The 29/1
Official Podcast of the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program. 29 Sports, One Team. The show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther Sports Community. Bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join Rodney Vellinga and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as they dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
The 29/1
Reflecting & Reminiscing with 2024 West Ottawa Hall of Fame Inductee Ato Condelee
Celebrate a journey of triumph, nostalgia, and inspiration as we welcome 2024 West Ottawa Hall of Fame inductee, Ato Condelee. A three-sport standout and 2013 Male Athlete of the Year, Ato shares memories of his high school sports career and the unexpected honor of entering the West Ottawa Hall of Fame. The episode is filled with laughter and positive reminiscing, capturing the excitement and joy of reconnecting with your past and the people in it.
The conversation takes a personal turn as we explore life beyond sports and how the lessons learned in high school currently shape Ato in his life. Each memory shared brings a sense of gratitude for the influential figures and cherished experiences that shaped Ato's journey.
From the value of hard work and mentorship in athletics, to the competitive nature of college sports, Ato's story is one of resilience and personal growth. Reflecting on his transition from high school to Ferris State, he emphasizes the balance of confidence and humility needed to thrive both on and off the field.
As we wrap up, we celebrate the opportunity of getting to know each other a little bit better and making connections. Join us for an episode filled with humor, nostalgia, and invaluable insights from a remarkable athlete and human being.
This episode was recorded on October 4, 2024.
Podcasts now dropping at 5pm every Sunday evening for that late weekend chill, or listen Monday AM during that morning commute or workout. Please like, follow, subscribe, or leave a review. Even share with someone who might like to listen. Thanks for taking the time to get to know each other a little bit better. The people who make West Ottawa Athletics what it is. Go WO!
Special thanks to Laura Veldhof Photography.
I didn't appreciate how much Kingma made an impact to me until after the fact, as I got older and, just like Meshur, I didn't know what he was doing, like he was investing in me personally. So yeah, he's the reason why you know we won a state championship that year, for sure.
Speaker 2:Like, without a doubt, without a doubt, coaches and other faces in the Panther sports community, bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join myself and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as we dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
Speaker 3:Coming back to your old stomping grounds is something every athlete eventually does. Ever take that nostalgia drive in your car late at night.
Speaker 4:Today, we're joined by 2013 West Ottawa grad Atu Kandali, who was recently inducted into the West Ottawa Athletic Hall of Fame. A three-sport athlete during his time with the Panthers, Atu also earned the 2013 Male Athlete of the Year Award.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were real lucky to spend some significant time with him during the three days he was here. Getting to meet somebody new and a West Ottawa legend who has become a mature, thoughtful human being is something that's going to stick with us for quite a while Atu Khandali on the 29.1 podcast coming up next. Let's get it All right, well, hey everybody, welcome back to the 29 one podcast. It is homecoming week. Let's go here at West.
Speaker 3:Auto High School. It's been very busy. We've had powder puff football, powder puff volleyball, Hall of Fame induction at the new performing arts center. It's been quite a week and we have a guest here. Got to spend some time with you this week. I've really enjoyed it. Who?
Speaker 1:who is it? I'm r2. Kindly what's up. What's going on?
Speaker 3:and, uh, gracious enough, your wife lauren is here.
Speaker 3:Lauren, nice to have you yeah, hi everybody you're in town, obviously for the hall of fame induction ceremony. You were inducted, bill and I were talking earlier. This is a little different for us because every podcast we've done so far we've known people like and this is a bit of a bit of a stretch for us, but it was like it was kind of meant to be I, we talked yesterday about it. Uh, your name kind of jumped off the page and we when I was looking at that, I was talking to bill, we got to get somebody on. This is all the fame it has been. I have to say, just personally, over the last two days. It's been fantastic. I really feel like you know we have a nice connection. It's been nice spending some time with you guys. So likewise.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so every year when we sit down for Homecoming Week, we get into Hall of Fame induction. Coming week we get into hall of fame induction and this being the first, this was the first year that we hosted the hall of fame induction here at west ottawa. We put in a great class out to your 2013 state champ in the long jump yeah, six, seven. In the high jump yeah, football scholarship at ferris state very deserving person to go into the Hall of Fame. When we started having conversations about what's the class, look like your name kind of, your accolades kind of jumped off. Talk to me a little bit about the phone call, the email, that first contact that you had with old Jack Carlson, who the Hall of Fame is Jack's passion project. I don't know if you could tell or not. Yeah, but talk to us about, like, hearing about this for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, first of all, thank you for all those compliments. I honestly I um, I was surprised, I was shocked. I didn't really think that I was worthy enough to be inducted into the hall of fame and I told that to somebody and they were like, really, I was like, yeah, like.
Speaker 1:I, I don't know, I just never looked at myself as someone that was like hall of fame worthy for sports. I just, I played sports and I did my best and then I moved on. Um, so it was cool. It was cool Like just Jack Carlson reached out and I was like a little surprised at first. It's like what it's like? Yeah, man, you're, you're in the hall of fame. I've got to send you some sheets, you know, here's your brag sheet.
Speaker 3:I'm like did you almost hang up? I think it was.
Speaker 1:I almost did I like I had to read it a couple of times.
Speaker 3:I'm like hall of fame. I was like what?
Speaker 1:is this Like an ad or something from West Ottawa? Credit card information, what's like, oh cool. So, yeah, it was awesome, it was, it was a. It was the first time I like, I actually like took a, took a step back and I was like man, high school that was a long time ago, but now I'm starting to think about it. Wow, maybe there was some things there that made an impact. So that was just really cool for Jack Carlson to reach out and yeah, we're here.
Speaker 3:You guys are settled over over in the detroit area, right? Uh, so let's talk about your life there a little bit. What's fun is you? You drove over and you told me about your car ride. You had two dogs in the car yeah, you guys got a couple dogs. Oh yeah, what's their names? What are they? What?
Speaker 1:type of dogs are they so? One is a toy size australian shepherd and her name is phoebe. She's like three years old, I think.
Speaker 3:What does toy-sized mean? Sounds fierce. She thinks that she is.
Speaker 5:She is what should be an 80-pound dog in an 18-pound body. Okay, she's a guard dog.
Speaker 4:She doesn't play any games.
Speaker 1:The other one's Tina, and she's a shit zoo mix with a wiener dog, so think about what that might look like.
Speaker 3:I don't know what to say, right now I'm a little shocked. My brain started to try and put that image together and just got stuck. Yeah, I don't tell you she's cool, though, man she's great she's like a fluff.
Speaker 5:She's just a fluffy wiener dog. Yeah, like long fluffy. Oh, that's really funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and then you guys, you're, you're an engineer, and lauren, you were in the medical field, now you're in real estate. Yep Got a connection with Bill's wife Yep.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 4:How's the market in Detroit?
Speaker 5:Horrible.
Speaker 4:Okay, it's not enough. Inventory no.
Speaker 5:There'll never be enough inventory or people that are actually ready to buy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dealing with very similar things here along the lake shore.
Speaker 3:Really nice to have you guys here, Obviously with the hall of fame. I just want to give a shout out to the ones who were inducted. So we had Courtney Locker Knobber and then Ron Allen, Karen Dykema. One thing that I thought was really fun about the was the pan. I call it the Panther Heisman.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Did you? Did you like it, that trophy that you have?
Speaker 1:I liked it, like I thought it was pretty cool, who designed that thing?
Speaker 4:So that we get those through Jostens. Okay, they're nice, which is a big national brand in the awards space, but that's been the trophy since the beginning back in 97. Wow, and Jostens basically has that mold and they get us four of them every year now and, yeah, it's definitely, I think, one of the coolest parts it's got some way to do all of that is that trophy? You got a spot for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna show it to my kids. Yeah, I don't know where it's gonna go in the house yet probably, probably in front of my bed or something, maybe in front of my work desk probably in the office.
Speaker 4:It's more appropriate than in the bedroom, maybe hanging up in the kitchen or something like right in the middle of everything, oh boy oh man, your uh sporting, life here a lot of people know it, we don't because we weren't here.
Speaker 3:I, I lived in the area since about 2000, but my kids didn't start going to high school here until 2016, so not really involved.
Speaker 3:Bill comes in I came in fall of 2018, fall of 2018, so I said this to you too I didn't know too much about you before we got started, so it's been fun to kind of learn about it the history of West Ottawa and different people that have been here. You and I did something fun yesterday. It was nice. We went on a walk at Panther Stadium and just to kind of get that nostalgia going. I want to kind of play around with that and see what that would do. It was fun to be over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was man, that was awesome.
Speaker 3:It was really cool. We're going to play a few clips here and there, so we're going to start out with one. This is Atu going back to Panther Stadium for the first time in quite a while, so we're going to play here in just a second.
Speaker 1:We did football on track at the same field. Obviously yeah, and you know that smell of grass.
Speaker 3:Yes, they just mowed the grass there.
Speaker 1:For some reason, like I don't know what it is, I don't know if anyone else feels like this, but like I always used to get like nervous when I smelled that. Oh, because it would remind me of like, okay, it's, it's game time, but like it was like the calm before the storm, no-transcript reason. I was just like, oh, my goodness, here, here, it is the day's, here, it's time to go. Oh, that's great so I smell it right now.
Speaker 1:I'm just like I kind of get those weird like nerve feelings even though I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 4:I agree with the smell of the grass, though, yeah, it takes you back immediately and unfortunately, in high school football. Now, especially here in West Michigan, our kids will not play one game on grass this year. Yeah, really there are no grass fields left.
Speaker 3:Like I feel like everybody is on turf now.
Speaker 4:You miss like the sense of like football, though, Like I feel, like everybody is, on turf.
Speaker 1:Now you miss, like the sense of like football, though, like I don't know, like in my head, like that grass is you got to smell it, like that fresh mowed grass. That's like, it's just, it's got a nostalgia to it.
Speaker 4:Man, you get into that second half and it's got some dew on it and it's just. Yeah, now the nostalgia is the rubber beads that end up in your shoe after a game.
Speaker 3:I came back from soccer last night and I got I got home I was gonna go for a run and have my running shoes on, like what is in there? You know you have something in your shoe. Oh, I didn't know what's in there. I was like, oh yeah, it's all these rubber beads, I take my shoe off, dump it down. There's at least a pile of 10 to 15 on my kitchen floor. It was pretty funny yeah it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 4:There was nothing like playing in the mud.
Speaker 5:Yeah, everyone coming home clean from a football game yeah yeah, it's great from a jersey laundering standpoint right.
Speaker 4:Like the moms don't have to get out the stain stick on the white pants anymore, yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Tide stock has dropped.
Speaker 4:No doubt about that.
Speaker 3:You had some really good teams back in the day. You played as a sophomore, you got started right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got pulled up on varsity as a sophomore.
Speaker 3:Let's play this little football memory when we were out there. Okay, I might repeat some of the things we just said, but let's do a little bit more. Yeah, a long time you started as a sophomore on football varsity.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So sophomore they pulled me up and that that was a big challenge for me because everyone's huge. I mean, you got guys like you know, desmond Morgan, you know, um, zach Boersma, right Like Ryan Verhuis got pulled up with me as well, but he was kind of ahead of the curve, you know he was. He was absolute monster at football so he started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he started playing at cornerback, you know, immediately. So I was, I was trying to get, get in the field of things. But, uh, sophomore year, yeah, varsity football, that's when it all started and, you know, just started adjusting, moved to receiver and then, yeah, the rest was history.
Speaker 3:You know, junior senior year would you remember any uh big plays out here like I?
Speaker 1:I am oh yeah, you know what's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's huddle. It's still got you guys on there, so there's, I watched, uh, I watched ryan, I watched you on huddle there's some fun stuff on there you're pretty shifty too yeah yeah, yeah, so I didn't, yeah, so, so that's that's what I was kind of known for.
Speaker 1:Like I would like to I call it juke, I would like to juke people out. I do remember some pretty cool plays, like especially against Grand Haven. It was over there on that far right side of that field, like probably right around the middle, on you know their 45, their 30. And I kid you not, man, like when I I got the ball it was like a little bubble pass. I did like this juke move and juked like four or five players out and but like that's, that's kind of like what I was known for when I played football. I wasn't super, I don't know, maybe someone called me fast. I wasn't like super, like explosive or like accelerated after I got the ball. I was always getting like caught from behind. I don't know why.
Speaker 3:You hated that. That's the worst thing, isn't it? I hated it, man.
Speaker 1:Like I just never could really like get out right, but like I could get you know five or 10 or 15 yards by juking people.
Speaker 3:I saw one play on huddle yeah, when it might have been. I think it I'm wrong. I'm wrong, but you took it, did your joke. You got all the way to that corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they took you out of the one-yard line. Oh, I remember that one, do you know?
Speaker 1:him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny. I don't know who that was against.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know either.
Speaker 1:But I'm going oh, he's going to the house, me on one end and then Ryan on the other end, and if they were playing over top of me, you know Ryan would go ahead and just score. Our offense was pretty good. I remember Trevor Van Tuber again. Do you know him? He was the quarterback for that time, yeah him, and yeah, he was pretty good. But yeah, we had a pretty solid football team man let's keep going.
Speaker 3:All right, let's do it, let's keep walking well do you want to go on the field?
Speaker 1:let's go yeah, let's go on the field be nice yeah, I'll run around on you and score a touchdown.
Speaker 4:Yes, you will it's so fun being out on that field.
Speaker 3:It was such a riot like, yeah, it's so weird for you to write to go revisit that place yeah after all those years and doing all that stuff, but you had some really great teams. It was a big part of your life for quite a long time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4:Playing up as a sophomore. We have the kid that'll start at quarterback for us tonight as a sophomore, maybe talk to us a little bit about what that? You kind of alluded to it a little bit, that sophomore year. You're not as strong as your kids that you're going against. You're, in some cases, maybe three years younger than some of those 18 year olds that are playing varsity football. Talk about, I guess, that situation and being a youngster and playing against really grown men. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I would say, if I could go back and and just like replay everything that I felt, I would say don't put so much pressure on yourself, especially as a sophomore man. You've got this year and then two more years before college even begins. So just get out there, take it all in, man, enjoy it, try to laugh. I was talking to Rodney about this yesterday. Man, like all that pressure that we put on ourselves as, as kids in sports, it's all in our mind and it affects our game negatively. It doesn't affect our game positively. I feel like some of the best athletes, they know how to have fun out there and enjoy themselves.
Speaker 1:I went against kids in college this is my college career at fairs today. I went against kids receivers, top receivers, right In D2 at the time, and these guys, would you know, do some light trash talking, you know, but they were always like uplifting, like joyful. I couldn't, I didn't understand. I was like I was always like really super focused. But these guys were coming out in the field laughing, talking, having a good time scoring touchdowns. I'm field, laughing, talking, having a good time scoring touchdowns. I'm like.
Speaker 1:I'm like what's going on? I'm over here, serious, focused on, like my plays, trying to make sure I got my foot positions in the right. No, I'm getting beat for touchdowns sometimes. I'm trying to figure out why. It's because my head man, I put too much pressure on myself. So if you're a sophomore going against guys that are junior and seniors, man, I'm telling'm telling you right now most of those kids out there, they're probably already going to put too much pressure on themselves. Go out there and have fun, enjoy yourself and I guarantee you that's going to show well in your game. Like you're going to be surprised at what you can do when you just really just get outside of your mind and just say, all right, no pressure, whatever happens in this play, it doesn't matter, I'm having fun. That's when you really start shining.
Speaker 4:For sure. Yeah, I think you just got to cut it loose right. It's so hard to do.
Speaker 3:It's tough. Let's move on to track and field Specifically. That was a big thing for you in your time here. High jump, long jump were kind of the things that you did. We also went over to the long jump pit the other day.
Speaker 4:You went to the old pits right that you would have used, which are probably not in great shape. They're worn out, yeah.
Speaker 1:I almost. Yeah, rodney and I were over there yesterday. I was going back through them about me and my coach, coach Kingmo. We were doing our steps, basically like stepping out how many steps we're going to take until we jump on the board for long jump, and so I decided you know, hey, I know I'm 29 years old, right, yeah, but I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. And then I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is what happened. Yeah, well, go ahead and show what happened.
Speaker 5:This is why your hips hurt. All right, I'll hold that, are you?
Speaker 3:ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kidding.
Speaker 3:What are we doing?
Speaker 1:You're going to jump? I'm just kidding, yeah. I'll jump. Let's do it, are you? For real. Let's do it one more time. Here we go.
Speaker 3:Oh, I think you made it through the pit Dude.
Speaker 1:I almost tore my hamstring trying to jump. I slipped on that wood.
Speaker 3:Alright, you guys, you can let out your laughter. Now Go ahead. These two are just holding each other, trying not to laugh out loud. Lauren, how was that day for you? I haven't heard about that.
Speaker 5:We were walking to the beach last night An average dog walk. He's like my hips hurt. I'm like, oh, how come? I don't know Old age 29 years old. I didn't even know about this activity until it was spur of the moment.
Speaker 3:It started out as a light joke, which turned into a bigger one.
Speaker 1:Come on, don't act, bill you already know don't act like you. Don't have those days where you're like man, I can just put the football pads back on and do one more, one more play, and then you just give it your all. It doesn't matter what age you are, you want to do it right.
Speaker 4:I always tell coach, I've got. I got one three down series. Yeah, and between my old man strength and the stuff that I learned in college, I still think I could get to the quarterback see, this is, this is the illusion.
Speaker 1:This is the illusion, I think I could get to the quarter my
Speaker 3:son. When my son was 12, we'd go to some courts and play basketball and I'd beat him. Yeah, I'd manhandle him a little bit, he's 12 well, he wasn't manhandling, he was 12. He was 12 and uh, so he keeps growing up about 15. I can still kind of do it. 16 started to change a little bit, yeah, and now it's not even close, but in my mind he goes, he goes.
Speaker 1:You can't play against me anymore I'm like, yeah, I can, and I know I'm wrong, but I cannot give up that psychological battle.
Speaker 3:I am not going to defer and say I cannot, even though, yeah, it's more than likely, see, I'm still doing it, but it's more than likely, I can't. I just can't do it, yeah we all want to believe we can go out and do it still, and you did, yeah it wasn't a state record, but uh, you did hit sand and it went up in the air a little bit.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's, that's that's generous.
Speaker 3:No, that's generous.
Speaker 1:Very generous on what actually happened.
Speaker 3:Well, in 2013,. We didn't need to be generous because you were a state champion. Talk about that for us. Twenty three feet three quarter inches yeah, it's a cool story because it was seven seconds of glory, right, we talked about that a little bit yesterday. Talk about that if you don't mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the most focus I ever was in sports, even in college, like in any sport. I played college football at Ferris State University. I was very focused. Right, you had to be very focused in college, but I remember that whole year in high school, 2013, in track and field season, the only focus that I had in my mind was winning state and long jump. I knew I could do it just because, like the previous years, I was all state and I was like always progressing, doing better each year, and I knew, like this is the last year, I can do it. So I knew I would probably only have about what? Seven seconds to actually start to finish, from starting to actually jumping on the board, to landing in the sand for being finished at state, to landing in the sand for being finished at State. But there was hours and hours of spent in practice with Coach Kingma just working on my steps, my footing position getting stronger. I spent so much time in the squat rack and the weight room just trying to become as explosive as possible, working on my form. There's so much detail that went into that, man, but I kid you not. I was talking to you about this on the phone when you called me when I was at my form. There's so much detail that went into that, man, but I kid you not. I was talking to you about this on the phone when you called me when I was at my house.
Speaker 1:Don't underestimate hard work. Hard work pays off. It really does. I know it's cliche, but it does. It does pay off when you're truly focused, you have tunnel vision and you give it your all. You really give it your all. You're actually putting in all the work that you need to put in. You're staying late after practice. You're doing the extra work that nobody else is doing. It will show. It will show at the end result, and it did for me, you know, in 2013.
Speaker 1:I think about it all the time. I'm like man, like I take that to life now, too. I'm like look, this is what. This is what happened. I, in the beginning, I had a goal, I focused on it, I paid attention to detail, I did all the work that I needed to do and the results was I was a state champion. So I apply that now to to my business right. I apply that to how I lead my family and how I treat my wife. You know, try to do the extra little things to take care of her. My church right. I try to be the God-fearing man that I know God has called me to be in my community. So all those things are the same principles that I learned in track and field in 2013. I apply it. I apply it everywhere now.
Speaker 4:Our volleyball coach always talks about hard work and her the line that she uses is hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right on the money. You had a lot of people come alongside you when you were younger. You spoke about Christy Jernigan the other night at the banquet, which is fun, and you looked at the crowd and were kind of pointing at different people. You had already mentioned Coach Kingma. When we were out by the pit we talked about him a little bit too.
Speaker 1:You talked about Kingma. We, when we were out on the by the pit, we talked about him a little bit too. You talked about Kingma last night. There was a different look on your face. Yeah, kingma, yeah, he's. He's a game changer. He was, he was, he was. He set apart as a coach, for sure, and his, his level of detail in an investing in, like the person, instead of just the actual result it was that's what a coach is supposed to do.
Speaker 1:I didn't appreciate how much Kingman made an impact to me until after the fact, as I got older and just like, matured. I didn't know what he was doing, like he was investing in me personally. So, yeah, he's the reason why you know we won a state championship that year, for sure, like, without a doubt, there was so many moments like I, I like wanted to quit or, you know, just didn't want to do it anymore or, you know, just got frustrated, you know, as teenage athletes do. But he always brought me back down to earth, talked to me, sat me down and just gave me wisdom. Man, so that's what you need. It's a young teenager that's trying to win state. You know, you gotta, you gotta know that person, you gotta invest in them, so he took the time to do that you know this is, this is educational athletics.
Speaker 3:when you get those other levels we get to, but educational athletics is really a lot of us right when it goes well. Can you speak to, maybe just as a young man, all the different coaches you had, because at 15, your father passed away. That was a big moment in your life.
Speaker 1:Maybe speak to that a little bit, if that's okay. Yeah, that was a tough year. Maybe speak to that a little bit, if that's okay. Yeah, that was, it was a tough year. Yeah, my dad, you know, suddenly passed due to cancer in 2010. And I was a. I was a 15 year old kid.
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm I'm like a like what am I? I'm like a freshman and sophomore in high school and, you know, as soon as my dad passed, I've got. Two weeks later, I've got conditioning that summer with the football team and I mean, this is prime time. Like you're, you're still learning a lot about, you know whether or not you're even good enough to play football. So you're, you're giving it your all, like you're trying to prove yourself to the team. I jumped right back into it, man. So I had to rely a lot on, like, the coaches that I had at football, track and field basketball, and it was really important for them to like take me under their wing and like start to mentor me, because I was kind of missing that right, that that part at home, and I had other people.
Speaker 3:You had lots of brothers, big family I had big family.
Speaker 1:You know, ryan Verhuis and his family, bob Zucker, mrs Zucker were were huge part in that kind of leadership, mentorship role, parental figure my mom obviously was. She held on the whole entire family, so that was huge for us. But as far as like that father figure, you know I was really looking for that in sports as well and I was kind of missing that, you know, part. So I really relied on the coaches that taught me and I know I mentioned coach Kingma. I mean, he was just, he was just a huge help in that and he just taught me so much discipline, hard work.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest ones was learning how to be calm under pressure and then also, when things don't get right, learning how to react in a positive way, Like as a kid. You don't even understand that man. There'll be so many moments where things go wrong and I'm like I just want to freak out, get frustrated, cause that's what you do as a kid, like you're, like you don't know how to handle that Right, especially if you're a quarterback. You, you know it's fourth, fourth quarter games on the line. You're down by six points and you're at the 10-yard line, your opponent's 10-yard line, and you throw an interception.
Speaker 3:How do you deal with that? It's hard to do as an adult to stay calm all the time. Goodness gracious, we're talking 15, 16, 17, 18-year-old kids.
Speaker 1:Right. But that's what happened when I got coached by some of these coaches at West Ottawa. They taught me these things in practice and it helped me, especially in the year of 2013, with track and field learning how to stay calm when things don't get right, so that you can be successful and that you can win a state championship but not only that, man, that translates so well to life as well. How many times do you go through troubles and challenges in life that you get beat down on? How are you going to react? Right? You don't learn that growing up as a kid, that's just going to carry over. It's not like you just automatically wake up one day and you learn it.
Speaker 4:So, huge help, huge help. Yeah, that's the beautiful thing about educational athletics and what has drawn me to kind of do what I do yeah because you see kids go through these little mini struggles, right?
Speaker 4:um, they drop a point on a volleyball court or they miss a pass in a football game, and it's how do they get up off the mat? Because those life lessons that they're going to take forward in their life they're going to pop up again. Right, we're never going to be successful at everything we do. And if you are successful in everything you do, maybe you need to try something different. Right, like, it's okay to fail, because that means you're trying to advance yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's good.
Speaker 3:It's really good, bill, thanks.
Speaker 4:That hit me. I love that one. I'm, that hit me. Yeah, I felt that one. I'm beside him quite a bit, he hits me. That got me. I was like, okay, all right, you gotta, you gotta fail man yeah, there's growth.
Speaker 1:There's growth in in the struggle. There's growth and failure. Yeah, yeah, it's good to learn that, though younger it is you know 100.
Speaker 4:That's why we we do what we do and we really try to encourage our student athletes to learn how to overcome those failures on the court on the field.
Speaker 5:Lauren, what's your take on some of this stuff that you're hearing in here and see people who saw him as a kid kind of in this big-headed, you know, chest-puffed-out top of the world to like really getting broken down over the years and then built back up in a totally different way and like getting to like be married to that part of him and then just kind of like dabbling in and stepping into, you know, his life as a kid here.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 5:I don't know. It's always cool to me to like see other people see him where he is now.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's really nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like when you're, like when you're when you're a teenager, you don't think anything stinks, man, you think you're on top of the world it.
Speaker 3:Well, and, to be honest, when you're a top athlete, yeah of the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing else matters. No. So you know, pride is huge like that's that starts to sink, sink in and it's like who's gonna tell you anything?
Speaker 5:I was that kid you're never taught that pride it's a bad thing. As a kid, everybody tells you to be proud of yourself like that's always been a good. It's not till you get to an adult adulthood where you're like, oh pride ain't that great, like I can't really pound my chest anymore. You know, I'm not I never knew.
Speaker 1:I never knew humility to be strength. Yeah I was never taught that right and as you grow up as an adult you learn very quickly that pride doesn't get you anywhere no no one wants to be around it. No, it's ugly trying to steal that young athletes at a young age.
Speaker 3:It's, it's good yeah, it's a hard balance because we even talked about trash talk the other day. It's like you got to have a little moxie to you when you play. You got to have that. But there's always a fine balance which is so hard to find.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, I, I really enjoyed trash talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know we talked about it yesterday too. It's like I always like to trash talk the kid and we talked about this a little bit so funny. But I was I. I tried always to be funny, yeah, when we did trash talking. So it's like, you know, just not be super tough, you suck whatever. Right now we're gonna bring something fun into it and it's like, hey, I'm glad you're in the game, but you're gonna be sitting down about two minutes yeah you know, yeah, I just I played positions that were not like I wasn't scoring touchdowns or catching passes or I was trying to steal someone else's will.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're a wild animal on the outside, unleashed dude that's the only way to kill me.
Speaker 1:Man, steal someone else's will. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with trash talking if you can do it and like the trash talking. That doesn't work is just like being negative to someone else. Oh yeah, that doesn't work it's. It's like the reverse psychology type, like you're giving them compliments hey man, I like your socks. Today you're telling me. I got a lineup next to someone that just said I like your socks. Oh, he's in my head immediately like hey man, I like your smile, you got a great smile. You know that Like what? Why is my opponent telling me I've got a great smile?
Speaker 5:You know you didn't give compliment Trash Dog. No, no, I didn't.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't at all, but I wasn't very good at it. Maybe you received it. I wasn't very good at it, right.
Speaker 3:I tried high school here and you head over to Ferris State. Yeah, really nice career with the Ferris State Bulldogs under coach Tony Anise Legend. We know you played there. We know you had a successful career. Talk about, maybe how, the competitive part of it. What do you have to do to compete at that level?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you walk into practice, or I should say, two days right. You walk into two days right the first summer and you quickly realize, after doing seven, seven on sevens, what is it called.
Speaker 4:Seven on sevens.
Speaker 1:Once you do seven on sevens that you're no longer the best athlete on the field, that every single athlete that's on there was the best in high school. It's a reality check for sure. Humility sinks in quickly but it's good.
Speaker 1:It's good, everyone needs to go through that, right, everyone needs to go through that. And then you kind of get this I mean, eventually you got to get some reps right, but eventually you get like this, you adapt. You get like this competitive edge, like if you're a competitive athlete and most of those kids that are either on scholarship or at that college that are playing sports are pretty competitive. So you kind of get like this competitive edge in you that says you know what, I'm just about to go out here and just school, everyone Like I'm, I'm taking it on, I'm taking it face on, I'm, I want to be the best, and that kind of instills in you. And then you really just start getting after it. Man, like it. It's kind of crazy how, how it all happens. It's kind of like you know you get put in an environment where everyone's better and then you just adapt to that environment. You know like it's like counseling, like you hang out with wise counselors. You become wise, right, but you hang out with fair enough, that's true.
Speaker 1:Watch your life fall into pieces. It's the same thing in football, man, you. You get in front of people who are the some of the best athletes in the state and it's like, all right, I'm about to become either like them or even better, because that's that's who you're surrounded with the whole time. So I just remember being very, very competitive and like just going all in and football, you know, but it did pay off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a season or two, did I? I played pretty well for for a couple of seasons. I remember one season I had. It was my best season. I think it was my redshirt sophomore year. I had four interceptions. It's kind of wild how that happened.
Speaker 3:That's fun, it must be fun to play at that level? I obviously haven't. So it must be really fun to play at that level and have success, like what a rush that is, just as an athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. That's cool. Huh, that is just as an athlete, yeah it was cool. Huh, it seems like a lifetime ago though.
Speaker 3:And it is.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I do remember. I remember like there's nothing better than just like you get in the, you get in the game and it's like you're like third quarter, right In the middle of all of it, the fans are going crazy and you're standing across your receiver and it's like a third down situation and they say hut, and you're backpedaling and the receiver goes deep and you know they're throwing it to your side and that ball's in the air. That moment between being the ball being in air and then you running over there and then getting an interception and then catching it and you're like those are the moments interception and then catching it those are the moments right there that were worth it. All those, all those workouts, staying late after practice you know the competitiveness in college football. All of that was worth it when you go through those types of moments. So that was fun, cause I had.
Speaker 1:I had four of those. I had four of those moments and I had some tackles and stuff. You know. You know my redshirt sophomore year that I remember when I was like man, that was but those, those interceptions really stand out, huh yeah, like I mean, if you watch them on tv.
Speaker 4:When you somebody gets a pick, they are hype right like yeah, yeah yeah yeah, we've talked to talked to a couple of west ottawa alums who have gone on to the collegiate level and that's been a very common theme, as we've talked to them about that adjustment from high school to college and kind of that initial like holy cow, this is different. Everybody's the best at their school, everybody's the best in their county. Some of the top players in the state and now every dude on the team is exactly on that level and it does create that. It humbles you. Yeah, that first year though I think, especially in college football, you got to get through that first year. Got to get through it.
Speaker 4:I was talking to we have a young man, carter Sculpin, who's at Davenport and he was at our game at Caledonia last week. He's a freshman at Davenport. I was asking him how his experience is going and he's not sniffing the field. He knew going in he's going to be redshirted and all of those things. I'm like you're going to make it through right. He goes. Oh, absolutely, he's got the right mindset. He knows that this year was a growth and development year for him. So that's really cool to kind of see our high school kids start to kind of understand the mentality that you have to take to really survive? College athletics it's different.
Speaker 1:You'll be surprised what you can do to when you're put in those situations Like you're put in a situation where your back's against the wall. It's like eat or get eat, especially in college football. Man, these boys don't. I mean, these are grown men, these are 20, 21-year-olds. Some of these guys are 6'7", 6'8", 300 pounds muscle. They don't. You're a young, you're a young freshman kid coming in. Some of these guys run four threes and a 40 yard dash. Some of these guys are projected to get drafted. Right, who are you coming in? And they've got a. They've got a whole recruiting class of guys similar to that coming in next year.
Speaker 1:So don't think that you're getting comfortable. So you got to show it every day. So it's kind of like you get in that mindset where it's like, all right, I don't have a choice but to go all in to get competitive. And it pushes you and you man, you'd be surprised at some of the results, what you can actually do when you actually put go all in. You know you, you get competitive. You, you focus on just like the small things. You're just like all right, I'm going on them. This is, I'm here for this, right. You know, type mindset, type mindset Like, ah, let's go.
Speaker 3:All the while getting your engineering degree yeah that was wild. Tell me about that. You had a funny story about going to practice and then having to go to class.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, we had our engineering building, rodney Bill, I kid you not, we had our engineering building like a mile away from the football field. Right, we would practice Hard practice building. Like a mile away from the football field. Right, we would practice hard practice, college football practice. Not like, just turn off your mind and be athletic. No, you're, they're running plays, they're switching plays. You got to know the place. You don't know the place you're running. Like, oh, you don't know that play coaches. Like Nope, you're running. So you're, you're mentally exhausted. Right, it's full focus, it's. It's a very difficult level to perform at. But right after practice, after you're dead tired, you're sweating, you can't even move a muscle. You got an engineering test on heat transfer. Yeah, what's?
Speaker 4:heat transfer. Right, you didn't know, you didn't know what he you didn't know he could be transferred, did you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go, go, take a. Go take a two and a half hour test on heat transfer, a mile away. By the way, your practice ends like 10 minutes before the test starts. Oh, the professors, by the way, they don't care, you're a football player, oh, and if you're late you're not taking the test. Doors are locked, so you better be there in 10 minutes. So, yeah, that was funny. I used to, I used to get used to finish practice. I I didn't have time to go to the locker room and take a shower like everyone else.
Speaker 1:Right, you take your football pads, you take off your helmet and you run. You got. You got your football pants on. Still, you got your cleats on. I kid you not, I'm walking up the stairs, I'm like cleats in the engineering building. It's like on the fourth floor. Sit down. You get your pencil. Right, you got your backpack on the football field. You take your backpack, you take your pencil out. Take your pen out. You're ready to go. Switch your mind to engineering Now. Start thinking about heat transfer and how those principles apply. It was pretty cool, but I mean, like I said, backs against the wall, right, just no, no different than football competing against all these top level high school athletes, right? No different than football competing against all these top level high school athletes, right, that are now in college. Same thing You're like. It's got to get done. Yeah, go ahead. My wife's raising, raising her hand.
Speaker 5:I thought I was going to sneeze. I liked it I loved it.
Speaker 1:That was the sneeze thing. That was the sneeze.
Speaker 3:You know what was really funny is you were, we might leave this thing, cause it's kind of funny, but you weren't full cough, so your hand wasn't high to the sky, you were like it was about just like a little bit of a shoulder, I might be sneezing, I know. I'm bringing it up to here.
Speaker 5:I want to let you know and then you pulled back.
Speaker 3:That was great. Thanks, Eddie. We have a little thing if we leave this in which we might is that if someone has to cough on the podcast, they'll just hold their hand up of?
Speaker 4:yeah, hand up, I might be sneezing, might not like a little bit for a second here. That's good. What was the experience like playing for coach anise? Oh so, my paths have crossed with him over the years. First when I was a young coach uh, he was the head football coach at muskegon high. Then he went to grcc and then ferris and we've had some kind of interactions over the years. I actually worked for his wife. She was the h HR director in Forest Hills where I came from. What was playing for Coach Anise? Like? He's an intense individual, he was the best coach.
Speaker 1:When I say best, when it comes to winning, he was the best coach I've ever played for. I mean, he was X's and O's, but then, on top of that, he invested in the people that he recruited more than any coach I've ever met in my entire life. When it came to winning, he knew how to bring the best out of you in form of your athletic capabilities, push you past the limits that you think you can achieve at. He did that very well, man. Man, he did that extremely well, and that's why he's one of the most winning coaches in michigan. So playing for him was just it's more of like an honor. Man, I was like you listen right, like when he talks you're silent.
Speaker 1:There's no like talking back right like you just listen to him and he is right a lot of the times and he would know how to put you in different positions on the field or different coverages on the field, especially for a defensive back or corner, like he would. He would know how to maximize your athletic capabilities. Who does that? Who knows how to do that? And he did that on the offensive side and the defensive side. He was more on the offense but like he knew exactly the players that he had, he was like no, this guy's starting, this guy's starting because I know the type of plays that they can make in this down, in this situation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's a guy that could coach every position on the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:At really any level could coach every position on the field. Yeah, at really any level. Yeah, I would say that over the years, knowing him and understanding kind of where he started at Muskegon High and the investment that he made into the student-athletes at Muskegon High School, and then he's carried that really forward at GRCC and now at Ferris and ultimately winning a national championship Now he's got that under his belt. Didn't they get two? They may have.
Speaker 1:I don't know, maybe it's just one.
Speaker 4:I thought they won two. Yeah, I can't remember.
Speaker 1:At.
Speaker 4:GRCC. He won like oh, he was.
Speaker 1:What two, three.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and they don't even have a program anymore.
Speaker 1:They don't even have a. He went in there and built it up.
Speaker 3:That's funny, coach at times. These all these big programs once that coach leaves, better watch out yeah, yeah, well he.
Speaker 4:He left grcc because they were going to fold the program and he ended up at ferris and in my opinion he should have probably had the opportunity to coach the division one level at a western or a central or eastern. I think some of those schools probably look back and are like, oh, maybe we pass that guy up. But now I think he's very, very happy with what he's got going at Ferris and they're investing a ton into the program. Did you see the new building that they're putting?
Speaker 1:up I didn't?
Speaker 4:It's crazy.
Speaker 3:See.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Haven't been there in a while either, right.
Speaker 1:That's all that goes. I haven't.
Speaker 3:Let's get to. Uh, we'll finish. You've had a lot of people in your life that have affected you, made you a better person. All that, lauren, you've seen it as someone's wife, atu, does some mentoring. Can you speak to just you know, from when you met him to who he is now? This radical change to be able to now be mentoring young people and young men what's that like for you as someone that looks on?
Speaker 5:Oh yeah. So I mean it's kind of cool seeing, like I said, everyone's seeing him and who he is now. And there's many that might believe like, oh, you know, he was just a kid had a little bit of an attitude, great athlete, but good to see him where he is. But like the things that he's been through and the progress and the ups and the downs to get him to where he is now is has been really I've had the privilege of of knowing him for eight or nine years now, you were friends for a long time before you dated, right, yes, we were friends.
Speaker 3:Are we gonna get into the story? Because it's funny? We, yeah, we can, we can we're gonna um, okay, so his best friend, ryan verhouse.
Speaker 5:he played at Saginaw Valley State. I attended there for undergrad, so he would come with Ryan's parents to tailgate and we just kind of convened together as friends. So I saw him for the first time and I looked at one of my best friends, ellie, and I said who is that? That is a good-looking man. Tell her.
Speaker 5:She said girl, get in line. I'm like, you know, I figured she's like listen, I love you and I think you're beautiful, but she's going to end up with some supermodel, like not even a question. So I'm like, all right, fine, he's cool though, you know. So that was like I gave up on our potential romantic life. I quit sketching his name in my notebook.
Speaker 5:We were going to be friends and it was cool because we got to see the authenticity of each other as friends before romantically, but there was a really radical change with Aji that we all recognized as a friend around the 2020 season and that was when Motor City Church came to downtown Detroit and we were for the lack of a better term we were party animals. When we knew each other as friends, we loved being in the club, we were super social, we had a totally different friend group than we do now, and then he just kind of stopped showing up to places that we would be partying and it's like what happened to. And one day I remember someone's just like apparently he found Jesus. And you know, when you hear that, you're like, oh okay, but then it was like, oh no, this is, this is for real. Like he's different now. Even when he comes around, he's he's different now.
Speaker 5:And so over those four years, and this last year very specifically, there's been just massive growth and I always knew him as being like so full of pride. You couldn't tell this man nothing. He was all that in a bag of chips and he carried that. You you know from high school and from college and everyone always telling him he's the greatest, he's the greatest, he's the greatest. And um then he just like felt at us this place of humility and just became a servant for his community, for me, for his friends, for his family.
Speaker 3:And it's been, it's been amazing, it's been super cool to see yeah, it's nice to be around people that mature and kind of grow up, and it's nice to hear a story like that.
Speaker 4:How long have you guys been married now?
Speaker 5:Since April.
Speaker 4:Okay, so, oh yeah, a hot minute yeah.
Speaker 1:A hot minute. A hot minute.
Speaker 3:Well, you're still. There's still some fun you're going to have here at West Ottawa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a nice uh, it's homecoming.
Speaker 3:We play jenison at west ottawa stadium tonight you're gonna win.
Speaker 1:Honored, let's go, are you? Yeah, we're gonna win. We're gonna get it bill. We're gonna win, we're gonna get it.
Speaker 3:We're gonna get after it today, yeah we're gonna get after it today, so that's that game's tonight. You're gonna be in the new stadium for the first time.
Speaker 4:I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait to there, you and ron allen, who went into the Hall of Fame the other night together. It'll be his first time in the stadium. I can't wait to get you down on the field, introduce you at 645. We'll slide you off to the side when the band comes out onto the field and the team lines up in the tunnel and we hit the hype video and the smoke machines and all of the stuff that goes into this intro.
Speaker 3:I'm telling you, you as a competitor you're grabbing the pads, you will be running in. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Bill, your energy is going to be off the charts. Can we run with the team.
Speaker 5:Like are we in the huddle. I think that's a great idea, but I don't know if that hammy is going to pull.
Speaker 3:Hold you back.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. This is going to be exciting. This is going to be exciting.
Speaker 3:We're going to go down memory lane one more time. I want to thank you first of all just for being here for both of you. We've always said this podcast is about meeting new people, and I'm just really happy we took on the challenge of meeting somebody new that we didn't know. And let's come back in five years when you got a couple little ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I know I'll get a couple little mini mics, some little headphones. I'm so excited yeah. And then if you have a son, your son's going to be this prideful little guy who's puffing that chest out.
Speaker 1:I'm not ready. It's a boy, it's a boy.
Speaker 4:We're having a boy. We're having a boy. His first words I'm him Yep.
Speaker 1:I'm already looking forward to it. All the principles I'm going to have to teach him. Him talking back to me. It's going to be great.
Speaker 3:We're going to do a little nostalgia trip to end this. Thanks for coming on. This is uh to the old Panther stadium timer of the old days.
Speaker 1:I remember coming here as a kid and watching the varsity play when I was like in sixth grade, seventh grade and eighth grade and it was just, it was completely different, because everyone looks huge at the time and you're like, oh, I'm never going to play on that football field. Or like, oh, these guys are humongous. I'm terrified of every single person that walks off that football field. But I'd have come in here and I'd'd run up and down these stands, man, I'd get hot dogs, I'd run around in that grass area, my mom and dad would be in the football stadium and some of my brothers would be on the teams, right, I don't know, it was just cool, man, it's like. It's like growing up here was this, was a place to watch sports for your high school. I was like this is, this is a stomping ground, you know.
