Accidentally on Purpose
Explore the intricacies of life, love, and growth through candid conversations and thought-provoking topics! Welcome to the Accidentally on Purpose Podcast where we aim to live intentionally even when life seems accidental
Accidentally on Purpose
Keep Goin'
In our quest to understand life and its challenges, we emphasize the importance of self-advocacy. Through our personal experiences, we share how we triumphed over adversity and learned to stay grounded. Remember, every struggle is a lesson, and every victory is a stepping stone. We'll be back next time with a special guest, so stay tuned.
But, most importantly, there is something poetic about a 39 year old man winning new artist of the year. I don't know where you're at in your life or what you're going through, but I want to tell you to keep going, baby. I want to tell you success is on the other side of it. I want to tell you it's going to be okay. I want to tell you that the windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason Because what's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you. Let's party NASSBIR. Yes, the windshield is bigger than the rear view for a reason. What is going on, people?
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another edition of the Accidently On Papers podcast. Man, I hope everybody had a blessed, healthy and safe Thanksgiving break. If you were home, visiting from college or work, if you live out of state, pray that your travels to and from were blessed and safe. Everybody is healthy and whole. Man, that was so touching and inspiring in a way. Definitely going to talk about motivation today. A few other things, but yeah, y'all go ahead and hit that like share. Subscribe button.
Speaker 1:Accidently On Purpose is available Everywhere your podcasts are heard and found. Yep, it's me, kenan. You can follow me at one Kenan Hall or Accidental Purpose Pod, everywhere when we explore the intricacies of life, love and growth through candid conversation and through thought provoking conversations. We try to live intentionally, even when life seems accidental. So the beginning of the show was the best new country artist. It goes by the name Jelly Roll. I saw him on the show and on YouTube doing a lot of covers and broken like really sick. He's getting really really blow. So, although I'm not a country music fan or advocate of that side of things, for obvious reasons, the music is good, keeping race and politics out of it, and I appreciate the message.
Speaker 1:Because, I don't know, I guess over the past week I've been doing a lot of reflecting on myself and I'm very humble and modest, but I think I got to address well, not address, but just let it be known. I'm proud of me and the things that I have accomplished and I just want to impact those that may need a little bit of motivation or second guessing. You and I and everyone else, we are here for a reason. So, man getting on that, he said the Windshield is bigger than the Review Mirror for a reason, and that is a fact. Man, we can never look ahead if we're constantly looking behind, and I know that to be true just from personal experience. So, man, a lot going on in this world, like a lot.
Speaker 1:And I got a new episode that's going to follow this one with the homie Pierre. He is back and we're really going to dive into like relationships and current issues and you know what's going on with it did he and a host of other people that were accused of all kind of crazy stuff and, yeah, we're going to address that. But I actually came across so via social media, of a teacher or two that once told me that I was never going to amount to anything and it's just kind of ironic that they're doing the same thing and I think I don't want to down talk nobody, but I'm doing OK for myself, I'm really doing fine. So this past Friday, you know what, let me, let me cue my music so we can get into this. Yeah, so this, I know I ain't gonna be before y'all long. So this past Saturday, actually, my high school shout out to the illustrious, the biggest, the best high school in the state of Indiana Um, educationally and athletically been Davis. They won their tenth state championship in football and you know I'm a proud alum, but I really don't. I Don't, I guess, have a relationship with like administration and things like that. For one, it's totally different than when I was there. There's been a lot of turnover, people have moved on to bigger and better things, but you know, I still, you know, rep the West side and in the school and very proud of the time that I was there.
Speaker 1:But I Saw One of the teachers actually two of them that tell me that I was never going to amount to anything, and those are those words verbatim. The first time it happened was first grade, that that teacher's no longer here. But they didn't happen on two other occasions, when I was a freshman and when I was a senior. So it's just ironic to see, you know, those same people in places of leadership. And, mind you, I was never a troubled child. I've never been in trouble with the law, I have, uh, been suspended. I can count on one hand, like three fingers, to be exact, and, and those were, I think, in junior high and in elementary school. I've never in high school. You know, I've never. You know, I just I don't know.
Speaker 1:I guess I was just reflecting on like what were warrant someone to say that to someone like me. You know my grades were not the strongest but you know I did my work, never was involved in any mischief Like I never got in one fight in high school not in school, that is. I never was the one you know come to class man like weed or disrespecting teachers or skipping school. I was so much of a square I would say I went to school on senior skip day and I was an athlete. So this all came about.
Speaker 1:When I quit the football team, football was king at our school, but I mean, we're so dominant and good in every other sport, like last year, they won the state championship in basketball. They won defeated. When I was there. We finished third in the state. We should have won, but you know, a couple of my teammates did some things that they they shouldn't have done the night before, so it didn't work out for us, but we still finished ranked number two in the country, right behind Long Beach Polly that year of 2006. And yeah, so I say all that to say, as I was reflecting and I'm seeing these, these two individuals on X, formerly known as Twitter, I just chuckled and I just really had to reflect and really thank God where I'm at, because there's a lot of politics in school.
Speaker 1:If you are a student athlete, if you are a big time caliber student athlete, like I once was in school, then you deal with a lot of pressures. And one of these pressures was if you don't play the sport we like, how you, how we want you to play it, we're going to shun you. And this is why I say you can't be a one trick pony. You got to play multiple sports. So here's the story Senior year.
Speaker 1:Well, going into senior year, I tried to transfer to another school to play basketball. Basketball is my favorite sport to this day. In high school I was very nice at it. I'm not sure how far I could have went, but I guess we'll never know. So in doing so, I turned 18 this summer of my senior year. Like a good amount of people never been held back or nothing like that. That's just the way the birthdays fail, and I think in the state of Indiana we started school at the age of 18. And if you didn't turn that age by like September or something like that, then you had to wait the following year. So that's what I went through. So I tried to enroll it at another school on the West side.
Speaker 1:I was playing summer ball you a U ball with a certain team I'm not going to use any names because I don't know if these people want to be outed or whatever but I think I'm going to be able to do that. I don't know if these people want to be outed or whatever, but yeah, and I was killing. You know we played some good amount of teams that had NBA talent and some of those players are in the NBA today. Just you know, go look up NBA players currently playing from Indianapolis, if they are around. You know 34, 33 to 36, I would say they were either on my team or I played against them that summer. You know I kind of did well, held my own.
Speaker 1:Next thing, I know I unenrolled myself at my current school because few things had went left. I ended up quitting the football team for one the head coach that I grew up on there. He retired and when they got the new coach they was running his offense. That did not fit me and I was not just about to be running around blocking, not getting the ball. You know what I'm saying. Like it was a lot of politics and I saw the way that certain football players were treated and when I say certain, I mean the good black ones that were, you know, put on a pedestal. And If they stepped outside of the realm of doing whatever they wanted they being administration or coaches they shunned them. And actually I'm not mad at that because it kind of prepared me for life. That's just the way it goes. Money talks, bullshit walks. That's what happens. It's a business at the end of the day, especially high school sports today, it's really a business. So I ended up leaving that.
Speaker 1:Um, I've always been very outspoken, you know, grown up with the parents that I had, being, you know, from the South way, raised with Southern values in the Midwest, and to be outspoken, and you know, just a proud black man, young black man at that time that I am and was, a lot of the core values just didn't align with me. You know what I'm saying. Like I always wonder, do these people really care? So, um, stop stop playing football there. I didn't play ball from high school team because we had a very old school coach and I felt like I felt like there was some racial undertones, that, um, just the way he would coach, the certain things he wanted to do and you know, certain privileges that he would give certain players that were not of the same. He was I, but did not have the same athletic ability as myself and others. I wasn't even a nicest one, it wasn't even close to it. Honestly, the nicest ones that was on that could really who they was in the street, um, so that's how that went.
Speaker 1:So, you know, I'm getting, in the sense of independence, going into my senior year, Uh, I had a job, I had a car. You know, I felt I think I was pretty mature. You know, I don't think my parents would have gave me those things or help me pay for those things, um, if I was just, you know, riding, insecure child. So I try to enroll in this school and, um, everything's going well, I'm, I'm gearing up to start in August and next thing, I know, uh, somehow the track coach and the football coach um talked to my mom and could they call it the state and told them that I didn't live in the district and if I did this I had to sit out a year. Um, because I didn't live in the district. Mind you, the school was 12 minutes down the street, if that. And people did it all the time, you know, because the schools were so close, Um, people did it all the time. They went to different schools and use different addresses, but because I was who, I was, the caliber athlete I was, it was a problem.
Speaker 1:Um, so I'll never forget, I'm in a English class and you know, I showed up for fall conditioning for, uh, for football, cause I didn't do it in the summer, I was doing summer track and summer basketball all summer. So, uh, you know, my, my position was the mode I should have been, you know, starting this down to third, and I had class with a teacher who was my English teacher and we kind of got into it. I don't know what we got into it over, but it was probably something petty. You know, as a, as a senior, as I reflect back and think about this, and the words came out and this is why you'll never amount to anything, it came out of his mouth. I said okay, all right, didn't say nothing, didn't back talk, didn't do anything, just said, okay, cool, um, later on that, that semester, uh, I had a run in uh, right before I quit the football team, like for good, for good, with, I guess she was a trainer, uh, I don't know what her significant significance was.
Speaker 1:I feel like she was a trainer, she was in a, she was an adult of authority, um, and something was going on with my back man, basically, I had to get adjusted and uh, as I'm talking to her, I'm like you know, I just, I just don't know of this, for me, no more. I'm being honest, like I'm not really enjoying football. She's like well, if you don't play, you're never going to amount to anything. I'm like yo, what is this? You're never going to amount to anything.
Speaker 1:So that year I used those words that came out of those people's mouths as motivation, and track has always been a thing of significance to me. It was my, I guess my fallback. It wasn't the thing that I loved, but it was the thing that it was the tool that I was going to use to get out of the city that I was in. I just refused to be, you know, just another person that was born and raised, even though I wasn't born in Indiana, you know, just born and raised in the same city and work in that city and just stay there. And I owe that to my club coach, coach Henry, andy, racing cheaters.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you run a club track. You travel, you travel around. You know your area of your fortune if you go to nationals and you make new friends. And you know I got to see new things and I was like this is cool, man, I really, I really do like traveling and meeting new people. And you know, even though competing with some of these people, that you know we go back to the hotel where friends, we got things in common. Oh, I live in Annapolis, but you know you live in Twin Cities, minnesota, and you know we go through the same thing at our school. What's the lingo, you know. So I'm building friendships and I owe that to coach Henry Edwards with the indie racing cheaters who you know took some kids from middle class, lower middle class, upper middle class, very low class you know what I'm saying, lower class, I should say in my city and gave us an outlet in the avenue to display our talents in the sport of track and field and it unlocked something, because that entire year and I'll go into a deeper episode at a later day, I just use that for motivation and I went literally from being, you know, a local kid that was a star to or to some, to an international kind of I don't want to. You know, I don't want to say like I was trying to be modest, but basically I was really really good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that senior year when I graduated, I was a state champion. I was a shoot conference section region champion, state champion. I was Indiana All-Star, indiana Indiana All-Star captain. I was the Midwest media champions champion and then ultimately I went on to win the Nike High School National Championship. I earned Nike All-American honors. I earned USA Today All-American honors and was ranked the number one long jumper in the country for the class of 2006. And there were some illustrious talent in my class Robert Griffin, the third, who is a former NFL quarterback and standout star of his own right and hurdles and football at Baylor, was in my class. Brayshon Nellum, who is a believe you went Olympic gold medalist in a four by four.
Speaker 1:I use in my class and a host of others and I'm sorry if I'm leaving people out, but I use. Basically I use those words the whole year to fuel me and I would do things like skip last period to get an extra practice and just, you know, to sharpen my craft and I just remember those things saying you know, remember those words you know, saying you're never going to be anything, you're never going to amounts anything unless you do it this way and I am a walking living testimony that you know you have to be an advocate of you first, because if you let others control your destiny, then that is exactly what they will do. They will control it and ultimately, I am just a product of my mother's prayers and just using the gift that God gave me and alignment with him at all times, because when you step outside of the alignment of God, things typically don't work out for you. So I ended up getting these honors. And next thing, I know I'm getting all this love from the school. You know people that have never spoken to me, teachers that have never spoken to me or never said anything good to me. You know now congratulating me and just giving me a different kind of body language, a different kind of tone, and you know I thought it was funny at that time.
Speaker 1:And then, next thing, I know I get some kind of like cover, I guess, and the article was. It was in the local newspapers in India, indie Star, and it said man, I forgot what the headlines Like local, local stars, 2008, olympic hopeful, or something like that. And in that article someone decided for me that I was going to the University of Southern Indiana, which is in Evansville, indiana. A very small school didn't even have a track, which was so far from the truth. Now I did visit them my junior year because I didn't know where I was going to go. I didn't, you know, really break out. You know I had some I have pretty good numbers my junior year I actually finished I think I finished fourth at the junior Olympics my junior year, but I never said or confirmed I was going anywhere.
Speaker 1:And then one of the football coaches tried to link me to another school, st Francis, which is in Fort Wayne it's pretty much where all of the good local talent go there or Marion, and it's like an NAA school, it's not division one, but you know it was. It's just baffled me how can a Nike high school all American and USA Today, all American be subject, be subjected to schools? No shade to these schools, but you know schools that were not, I guess, on my caliber of talent. Well, you know I was jumping 24 feet, 25 feet sometimes in high school. And you go, look at these conference championships and those conference champions that were seniors at these colleges were not even jumping.
Speaker 1:You know saying those things, and it just went back to if you don't control, if you don't, if you're not an advocate for yourself and you leave your hands and you know, or you leave your life in the hands of others, then they will ultimately control your destiny. And I thank God that I was able to navigate that with the help of my mom asking questions and my dad really being an advocate but not being one of them overbearing parents that you know thought they knew it all and it kind of wanted to live vicariously through their children. I really had free reigns and, you know, ultimately I didn't have the grace to go Division one, although I was being recruited by everywhere. So to go to a two year school, I went to two year route. My freshman year I won the National Junior College championships in the pentathlon and I was one of the few blacks to ever do that at that time. And I get more in the way it works in Juco, you know June college you go for two years and then you, you transfer to a four year school. So you know that happened. The coach I had end up getting fired, still not sure what he did so I end up transferring to another Juco. In that following year I went to nationals and I got runner-up.
Speaker 1:That's thinking, though I'm at Texas A&M. I'm NCAA regional champion, I'm NCAA champion and then finished up my my career being, you know, all SEC, all American, even signed a little Pro deal for a little bit and competed, and I've been. I've been in In houses that I've never should have been in. I've sat at tables with CEOs and multi-millionaires, and Things that I never would have imagined had I went the other route, because our steps are truly ordered and ordained by God, before we were even thought of and I just had to reflect on man, had I taken the advice of staying local and, you know, playing by their rules, who knows what would have happened, especially the city that I come from, the haters that in the hatred for self that lives, you know, in the city that I'm from, who knows what happened? You know, I'm not sure if I would be here. I'm not sure if I would be as successful as I am, inclining the the latter to success.
Speaker 1:So, man, be a be your best advocate. Never put your life in someone hands. You know, as the great poem Invictus Says, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul, and when you combine those with the alignment of what God has for you, you are going to be tremendously successful. And I think that's why I continue to see success is because I bet on myself, I believe in myself and I'm never just going to take someone's word For something. So I just thought that was hella, hella interesting to see these same two individuals that are still in leadership positions Putting these players that just won a state championship on the pedestal. And I pray that the players are making the right decisions for themselves. They have a great support system with parents and things. Because I'm telling you, it's, it's, it's only inevitable that we all face tough times, and I just pray that.
Speaker 1:You know young, young athletes, you know, wherever you from, be your own, be your own advocate, advocate, be your best advocate. If you want to go to a power five school or you want to go Out of the state, or even if you want to stay, you know, in state, that's fine too. Just do it on your terms. You know, never succumb to the vicarious thoughts of others, because ultimately, you gotta, you gotta walk them shoes, you gotta run that race, and that's why I love the sport of track and field so much, because it's literally a metaphor for my life.
Speaker 1:I stayed in my lane the times that I looked to the right or to the left when I was running my race. I tripped up. I don't fell over a few hurdles, you know, I just crashed a few jumps. But when I'm focused, when I'm lasered in, don't nobody get to that finish line like me, man, and it's, it's a. It's such an amazing feeling.
Speaker 1:To be unfuck with a bull is a word I just made up. Yes, to be unfuck with a bull when you are living in your truth and your purpose, in the alignment of God, and you are your biggest advocate. So kudos to me Accomplishing all that I've accomplished multiple national championships, sponsorships, endorsement deals and man seeing the world and in in positions of power. And it's just been an amazing ride. And I want to shout out them two individuals from high school that told me I was never going to amount to anything, because, in actuality, I am mounted to the things that God had for me, not the things that you guys have for me. And, with that being said, man like share, subscribe, where everywhere podcasts are available, accidentally, on purpose. We are everywhere and this episode will be followed up with a very, very impactful app episode with me and my god, pierre. He's back and I'll talk to y'all in the meantime. In between time, man, put your, put value in yourself so we could put value in each other and we'll have a value. Society peace.