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3RCM Episode 11 NFL Jam ‘95
19 Plays4 months ago
The brothers travel to the nostalgic intersection of school-sponsored extracurricular activities and juvenile delinquency, plus further reminders of the importance of punctuation.
A BittBros Production.
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
you
Speech and Debate Team Memories
00:00:34
Speaker
James, you said something about doing a speech and debate tournament. So you and I each did speech and debate. Jason, did you do speech you did right as well, right? The three of us? Yes, we all did. Not together. Did you guys have any, and I think the statute of limitations has has expired. Do you guys have any hijinks at all? like Yes. Okay, anything. i've got a I've got a pretty good speech and debate story as far as nerdy um at the time, possibly still nerdy. I don't know. i thought I thought we had fun, but I can go first and then pitch it to you guys or or what do you what do you think? I think Jason's got one. Okay, and we can obviously not share names. We don't have to.
00:01:16
Speaker
um I really hope this doesn't get me in trouble. How long to ago? It would have had to been almost 20 years ago, right? Yeah, but it was it was kind of an inner prank that we had all done. ah so When you say we had all done, meaning you and your classmates? Me and like four or five of us. So unfortunately for people, they made us a captain and they went, hey, Um, we need to know. And so I, I, I came up with a t-shirt idea. So let's, let's let maybe take a step back. So what grade where's this approximately? This was like 11th grade. Okay. So so you junior year, yep you were made one of the captains of the speech and debate team. Yeah. Year two captain. So I was captain sophomore, junior and senior. Oh wow. And senior and I think junior maybe. Okay. Um, and I was like, Oh, we gotta come up with a, with a shirt idea. And they go, right.
00:02:11
Speaker
my And I was like, well, everybody else has a shirt. Why don't we have a shirt? right and And they went, that's a great idea. So they said, well, what do you think we we should do? And I said, well, you know we should like come up with a t-shirt. And it says, a phrase that we've been saying you know for the past like year or so was, ah when you guys go in and you go into your finals, I just want you to to decimate everybody. right Decimate, decimate, decimate. Our theater director, that's what he would say. and he had a very high-pitched voice, so he'd be like, I want you to decimate, decimate, decimate! Like that at the top of his lungs before we leave. Thank you, by the way, for backing way up on the mic. But it's still... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very intense. You did it right. That was perfect. But anyway, I was like, well, he says it all the time. We came up with the phrase, so let's put it on the t-shirt. Yeah.
00:03:05
Speaker
You see these speech nerds running around with the words decimate, decimate, decimate on the back. okay Oh, okay. Do you know what the the definition of the word decimate is? It's like i don't destroy or- Hiddle, destroy, or remove a large percentage of or part of. Okay. So kill one in every 10 of as a punishment for the whole group. Okay. Oh, that's deci- Okay. That's right. Exactly. Okay. So it's the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers. So it's like, it's very, it's very primal. I'll just say it that way. Yeah. It's pretty aggressive, especially for, for a t-shirt, for, for each and every kid.
00:03:49
Speaker
so Afterward, someone's like, do you even know what that word means? And and I was like, yes. like We're all wearing, like 30 of us running the around. Hey, we're from blah, blah, blah, consolidated. Right? And well, you can say Lamar consolidated. I think it's been referenced on another, didn't we talk about another episode? Because YouTube still have your letterman's jackets that you don't wear. Okay. Yeah. I wear mine. If any kids should know what decimate means,
Innocent Mischief and Adventures
00:04:20
Speaker
it should be the speech and debate kids. That's right. That's right. So again, you see 30 of us running around, but it's really, it's a fun shirt. I still have mine where it is stars on the back of it, like sparkly, like decimate, decimate, decimate. By the way, for the audience at home,
00:04:37
Speaker
all three of you. ah Jason is currently doing doing jazz hands every time he says decimate. So that's kind of a long, because we wore those shirts, we had them for two years. right And it's just like, yeah, that was that was fun for for me to sort of kind of, but but like actual tournament stuff. I mean, there was ice buckets being put in front of people's like hallway doors all the time. Sure. Sure. That you just put on the handle and they drop it. It goes everywhere. Okay, that's pretty good. so Oh, certainly open the door. I see everywhere. And so what do you do is a nervous high school kid you panic. Oh, Oh my God. And you've got your stuff and that if you don't have your room key, and so it's just all sorts of stuff happen. And it's noisy too. So if you break out past your curfew time, which for us, it was 9pm. Oh, wow. And you hear a bucket fall and ice goes everywhere. You'd hear Miss A go
00:05:38
Speaker
everybody get back to your room from like somewhere else in the hotel and yeah yeah they're not classy hotels no offense to the no I mean well we didn't have the we didn't have the budget for yeah I mean it was if it was the best western that was pretty nice it was pretty nice um yeah you ever stay at a motel in the valley Nope. About two, three miles away from the border at the time there was activity, we pulled up to a place so in the Valley of Texas and you hear, that and you hear, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop
00:06:19
Speaker
rome yeah now it's but in india okay just like wow to texas this is
00:06:35
Speaker
Before I share mine, I have a quick aside, as I always do. One more thing, which is never true. I always have many more things to share. um and ah but But I do want to share, you reminded me of something with the decimate comment. Karen ah went to school in Southern California. And her yearbook says through the years on the front of it. And, uh, I think I've told one of you this story. So, you know, they say like punctuation saves lives. So it's like, you know, let's eat or let's eat grandma. It's like, let's eat comma grandma or let's eat grandma. Right. You've seen that t-shirt. Which is a band actually. There's a band called let's eat grandma. Is it really? Wow. There is. Wow. Okay.
Lost in Translation: Yearbook Mishaps
00:07:20
Speaker
So punctuation is important also. And I i guess this falls into punctuation.
00:07:27
Speaker
The tilde, which is the inje, so the little curve over the in, that is also important. The reason why that is important is because there are two words in Spanish that with or without the tilde means something radically different. So, A, inje, o, ano, so think anejo, all the different things, but ano means year. A-N-O, no tilde, no inje, means anus. So, on Karen's yearbook, on the cover, in all caps, it says, ah through the anus, what do I know, okay? oh Now.
00:08:11
Speaker
yeah
00:08:13
Speaker
And I wish I was kidding. So, so she showed me her yearbook one time. I don't remember why with the context. I think we were like going through boxes or something. And I said, Hey, that, that means something different. She goes, no, no, no, no. It's just like, he's like, no, they looked into it apparently. And I guess what they said was when it's in all caps, you don't have to use the tilde. I don't know that to be true, but what I suspect and what I told her, as I said, I can't imagine at that time. in Pico Rivera, California, which is a lovely place, that there were no native Spanish speakers on the yearbook committee. I find that highly unlikely. What I suspect is that that's what the kids told everyone else. Though as a prank, their yearbooks could say through the anus. and yeah So instead of through the years.
00:09:03
Speaker
So, yes. Okay. So, Feliz Navidad, Prospero Año y Felicidad. What is Prospero Año? So, what you would say then is Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Prospero Año y Felicidad. Yeah. So, sorry. I had to sing it like the alphabet, right? You have to go to this hunt to get it. Okay, so what you would say is, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas. Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas. Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas. Prospero año, so prosperous year and happiness, right? So I would say prosperous anus and happiness. So, yes. Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
Well, that's one way to celebrate the year. Jose Feliciano's not proud right now, guys. I just want you to know he's really disappointed. Yes, yes. You know, that is, I mean, that is probably, it's got to be top 10 in terms of most played songs during has to be ah during the holidays, for sure. For sure.
00:10:10
Speaker
Before I tell my, yeah, well, I'll tell mine. I want to build some dramatic. James, do you have anything? I mean, I'm deferential to both of you because you have better stories than me. But Jeff, your story, I'm um waiting with bated
Fire Incident at the Hotel
00:10:23
Speaker
breath to figure out. Yeah, so you remember a couple episodes ago, we talked about like tangible things with Scouts and specifically like knives and fire and stuff like that. ah Myself and three classmates were at a speech and debate tournament. And if you guys remember,
00:10:43
Speaker
Most of those tournaments have some events on Friday night and then they do all the events, you know, on Saturday. And I don't know that there was ever a Sunday tournament. It felt like they were always like Friday afternoon through Saturday, late afternoon, early evening. Yep. And then they do the awards ceremonies at two finals at six awards day, something like that. Right. And then, and then you're home by midnight or 1am or whatever. and But Friday night is a limited schedule, meaning not everyone has events. So I remember
00:11:15
Speaker
particularly in debate and the debate style that I did was called Lincoln Douglas, which is the one where you stand next to like, and you, you debate another person, but it's more LD exactly. Um, it's more, it's a more, I would say argumentative kind of style. Um, it's, it, there's a lot less preparation. And I think if I, if I remember correctly and I'm, Uh, I'm sure we will get many letters from, uh, strongly worded letters from the national forensic league or whoever else is running that, that show these days. But the other style of debate was cross examination or CX, right? And so, yeah, cross sex. And those, those kids had like the files with all the stuff and the research that is definitely not my attention to detail focus. I'm not doing CX. I did LD. So anyways, what did you do, Jason cross X or LD?
00:12:09
Speaker
I did both, but for me, I was a lot better at cross-examination and then I quit and I was like, I can't do debate anymore. I was tired of yelling at other kids that were the same age as me yeah because the whole thing is you basically have to flip-flop them, turn them upside down, right yell at them in cross-examination. In some ways, it's like it's to me it's another it's similar to mock trial. right I know there's kids that that do that. so there there is that that But you know, kind of attorney legal, you know, kind of set. But anyways, so you were doing Lincoln Douglas debate LD. Yep, I did LD and Friday night, Friday night, as well as another classmate and unnamed classmate. um And then two other classmates were not doing any events Friday. Well, the other classmate that did debate and I um scored quite poorly in our Friday night debate.
00:12:57
Speaker
And we knew that because they give you your um what what's they give you your scorecards right at the end of the at the end of the debate. And so you have a record there of what the scorecard looks like. And so yeah um this classmate and I ah were frustrated because ah we had scored poorly. um Oh, one other note. when we had checked into the hotel, um, that afternoon prior to going to the school, there was some kind of foreign substance all over the bedspritz, not a liquid substance to be clear. I want to make it very clear. Um, it was some kind of like, I think it was like, it might've been mold or was some kind of dust. We think we don't know what it was. Like maybe, uh, the popcorn ceiling, popcorn ceiling. Exactly. Something like that. yeah And so, um, so all of us,
00:13:47
Speaker
and this is maybe going to sound bad. When I say we were wrestling, ah don't let's not go back to Karen's yearbook. What I remember is somehow got a snort somehow yeah somehow the whatever was on the bedspreads was making us itch. and so and i don't Again, I don't think we weren't rolling around in the bedspreads, but however however it happened, myself and three, three other classmates who you you're sharing, well, you're sharing a room, right? Because it's, it's, it's, ah it's four kids in one room, two beds, you know, you're, you're, you're sharing a bed with a buddy, which who cares? That's fine. Nothing inappropriate was happening.
00:14:25
Speaker
And you're on vacation when you should be in school. So it's like 2 PM on a Friday and it's like, I could be in class, but of course you're going to roll around and goof off. Right, so you're roughhousing, you're being silly or whatever. You're being a high school boy, silly juvenile stuff. So anyways, so I remember whatever happened, um so we all got like started to get like a rash. And so we actually had to go down to the front desk. They moved us to another room. Wow. This is going to be important later because We had a wake-up call set in the old room for that next morning. Because Saturday morning, you have to be at the school at a certain time, right? Yep. 715 usually. Pretty much. Right. Which means, well, you have to like be up and down stairs at your hotel at like- 645. 645 right here. Yeah. You guys remember this perfectly. So we had set a wake-up call because there's four of us, which means four people have to shower. We were not saving energy by showering together. I just want to be very clear.
00:15:20
Speaker
So so so we had made it very clear like, hey, we need a wake up call. Fine. So we end up moving rooms. Well, when we move rooms, we also were very clear like, hey, we still need our wake up call. This is the room. No problem. Whatever. Oh, no. So after after the Friday night events, um this unnamed classmate and I go back with our our our ah our scores cards, our sheets, and we were um We were very frustrated. And so what we said is, hey, let's burn these sheets to kind of let go of our, and when I say burn these sheets, let's burn these scorecards to oh no let let go of some frustration now. And i I want to be very clear. We should need to put like a some kind of warning on this, this episode. So kids don't fire, fire, fire. There's a fire warning. So my, my dumbass and yes, dumbass is is the, is the right word.
00:16:15
Speaker
said, Hey, if we're going to burn something in our room, let's do it in the sink. Because that way, all we have to do is just push the water, right? You turn the water off. It's a Best Western or some Best Western esque motel. So we just turn the water days in right the days in so so you just turn the water on you put the fire out. No problem. Well, number one, ah we we radically underestimated the amount of fire that even what we were burning and We probably also threw like the Kleenex boxes and some other, there were other things that we were burning in this tank. And so yeah so so the fire got pretty big, which was of course alarming. And so, but I was able to, myself or one of my unnamed classmates was able to ah reach the faucet, turn out, put out the put out ah the the fire. Well, yeah. Go through a two foot plane. Right, right. Yeah, basically. Right. And it was fun and then it wasn't fun.
00:17:12
Speaker
So we put out the fire and now yeah this is a inexpensive, you know, budget friendly, family friendly ish hotel motel. Well, now the room is covered in smoke. Okay. When I say covered in smoke, covered in smoke to the the point ah okay covered in smoke to the point that we had to like get on a chair and unplug the smoke detectors. because they they would They would not stop going off. but go but so So now, this you know this is Friday night. It's like 9, 10 o'clock, whatever. um And yeah, there's a curfew. And so you know you're supposed to be in your room by a certain point, whatever. Well, so now the smoke detector is going off, which is alerting other students to what's happening. So we're trying to plug it. We figure it all out. We more or less talk our way out of things to where like one of us would go outside. Oh, because here's what we also had to do. We had to fan the door, so we're constantly opening the door and closing it to try and draw the the the air out, right the smoke out.
00:18:36
Speaker
More or less, we got through the night and, ah you know, no worse for wear generally. Well, you can imagine at 6 45 when our wake up call was supposed to happen, that did not happen. know at seven o'clock when our backup wake-up call, because keep in mind for you listeners out there ah that are not my age or even James or Jason's age, we did not have cell phones. And so there was no cell phone alarm. And I think maybe the maybe the room didn't have an alarm clock. So it was only the wake-up call, right? and Because no one really traveled with an alarm clock. Maybe people did. We certainly did. And we're high school kids.
00:19:19
Speaker
right so So now we wake up in the morning to...
00:19:25
Speaker
And so we're like, what is it? So we wake up and then we look and we're like, holy smokes, like it is really late. So we open the door and it's one of the captains and he goes, what are you guys doing? And we're like, uh, we just woke up and he's like, what? And so we're like, yeah. And he's like, why does it smell like smoke in here? And we're like, um, And so, so we're like, so at this point, and when I say we were talking, one of us, I think was engaged with the captain at the door. The other three are furiously like, you know, getting ready. Let me throw some hair.
00:20:05
Speaker
ah be It's also probably a good time to mention that one of our classmates had broken his collarbone. collarbone So he was in a sling. So he would ah he needed extra time to get ready, which he did not have. so So it looked like a scene from a movie. You got a guy in a sling trying to brush his hair with one good arm. Okay, somebody else is brushing their teeth and so and oh and when the when we look downstairs What we saw was a bus full of our classmates and the coach and The teacher looking up at us in the room going. What are you doing? So, so we're like, Oh yeah, we got to get ready. Give us five minutes or whatever. Hey, we've already been waiting. We've been knocking. You guys haven't answered. Okay. So then somebody came back up like five minutes later. Hey, you guys are in big trouble. Mrs. A is going to need to talk
Debate Leadership and Roles
00:20:58
Speaker
to you. You know, you're probably going to get kicked off the squad and all this stuff. And now, now we're like, Hey, look, it's, it's silly. um Certainly it was reckless. Our decision to make fire inside the room was a bad decision, but
00:21:11
Speaker
But like let's not, there's no lifetime consequences of this. No one really got hurt, ah except for the sink in the in the in the in the hotel. But so then then a few minutes more ah pass. And I think actually Mrs. A maybe even come up and said, guys, this is ridiculous, something like that. um and And to her credit, um she didn't scream at us or raise her voice. She was upset, obviously, but ah But then what ended up happening, I don't know if you guys remember this, sometimes parents would accompany to be extra judges or just support. So one of the parents was there and had their own personal car outside of the bus. ah So it's like, hey, Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so is just going to take you guys to the school directly. So just be ready in 15 minutes. That way the whole the squad and that you felt like a sleep that was the other thing. It was it was a lot of, you know,
00:22:03
Speaker
You guys have let down the squad and this and that. And it's like, all right, let's not be male dramatic. So yeah. Yeah. Lighting up. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But. You're being a little rash here. It's unbelievable. Call back to your rash. Get out of here. So. Jeez. You're fired, James. Yeah. There may be.
00:22:33
Speaker
There may be more to that story that I've forgotten. um but We can blame it on the secondhand smoke exposure. yeah and I don't think I'm engaging in revisionist history, but um you know if our listener base ever grows to the point that someone that was on the oh I don't remember what year. It would have been 1993 through 1997. Lamar consolidated high school um speech and debate squad. There may be someone out there yeah who knows more of that story. Certainly the three anonymous classmates, peers, friends yeah ah that were with me. They know what happened as well. Do you remember their names?
00:23:13
Speaker
I do and I cannot say because I don't really remember their first names, but I also remember their last names. And i so I think I know who it might be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so yeah but But but we will leave them unnamed. Absolutely. Because I'm sure.
00:23:32
Speaker
Hang on one second. I had to pause it because the volume on the TV in the living room um went way up, but it sounded like there was a man's voice in the apartment. of And so I needed to understand. Your face said it all, you're like, huh? That was fast. Hold on. Yeah. Hold on a second, guys. so I worked at the days in at so-and-so Texas in 1994. exactly four yes someone- You owe me $200. I saw you boys walk out of that room, look like Cheech and Chong, but hanging out in there. yeah That's all my picture says. you guys and that's
00:24:07
Speaker
You reminded me of something. That's how uncool we were. is It wasn't like we were smoking cigarettes or cigars or gambling. or gambling or Well, we might have been gambling. No, but we weren't we weren't smoking any legal or illegal substances. right We were burning our speech and debate ah score sheets ah you know in a in a feigned attempt at sticking it to the man. yeah So yeah, that's how that's how uncool that's how uncool and not edgy your oldest brother was. Oh man. I i never had i never had any drugs or alcohol experience. It's it's not to say that that it didn't happen because I'm sure it did. I just was never exposed to the bulk of
00:24:54
Speaker
My you know experience was overeating you know the pizza that I had to mooch off of everybody else because I spent all my money on ah blockbuster music on the Friday afternoon. My my freshman year, Speech and Debate, um both the the chronic and doggy style were two of the big albums. and so i mean I will say, and we may need to bleep this out, that you know, in freshman year, that was the first time I got to drink gin and juice. Yeah. And really, we only drank it because it was in the Snoop Dogg song. Exactly. You know, so like so we drank Seagram's gin and orange juice and we're like, yeah, but um but anyways. You guys know where we can get any endo? No, we're just gonna stick with some gin and juice. Yeah, exactly.
00:25:50
Speaker
That was my speech and debate story. I'd say outside of that, I mean, no other real shenanigans. And so I also mentioned earlier, I think that's part of the reason why myself and those other classmates, even if we had wanted to be captains, um at least as far as I remember it, we were never encouraged ah ah to and apply for that. Because you did have to like, asked for, right? Jason, it wasn't like, it wasn't given to you. So it was democratic, basically. So your teammates like voted on who they wanted to do it. And then it was just ah a vote. And then Miss A was the one who, you know, approved it at that point. And she, um for me, it was me and another and another gal, we were the two captains of senior year. um And of course, I was on the the more like the
00:26:39
Speaker
Uh, interpretation, the pros, HIDI, like duet that sort of thing. I was more of the acting side of things that she was definitely debate focused. And, yeah um, we ended up winning as a team. It was like two tournaments that year, which is pretty cool, but that's cool yeah but I mean, it wasn't. you know You do 15 of these tournaments a year. yeah um I think 10 or 15. That's probably 15,
Speech and Debate Impact and Culture
00:27:05
Speaker
right? I mean, it's an interesting... i I enjoyed it. I don't know if you guys enjoyed it. I mean, I think... I loved it. Yeah. I thought i thought it was it was great. It was a a great building block when you could ah really cultivate a person who was nervous about doing just anything. It's like, hey, you can you can stand out in front of people. It's not a problem. And they go, yeah, I'm scared. And you go, no, you don't need to be scared. like
00:27:28
Speaker
Everybody's scared. I'm scared when I do this. I don't want to talk in front of people. And you're like, okay, yeah. Let me be scared. And so, you know, you teach them techniques and you can see like a kid grow like that. And that was probably the best part about that whole thing. And I remember it's like, oh, you never, you know, I never qualified for state or nationals or any other, what I would say the NFL bullshit that you've got to do because For me, I didn't, and number one, we didn't have the money to... NFL was the National Forensic League, everyone. That's right. Not the National Football League. That's right. So, number one, we didn't have the money for me to be able to go to nationals. And it's not like it's an expense paid trip. um yeah You would have had to raise money by selling candy bars or get sponsors. Exactly. right and And I looked at it and I was like, look,
00:28:19
Speaker
I'd rather teach people how to do this because I'm not into that level of accolade. How is this going to benefit me on a college application? And it really, I mean, it really doesn't. My goals were or extraneous, but being the captain was cool because you know I'd done it for, like I said, I think a sophomore year and then I was like a junior captain and then it was captain both junior and sophomore or senior year. So it was like I ran it. That's cool. Would you go back and judge? at ah at a ah tournament? Maybe, I don't know. You know, if if the girls got into it when they're old enough to get into it, I probably would. But like for me, I think you'd probably much rather have me there versus anybody else just because like I care about like what these kids are doing. I just have a problem of, you know, being able to say, oh, you were the best, you know, I'll tell everybody they're the best because when you're in high school,
00:29:16
Speaker
The thing that we always miss about it is how like impressionable someone saying the wrong thing can be to you. And I think we lose sight of that today just because, you know, we make it a subject every every kid's buried in their cell phone. Well, they are but why? Yeah, you know, and so something like that. Yeah, you're saying because ah if I'm understanding you correctly, It's that you feel like people aren't taking interest in what they're right so that's why some of the kiddos are buried in their cell phones is because people aren't taking an interest in them or what's right. in them That's right. Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing. You know, hitting the speech and debate tournament to judge.
00:29:52
Speaker
It'd be great if, you know, you could do it, but I don't have, you know, acting chops, right? I only did a couple of plays. I didn't do anything major. Um, and, and so it's like, you know, I know they need volunteers, but then I talked to somebody who did it and he's like, Oh, I love doing it. And he's the type of salesperson that loves to sell and not solve problems. And I'm like. uh it's kind of cringe speech and debate also this is just my perspective is drastically different outside of texas it's almost like the high school football yeah it's like the high school football phenomenon it it means something different when you're when you're doing it in texas like we were fortunate we had a team that went to went to state won the state championship right
00:30:34
Speaker
One year you talking about football or football football debate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very competitive. Yeah. Very competitive football team. and And I did speech and debate when I left and moved to California, but it was different, huh? It was totally different. Like it was almost like people were not as it wasn't that people weren't passionate, but they're they borrowed a decent, a different discipline to it. And so I also wonder is, is has did a lot of that stuff go virtual? So like, do they even need Do they even have in-person judging now? Is it is it conducted virtually? right Do you have judges logged in to a Zoom ah you know or a Zoom-like thing to to watch? but Performances in person are just so much more impactful.
00:31:15
Speaker
but i look at when you're a judge at say tournament for a weekend, you don't get to see the amount of time that that kid constructed in themselves. And so it can be very cutting tool. Yeah,
Personal Development and Humor
00:31:25
Speaker
that's true. So for me, like, I'd love to be like an assistant or volunteer, you know, some level of of influence to to like high school kids. Yeah, but is it going to take me away from my own family? And It's like that's the that's the difference. Do you invest time in your kids or do you you know invest time in others? And I think there's a really delicate balance to where it's like, yeah if I was a teacher, I could totally you know justify it. But it's like, hey, what are you doing? I'd rather have you be around here. But I i love the fact of like any sort of civil or civic service to be able to give back. Yeah, public service, yeah. Exactly. I think it's it's valuable. um And in that capacity, because we, I mean,
00:32:10
Speaker
We didn't exactly get ah football uniforms every year, right? We we got t-shirts that we like pulled the wool over our teacher's eyes and they just let us do it. And it's like, that's how much they cared about about speech. ah And yet the three of us are doing this now. And I think that had we not all three taken and interested in, it we wouldn't be as well spoken. We wouldn't have as much control over our careers. And we wouldn't have the ability to to to do high level documentation or dissection of information in a very rapid manner.
00:32:46
Speaker
Those very unique skills that you got to build up that that when you're in that teenage years, yeah it's yeah it's really impactful. Fast thinking. Plus we sound amazing. you were That was a solo. I was not going to join you on that. Amazing. We had to convince National Forensic League to go for that corporate sponsorship again because it would be super cool to have Prince. I know Prince is dearly departed, but you know the Pepsi NFL halftime show, but it's Prince doing the rain guitar, but it's National Forensic League. like Everybody's tuning into the Super Bowl. It's just some person doing nine minutes of humorous interpret. It's like Neil Simon. Neil Simon is doing a Neil Simon routine. Yeah, that's great.
00:33:53
Speaker
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