for a young man or young woman who's maybe in pursuit of your childhood dreams? I think of it as a couple of different ways that where I'm at now with my paid hobby, I, you know, there's so many more opportunities now and I did, I wish I would have done internships. I wish I would have gotten involved in my college athletic department more than I did beyond playing and just having those opportunities, whether they're paid or unpaid, getting in and now there's so many more opportunities now. I know that athletic departments allow students so many more opportunities with broadcast, the broadcast world. So I saw the other day too, young people, whether you're in high school and you're near a university, whether it's D1, D2, D3, NAI, whatever, if you want to have an opportunity or think you may like sports enough, go see what goes on behind the scenes and see. Like I love taking my kids and showing them, like, look, this is how many people it takes to run this operation. I can't go to a game anymore and not think, well, I wonder why marketing did that that way, or why the PA guy is saying that right now instead of waiting. There's so many things that go into it that if you can involve yourself and you may think you wanna do something, but see another aspect of the athletics world that you're like, that would be interesting. That would be fun. That's great. For myself, some days I thought back on my career and wondered and been jealous. I've got friends who they went straight into a career and it was just an upward trajectory, like they knew what they wanted early and they've leveraged that to great success. Some of us take a while to get there. And part of me wonders, had I taken the more direct route, would I be more successful, would I be better or was I better for the journey? So given your experiences and coming to this kind of midstream, mid-career, are you glad you took the journey the way you have? Yeah, my journey, I always look back on it too and share when I share, you know, people ask me about my life and I always say, yeah, between my personal life and my professional life, I know that it was laid out how it should be laid out. Yeah, my dad passed away. I could be bitter about that. I could say, gosh, I missed out on X, Y, Z. I don't ever think about that. I think that's what God had intended for my life and that's how my life has played out. And so with athletics, with my professional life, I walked away. I was at five years at my previous position and I had reached, attained a level at that company where I was, you know, had a big title and big salary, and that was unfulfilling to me. I didn't connect with my clients. I didn't connect with the mission of that particular job. And I walked away and I didn't have anything lined up. And I just told my wife, I'm like, I can't do this. I go in and sit at my desk and I'm miserable. So I walked away and I think it was one of the best things for me. I'm at a company now where it's a startup and my boss called me and said, hey, do you wanna help me start this business? And so I don't always know what's next, but I know that, yeah, I have the same thing Toby, that I have guys that, my college roommate's an optometrist. He went to school and that's what he did. I have a guy that's IT guy. So he knew he went to school. He's been in IT for 20 plus years. I have my best friend growing up. He's a JAG officer in the Air Force, that he knew he wanted to be a lawyer and straight pass all of them. Knew exactly what they wanted. I went to college, didn't declare until I had to, didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated. Felt like when I was 30, I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but always keeping an eye open, developing enough relationships to have opportunities outside of what you think you can do. Now, I love, the path that I've went on is a great path that I feel like I wouldn't have ever predicted it. I wouldn't have ever thought I'm going to be in the nonprofit fundraising world, but I am. And I get to do some broadcasting on the side and raise a wonderful family with my wife and have three kids and spend time with them. So it's all played out pretty well. That's so cool. I've worked at several levels in athletics, and we think of D1 as being, you know, the elite, the top, and the money's better and all these things, but the pressures are, they can be pretty arduous. And I've certainly dealt with some coaches that made the job less than ideal. At the high school level, oftentimes I'm dealing with overzealous parents who really, from a medical perspective, and rightly so, I mean, that's the most important thing in their life. They should care about their child. But D2 for me is the sweet spot. You're not dealing with parents. Coaches are usually pretty reasonable. And the athletes are there because they love it. They're not there just because they're chasing a scholarship. Many are impartial or not at all. And so I hear it in your voice, oh, I just went D2. There's no such thing as just D2. You had a storied collegiate career. And that was rewarded by being inducted into your high school's athletic hall of fame in 2021. What was it like when you were notified that you were selected to be honored at your high school? It was awesome. It was a great honor. My, uh, actually my high school teammate is the head coach there now. And I was the first graduating class of this high school in St. Louis. So the fact that we were as successful as we were, as quick as we were, and the fact that it's still recognized 20 plus years later, that was a fun notification. And because baseball is, the athletes, the kids are so much better now and throw so much harder. There's a guy that went to that high school that is triple-A right now, is on the verge of making the majors that has never happened at that school. But the level of play is so much greater than it was 20 plus years ago, because there's so many more opportunities to develop. So the fact that my numbers have stood the test of time, even though we were the first class, it was awesome, it was fun to be back and to kind of, I probably talked longer than I should, but I'm used to talking in front of people with a microphone. So I was able to share some stories about my high school teammate who's the coach now and kind of share that. It was an awesome honor and something that is pretty special. That's so cool. I love music and the emotions that it can frequently represent. My son played varsity for the first time this year, so this past season was the first time he got to pick his walk-up music and it was like he was so in his head about, okay, what song am I going to use to represent me? In baseball, that's like a big deal. You were a PO, right, in college, so you didn't really have walk-up music, but you had maybe mound music. Right. What song would you pick as the soundtrack of your life? If we were producing the documentary, the Rob Sims story, what song do you most connect with and why? Oh, man, I knew this question was coming, and I didn't even nail one down. I would say I will share that one of the songs that I had in high school, I would sing or hum to myself as I pitched a lot. And it's a song that is not a great, like easy listening song. And I'm not a heavy guy, but it was The Urge is a band that's from St. Louis. And they had a song that was, it's getting hectic. So I think that's the soundtrack of my life necessarily, but whenever I pitched, especially in college, things were pretty hectic. But I have grown to enjoy country music over the last couple of years. So I wish I would have come up with a greater, a better answer for you, Toby. But we'll stick with- Hey, a dad with twins, it's getting hectic, is spot on brand. Yeah, so I'll introduce that to your audience. Go look up viewer discretion or listening discretion advised on the urge getting hectic. I'd never heard of the urge before this interview however a quick Google search revealed that they are one of the best kept secrets to ever come out of the St. Louis music scene. Their catalog is impressive and their sound is full, fun and highly musical. I thought of Rob on the mound pitching himself into a jam with runners on the corners and a hitter running the count full while humming it's getting hectic or singing under his breath. It just strikes me as hilarious. And then later in life, he and his wife Sarah had three kids, including twins, and again singing It's Getting Hectic while changing diapers and herding toddlers through the house. Do yourself a favor and pull up some Urge on your streaming platform of choice, or YouTube if you're still a music savage, and give it a listen. Thanks to Rob, the Urge has been a great addition to my regular listening library. Well, Rob, I really appreciate the time. The last question I ask of all my guests, what for you remains undone? One of the biggest honors and roles in my life is being a father, and that is why it was easy to walk away from my athletics. So I think not having a father growing up, I've always been really intentional about spending time with my kids. I've already outlived my dad. He passed away at 41. I'm past that now, well past that. So I feel like that's the part of my life now that I need to focus the most on is my kids are high school and all three will be in high school next year that I want to make sure that I'm instilling in them the values that they need because they're going to be out of my house here soon. So I want to make sure that that, I feel like that's my biggest piece of life that's undone, that I don't, I'm not worried about my profession. I'm not worried about my hobbies. I'm solely focused on making sure that those guys turn into the humans, the adults that we want them to be. Yeah. So how could listeners connect or follow your work? I am on Twitter. It's a really difficult name. I am Rob Sims. That's my Twitter handle. I am Rob Sims. Two M's. Like Phil and Chris Sims. But yeah, and if you really like women's basketball, you can, uh, where I broadcast most games on the Big East Digital Network, which is on Flow Hoops. It's a subscription service, and I'm on the radio here in Omaha too. So, but yeah, that's, I have really grown. I would never have, you asked that question too, if I would have foreseen where I was, I would never have thought that I would be a women's basketball fan, but I absolutely have enjoyed that. The head coach of Creighton has been there for 21 years. I've been broadcasting for 21 years, so I've got a good relationship with him and really enjoy following women's basketball. So luck for women's basketball there too. Nothing wrong with that. Here in Raider land, we had high expectations of our men's basketball team and it has fallen off the rails, but our women's team is doing well. So a lot of people are making the switch right now to the Lady Raiders. Well Rob thank you so much I can't thank you enough for your time appreciate your insights and just congratulations on a fantastic athletic career and for sharing some some wisdom with us today thanks so much. Yeah thanks for having me Toby. The word that comes to mind when I think back over my time with Rob Sims is brave. He was brave for that little boy, his two sisters, and their incredible mom to keep moving forward after the untimely passing of his dad. He was brave too when Rob became a successful high school athlete in the St. Louis area and he turned that success into opportunity a few hours west in Kirksville for college. And he was brave again when he embarked on a career in sports information and marketing. So too was it a sign of strength when he ultimately walked away from a job in Division I college athletics for the sake of his family. Rob Sims is a shining example that while the story doesn't always unfold the way we would have written it, we still get the chance to make it something beautiful in the end. Becoming Undone is a Nitro-Hype Creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, please contact me at undonepodcast.com or you can also sign up for our mailing list to be notified of new episode drops and exclusive team undone benefits Becoming undone can be heard on Apple podcasts Spotify Google podcasts stitcher I heart radio or wherever you get your podcasts until next time everybody Keep getting better so you