Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 44: Brennan Howard, From Growing Up, To Building Community, And What It Might Mean To Be A Leader
Ever wondered how a child’s summer program could shape a future leader? In this episode, Michael Howard is joined by his son Brennan Howard, who shares his inspiring journey from a young participant in the Capitola Junior Lifeguards to becoming its director at 20, to then becoming a Lifeguard Captain for the first new license given in the US in 30 years. Brennan offers insights into how the program's mission to "waterproof" the community has cultivated not only lifeguards but also well-rounded individuals equipped with life-saving skills. The stories highlight the profound impact of community support and personal growth within Santa Cruz, a place where mentorship and teamwork are more than just ideals—they're a way of life.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we explore the intriguing dynamics of leadership, politics, and advocacy through Brennan’s experiences. Despite the challenges of balancing egos and navigating school district politics without decision-making power, Brennan stresses the importance of collaboration and communication. These skills, rooted in early lifeguard training, translate seamlessly into broader contexts, emphasizing that progress is a collective journey. We also tackle the evolution of surf culture and localism, where Brennan reflects on the changing landscape and the need for new approaches to safety and inclusivity in the surfing community amid increased crowds.
Join us as we celebrate remarkable success stories from the Capitola Junior Guards program, which continues to mold exceptional athletes and community leaders. Brennan's reflections on personal growth underline the immense value of finding a purpose beyond individual ambitions, fostering genuine connections, and contributing to a larger community. This episode is not just a conversation about lifeguarding; it’s a testament to the transformative power of mentorship, service, and community engagement in shaping resilient individuals who make a positive difference in the world.
Welcome to the Unpacked and Naked podcast. I'm your host, Michael Howard. This podcast is brought to you by Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine and Pointside Beat Check Both cool things. Anyways, I have the pleasure and privilege of sitting here with my son, Brennan Howard. Brennan Howard, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm happy to be here. It's long overdue, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:So we have to do a little preamble here. I just want to, from the onset, acknowledge that whatever is shared here is not the expressed opinion of the city of Capitola. It is only the opinion of Brennan Howard and in no way represents the city, the governance, in any way. But, as you can tell, I am sitting with someone who wears something here. Brennan, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself other than the fact that you are my youngest son? I know? Yeah I'm.
Speaker 2:My name is brendan howard.
Speaker 2:I've been working for the city for too long now but, um, yeah, I'm passionate about water, rescue my community, watching children grow up and become members of that community, or move on and go and do bigger and brighter things. So what? What do you do for the city? So I run their lifeguard service, similar to Caleb, but I'm the lifeguard captain for the city of Capitola, which has its ebbs and flows, but at the end of the day, it gives me an avenue to really do what I feel like I have purpose, in which is serve what essentially took care of me growing up.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's pretty cool. So did you go to the junior guard program yourself? Of course yeah. So why don't you tell us a little bit about, about this exercise of how in the world did you end up being in charge of junior? Guards at what age and a middle of what.
Speaker 2:So I well, I'll just go back to the very beginning. So, like any youth in California or Capitol or Santa Cruz more specifically, I started Junior Guards at the ripe age of like five or six and you get to gradually go through that until you're approximately between 16 and 18 years old, and Junior Guards was really founded off of waterproofing their community as well as getting free recruitment, essentially for lifeguard services, and that catch allows them to funnel a lot of emergency workers, doctors. People are just there to serve their community and know how to operate in those governing functions as well as medical functions of society. So naturally I grew up through the junior guard program. I had a slew of really good instructors that guided me to that process and really gave me kind of a home.
Speaker 2:Especially in high school I was really sick. I couldn't go to class. I could only go to class once or two days a week at most just to pick up homework. But I could go to junior guards and I could sit on that beach and I could be there at the very least Right Um. And they gave me that community and they gave me that comfort. So for me it almost you know from the city's perspective it gave me them a lot of leverage of like hey, you're going to be doing this and for me, I'm proud to do it. Like it really it gave me that community and it gave me that comfort and that love that I was able to find.
Speaker 1:So so when exactly did you take over the program?
Speaker 2:So I believe I took over in 2021 or 2020.
Speaker 2:In 2021 or 2020, um, so I took the junior guard program program from katie curtis, who was a prior state guard and was doing a heavy push for us to be doing more of the medical and side of things, as well as myself from what capitol?
Speaker 2:Which was generically the to quote the head of state parks the Spartans of junior guards right, it was like we were the most competitive and we consistently take podium spots and every time we show up to any competition are there to essentially go go for it all like win it on any accord, put everything on the field, win it on any accord, put everything on the field. But what Katie's vision and my vision was for JGs is kind of to take, you know, two steps back, take one step forward of really getting the rescue side and the water side polished as well as being able to teach our youth just basic medical and rescue stuff. When it comes down to it, I would say, at places like the Point or in St Hughes or even up and down the state, junior guards probably do a quarter of the rescues that happen that aren't done by on-duty lifeguards or water rescue personnel, yeah, so, so, like when when you have a junior guard or a former junior guard doing rescues.
Speaker 1:What I think you're alluding to is that oftentimes, the people that are helping others out at least in our region, our former junior guards or current junior guards- yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Or they have an affiliation with it.
Speaker 2:Right, they could be a parent of a junior guard, or they could, or or sorry, they could have a son in junior guards or all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:So it's really important that we're kind of teaching very standardized, simple ideas that can be carried across all groups, because I can't guarantee you that even a quarter or a third of my junior guards are ever going to become lifeguards or ever going to become firefighters, but I can guarantee you that all of them are going to become members of the community and I would love for each of those members of the community to know how EMS is functioning and know how to talk to a uniformed personnel, because that just expedites our process when we're on the beach, when we're going to people's homes trying to help their family members, of knowing what we're doing, why we're doing it and then also how to talk to us so that we know what's happening, or even how to talk to a dispatcher. Something that simple is like easy to be misconstrued when you're going through something super traumatic, and it's something that we teach six-year-olds, like how do you talk to someone?
Speaker 1:you know what's happening, where is it happening just getting those basics down and polished so, as the audience is getting to know you a little bit more, of course I know you very well. Yeah, um, if I'm doing the math right, you were 20 when you took over the program. Let's describe the program just a little bit as to what it was when you got it, to what it is now, without going into too many details, but you were 20. You were asked to be the head of this organization that oversees 800 children and 35 employees.
Speaker 2:Kind of a big step. So I obviously said give me like a week to decide if I even wanted the job. I didn't want to step away from instructing because that's like the most intimate version of being able to teach. But I was able to find that same avenue through my instructors and through my staff teaching who teach, which is helpful. But, um, so I was handed this program that's kind of been in flux over the last, you know, five to ten years.
Speaker 2:Our lifeguard service wasn't, wasn't as existent as it is today, so we weren't running tower operations and san cruz fire was contracted for our towers and then central fire would run all the instructors through an aquatic rescue response team course, which was really good and it gave that drive and that medical expertise. But it didn't have that formalized, um, formalized structure for after training, right, so we, everyone would know what they were doing, everyone would be able to assist in rescues or even perform full rescues at captula. But, when all is said and done, they're not the ones that are handing someone off, right gotcha, they're the ones that are showing up first and then essentially handing it to san cruz fire, central fire, and not being able to do kind of the full circle of what's what lifeguarding is, of treatment and letting someone enjoy the rest of their day at the beach. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So when you took the program when you were 20 and um it's not that I wanted you to brag on this, as much as it is kind of inform the listener you know what?
Speaker 1:What was in the city of Capitola was a junior guard program that, in essence, you're saying there were different agencies that were that were helping the instructors get to the spot where they were properly instructing about what lifeguarding looked like. That being said, you saw something that you thought needed to change. You saw something that you thought needed to change and so, at the ripe old age of 21, you made this very weird choice of, or very insightful choice I shouldn't say weird of of there's more here that that's sitting at this table, and so why don't you describe a little bit about, about going from just a kid's program to what it is that? You're doing that because you know you, you wear a badge. Now you got a fancy uniform. You know. You know what. What is the difference between the program when you took it over to what it is now, which will be a little bit more to to more questions that I have about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say like the only real major difference is kind of that, your day-to-day social behaviors, of what you see when it comes to talking to a capital lifeguard. Um, what I was able to implement is hyping up I don't know if that's a great term actually but basically bolstering how they are perceived within the community and how they perceive themselves right. Because if you have this big power dynamic where you're not actually technically allowed or supposed to be doing anything right when you are teaching, that, you're going to be second guessing yourself and doing this over and over again. So being able to get USA certified, being able to run towers and ultimately becoming a first responder, allowed for that confidence to not only be put in our lifeguards but be put in our instructors and then also into our JGs. So with that, their medical knowledge is different, but they feel more confident and they're teaching it.
Speaker 2:So, if I'm hearing you right, you went and acquired licensure from USLA. What's that governing body that, if you want to look at it of? Like local, state and community or, sorry, local state and federal, you get a pretty much a pyramid of who's in charge of what. So the city of capitol had not held a federal license, basically for lifeguard services, since 2012 or 14 or something, whenever it lapsed. Um. So my job when I was fully put on as captain not in 2021, but over in, like I think, 2022 or 23 when they bumped me up was your job is to get this. You have no other job until this is finished, pretty much.
Speaker 2:And that required flying to Southern California and the East coast um copywriting a bunch of people's policies and procedures and just gradually building a structure and a base around it and an operating system that hopefully will stand past my kids and my kids' kids.
Speaker 1:So again, because I watched you go through this process I'm not trying to beat a drum, as much as it is kind of make it more obvious to the audience that before you took the program over, it was a great children's program that was well overseen, yeah it's world class. It had the support. We'll get into the contrast points of what makes Capitol Hill Junior Guards a little bit unique compared to other Junior Guard programs. But specifically, at 22 years old, you are now learning to make sausage in political atmospheres.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and learning when to be quiet, essentially, and when to wait and be patient when to be quiet, essentially, and when to wait and be patient.
Speaker 1:Would you say that you got your political chops from your AP government teacher, mr Bruner.
Speaker 2:No, I wouldn't say Well, yeah, mr Bruner is a pretty good politician, less so with his students maybe.
Speaker 2:But I'd say honestly that insightfulness kind of came from my upbringing with you. Of course, as well as going on site council and doing bigger things through like leadership, when I was sick, I was still showing up to these larger governing agencies for the school district as a student representative and for me I didn't bat an eye at what I was doing. I was just like, oh, I should just be here, like whatever it's free credits I get to talk about the people that I care about and give them perspective on kind of what, what's happening within the school and also what I think the direction is that students generally would like. Um, but that, let me kind of see what the operating function is within it, because there's a lot of politics involved, there's a lot of egos involved and there you need to have perspective without also making someone feel incompetent. Right, like hey, we need this, but like it's not because you necessarily need to know this information, right, because most people don't know this information. It's just trying to be insightful and helpful towards whatever you're saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're a fairly robust political family, before you say anything, that there are lots of discussions that certainly happen in our house. But I think you just hit a nuance that oftentimes as people, as the electorate, we think of incompetence, as people just can't get it. But in reality you've been in a space where your job has been educating what these things mean and that really is a lot of what I think politics as we're relating it right now is right. You know you're in this process of having to educate a community about what's necessary to properly represent what it is. You know, I guess, having towers, having lifeguards on the beach, these kinds of things, without going too deep in the weeds there, but this reality that that most of of politics, the way you've experienced, is more about educating others. It isn't about policy per se.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause, like I don't hold the hammer. That's the reality. I'm not sitting there with a gavel. I'm not the one that can ultimately make the decisions around that, but I can tell you people what I need help with, right is that? Because that's the reality of my job? Is that I'm not not a one-man army. I'm not some champion. I'm here to be the advocate and tell people what they need, what we need help with and what I need help with.
Speaker 2:Um, I think that's a really good thing throughout life. Just to, whenever you're asking for something from someone, is to take two steps back and remember like, why am I asking this? Because, ultimately, most of the time, it's because you need help with it. So, putting that perspective towards anything that you're doing has been amazing for me, socially or politically. Like, hey, like, I'm not here to put more work on your plate. I'm here because I want to make this thing great, and to make this thing great, I need help. Gotcha, right? One person can't do this. Um, as much as even throwing money at something can be helpful if there's no direction with it, if there's not many hands in that to make sure that's going the right direction, there's no point in what you're doing. You're just going to be that's going the right direction. There's no point in what you're doing. You're just going to be put a new tech and something that's going to break oh gotcha.
Speaker 1:So that'll slide us into kind of the second arena. You grew up here in town. Yeah, there's, there's a way that things are. How was growing up in Santa Cruz for you? Because you, unlike the other boys, didn't weren't, you know, didn't spend your first years here in Capitola, but you've certainly spent your formative years here. This has really become home to you. But what was it like to grow up in Santa Cruz and how does that re-relate to what it is you're doing now? What is it about growing up here, being born in the family that you're from? That that has shaped you in a way that you feels really positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think that what Santa Cruz has to offer is something that isn't widespread across most coastal cities in California, which is a very community centric population Like you can't walk down the point, you can't walk through Capitol without running into someone which allows their youth to also have that same light right Of being able to be free and open, but also in a controlled space that everyone sees you, everyone knows you, um, which was really beneficial for me growing up. Um, I could, you know, go surf the point and go walk home. I could walk 10 minutes either way by myself and I would pass five, six people that I knew and I knew I'd be getting home safe. I go outside of my expertise a little bit and try and do something a little bit too big for my britches surfing when you're like 12 years old and you know as soon as you paddle out that you have five or six people watching you, making sure that you're okay or pushing you to make yourself better.
Speaker 1:Allowing you to feel not okay.
Speaker 2:So you know what okay should feel like, exactly right but it has that safety net in it and it's because the community was so rich here. Um, I think gradually that's shifted a little bit, just as new faces come to town and, um, watching that growing up has been very interesting of kind of watching localism or what people perceive as localism die, when in reality it's kind of just the harsher nuance of people not wanting, wanting to go to jail, but the education and that main cornerstone still being super apparent. You still have all these community staples that will be out there and they will be watching and taking care of those kids that are allowed to be able to participate in their community.
Speaker 1:So you were raised in my house. A lot of people have heard me talk in a fairly nuanced way about it. What was that like for you to be in the family that you were in? You've lived in 10 different houses, yeah yeah, and of course the last one's been the longest one. You know you lived on a commune at one point. You've been part of other cool programs before junior guards, this kind of stuff. You've had a pretty diverse experience as a child and that diversity has played out a little bit. I'm curious from your words, you know what it was like growing up here. You know, on top of just being known, you know wherever you're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah it, it.
Speaker 2:There's like a catch with everything.
Speaker 2:I mean being the youngest brother, I get to kind of have that avenue of being able to be guided through other people's faults or hardships, which has been really helpful. But with that too, they also really paved the path for me of kind of being there just to be there right, of not having a nuance of trying to find myself or why I belong or why I'm doing something, rather than just being able to stay on trajectory of like one end goal, of whether whatever that might be for you and your community whether you just want to volunteer, you want to be that nice guy surfing or you want to make sure everyone's safe, Right. So I kind of was able to establish those things in my life of like I just want to be a member of this community, and just staying on track towards that allowed me to really become kind of neighbors to everyone around me, right. What a neighbor should be? Someone that shows up when you need them and will talk to you, but also might politely keep their distance if you need that as well.
Speaker 1:Is there something in your upbringing I mean I don't want to fish too much here that you know because you're. This is a new way of hearing it for me to folks, so don't don't, don't imagine me fishing here. I'm more just curious about my son, which you're. You're kind of getting the pleasure of getting what an intimate conversation would be like. If you're trying to get the pleasure of getting what an intimate conversation would be like, if you're trying to get to know someone. You know, my son hasn't lived with me for quite a few years now and he's a grown-ass man. Are there things from your childhood you know, whether it's from mom and I, your brothers, you know all the people you've been exposed to, um, being from town, the way you have been from town, the nature of it, uh, that that you, in retrospect, at this point, at the ripe old age of 24, you're seeing things differently maybe than you did before. Like, like, what made the town feel small? Does it make it feel like home more?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, I feel I feel more embedded than I ever have in town over these last two years, than I have anything prior, and, oddly enough, in these last few years I've almost taken a step back and like junior guards and been that face and now I'm kind of someone more in the backlight, um, but I've found that community and kind of how I've decided to act and how I've decided to perceive myself and who I am and what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:So, instead of being that kind of overall person who's there with a purpose, who's a driver and I'm going to tell you what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and trying to prove myself of, rather than doing that, of taking two steps back and, like I kind of mentioned earlier, I'm here and I'm confident. I'm here just to be that person that's sweet, kind and endearing. And a guiding force in that and I think that kind of stems from, honestly is meeting all these different lifeguard services and figuring out that the formal ways of educating people never comes from someone who's holding a big stick. It comes from someone who is like a parent or is a teacher, who's genuinely there just to be caring and have that love without expectation, right? So that really has driven me in this community these last two, three years of being nice to someone that might not deserve it, but I'm going home happier. I feel better. I'm sure they feel better about it and they might. They might have a higher level of education when it comes to something like the ocean. Yeah, so, and.
Speaker 2:I think that and I think that stems from, honestly, cause in my latter half of being a teenager, I was very frustrated and upset of watching kind of that localism die and having this huge avenue of people that both don't know what they're doing in the water and don't want to hear any noise from anyone else about them being there.
Speaker 2:I think watching those interactions happen right before COVID and during COVID really it frustrated me and angered me and it put me into a person who wasn't positive, who wasn't there to educate with but was there to set a line in the sand and tell you not to cross it when that's not productive, and I had to kind of find that out the hard way of like there's not a winning situation for that person ever right the either you send someone home who is going to either never touch the water again, never go surfing, right, because you called them a dumb ass, right, or something worse, or made them feel bad about themselves, or you or they do go in the water and now you're just a dick, yeah, which doesn't prove anything right, versus having someone that can be there, like after I had my years of kind of coming of being in leadership and finding out what a leader is gradually of being someone that's there to guide. That changed how my perspective is just towards my life in general and how I act on a daily basis generally.
Speaker 1:Let's sit in this scene just for a minute, you know, because your brother was on a couple podcasts ago to talk about localism and I want to use this term carefully because Caleb was really able to paint a really important landscape about the safety that lives in what we're calling localism. I got a couple DMs afterwards from people that were like, oh, I always just thought it was privileged that and that Caleb did a really good job of that. But you, you, you're, I, I feel like your year was like when everything changed. Yeah, that you know, as I've expressed to people, I, you know, I had to raise my two older sons in the ways of the jedi, in that, you know, you had to know how to fight, you had to know how to surf, you had to keep your head on a swivel. And then I think it's about when you were 12, when, like boom, things really changed, and then covet, of course, physically made that change that was already happening happening fully manifest.
Speaker 1:And part of what? Part of what I want to get in here, you know, and we'll get to that is what we're actually seeing, which is like surfing has become an injury sport when it used to be a very rare thing that used to happen, but it's because of how many people there are. But can you describe in your own words what you saw as a 10, 11, 12 year old, that all of a sudden, at 12, 13, it's like wow, everything's changing, like the things, the stories that I'm hearing from my brother are not happening. This world that I thought was it's not that way anymore. You know it was. It was your peer way anymore, you know it was. It was your peer group.
Speaker 1:You know where things really kind of shifted, at least from my yeah, because you know, kayla and aiden were certainly like picked on the way you used to get picked on out in the water, and that wasn't cool either and I certainly got into more than one uh verbal yeah skirmish with the gentlemen who are not being very gentlemanly to local kids. And what's that like from you watching this historical shift to town?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like, for me, localism really is just filters.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't describe anything that I do.
Speaker 2:If someone said, like did something they weren't supposed to do in the water, whether it was in a lifeguard setting or in a personal setting, I wouldn't describe anything that I'm doing Not as localism. It's all localism, it's just in different perspectives, so when? And that localism is just a filter, just as caleb described it, and there's different sorts of filters for different problems, right, um, as caleb also described it as the lifeguard being kind of the bare bones essential filter of that happy, smiley government worker who's there to make sure that you have a good day and make sure you get home safe is essentially what is for me, is their like first filter of someone that's like, hey, this is how the ocean looks, this is the environment and this is how you do it safely. Um, beyond that, there are people who are mentors and will guide you through that, which you know is an even more robust filter yeah, when you have an actual friend that teaches you how to surf and ushers you through the process yeah, and also if they know what they're doing on top of that.
Speaker 2:And it's not just you and your buddy and one's been surfing twice and you've been surfing zero times and we should just go do it right. It's not that it's someone that's been surfing twice and you've been surfing zero times and we should just go do it Right. It's not that it's someone that's been surfing for a decade at minimum. He was like here I'm going to take you out to where we go and guide you through this process and show you where the reef is and show you how the water moves. That's its own filter. Right Beyond that, there's verbal filters of people that will tell you when you are doing something wrong, and then there used to be physical filters of someone that's willing to fight you for it right. Um, and gradually the bigger, those like more dense filters that are more willing to put um like a stake in the ground and decide what they're doing is right and has no other options. Those are. Those have disappeared from when I was, like you said, when I was 12 into when I was 20.
Speaker 2:Um, and I've watched those people kind of struggle too of how to place themselves in their community a really weird thing that I always look back on is when I was 17 I piled out to sewer peak and I piled out to sit in the bowl and I've been surfing there for like four or five years non-stop, like every single day.
Speaker 2:I was out there good, bad, bad otherwise. And there was this I'm not going to call him out, but there's this older guy. He's like his mid to late forties and he was like I could have and he was talking to his friend. He's like man. I just don't know how to react because I could have never done this growing up. It's like if I watched someone pal out and sit in the bowl, right away I would have gotten dunked and punched and beat up and sent in. And I think that governing filter that all these people have grown up with is it's generational change and it's really hard for people to let go of that, of something that's if, if I'm honest, inherently wrong you shouldn't be doing that, but also not being able to realize that there should be another filter behind it, of someone that's saying like hey, I understand that you've been surfing here for four years, but like it makes these people upset when you're doing that, when you're being blatantly disrespectful, even though you don't perceive it as that right of being someone that's guiding.
Speaker 1:And those haven't been in place for nearly as long in santa cruz as those harder set filters happen yeah, yeah, and this I'm gonna say thisly, but it speaks to what you're saying and this ongoing joke between Larkin and I. You know Larkin, who was a very well-known character and enforcer, who you would never know that about him now. But like the first time I paddled to Sewer Peak, larkin pulled out of a wave that he was on that was perfectly good just to jump on me, unzip my wetsuit and dunk me and say not. Yet you know that was town, the way that we grew up and not know how to handle myself. On various levels, there would have been a price to pay which, to your point, it was not fun. It's not cool to go out and get beat up by somebody that you don't know, for no reason, seemingly.
Speaker 1:But this points to a topic I want to hear a little bit more about, and I think the listeners will, about this reality that without this filter now there has been a safety issue and what happened over COVID and again it was happening before that Cause you, you know you had your own experiences of getting injured as the filter was coming off, you know, as people were being prosecuted for behaving the way that we're talking about. That we can all agree wasn't very nice, but as someone who's been injured more than once certainly a lot over COVID almost everybody I know that has been a longtime surfer here has been injured significantly over COVID from another surfer who does not know what they're doing, what kind of safety are we talking about? Because this conversation is one of those. You know it wasn't really what I was intending, you know, in interviewing you, but I think it's worth hearing for our listeners who are, you know, getting a podcast and you're going to the Santa Cruz vibes magazine thing. You know what a podcast and you're in the Santa Cruz vibes magazine thing.
Speaker 1:You know what it is that that locals are trying to express about people who we want you to come enjoy the water. But like you can injure people, like what, what? What are the kinds of injuries that you're seeing that you didn't see growing up now as an EMS worker?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's growing up now as an ems worker. Yeah, I mean it's. It's injuries that I would say are consistent. They've been consistent throughout the years, but they've been consistent towards yourself, like your board hits you, like you did something that was outside your expertise and now you are going to the hospital for it, versus now what's happened is because there's a lack of order, because there's a lack of understanding. Um, I can guarantee you that you will.
Speaker 2:If you went to the point and sat there with a little notebook, you could find five to six people that get run over in two or three days every single, every single time. Doesn't matter if there's big swell, small swell or otherwise is that there's no, the structure behind what people are doing and how they're doing it has been kind of pushed to a very there's not like a big skew, if that makes sense, if you want to get all mathy. There's not a there's not a centralized point where people have an understanding of what they're doing it and where they're going to execute it. Rather, it's spread out and there's not a proper avenue for people to get educated or do things in a safe manner. It's the same reason that ski patrol when they show up on a mountain. They're not just there to do medical, they're there also to yell at someone who flies past a family and almost kills someone.
Speaker 2:They do both things. And that's what lifeguards do. They do both things. You go and try and pile up a pipe when it's not your day. You're going to have a lifeguard come up to you and go what are you doing? This isn't your day. You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to hurt someone, and that's a perfectly fine way of educating someone, because a lifeguard isn't a governing body. They're not a legal. What's it called? They have no legal authority.
Speaker 1:They don't have the authority to tell you no, no, they're an educator. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Overall. Their whole thing is to educate you. It's the only thing that they do. Um? So, when these filters essentially have disappeared, of these bigger people who are there to keep order, no matter what, since that's gone, now that there's essentially free game, you have not only locals that are willing to commit those surf crimes of burning people over and over again, back paddling people, spraying people that are too close that would normally also not be cool but you also have these people that don't know what they're doing in places that are far more dangerous than they should be they're doing in places that are far more dangerous than they should.
Speaker 1:Be right so is. Is there any record of how much injuries have gone up yet from surf related injuries like do the hospitals release that?
Speaker 2:no, I don't think they even track it. Our fire district doesn't track their increases in those calls or demographics. They all get put into bulk general medicals or leaves. Um, I use this. Our lifeguard service, as well as san cruz city and almost everywhere in southern california, all the hawaiian islands and along the east coast and texas and those areas are using watchtower which gives us data on what is happening where, so where people are getting run over and how much that's happening and that's new. That's within the last two to three years that that's been developed, and I can get heat maps for how many people have had a heart attacks on Tuesdays and where it's happening and when it's happening and why.
Speaker 2:I can get correlations for tide swell which, if you've grown up in this town enough, you know that within the last two years really is that those higher tides are the hardest times to get in and out of the water and it doesn't matter what the size is. No, we don't. The city of Capitola does not have a rescue that's under a two and a half foot tide. It doesn't have one, which is amazing. Yeah, which means it's really safe until it's above a two and a half foot tide. Just like how the point, just how Rockview and sewers and all like 38th and all these in the hook are all these really safe areas that you could honestly learn to surf?
Speaker 2:but it takes someone to educate you of saying, hey, if it's above a three-point tide, don't even bother yeah right, because you and it's nothing like personal towards those people, but it's you don't have a higher level of expertise when it comes to being in the ocean to get in and out safely without injuring yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when we're talking about getting in and out of the water, we're not talking about a beach setting, we're talking about mossy rocks, we're talking about situations where waves are coming up onto those rocks.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to the comings and goings of surfing no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You know, and we all have our stories of getting into the water in certain situations that were very precarious. But let's just say, high tide was not really a realm. That was adventured all that often back then because there was no easy access point, especially when it was big. You know, and I've certainly had my own story of getting blown up the sewer p staircase almost at the, you know, right at the top of the rocks jumping in. You know which, which are stories that are gone. You know that, like, people don't know what it was like to try and get out when it was big and the tide was high, you know, let alone get in from those same situations and anybody who surfs on the west side, surfs the lane, knows that they're like you had your way, like you knew how, how broad your steps were, you knew exactly what rock you were going for when the tide was up, like, like there was only one spot for you to make it and that's changed with the with the staircases, because they give kind of this false narrative that it's safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah 100% and it's giving someone a runway into a really, really high wall. Essentially, it's like you have this massive plane that's going to take off and the person driving it might not know like I'm gonna. I'm just gonna pull up and everything will be great. But that wall is way bigger than people think it is, um, and evidently people are crashing into it every single day. Um, and then they wonder why they're like, why, how did I end up here? And it's like and for me it comes down to they weren't educated beforehand even to the fundamentals of watching a set come through and going out immediately afterwards. People, if you look at the point, people don't do that like. If you just sat there, you're gonna watch people pile out all the time and time it wrong. I mean, I did it on that monday. I thought I timed it right. I ended up at privates. Yeah, I piled out sewers, ended up at privates.
Speaker 1:Just so the audience knows, it's well over a mile away. This is Big Monday, which apparently was probably the biggest surf that we've seen in my lifetime. It was a unique moment, to say the least. You were down at private, so I mean we've anybody who's been here long enough has had a similar experience surfing those big waves that day was extra unique. But the tidal surges every five minutes, you know, moving at least 10 feet. That was that was weird to watch.
Speaker 1:But these are the things. That's not even what you're talking about. My shop is right on the line where the ambulances go by and I know during that lunar cycle that happens twice a week. I'm just going to hear more ambulances in the morning because there's a group of guys who just don't know what they're doing that have decided that the staircase looks safe and they're going out and they can't get in, and and that really I mean the amount of rescues that happen now in a week used to be what used to take two years to accumulate. You know that that's how much things have changed, you know.
Speaker 1:And um, I want to get back a little bit to to Capitola junior guards you know the Spartan crew and and really you know, to celebrate a little bit, the nature of Capitola and and, and I think Santa Cruz, santa Cruz is, we'll say they're sitting in a close second, but there's this competitive drive that comes out of our particular region. When you took over the program, there were some things that you identified about how many quality people have come through the program over the course of the last. You know how many years has it been around now?
Speaker 2:45 years actually this coming year, which is amazing. But just from the last 15 to 20, we've had I think we're almost breaking thousands of D1 athletes that have been produced from Capital Junior Guards. We have, I think, over a dozen Olympians who have gone and made it through Olympic trials and sent to other countries on various things of running and swimming. Um, we have numerous special warfare people that I don't know that number because obviously I'm not allowed to know that number, but from the people that I know we're sitting at, over probably a dozen people that have gone into special warfare units within the military and what essentially it is that I've seen is that Capitol Junior Guards has been able to produce one of the highest levels of grit compared to most junior guard programs up and down the state of california and I think that stems from both the community as well as the participants involved is that sense that there's this social expectation that we're here to show up and put everything on the table, that that gets put into a daily regimen right?
Speaker 2:I stand by it and I'm going to stand by it until I'm gone. Every single day, I want my kids in the water. I don't care if they're six, I don't care if they're 16. Um, they them getting comfortable in the ocean, whether it's one-on-one with an instructor or with the lifeguard.
Speaker 2:That that builds that level of grit and, uh, self-evaluation of safety, right Of the I'm safe, this is, this is good and I have more that I can push, and I can push those boundaries as far as I want and I'm the only one that's stopping me. That's why, when we go down and compete at regional or national levels, you see a lot of junior guards or competitors or lifeguards who are competing in these single, faceted events right when, like I'm a paddler, I'm a swimmer, I'm a runner, versus what capitol comes off or is like I'm here to put everything on the table and I'm going to get. I might not get first in this one event, but I'm going to get a podium spot in every event today. And that level of determination is it's super intimidating for other beaches for one, but but for two is it? It leads to a high level of success in their life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just for the audience. You know like club sports have put this downward pressure on children. You know to perform at a particular level early in the one sport that you think you like. What I'm hearing from you is that what you're trying to produce in your program is a well-rounded guard that can do all of the things that they're. They're not, yeah, they might be focused on paddling, but that's not the only event. You know we're going to do everything we can, not to win, but just be the best as a group. Exactly, and it's a dynamic that's sat with Capitola. It's what we're loathe for, you know, from other organizations, but at the same time, it's like what makes it great is that any one of those competitors can beat you, and you might be the best at it period in the state, but guess what? You might catch our guy on a good day who's paying attention a little bit more and he'll beat you at the thing you've been practicing the whole time I mean like a really good example is flags.
Speaker 2:So you have a group of people that lie down, face down, the opposite way from these sticks in the ground. Their goal is they blow, whistle, stand up and you go and get the sticks super simple game and gradually they take sticks out, people get eliminated and what we saw this last year regionals for the lifeguard was for sancars and capitola. We took, I believe it was seven for both, for the women's side of the top 10 seeds. Is that? And we got first, third how many?
Speaker 1:how many other junior guard programs with?
Speaker 2:well these are with lifeguard services.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh. This is the top shelf. This is this is top shelf. This is open. Yeah, this is people that are like I'm going to practice this every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have time for it. I'm getting paid to, I might as well. So for the lifeguard services and for the men's side, I think we took four out of the top five and I think maybe six out of the top ten or maybe seven out of the top ten, and these are up against agencies that have literally hundreds of guards, like it's not a.
Speaker 1:It's not a small pool, no, and yet your pool is, we're sitting at 60 people for me and Santa Cruz combined.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have 60 lifeguards. Maybe we send 30 down total together Right, you know, yeah, we don't like each other until we're down there together, turns out we like we like't like each other until we're down there together, turns out we like us, we like meeting everybody else.
Speaker 2:We like each other more than we like them. But like, that pool, for me, really showed us that like, even though those guards aren't like those middle seeds, aren't taking those podium spots, is that there's? They're taking away spots from their best cards. They're. They may not be my best, but at the end of the day, our middle of the ground is still so hyper competitive and so athletic that even in this, even in an event that they're not supposed to necessarily be in, they're going to be giving all their effort, because one more seat taken away from someone else is that much, that much more sweet.
Speaker 2:And it happened to like I'm going to throw Caleb under the bus is like it happened with me and him at flags on that sand. I was, I got put next to him and the other two people around us were two san cruz city guards and they were both far faster than I was and faster than caleb was and I ended up getting caleb out, which I'm happy to brag about on this podcast and I hope he listens to later.
Speaker 2:But, like for me, having that avenue of like, of that norcal pride of yeah, we're still, in this case, water is thicker than blood shared water. He's a tolagard at heart. We all know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in his blood yeah, well, um, just to kind of begin to wrap things up, you, you are certainly a human that's been through a lot personally. You've alluded to the illness that you went through when you were in high school and how that held you back, but you got to hold on to particular things that have really served you. Well, what's the thing now that really gets you up in?
Speaker 2:the morning.
Speaker 1:What is it about this town, what is it about you? That when you wake up, it just drives you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's easy to put someone down in a space and say what drives you and what gets you to wake up in the morning, but the reality is is if you for me at least if you put yourself on a linear plane of I'm pushing towards this one thing, you're never going to be able to wake up in the morning. For me, um, there's been numerous times where, throughout my career, I'm so focused on one area and when that's failing, it comes at a detriment to me because of frustration and angst and I think my perspective shift that's happened really in this last year of being here to serve my community, of giving myself a broader spectrum of why I'm here and my purpose has really helped me, um, wake up in the morning and be happy to and be happy a part of this community, um, so I would check kind of challenge that with being a part of what's greater in your life is more important than anything else, Right?
Speaker 2:Um, being that person that asked someone how there is and actually meaning that is far beyond trying to be something and proving yourself as that. So going out into community, be yourself, be giving, be loving and be there for that.
Speaker 1:Well, my son, thank you. Yeah, thank you, thanks for sitting with me. I love you a bunch. It's been fun to watch you adult. Yeah it's weird and do the things and I'm just so proud of who you've turned into and who you're becoming and thanks for being a part of my life. I appreciate that. Love you All right. Love you All right. Love you too.