Episode 69: Alvin Medina: From Watsonville To The Mat; Coaching, Anxiety, and Finding Belonging

A cold Santa Cruz morning sets the stage for a warm, unguarded conversation with Alvin Medina—a Watsonville native, former college defensive lineman, college coach, and jiu-jitsu devote. We talk about what happens when the adrenaline fades, and the anxiety shows up.  He takes us from scout-team hits and weight-room grit to recruiting rooms where NFL vets drop by to recruit your JUCO talent, showing how relationships—not just X’s and O’s—win the long game. The story pivots when a panic attack on Park Avenue forces him to examine anxiety, therapy, and why beating yourself up is not the same as holding a high standard.

We immediately dive into the cultural contrasts of Chicago bluntness and North Carolina warmth, the identity boost of a high school team finding cohesion against bigger, stronger rivals, and the moment coaching culture started to treat people as parts. Alvin explains how he rebuilt his approach: welcome first, demand second. 

How it translates now, outside of football, to Jiu Jitsu.  Teaching kids to bow on the mat, but make the new kid feel like family. Coach hard because you care, not to punish. Michael sits back and lets Alvin go, as he threads men’s mental health through it all—naming shame, embracing therapy, and using acceptance as an action: putting an “and” where there used to be a “but.”

The conversation lands in the present with a clear view forward. Marriage became a true team, teaching give-and-take and the courage to let go. Jiu-jitsu and striking reignited a competitive fire anchored in purpose: pursue excellence without self-torture, compete with joy, and love people with your actions. If you’re interested in coaching philosophy, men’s mental health, and the multi layered football juggernaught, to  jiu-jitsu culture, or how to turn pressure into presence, this one hits home and the heart.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us: where do you feel most accepted and most alive?

Chapters

• 0:19 Cold Morning, Hometowns, Beginnings
• 1:45 Leaving Santa Cruz And Coming Back
• 3:35 Who Is Alvin: Family And Roots
• 6:40 Chicago Vs North Carolina Culture
• 11:02 Watsonville Realities And Protection
• 16:40 Why Coach: Purpose And Mentorship
• 20:22 High School Football Grind To Cohesion
• 26:52 Rivals, Wins, Losses, Identity
• 30:42 College Paths And Recruiting Reality
• 34:50 The Call: Why Sit Down Now
• 36:44 The Mirror Test And Owning Truth
• 40:19 Men, Shame, And Opening Up
• 45:02 Panic On Park Avenue: First Crack
• 49:20 When Players Become Utilities
• 52:42 A Different Model Of Coaching
• 56:23 JUCO Lessons And Treating People Right
• 1:00:15 Therapy, Jiu-Jitsu, And Naming Anxiety
• 1:05:36 Self-Critique Vs Self-Compassion
• 1:11:15 The Cost Of Giving Everything
• 1:16:01 Acceptance, Marriage, And Team At Home
• 1:21:08 Love As Action In Sport And Life
• 1:25:40 A Quote That Guides The Grind
• 1:28:30 Reset: Men’s Mental Health And Cost
• 1:34:50 Control, Growth, And Perspective
• 1:40:10 What’s Next: Family And Fighting

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Alvin the key in the game. How's it going? You're here? I'm here.

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

It is a cool balmy thirty-nine degrees in Santa Cruz this morning.

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

It is cold.

SPEAKER_03: 0:32

Nice way to put it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:33

Yeah. It's early too.

SPEAKER_03: 0:36

I'm just happy to be here. Yeah. I really am. This is so cool.

SPEAKER_00: 0:40

That's good. So uh first thing you think when I say Santa Cruz.

SPEAKER_03: 0:47

Heck yeah. Home. You know, I think when you say Santa Cruz, I think of leaving. I've left uh twice on my own. Uh I went to college in Chicago. I went to grad school in North Carolina. Um Chicago was just for school. Um I was really blessed to play football at the Division III level. And I came back after that. And at that point, my coaching career was kind of getting underway. It was uh still kind of dipping my toe in the water. I had my taste of it. I liked it. I wanted to go back to it, and the process was to become a graduate assistant. So finding that was hard, but I knew wherever that was, it wasn't gonna be in California. So you say Santa Cruz, I think. Oh, I've come home twice. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40

So here's the hard question. Here we go. Let's go. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_03: 1:47

Oh, baby, baby. Okay, so Alvin Raphael Medina. Now the cat's out of the bag. I can't use that one anymore. Born and raised in Watsonville. My father is Terry Medina, former chief of police. My mother is Myrna, former dentist. Who am I? Who I am? Who I am? Who am I? Um, you know, I uh I was a blessed child growing up. Um I was fortunate enough to be given a lot of opportunities um through high school. And, you know, I made made good on those opportunities and and turned them into more opportunities. And around 2020, it um kind of came, I'm not gonna say came crashing down. I still have a lot of really nice things. I'm blessed. I'm married. Um, but I think that if you're gonna, if we're gonna boil it down into one word, it's exactly that. I'm blessed. Yeah, nothing I've done, um, I've done on my own. There's always been a some form of help, whether it's from my family or whether it's from somebody else or my wife or something like that. Um I am blessed to be here. There have been situations where, you know, like I said, I was in Chicago. The the roads are wet and nice and slick, and I've been in my car and um people honk a lot. People honk a lot and sometimes give you a really nice friendly gesture. And uh, you know, there I I've there's been situations in my life where I've been, yep, shouldn't have been there. And uh Chicago will teach you that. Chicago will teach you that, and so will North Carolina. Really?

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:37

Oh yeah. Um and it's not it it's two different ways to teach you. Chicago will teach you with the cold and the kind of there's a cold and kind of brutish attitude um once you kind of get into you know people and understanding like oh they're nice, but you you can't really there's a line, right? North Carolina's got that southern hospitality that you know once you it you really have to like dig into it, but there's no forgiveness there. Um it's polite. It's very polite, yeah. And especially to your face. You know, I think the concept of saving face is a very big thing, and and I don't fault them for a bit. It's very as a Californian, right? Understanding you know, when I come from California, I I think of people, you know, kind of walking straight ahead, walking with their heads down. In North Carolina, I was walking, I I had just gotten hired in UNCP, and it was the someone in the admissions office.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

Oh, you're from California. Tell me about that. How was that?

SPEAKER_03: 4:50

And I'm like, I think 40 minutes went by.

unknown: 4:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:53

And I had given this guy my life story, and he was genuinely interested. You know? Um, huge difference there. Um, not on, you know, polite, but they the nice thing about it is they want to get to know you. Right? People want to get to know you. Um, they want to know who you are, they want to talk to you a little bit. Um, you know, and then that's a daily interaction for them.

SPEAKER_01: 5:15

Hey boo, how you doing? Oh, I'm good, Ma. Hey, Ty, how's your daughter doing? Oh, she's doing good. She's going up to Lumberton High School next year. Is everything gonna be a great thing? She's gonna have a great time. Oh my gosh, my boy went.

SPEAKER_03: 5:26

Yeah, you know, and it'll carry on just like that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:29

You know. Well, you pass by something there. Um, two things. We'll we'll we'll get to the second one. Uh you survived Watsonville. You know, and and um I I I think things were tapering a little bit with your age group. You know, as far as yeah. I think things were fairly established by by the time that Established how do you mean. Well just e you know, like like uh when when I was going to So Cal High, the gangs were just starting. You know, there there was uh you know, Watsonville's always been a complicated area. Yeah, you know, that's where the Japanese were at first, they got imprisoned or World War II. Like the there's just a complex relationship that Watsonville has with the rest of the county.

SPEAKER_02: 6:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:21

Um lots of extreme wealth, um, lots of poverty on the other side. Oh yeah. Depending on where you're at and everything in between. Uh Watsonville High doesn't come with the best reputation. Nope. Um, you know, your dad was the police chief.

SPEAKER_03: 6:40

You know, go. You know, I I think the word there is you said survived. I I don't think it was survived. I was shielded from it, a lot of it. I had to be, you know. Um I was raised on on the other side of the gangs and stuff like that, but it, you know, while I didn't see directly the the violence that you'd see on KSPW, right? Right, and it's there. Like I'm not I wasn't stupid to the fact that, oh, that's Freedom Boulevard. Okay, that's scary. Um, you know, but I I ended up playing baseball with a lot of guys that ended up going into gangs, and um, you know, some of them went down that path, and and eat guys today that if I saw them, I'd give them a hug, you know. Um, you know, but uh I wasn't in that part of Watsonville enough to say I got out. Yeah, yeah. I was in a good spot. Yeah, you know what I mean? I like I said, I was given opportunities. Um, I was blessed with with a family. Yeah. So, you know, that in and of itself, and and looking back at it, you know, I'm sure there is even more things that I don't even know about. You know, as you get older, right, your parents tell you more and more and more of the things that kind of were over your head. Excuse me. And I think learning more about it now, I I'm very thankful. But, you know, I think it drives me harder. You know, I I have these opportunities. I I grew up like the way I did. And that that's motivation. Yeah. You know, because there are people that don't, and there are kids, especially right now, that don't have opportunities. You know, so uh, you know, as someone who who likes to coach, who likes to, you know, kind of foster potential, I want to make sure that, you know, maybe, maybe they don't have everything that I had. But today they're gonna get today they're gonna get a shot to do something cool. Yeah, you know, and I think that's big.

SPEAKER_00: 8:48

Yeah. Well, that that leads to the other side of what I what I was gonna bring up is like, you know, I laughed this morning because because you're all you're all bared up. You know, you know, I I've never seen Alvin minus the facial hair and and and other hair on his body, but he came in clean. Oh yeah, maybe. And uh for the first time he looks like a football coach. He's got the headset on. You guys will see pictures of it on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03: 9:14

I'm home right now.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

Yeah, yeah. He's he's totally totally home. But but uh you know, we we we've had one protracted conversation previous to this about a year ago. Um you know, knowing you, you know, at Jiu Jitsu back and forth here and there. Uh but but football was not in the vernacular, you know, until I got to know you that that one time that we we got together. And and so why don't you tell us a little bit about what it is about coaching? You know, like like what's the thing? Like like we all I mean we're we're we're both coaches, right? You know, I I you know I would never pretend to be at the level that you were. But at the same time, uh you know, I know what the driver is for me. It's just you know, for me, it's a place I get to use a relatively small intelligence level about a sport that I knew how to play till I was 14. So I'm just elevating their game that I didn't get elevated to 14. You know, there's no next layer to it. There's no it's like, what are the tools I wish I had at this age? You know, here you go, now that I know how to do these things. And just, you know, as as you know, a a gift as best as it can be received. Um, and and for me, there's also this other avenue of um you know, I might be the only father figure ever, you know, for the mostly young boys that that I've coached. Not that I haven't coached girls, but but it there's there's there's a difference, there's a different dynamic, you know, on the gender side of things. Oh, for example. So so for you, you know, when you approach coaching, like like there's some I see in your eyes right now about like the backstory is like you look back and it's like fuck, it could have been real different for me.

SPEAKER_05: 11:04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:05

You know, and I don't I don't have that same, you know, thing because I'm from this part of town, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03: 11:13

Well I'll go back to so I I I was I played uh football, high school football at St. Francis. I was uh good enough in my senior year to be an honorable mention as a defensive tackle, believe it or not. I weighed about uh yeah. Right now, I think sitting here right now, soaking wet, I'm five foot six and three-quarter. I'll get to the three-quarter later on. And I think I'm about 168 this morning.

SPEAKER_05: 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:45

I remember weighing in at Aurora University for Division III at 245. I forget what my program said, but I remember looking at 245 and being like, yeah, baby. I I you know, I did the the UFC stand on the scale, put your arms up in flex pose. Oh man, I was feeling it. Um the reason I got there is because I had coaches that were not afraid to push. So I came, I I I think my my era of football was right at the end of the I'll call it the bull in the ring generation. So I think, you know, through high school we had drills that were similar to that, remember, bull in the ring, one guy in the middle, everyone else, you're you're just taking your lick. You know, and you might have to take four or five licks in that in that session. Every time, well, I'll go back to even freshman year. Okay. I was not 245 at that. I was still growing. Football to me was my first it was my choice. Okay. My mom did not want me to play football through midgets and peewees. Turns out I I it's a great decision.

unknown: 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:15

You know, I at the time I hated it.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

Yeah, I mean, there's only so many hits you're gonna take. Exactly. So earlier you start, the earlier you're done.

SPEAKER_03: 13:21

Exactly. You know, so so you know, shout out to mom on that one. Um saved my brain a lot more.

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

Um, don't tell her what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_03: 13:32

Um so as a freshman, I come in right at right before school starts, right? Right before training camp. I think that last week of summer, and it's mainly conditioning and running, right? I remember my first double day, double day practice. I was so uh, I guess you could say captivated by how much running we had. I mean, you run everywhere, right? That in between practices, they'd give you lunch. I couldn't eat, right? Um, so your first practice, your morning practice, that was your hard practice. And then your second practice, that was a little bit easier. You didn't have to run as much, you didn't have conditioning uh session at that point. Um, you know, but you're learning plays. Now you have to be tired and you have to think. Okay. Day one, I was hooked. I was hooked as as good as any good fish on a fishing hook. You know, I mean you you could have said, hey, you're gonna go do this, right? You're gonna go dig your head, dig a hole, put your head in it, and this is gonna make you a better football. Okay, yep. I mean, yes, coach. Um there you go. Um that came with the physical aspect of football. I was a running back at that point. And through that season, I think I maybe saw the field once or twice on special teams. Uh, I didn't carry the ball that year. Oh, check check. I was given the ball once that year, and it went in uh you know, standard handoff went in one side. I saw two defenders and it went out the other. Yep. That was that was about as much uh that was kind of the last time they gave me the ball.

SPEAKER_00: 15:24

Had the rock for a half second.

SPEAKER_03: 15:25

Uh, not even a half second. A split point one of a second. Quarterback puts the ball in the basket, hits the old boilermaker at the time, and goes whoop right out the other side. Defense falls off.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

If you're wondering who the defensive tackles are, those are the guys that can't hold the rock. No. No.

SPEAKER_03: 15:43

Which is what I became. Funny enough. They know the plays. They know the plays. Oh, yeah. Woo! So that didn't last long. But I do remember that year being just decked. Every from from Tuesday to Thursday running the scout team, being the scout team running back, I got absolutely decked every day. I got buried. Um, and it was one of those things where you to me, it was the first time it's no, you're gonna show toughness. It wasn't a question. You're gonna be tough right now, and every single day they're gonna hit you harder and you're gonna come right on back. You're gonna come back and spit up candy because you know that that's just what you're gonna be. You're gonna be a tough guy because you're not gonna be bigger right now, you're not gonna be stronger. You don't have a you haven't, I've I've never been in the weight room yet, seriously. You know, so the first thing that you can be is tough. So we fast forward to senior year. We didn't have we so sophomore and junior year, I think we won a total of two games. I remember we went 0-10 junior year, and then senior year. All the seniors, right? We had our we had a lot of time in the weight room. We had a good number of us, um, and we had enough senior leadership, not to mention the class behind us were just a bunch of animals. And I mean, these guys were uh, and I'm quoting a fellow coach of mine, these guys are ball playing Jessies, right? Tyson Brilo, who ends up going to Colorado State, Zach Scourge, who ends up, I believe ends up going to UCLA, Jerry Norton, who played at UNLV. Um, these guys were juniors, and they were itching to just go out there. They honestly they were itching for our spot. They they all wanted to be the top dogs. Um, you know, but somewhere in all that craziness, we found cohesion and that was cool. Yeah, it was so cool, man. We ended up going out in that jamboree and we started moving the ball, I want to say against Santa Cruz.

SPEAKER_00: 18:06

Which was the powerhouse at the time.

SPEAKER_03: 18:07

At the time, Scott's Valley. Scott's Valley. Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, baby. Scots Valley had all the big guys. They had they had a couple D1 linemen. They had, I want to say his name was Scott or Travis Awe, and he was committed already. I mean, and I think I had a moment. We we ended up losing that game. We lost to Scots Valley big that year, and I think we had a moment, I had a moment that was kind of walking next to him back to the to the line of scrimmage, and I'm like, how's the air up there, brother? It's like a 30-year-old. Exactly, right? Yeah, um got a full beard. Yep. At that point, too. So Kell had a kid too, George Dunlat.

SPEAKER_04: 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 18:51

Yeah, that I remember everybody had at least a big time linebacker. You know, they had that that middle of the field, Patrick Willis, he could go from tackle to tackle and just wreak havoc. Yeah, yeah, you know. So being an offensive and a defensive lineman, you know, we we were really good at being able to um work together as far as I'm not gonna get into the turn football terminology, but we were able to come off blocks really easily, right? Keep our keep our heads and our feet uh downfield, right? And and and really give give the running backs a lot of space.

SPEAKER_00: 19:30

Um there there there's a um you know, I I I like this it's usually in baseball when I see it the most, right? You know, football now is especially at a pro level, it's kind of harder to see the teams that are cohesed, they're just winning. You know, in baseball like it was the second run that the Giants had. You know, I saw it with the Yankees in 2000. Oh man. You know, where you there's just joy in the dugout, yeah, and they're just having fun. Fun, you know, exactly. And and uh, you know, I can't really look back on a team that I played on. There are teams that have played for me that they're just clicking.

SPEAKER_02: 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

You know, and and uh what the uh I mean from what you're talking about, it just like that there's a moment, you know, where you have this experience and it's just a group of you, and you can't you can't have it by yourself. No. And you're just you're that group.

SPEAKER_01: 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:32

And you know, you like each other or you hate each other for all the right reasons, you know, it but but you've just decided collectively, yeah, this is happening for us.

SPEAKER_03: 20:42

Yeah. I can't even I can't even tell you when that moment was. It just grew. It was it was good planting. We had the seed, we had good water, we had the sun, and God blessed it. Yeah, amen, man. Because um I remember by we I don't remember who Carmel was our first game. And I remember we taking we took a close loss to Carmel and we were fired. Maybe that's what it was. We took a close loss to Carmel that we felt like we should have won. And man, after that, we were we were unstoppable until we hit uh Scotts Valley. You know? Um I think we we lose to Scotts Valley and then we beat Santa Cruz in the regular season. That was my game where I had a lot of success. I think I had I know I had a sack, I had multiple tackles, um, you know, and then so we we get that win, and and I think we had a bid locked at that point for I don't think, you know, with it was the it was still the SEC AL. So at that point, you know, we're by the end of the season. I remember going into SLV, and I think everyone went into SLV going like, we're locked, we're good, and NCLV ends it up trouting us.

SPEAKER_00: 22:13

I was so mad. These guys are sneaky fuckers. Seriously, always end of season. Same baseball, dude. We we we just got we got wiped by SLV. Like that team was not good. No, but you just managed to lose to them, like they just show up at the oddest time.

SPEAKER_03: 22:31

And and you know, they they end up just putting two touchdowns up on us, and we're kind of looking at each other like what just happened? Who are these guys, man? What are these guys? These are not the guys I saw on film, you know? Um so it was just kind of one of those things where I was just like, really, man, like that's how we're gonna cap our season right there, but you know, you gotta take it. Yeah. That that's how it is.

SPEAKER_00: 22:59

So how do how do you think you know, uh I've more than prognosticated about how competitive this region is, how much talent's here. Yeah. You know, I I I believe because of surfing, it's a very individuated region. You know, there there's it's not that there you can't find your pockets of people that collect themselves. It just is a very individual town in many ways. Yeah. How do you think having that team shaped how you see Santa Cruz? How you know, you know, how how how you approach the world differently, even being from here, right? You know, it's like, you know, you got everybody's got their boys, right? There's that thing, but like belonging is different. You know.

SPEAKER_03: 23:55

How do I even phrase that? Viewing Santa Cruz at that age still very naive, right? Having one games. I'll tell you like this. My buddy, um, my first coaching job, one of my best friends, his name's Jimmy Bebel, he used to always say, You haven't done anything yet. At that point in time in my life, I felt like we had done something. Not knowing that as I got older, I really hadn't done anything yet. Meaning that the way I viewed Santa Cruz and I guess the really all the surrounding environments is that we were kind of on top of the world. Not that we were better than anybody else. But for the first time, I I feel like as long as we had, you know, Maroon on, we had St. Francis Colors on, we weren't the cat, we weren't the small Catholic school in the back of Watsonville anymore. Right. We weren't, we weren't the school that you pass on the way to the fairgrounds. Right. We were somebody.

SPEAKER_04: 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:09

Right. And as it moved forward in my life, especially into coaching, I had a lot more confidence in myself. Now, I've always been an outgoing personality. So that confidence was masked with a lot of cockiness. Right, right. Oh, yeah. Now that's something we haven't talked about yet.

SPEAKER_00: 25:32

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_03: 25:33

I had a mouth on me. Really? Oh, baby. Oh, I had a mouth on me. And it got me into some trouble a couple times, you know. Um, not to the point where it was like anything where a crime was committed, but you know, what'd you say? What do you say, huh? You want to go, man? Like, you know. Um, so you know, I uh I I think that uh in in my view of Santa Cruz, right, I was still from Watsonville. So, you know, my dad being from Santa Cruz, I felt kind of juiced in, but also in the sense that, like, hey, that those guys up there. Santa Cruz to me was still those guys up there, right? It was the Soquels, it was the Scots Valleys, it was the Santa Cruz Highs. Um, even it was even the Aptos'. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_00: 26:23

You know, I think Aptos more than anywhere.

SPEAKER_03: 26:27

Yeah. I I I think you know, any Watsonville team has that has that rivalry with Aptos, you know. I think every team has that. I think you have to, you know, and and shout out to Aptos because even now they put out teams. Yeah, yeah. They put out athletes, they put out teams, they've got swimming programs, uh, water polo, baseball, you know. I remember playing baseball against uh the icorn, uh Kevin, Kevin Icorn.

SPEAKER_04: 26:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:56

If we we were talking about listening to what 93 miles an hour sounds like.

SPEAKER_00: 27:00

Oh, I heard it. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:02

From his left from his non-dominant arm.

SPEAKER_00: 27:05

I didn't know he was amidextrius. Oh, baby, could that guy fire? No, well, uh like I'm very familiar with the Icorn's work. Oh yeah. You know, just just being in the space. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:18

I as you can you can't be in baseball around here and not know who Mark is. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_00: 27:23

Um Yeah, Mark, Mark coached my son his first year.

SPEAKER_03: 27:26

Great guy. Yeah, great guy. Great guy. My mom, my mom was his dentist. Yeah. Oh yeah. The whole family great are great, great people. And um, you know, but I I just remember because he he stands pretty tall too. Yeah, yeah, you know, and he's like looking at Mark Mulder on the mound, just stoned faced, didn't matter. Yeah, yeah. That was about all you got. Yeah. If you hadn't started your swing by the time he's on his way down, adios.

SPEAKER_00: 27:53

Yeah, Aptos has been pumping uh pumping pitchers for as long as I can remember. Just gas, gas with movement. Well, it it it's funny because you know, just to just to go away a little bit on in on baseball tangent. There's a whole crew of kids I know that are all in D1 right now. They're all gonna be, well, they're all seniors this year, right? But non-starters are playing to the pros.

SPEAKER_01: 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:19

Yeah. Guys who never saw time, maybe an inning or two here and there, their senior year. Oh, yeah. In Division I, you know, like doing the work. You're just like like what program is down there that you got like, you know, three guys that went up in one year.

SPEAKER_01: 28:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 28:35

Yeah. Exactly. And you got two, you know, the other two guys are still, you know, on a field somewhere.

SPEAKER_03: 28:41

And I mean, waiting in the wings for the I think that's the great thing about college sports, too. Um, you know, I used to put in when I was recruiting, I used to put it in perspective to to my athletes and I'd say, look, guys, there are 273 programs with football. Okay. You gotta take away about a third of them because division three does not offer um division three does not offer official uh scholarships for football.

unknown: 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 29:11

Right. And now I don't know if that's changed with the NIL NIL and all that stuff. Um I kind of stopped paying attention to to the rules. Um but that means unless you know, unless you're on a full from a division one school from a division one school, right? So at that level, you if you are getting a scholarship opportunity, you are getting the whole thing. Right. Division two, right? We can they're yeah, division two, we can start chopping it up, right? Hey, you're gonna get about half of a full scholarship, we're gonna give you a quarter, right? You're gonna get a third. Um so that means that your opportunities as an athlete start to go down, right? Your your chance of success is starting to go down because now everybody else that plays your position, not to mention in another state, right? So if you're a center, right, you're any kind of offensive lineman right now, right? And they're and those big hogs from Wisconsin, from Arizona, from the middle of the United States, that are working their absolute butt off, right? Playing at least two to three sports a year, right? Going from football to wrestling to track, you're competing with those guys, right? And you might not be competing for a D1 spot, but you don't know who's who else is watching you. Yeah. Right. And I think that's kind of one of the coolest things, right? Is oh man, Oregon passed on me. Oh, you want to go play from North Dakota State and be a national champion? Yeah. What the yeah. Oh, that's not a bad idea. Let's go to Fargo.

SPEAKER_00: 30:47

Yeah. You know. So let's switch gears just a little bit. Um, you called me. I know. You wanted to talk.

SPEAKER_03: 30:58

I do want to talk. I I did. You know. Um, last time we had a conversation, you said the invitation was open. And I would watch, I'd listen to your other podcasts, and I'm like, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I can do that. I forgot which one. It might have been Master Claudio's. Or I said, okay. Let's go talk. Let's go talk to this guy. Let's go put some, let's go, uh, what are my exact words or let's lay it down.

SPEAKER_01: 31:29

Let's lay it down.

SPEAKER_03: 31:31

Right. Um, you know, um, and uh I don't know, it just felt I was at that point, I had just finished like my main, I guess, jobs, right? Photographers done with photography for the year. Um I didn't have any like you know big things coming up. I'm not competing until January. Um, you know, no, no major training sessions that I gotta get ready for. So I was like, the brain feels good, everything feels good. Let's go have a conversation, let's lay something down. Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_04: 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:17

So a year ago when we had our conversation, who I was definitely not ready.

SPEAKER_04: 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:24

It was it that was uh that was a saving grace kind of conversation where you asked me the same question, who are you? And man, I wasn't ready for the answer. Yeah. Because, you know, there's a lot of things that you have to hear about yourself, and and I'm not gonna go into complete detail, but you know, when you kind of called me out, I don't know what you need help with. You gotta, you know, I think I spent the next three days. I didn't spend the next three hours, I spent the next three days.

unknown: 32:58

Who am I? Who am I?

SPEAKER_03: 33:00

No, that's not it. That's not it. To really go over, you know, the state, my state, you know, and it was a good uh, it was a good mirror. Yeah, you know, I I think uh and I uh is one reason why I married Kelsey. We used to talk about what we call the mirror test. If you can't look at yourself in the mirror, you are not living right. You know, that's something that her dad preaches, that's something that I've even before I like from before we met has been a thing. You know, if you're doing stuff in your life that you can't look at yourself in the mirror, you are living the wrong path. You are going down the wrong path. And it's big because I don't know if anybody's gonna listen to this and go look in the mirror and be, oh yeah, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00: 33:54

Right? Yeah. I couldn't. Yeah. I I wanna uh I I I'm gonna lightly contextualize the conversation without Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, of course, of course. You know, Alvin and I went for a walk. You know, I I think we had we had briefly chatted a few times on the mat, and I I think in some ways live as a fatherly figure. Yeah. Sitting out there, you know, like some old guy that started jujitsu and and pastor chops come out every once in a while. You know, but I'm sure everybody was like, what the f this guy's a hot mess. I showed up a hot mess myself, but you know, I'm still me. And uh, you know, we had a con you're at a crossroads and and uh if I'm remembering the conversation right, you were like, what's the right answer? And everything was, I don't know, what do you think? You know, it it was like in the getting to the who are you, you're gonna have to make some decisions about who you're gonna be next. There were no real details of who you were, you know. So I I I don't you know, shame's a weird thing. You know, we can we can we can feel shame for lots of different reasons. Not because there's anything insidious in our past. I think that that's the weird thing about shame. It has a way of uh of gripping our lives. And it harms us. And I realized I had an incredibly harmed person in front of me. Not necessarily because of anything that you may have done, but just however life was hitting you.

SPEAKER_02: 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:29

And the shame that you felt around it. You know, and that you know, I had no speculation. I I don't I don't, you know, like like I said, I I don't I don't know that. You know, sitting in front of microphones and talking about anything overly personal is is is anything that is uh good. Uh that being said, in a very general way, you know, as you've heard in my previous podcast, you know, you're not the first guy who sat in front of me who has the struggles that you do. Right. You know, and and I I think these open conversations about issues associated with depression and and just the shame it you feel to being a man, let's let's just get get it simple, you know, like like it's it's it's a weird moment to be a man. I I'm already a well-vested man, you know, in the sense that you know, I know how my kids have turned out, I know what guy I am in marriage, I I I know who I am, but still, you know, it it's complicated. And as someone who very much embraced uh a highly feminine worldview, you know, in that I have very long eyes and long empathy for what it means to be a woman and what comes at them. You know, that's generally what I'm doing in the chair is is helping them with the shame they feel in some weird way, you know, it's just hair, but anybody who goes to hairdress to a hairdresser knows it's hardly ever about the hair. It's yeah, you know, and and you know, people are attracted to different personalities. I know my personality, it's big. I get a lot of clients, I lose a lot of clients. And it's never about the hair.

SPEAKER_01: 37:11

No.

SPEAKER_00: 37:12

So you know, it is about me and you know, the the years I've taken with the 1,500 different clients I've had, down to the hundred I do have, you know, I I know the percentage rate at this point of who's staying, who's going, and why they're staying and why they're going. Yeah. You know, because of that weird delicate dance that I've done as a straight guy who's not gonna pick up on you, you know, while you're sitting in my chair, but I'm gonna dote over you because I know what the world's doing to you, you know, on that. So so I have this unique experience in life that from the time I was 16, I get to look through the eyes of women and they talk to me. So I I I've heard the stories, I know what happened, I've had to come with kind words behind experiences that should not have happened and build bridges to men again, you know. So I I I don't know that that makes me a better man. That's not my point. It just means I've had that experience with women. That being said, you know, what it means now, you know, with how yeah, I I I think it's fair to say that that um the young men, younger-ish men, are catching the stick of something they didn't do. You know, um you know, on on a raw percentage scale. It's not not that there aren't bad guys. I'm I'm just saying that in general, you know, it it it it it doesn't feel good to to be a dude. You know, if you're 35 and younger. It's hard to be a dude. You know, and and I don't want to, you know, moaning around about it because that's not really the the thing, but it but it is it is a weird moment because dudes are really opening up.

SPEAKER_01: 39:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:09

And it's like slap slap, you're okay. Yeah. Be man. It's like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03: 39:14

You know, I you know, I and I've gotten we'll say past 30. It's definitely changed from the trying to think. I think I I think I started therapy around 30. You know, because so when I started therapy, I didn't even know, I don't even think I felt like I had a issue or a problem. But it felt good to talk to somebody. And I had a really good therapist. Um it was uh she was online and um I think for me, she challenged me in a way to open. Up because she would get me to think about she would just ask a question, right? Kind of the same way that you did, you know, when we were we were having our conversation. I think at some point you were like, You think you feel, I forget what it is. We'll just throw this out there. Do you think you feel abandoned? I said, No, I don't think I feel abandoned. And then, right, she would put it in a perspective, well, well, like, no, somebody in your life, you know, had to had to leave you, right? And I'm like, well, I left them. Well, isn't that leaving, you know? And it was just kind of in a way that for me, it kind of opened the door. So it my mentality overall went from, especially, you know, going from coaching where it's like, no, we're gonna push. Nope, bury it, push. Your pain, my pain doesn't matter. Push. The world does not care, work harder, push. Years of that. Not just as a not just as a coach, but as a player. Okay, so now we're gonna go. That's eight years, four, yeah, four, four, right? As a uh as a player plus six as a coach. Fourteen. Put your head down and work, baby. Yeah, you know, and that broke me in 2020 for the first time.

SPEAKER_00: 41:31

And what what was the thing in 2020? Was it was it COVID? Was it no?

SPEAKER_03: 41:36

This is right before COVID.

SPEAKER_00: 41:37

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 41:38

Oh, so maybe more so 2019.

unknown: 41:40

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03: 41:42

I was driving, I was working for Cabrillo at this point and driving to the office. My heart was I had only had a cup of coffee. And then people that know me know that I am on caffeine all day, every day. And I had only had a cup of coffee, and I couldn't stop my heart from just feeling like it was gonna explode. So I pulled over. Um, what's that AJ's Market exit?

SPEAKER_00: 42:08

Oh, at park.

SPEAKER_03: 42:09

Park? Yeah. So I pulled over there, get off on the frontage road, find a place to park. And I'm doing that, my head's buried in my hands and the driving wheel, and I am just as as we like to joke, you're freaking out, man. But it was real, it was so real. I had no idea what it was. Um I called my dad. And my dad's always been my dad's always been there, and he was in Watsonville. And he's he's never said, you know, he's he's always said, I'm gonna be there for you, I'm gonna be there for you. And I've you know, he he's never missed, and this time he doesn't miss again. He goes, I don't know, you sound different. I'm over at Starbucks. Um I just want to be with you. Just come here, just come to me, we'll figure it out. And this had been building up, right? This feeling of working for somebody who doesn't exactly care about you, you know, working for for coaches, for for players, for for guys that you know don't really they appreciate it, but there's a level of appreciation.

SPEAKER_00: 43:35

Yeah, yeah. Well uh and let's clarify this a little bit. You know, the uh because I noticed this transition happened hard when I was on the pool deck, where players just became a utility. Yeah. And it didn't matter what sport, what age, it was just like, hey, this is for pros, this is not what we do.

SPEAKER_02: 43:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 43:57

I mean, it's really why I walked away from coaching.

SPEAKER_02: 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:00

You know, there are a couple elements, but but this progressive um layering of what happens up on top all the way, you know, look the culture of on top, right? Making it all the way down to pee-wee was like really I'm I'm just I'm just a replaceable component. Yeah. And as long as I'm successful, then I get to be part of the engine, but you're not gonna work on me.

SPEAKER_03: 44:28

Yeah.

unknown: 44:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:29

And I think that's, you know, um, yeah, it's kind of a kind of a flaw. I think uh, you know, good coaching should have good relationships.

unknown: 44:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:42

No matter if it's your scout team guy, your first team, you know, high-end guy, you need to have relationships and you need to be building relationships. And at that point, my the relationships in my life didn't matter. And that should have been a first sign indicator for me because that's how I became the coach that I was. It wasn't the fact that I could draw it up. You know, I was still getting good at learning different systems for the X's and O's. I was getting there. I could get on the board, you know, and play whiteboard chess with coaches. But where my success came is being able to have a conversation like this behind closed doors and really get to know you. At that point in my career, I didn't care about that. I was getting elevated. I was gonna be, you know, potentially a guy that could be a play caller, you know. The relationship stopped mattering. And I think uh it opened that that's kind of what got everything going. That, and because over the years, when you're learning these systems and you're a graduate assistant, you have to take all of you take the brunt, right? You take the rippings from the coach, right? Almost like you're a player and a coach too. And you got to take that in front of the players, and you got to take that in front of the staff. You take it in a staff meeting, you take it in a players meeting, right? It's for your own good, but there's only so much of it we can take. And I don't, I don't, I don't fault any of the guys that I ever worked for. I don't. Yeah, they did it because they wanted to make me better, and I believe that. But I snapped.

SPEAKER_04: 46:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 46:30

You know, I I'll I'll I'll call them, I'll call everybody today and say, I don't blame you for a thing. I blame myself because I couldn't handle it. But at the end of the day, I needed to find a better outlet for what was happening to me. And I couldn't do that at that point, and I needed to step away.

SPEAKER_00: 46:46

Yeah, and and and uh I want to echo in here just a little bit because um this kind of head-down drive, you know, that that look, I still believe that for boys to become young men to become men, there's a particular head-down moment that's meant to last for some years of just just fucking do it. Go do it. Yeah, go do the thing, take the pain, communicate through the pain. But life hurts. You know, like like you know, but but that process of learning that you're gonna be okay is the point.

SPEAKER_02: 47:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:28

You know, like that that that's the point is like, you know, creating steadfast, uh, resilient humans. Yeah. You know, in any process. You know, when I when I again stepped away from coaching, when I saw the resiliency diminish a little bit, and you know, some of that we can attribute to parenting styles and all that kind of thing. But, you know, um my programs were already always pretty tough. I did a good job harnessing me. Yeah, you know, doing the things that we were doing out on fields and things like that. But at the end of the day, I I I was seeing, you know, just like in coaching and pastoring, that the things that we were doing weren't working. That's why I stepped away. It's like this is not working anymore. You know, head down, just do it, you know, and and I'll accept your mistake. Yeah. As long as you're willing to call it a mistake, yeah. You know, I'm good with it. And to call it a lack of accountability is just completely misuse of the term. It just changed, you know. I and I uh you know, I I don't know that we caught it yet. You know, I don't I doubt it. You know, it it's it's uh it's you know, it it's a very American trait, yeah, you know, of like just keep going. And it's like, where are we going? This seems like we're going off the cliff. Yeah. And it's like all the way around, it's like, yeah, um, somebody needs to put their eyes up. Yeah. Because I'm pretty sure I'm watching things fall off.

SPEAKER_03: 48:56

And I'm getting closer to the what's the coyote you're watching? The coyote holds up the oh no sign. Yeah. You know, I I'll tell you this. I had a guy when I worked at Gavelin College. His name's Mike Dovenberg. He he was probably the one guy that did it differently. He's young, I think I want to say he's one or two years older than me. He's 36. He's currently the uh offensive coordinator at San Mateo. And since he's been there, they have won multiple national championships. And I'll and I'll tell you this, man. He's probably the first guy that broke the mold of head down for the players, head down and go. Right. I couldn't tell you how many times that guy would bring multiple sets of positions in for one-on-ones for a job that he necessarily didn't ask for. I got hired on that staff in February. By March, the guy that hired me had got let go. And I remember him taking me in his office and saying, if you're in on this, you're in on this, we're gonna do this. We are coaching for our lives. Because normally if you let your head coach go, the staff goes with you. Yeah. And he said, right, but he's you gotta tell me because we're not gonna half-ass this. Right? What's the Matthew McConaughey quote? We're gonna whole ass this thing. We're gonna whole ass this thing. And for the next from from, I think that was still summer, or we were going into spring ball. Okay, through spring ball, through summer, right? In also having to recruit, we were working for our lives. My timeline might be a bit off. I think we're just in summer. It's okay. Nobody knows. Yeah, it's okay. Nobody cares. He's gonna call me and be like, you dummy. Um, but I remember on multiple levels, right? He taught me because he would let me be in on those meetings, and and he would, you know, he'd be like, Look, answer a question if they ask, but I want to be the one that puts out the information. And I said, Yep, for sure. I've got high, I mean, I uh nobody uh if you unless you've been in the JUCO, um, the JUCO world, at least the JUCO football world, you never know who's coming through your door to find a player. Right. I'm talking about um big time names. Yeah, no, they they walk through the door. They, you know, they get on their jet, they fly to you, they drive up and down California, right? So at any time, at any program, you might have a former NFL player who played at the highest level of college football, who's now a coach, walking and asking, Oh, hey, heard you got a receiver. Can we watch some film?

SPEAKER_01: 52:03

Yeah, come on in.

SPEAKER_03: 52:05

Right. And and and you got to do whatever you might be making a practice plan that day, you might be getting ready for the weight room. Nope, you're breaking off, you're gonna go do that. Right. Um, and it doesn't matter, right? A big thing of it is it doesn't matter what comes in our way, you handle it, you treat them with you treat them great, you treat them like family, right? And that served me and my career really well, right? Because I never got to a point where it was player, administrator, visitor, where I had to be like, oh man, this guy.

unknown: 52:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 52:39

Even though I wanted to. Yeah. Yeah, you're I'm a human. You're a human, right? You want your players. I want, you know, hey, I want to go coach right now. Like, can I go to the practice field? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, come on in, man. Hey, I got you covered. Let's get you, let's get you some shoes, let's get your shirt, let's get you on the practice field, let's get you good to go. Okay. And as a human, every time that I had those interactions, you know, you're treating somebody with respect, it always paid back. You know, so getting that feedback, getting that response consistently, hey, right, head coach comes up to you, you did good. You know, you did good. It didn't have to be crazy, but it was just enough to, okay, yeah, okay, we're good. We're good. Let's, let's, you know, let's get back to what we were doing. Yeah. You know, and then that that that tend that work tends to pile up, but you gotta, you know, that's that's when you put the nose down, you finish it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:29

So let's get back to uh you're on the road in Park Avenue.

SPEAKER_03: 53:35

On the road in Park Avenue. Uh free, I'm freaking out.

SPEAKER_00: 53:39

Yeah, freaking out. You know, you you start to see a therapist after that.

SPEAKER_02: 53:45

At that point, so you know, um, at that point I leave coaching.

SPEAKER_03: 53:53

I this is a culmination of I had found jiu-jitsu at that point. This is this is the cult of all cults. Yes. Come to me and grab people and throw them. Um, I had done about three jujitsu classes at uh Claudio's in Watsonville. And so I already I was drawn to the culture, right? To me, it wasn't uh to me, it wasn't fighting yet. It wasn't, it was just jujitsu. It was a it was a exercise, um, and it was a place where I really enjoyed everybody, right? And it'd been a long time, you know. Usually, you know, you walk in, oh hey, there's a couple guys I know. No, no, no. I was excited to see everybody in that gym. And by the time, oh, so I I I I I think at that right after that, too, that's when I started dating Kelsey. So coming from a family of psychologists, her family would be like, Well, you're having a lot of panic attacks. And I go, I turned her, like, you ever seen analyze this? Yes, Robert De Niro. I don't get I don't get panic attacks. I don't get no panic attacks. Come on, who's this guy here? You don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01: 55:16

What's a panic attack?

SPEAKER_03: 55:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 55:19

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 55:21

Like it does all the time. Yeah. Wow, that's happened a lot to me. What do I have to be anxious about? Everything's going good, life is good. What am I panicking about? And they're like, and they would, you know, uh, her dad would kind of explain this to me. She would explain this to me, you know. You don't get raised by two psychologists and not and not know stuff, you know. Um so at that point, we had been talking for a while, and she encouraged me to go see a therapist. And that really opened the door for me. My I I don't know if it's a flaw. I my the way that I view humility is to take it out on myself. So I will always be my hardest critic, they'll always be my hardest coach. If it's not up to par, it can be a win. It can be a great day. The wins are the worst.

SPEAKER_00: 56:14

But I'm gonna drop the hammer on myself. Yeah, yeah. The win the wins are the worst, right? You won, and all you're seeing is everything you did wrong. Yep.

unknown: 56:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 56:22

When things go wrong, it's great because you have things to collect and you have data points.

SPEAKER_03: 56:27

And that's kind of the football coach in me too. Yeah, yeah. I I, you know, I think you know, you'd get you'd come off a win, and your job uh, you know, you get to you have to sleep in from Saturday to Sunday. But before, you know, head coach is in, you need to have your grade out sheet. So you need to have gone through the game and you need to um document. Oh, okay, this guy missed. This was his great on this play, right? If you got uh three linebackers in the game, I was assisting linebackers my first year. Hey, we're gonna go through all of them. Yeah, okay, could have been better, could have been better. I do that. I do that for myself. Hey, hey, you got you go out in the jujitsu mat, competition mat. Hey, great choke. No, it wasn't, right? And you're like, no, Alvin, you did great. No, no, no, no, no. The guy tapped. Yeah, he tapped. No, no, no, no. I missed, I missed this opportunity, I missed that opportunity, that could have got reversed on me. There's a lot of things we gotta work on. That's okay to an extent, to the point where it's beating yourself up about it almost physically. Yeah. That's where that's where we gotta curb the behavior, you know. And I and I I say that because I still do it.

unknown: 57:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:45

You know? Um it's to me it's advocating for myself, but in reality, I've learned that it uh you gotta give yourself a little bit of grace.

unknown: 57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:58

And me saying that right now, you would not have heard me say this a year ago. Yeah, yeah.

unknown: 58:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 58:03

No, it's you know, crack the whip on your damn self, Al.

SPEAKER_00: 58:07

Yeah. Is it okay if I kind of uh put you in a bracket here, as far as I'm presuming depression, yeah, anxiety. A lot of it. Suicidal ideations? Nope. Okay. Got the pass on that one. Although although I I I th I think uh the suicidal ideations that I woke up to from the time I was 13 until I was, you know, 54 were a great gift. So you better get up fast getting the shower. There you go. Don't don't don't look for the clock. Because when the anxiety attack happens at 2 o'clock in the morning, that's an uncomfortable reality.

SPEAKER_02: 58:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:51

Had one this morning. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. God bless it. I've I've well yeah, I've I've done a lot, done a lot the last uh couple months. So you okay? Yeah, I'm actually better than I've ever been, but like it's weird to have anxiety. I had an anxiety attack. Okay, so this was uh we moved in Thursday night in completion on Thanksgiving. Okay, or should say moved out of our other house 10:30, you know, new places, all boxes, all that kind of stuff. And Saturday. For anybody from Santa Cruz, you know, I I live in South County and I just was up early and wanted to get a cup of coffee and went by Seascape and nothing was open. Oh boy. And blackout anxiety attack kind of came to came to at the Home Depot parking lot on 41st Avenue. Oh, yeah, yeah. One of the weird I've never never had one of those before where you just like I I mean, look, I I drove fine. That's not not what happened. You know, it's not like but it's like you're blackout drunk. You just missed a moment.

SPEAKER_02: 59:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:53

I mean, I I I remember driving, but it was weird sitting in the Home Depot parking lot, not knowing where I was. You know, just kind of taking a second. That's the town I just moved from the you know two nights before that I grew up in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:06

You know, so anxiety is showing its face again. I I don't have the other auxiliary uh components anymore, which is thankful I'm grateful about. You know, but but that being said, I was like, wow, I've never had one of those before.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:19

That's you know, it's funny now now that you say that, I can remember kind of my one of my first ones.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:24

One of my first anxiety attacks. Mississippi. My partner and I, Aaron Welch, was my officiant at my wedding. They sent us down to Mississippi to go uh find a recruit. Okay. So we drive down there, I think it was about 10 hours. We stayed on the delta. This kid lived right off to the right off the Mississippi Delta. We pick him up. It's about 4 a.m. in the morning, and we are driving back to Pembroke. We stop right at the uh like the Mississippi State line, right around there's a big truck. There's there's truck stops everywhere. But we hit this truck stop, and the kid asked to go get some breakfast. And I was like, Yeah, we all gotta use the bathroom anyway. Uh I call him Choncho. Choncho fills up the car. Um, and as I'm in there, I am noticing a difference in color. My recruit, very, very well upstanding young man, is an African American in a truck stop full of white Americans. I'm brown, and I was standing there with him. I go use the bathroom, I come back, and I'm kind of looking at him, and I am looking at some guys just giving this kid just the evil eye. And I kind of walk up there and I'm like, hey, buddy, um, can we get out of here? He's like, no, because you know, I'm waiting for breakfast. And I'm like, hey, I don't, I don't, I think we're in, I think we're kind of in hostile territory. He's like, coach, I gotcha. Don't worry about it. And I'm like, oh so I'm getting out of there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:08

Um, this is something we just don't experience in California.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:11

No, absolutely not. And I've told this story a couple of times too. And um, I'm kind of pushing him out the door, right? I'm trying to be as respectful as I can to him because I'm from California. I have no idea what this world is like, and I'm but I am getting scared, right? My anxiety at this point on the inside is through the roof. I could have been at 180 beats a minute and I hadn't worked out that day. And I am so I do this thing where I'm trying to like keep a hand on him to make sure where he is. And so I put my back against him. Right? He's a big kid, he's an offensive lineman recruit. He's he's not small, he's way bigger than me, but I am pushing him out the door. And I'm like, please get to this car as fast as you can. So we didn't run, but he started to pick it up a little bit. And about four guys follow us out that door and watch us leave. I didn't see any weapons on him, but like, I, you know, I'm my father's a cop. I've been trained. Hey, look at your hands, you know, make sure their hands are clean. These guys had their hands in their pockets. So I'm like, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, get in the car, get in the car. And I yell at Chancho and I'm like, we are gone. Yeah. He's like, is it good? I said, we are gone. Get in.

unknown: 1:03:29

Yeah. Boom.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:30

We're out of there. And that was in the next probably two hours. I just, I didn't, I don't think I said anything. I was focusing on boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But it was broke, the breath was broken like that, right? If you've ever had a good panic attack, you don't take clean breaths. It's almost like you're crying. And I did not know what was happening. I was like, and he kept, are you good? You good, you good? Yeah. And I'm like, I'm good, man. I'm good. And and and one of my pet peeves is being asked the same question multiple times. And you know, and and and he is a good soul.

unknown: 1:04:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:23

And he kept going, dude, are you okay? You talk to me here. And I said, Don't ask me twice. Kind of being a prick about it. And he's kind of like, okay, okay. Sure enough, he asked me a bunch more times. But man, I'll tell you what. I I remember that. I remember that. Um I don't think he remembers it being that crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:47

It's because you also didn't go in. Yeah, yeah. You were the one swirling. He wasn't. So so how has anxiety, you know, uh I I don't I don't know if you're in a retrospective space yet. Um you know, the like I think through the lens of introspection a little bit. I know with our conversation it was rough. You know, like there's some rough moments afterwards. You know, you reached out a couple times. Um you know, I did I didn't want to break something and I felt I might have, you know. Uh and and for all of you who want to give advice to people or think you have advice for people, very it's very I can tell you flat out, on my end, it was one of the more challenging moments because as someone who does that and did that for a living, um, you know, the concern level goes way up, right? Yeah. You know, with with with with with whatever it was you came to me with and whatever it was I handed you. You know, I'm I'm not even sure. I'm not even clear about which was what. You know, it's like you had questions about life. I had questions about you. Yeah. And and it it was uh it was a it wasn't a bad exchange. I don't think it just it just was like one that left me this last year going like, oh shit, did I fuck that up? That was all not not you know, not not that it's sitting on me, but it was like, ooh, it was maybe maybe it went a little too deep in the paint there. Oh, we were deep in the paint, yeah. With with who who are you? Like this this thing, but but but you know, you you're also hitting that age where all the all that thing's coming, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:41

Yeah. And you know, I I I think for me especially, growing up is something that I'm was very afraid of. At that point in my life, this is right before I proposed. This is me going from that child mental exclusively the child mentality to opening up and being, no, we have to we have responsibilities, we have things we need to do, and I'm not gonna take care of them all at once. But I have to take care of them. And over time, I have to keep learning what they are in order to be a better husband, at some point a better father, as well as still being a good son. Those are all responsibilities to me. Take care of the people that got me here, take of carry care of the people that are with me. What do I say? Husband, father, husband, father, son.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:52

Right? And then take care of the people that are coming. Taking care of the people that are coming right now to me, that's still teaching the kids.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:01

Cause because even right, I teach kickboxing, I teach jujitsu. I help. This is a better way to say it. Yeah, I help. Teach. Yeah. I get it. So it's not necessarily that it's not just the techniques. Hey, did you bow on the mat? Did you show respect to the dojo? Right. I I think my senior quote in high school was the Muhammad Ali quote. The respect you give unto others is the rent you pay for your time on earth. And I still live by that. With those people, it's not just respect, it's love. Right? I love a lot of I love a lot of people, man. It's not just because of what they've done for me or what they will do for me, it's what they deserve. You have to love people. Dad always said people are inherently good. And he's a guy that's seen the worst in people. Yeah. People are inherently good, and you have to treat them that way. And when they show you that they're not, then you can act accordingly. But, you know, and and there are times. Oh man, people, people just suck today, you know, and hey, sometimes it's just the cards you're dealt. But having gone through anxiety, I've learned that if I put more love out in the world, and at least if I try and do things, right? That it'll come back. It's like it's those lessons that I learned as a coach. Nope, you're gonna stop exactly what you're doing. You got a mile of you got a mile-long laundry list, but you're gonna stop. And you're gonna treat your visitors, those coaches, those recruits with love and respect. And you're gonna make them feel like they're a part of the program. I'm gonna take those new kids that come into the gym, make them feel like they've been here for three years, that they have a gray belt already, even though they don't, but they're gonna feel like they're a part of the family in the gym. And then, you know, and then uh my my coaching style is not easy. And it does, and though the kids that I coach right now, especially in striking, they know that they do the push-ups right when they do it again, right? But it doesn't get there until I've shown them a little bit of love. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. And it's not an excuse to coach harder, right? It's a part of the process, right? Because that coaching goes from intense, intense, intense to kid joking, laughing, six, seven. Right? Even though I hate that. I I drive me nuts, right? But that's that's the kind of that's that's the the roller coaster you kind of got to go through. And if you, you know, through the middle of it, there's more love there, there's more respect there, there's more, it'll it'll kill it'll it'll help you understand the personalities around you. And for me, I want to gravitate towards those personalities. It's not just about the vibe, right? It's about the person. Right? It's about trust. And it's it's not that I trust to love. I love, I try to love, and then I build the trust. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:27

Yeah, it's I don't know if you hold this perspective, but at least from a scriptural standpoint, and it's the way I position my life that love is an action, it's it's not a not a feeling. You know, that there's a it's an act of service, you know, and suffering, you know, in essence. You know, that that when I'm choosing to love somebody, it it's commonly at my own expense. Yeah. You know, that that's just the realities of love on a human level. You know, and I do that in faith and hope.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:57

You know, but the actionable thing is is that there's only one way to be actionable about my faith and hope, and that's to love someone else, you know, through whatever process they're going through. You know, we're we're we're sitting squarely in athletics, yeah. Yeah, which is a safe way to talk about that demonstration that that, you know, behind all the kind of bravado and grit, you know, is what people who don't play highly physical sports don't know is that there's so much love in the middle of that. Yeah. And the only way to experience it is, you know, to be on the field. You know, and as I express, you know. You know how my friends want to feel loved at jujitsu, you're getting choked.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:42

That's right. You know, you beat me to the point. Yeah. I was like, you want to know how my friends love me? Yeah. They punch me. Yeah, yeah. They choke me. They kick me. And they don't and they don't take it easy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:52

Right? If they're throwing leg kicks, they're throwing the leg kick. Shane Torres just jabbed me in the face yesterday and snapped my head back. Was he trying to? I don't know. Does he love me? I think so. I actually know so. Absolutely for a fact. Because we do it every we do it three days a week to each other. Yeah. Right. Um here's one for you. And this one guided my coaching mindset. Um I don't remember who it comes from. I've heard it comes from Mother Teresa, but here it goes. We the willing, led by the unknowing, will do the impossible for the ungrateful. We've done so much for so long with so little. We are capable of doing anything with nothing. That has guided me. It doesn't matter how much I have, it doesn't matter who I'm with, I have to give these people, my wife, my father, my mother, my family, my jujitsu family, my MMA family, they get everything. At least they get all of me. There's no deep, dark, different Alvin in Watsonville than he is in Santa Cruz. Yeah. And I've done this for so long. I can do it anywhere. I am that I am that confident.

unknown: 1:14:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:19

So I'm gonna I want to hit back a little bit here. Because I think it's important for people to understand this stuff. What does it cost you? Because we're we're dancing around a conversation a little bit about mental health. Yep. Not that I not that I think that we haven't touched on it, but I can, you know, as I share with you that conversation, you know, when I had start first started having my nervous breakdowns, all that kind of stuff. That this perspective is not easily garnered by others, you know, where you're giving fully of yourself. Yeah. And uh eventually yourself runs out. Yeah. Um you know, there there's all right. Sorry about that, folks. Quick uh had a timeout from timeout call from sidelines.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:19

I get, you know, I get okay. Quick story. Yeah. Head coach is running down the field. I forget who we're playing. Shane Richardson is barreling down the field, calling for a timeout. I'm next to him, but I'm towards the field. So I'm in the white area that you're not technically supposed to be in as a coach. Sure enough, side we get to about the side judge. Side judge turns to look at me to start waving his hand to the timeout, and I do uh uh a Brian Erlacher right through him. Throws the flag. Too many uh whatever the field violation, whatever the field violation is. And have you ever been just yelled at by somebody's eyes? Didn't have to say a thing, didn't say a thing, just the look of death.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:15

Yes, timeout was not necessary anymore. Anymore, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:20

10-yard penalty for for people that watch enough football, you know there's a get back coach, yeah, and it's the strength coach, so it's usually somebody who's bigger, wider because he's got more muscle mass than you. At that point, my get back coach, I had a personal get back coach. His name's Adam Gilson. I love that guy. And he would give, he, I'd get airtime. After that, I would get airtime every time he pulled me back. And I mean, I'd be there signaling, doing, you know, whatever. No, back, back, back, back, back. Woo! And I would fly back into the coder boxes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:00

Good times, good times. Gentler times, bro. Gentler times.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:05

Something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:09

Lost where we were. Mental health. Mental health, yes. Men's mental health. Men's mental health. We started early. Um, I had framed a question while you were uh uh uh reallocating fluids, and and it's gone for me now. It just entirely disappeared. Okay, I I th I think it's coming back here. Uh let's see if I can verbally uh manipulate my words until until it comes back. Um introspection from moment to moment. Gosh, I really did forget. The timeout just let's let's do this. I'll reframe. Um you know, again, it's been a year. I already talked about the swap, you know, the the question the question swap that I did, you know, with you. Um how the cost. The cost.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:29

That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:29

The cost. I I I'm I'm I mean I have to be honest and still look at you and see you sorting through some things, right? Oh yeah. It's uh I'm I'm not saying you're avoidant, but that's not my perception of it. It's just like there's still more to sort through. Oh yeah, you know, based on that past conversation. Um it's a big one. Though those are those were were lifetime questions, you know, kind of sitting back there. But you know, sitting and listening to you over the course of the last hour and 15 minutes or so. Listening to how much abuse you uh heap on yourself in search of excellence, right? The personal cost you know, at this point, how old do you know?

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:19

34.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:19

34.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:20

Maybe 35 next month.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:21

Yeah. Um how how are you balancing out you know, the this on the one hand, this one perspective that got you to where you're at, you feel completely blessed, but now you have this cohort of anxiety that comes with it. Um, if I if I'm recalibrating to our nature of our conversation uh last year, you know, just the the literal clusterfuck of too many questions in a way to know where to start.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:57

You know like how. How's it going for you now? You know, what what are you looking for?

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:09

What got me there is the ability to fully How am I doing now? I'm good. That that part that part I'm not worried about. How I got there. Going from trusting myself and trying to frame it. It's beyond coexisting with my wife. She's a go-getter. She won't ask. She's just gonna do stuff for you. Kind of fighting that because there are things that I want to do. Within the year, we have found. I'm not gonna say our own lanes, but we have found the give and take. Like I said, getting me to where I am, I never did it alone. I did it with different teams, which is to say I had different family members. I had my own family members, and I had enough control in my own life to shape where I was gonna go. When you get married, that changes. That's one way to put it. Okay. She's got her path, she's got her own sets of dreams. In that I was still trying to do I was trying to live how I was as a coach. But I'd be remiss to move forward in my life, not caring about what she thinks, how she does things, and being able to depend on that. She's proven more than enough for the length of our relationship that she's dependable. I never had to question that. I had to let go. There are things I had to let go of. There are things I'm still letting go of. Those dreams for me have shifted. I am not necessarily just one thing, one person. But like I said, I need to be a better husband. So I can be ultimately a better father. I want to be a dad at some point. Boy or girl, doesn't matter. That acceptance, I want to say over the past couple months, has alleviated a lot of the anxiety. Because what it means is it's what what it's created is this place at home where I can come home and I talk about it. Not always. There are things I don't want to talk about just because I don't want to talk about them. But for the most part, I come home and it's safe. And that has been the commonality kind of throughout my life. Whether I go home, whether I go home to an empty apartment and call somebody, right? I've had that out, you know. You need you need that kind of outlet to be able to express how you're feeling. She's provided that. So now it's not a it's not one-sided for me. It's give and take. The best times with the best teams that I've been on, my playoff teams, even though sometimes those players hated each other, it still had give and take. We do what we do, what we're best at, right? And then we accept help from the other side with what we're not good at. And with Kelsey, she she kind of just takes it over, anyways, which is which is great. If you could tell, I am not complaining. I am in fact in love.

unknown: 1:24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:48

But that part that's hard for guys to do. Letting go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:57

I learned that early in my life. So what are you calling acceptance right now? Because these things change. You know, it it it's uh it's a commonly held term. Um I like to say that acceptance is putting an and where a but was. That's a good way to put it. Not yeah, but it's yes and you know, the the the multifasted nature of all of our personalities that I I think most humans have. You know, my wife is always saying, you sound schizophrenic. I'm like, yeah, I'm just acknowledging all the voices we're all hearing. Like, is this the that it's uh I am this guy and I am that guy, and I am this one over here. Um accepting all of those guys everywhere to me is acceptance, right? Yeah. It's it's I'm I'm all of these people everywhere I go.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:00

Um you have to accept the best parts of you if you're gonna accept the worst parts of you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:05

Yeah. I think that's the thing with Do you feel like that's what shifted since I saw you last?

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:12

It part of it. You know, I I right being being the critic, I I only accept probably maybe that's what it is. Part of being me is I only accept the bad parts of myself.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:25

Well, that's that that was my horrible trait. Yeah. You know, then you run out of bad stuff. Yeah. And then the story doesn't work anymore. Yeah. When I when I look back, the story, the narrative didn't work anymore. Yeah. You know, it's like I I can't. It wasn't that I was right all the time, I just can't be wrong this often. Right. You know, like so you start looking around, you question everybody else, but really it's this battle inside of your head of, you know, I did the right thing and this didn't work out. You know, like it's all this narrative that everything's supposed to work out if you do the right thing. Like it's all the stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:59

We we have a phrase for it. It's called being little guy.

unknown: 1:27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:03

So if I do something wrong, right, I start to hate myself. Kind of like you can tell my eyes go down, my head goes down, I go into the stare, and she'll be like, you little guy. And be like, yeah, I'm little guy. Right. That acknowledging that in and right there helps me start to move forward. And what it does, it from an outside perspective, it's you're you're starting the process of giving grace, right? So now that I feel that, I'm already starting the path to forgiving myself. A yeah, let's go back five years ago, would have never even conceived it. A year ago, I didn't want to accept it. Right. I just wanted to sit there with the anguish and the anxiety and let it fester in me because that's what I felt like I deserved. Or it felt safe too. Yeah. It does. Yeah. Because when you do something wrong, you get punished for it. Well, if there's no one there to punish you, but you know you did something wrong, you're the responsibility or the accountability. I'm air holding up air quotes here. Right? The accountability of that is to punish yourself. Well, there's no telling how long you have to punish yourself. You can slap yourself on the wrist or you can go into a cave and exile yourself to uh, you know, wherever for as long as you want to. But the fact remains is that you doing that doesn't exactly serve the purpose. Forgiving yourself at some point and an understanding why what you did was wrong, that should serve a better purpose. And they saying that right now is kind of an epiphany.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:52

Yeah, yeah. Shoot. Yeah. All right. So let's be here for just a second. This self-flatellating perspective that I think anybody who's driven has. You know, because they just don't allow any margin. You know, it's just I'm I'm searching for what's best for whatever the purpose is. Again, I I I still kind of live in that paradox of like, uh, you know, my my my standards have not gone down. No. I think they've gone up. And this is where the butt comes in, but it's not enough for me to torture myself. Because it should be because the standard's not being raised culturally or whatever, whatever it is. Like it's not my fault. And there's nothing I can do other than be me to move things forward. You know, it's like the but things may not move forward. It doesn't have anything to do with me. Yeah. Except when, you know, in certain circumstances, right? Where it's like, okay, is this progression? No, but you know, I I don't have any control, you know, truly over circumstances or or or decisions or anything else like that. You know, this is sitting from you know a more aged spot, right? You know, I'm I'm I'm you know 22 years old when you're born, you know, you can be my kid.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:34

You know, this is the you know, the easily could have been my kid. You know, so I I I try to be careful about how I'm imposing a 60, 56-year-old worldview on a 35-year-old as opposed to you know, like a 20-year-old, you know, that's the nature of having parented for a while, and that kind of thing. Like there's a there's there's the maturity of experience, right? Which isn't necessarily maturity, it's just experience and data that that you know how things are gonna turn out, and human beings have to make their own choices and figure some shit out on their own.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:11

Legitimately what I didn't know yesterday kind of stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:13

Yeah, yeah. I I did not know that. No, I do. You know, it's a revelation. I did not know that was there. That's right. That is there. Oh man. Uh you know, and and I can say that, you know, at this age, it that concept's even more profound, right? Because I know more than I did 20 years ago. And by knowing more, I know I know even less than I did 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:40

You know, it's you know, it it sounds like cliche, but the reality is just the reality. As you as you age into these perspectives, you realize how little you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:53

And still, I I mean, I still I I I think I look back on it even so I look back at like 18 Alvin and be like, right, the the time when I really felt most confident. And I really didn't know. You know, now I look at like 22 Alvin, okay, coming out of college into coaching. Oh, I thought I knew. Oh, I really didn't again. Looking at 30 Alvin, it's a world apart of what I thought I knew.

unknown: 1:32:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:28

A world apart. I would not recognize that person in the mirror. Yeah. Not because I couldn't look at him. The way I talked, the way I walked, everything about me. It was I almost I remember that life, but then again, I don't, you know. Um and then there's, you know, everything that's happened since. You know, and I think for me looking back at it, I was never in control. And back then I would, you know, still freaking out about it. I'm here. Yeah. I'm thankful for it. Yeah, it shaped me. You know, the especially the hard times in my life. Um I had family tragedy in high school. Um, I had to work through a lot of adversity in college just because uh I moved to a place on my own. Um not completely. I had some financial help. Um, but you know, living living in Chicago, 3,000 miles away from home, right? That presented its own advert uh adversities. You know, learning how to work, right, had its own adversities. Learning how to balance school football and work had its own adversities, turning that into a career, right? Studying four years for a career and then completely doing a 180, right? I was actually, so I had a comms degree. We talked about that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:22

My goal was to go to law school. I was gonna go be a lawyer. I wanted to be HR, I wanted to be Tom Cruise. You can't handle the truth. I wanted to, I wanted to sit there and argue. Like I said, out of mouth. Might as well put it to work. Might as well put it to work, baby. And I left football in a crisis. I hadn't, I wasn't done playing. Truthfully, coaching probably wasn't the right answer either. But I needed to be around football. I needed to be around like-minded people. Coaching was the best way to do that. I wanted to be back on the field. Truly, beneath it all, what I desired is I still wanted to play. But any football player knows we don't get reunion games. Yeah.

unknown: 1:35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:20

We got old, you know, you can come back, you can stand on the field and wave, but you don't get the pat, you know, unless you unless you go play in Europe or unless you go play semi-fright. Hey, 44, and that guy still slings it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:34

Dude, like how did the defense betray him? Get get on so come on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:41

That was a great question. Um, you know, I I you know what's funny? So we Shane and I just went down to Lights Out in Long Beach, Lights Out Extreme Fighting, who's run by Sean Merriman, who played when I was growing up. I watched Sean Merriman. Yeah, I watched him beat ass. Yeah, it was great. He'd come off the corner, he had that dance, or he'd turn the light switch on and off. Man, having met him in person, like childhood dream accomplished. You know, I tried hard. I shook his hand and I said, Hey, thank you for this, sir. I appreciate the you know, I think I said appreciate the opportunity, even though I wasn't fighting.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:18

But in my head, I'm like, oh my god, I'm Sean Married. Oh my god, I'm Sean Married. I want to do the dance so bad in front of him, I want to show up, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:24

So I didn't fangirl in front of him. Thank God.

unknown: 1:36:28

All right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:28

All right. Last question. Let's go. What do you look forward to? Having a family.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:36

I've been hiding it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:41

Oh, we still I'm gonna be fiddling with a bunch of things.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:46

No, I'm sorry, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:47

I forgot to tell you about this spot at the beginning. Like on the production side here, away on the other uh end of the uh table. What am I looking forward to?

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:00

Uh there's a couple things actually I'm looking forward to. First is, you know, I do look forward to having a family. Um I work with kids a lot. They do, they they bring a lot of joy to my day. Um, you know, it isn't it's really not just my day. They bring a lot of joy to my life. You know, I I enjoy being on that polar opposite, that polar opposite of being an adult. Right? I am, I can be a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, a ten-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, and then go back to being 34. And I'm excited to, you know, look at what that's gonna look at that materialize. I'm excited about fighting.

SPEAKER_04: 1:37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:52

That's a part of my future right now. We don't have anything set yet, but I got a huge opportunity to go train at one of the best places in the world. And I'm not gonna waste it.

unknown: 1:38:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:11

I want to go fight. Like I tell telling you about football, I wanted to play football truthfully. I wanted to keep playing football. When I found jujitsu, it lit a it lit a fire because I want to compete. I think that was a huge part of the anxiety and the depression and stuff like that, because it's not the fact that I didn't come do everything I wanted to do on the field. I didn't, and it and it's because I didn't take advantage of the opportunities in college that I had. I did have opportunities to get on the field. I missed them. There's no qualms about it. There are times I should have been in the white room. I I enjoyed college a lot. I went to party. I did, baby. And we had a good party culture, right? Okay, that's a missed opportunity. I don't have any control of that anymore. What I do have control over now is my attitude, right? I want to go, I want to go train. I want to go push myself. I have to. I want to eat right, I want to do the right things, I want to enjoy my life. But, you know, I think a part of that too is I have an opportunity to go back and compete. And before I get to the age of 50, I want to have look at I when I got there and I look back at the 34, the 35 Alvin, at no point will I be able to say uh you missed the opportunity because you didn't take it. I will I will be tired, I will be exhausted, my body's gonna hurt. And I'm gonna love every single piece of it. At no point I'm gonna go through I accepted that at some point we all have to go see God. Yeah. I'm not gonna go walk, I'm not gonna walk up there fresh and spry and young and going, hey. I'm gonna walk up there tired, sweaty, hobbling, sore, hobbling. Right? If I get to 80 and I need a walker, so be it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:26

But I will have lived. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:29

That's great. Alvin, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. Appreciate you. I'm so happy to be here. Uh well, I'd like to thank uh Santa Cruz Vias magazine for providing the support. Also Pointside Beach Shack. Alvin, thanks again. Hey, all of y'all be blessed. Have a great day. Have a good rest of your day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:49

All that you're seeing is me. Type got the sea to believe.