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Growing Up as NBA Star Orlando Woolridge’s Son – Zach Woolridge | Born To The Game Podcast · Born To The Game Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden you get thrown into like
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: the bright lights of Notre Dame and every the domers
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and this, that and the other, and you have a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: heck of a basketball career there. And then all of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now you get drafted sixth and now you're
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: playing in the NBA in Chicago. Then fast forward a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: little bit. You have this guy by the name of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Michael Jordan who's now Then fast forward another few years.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Now you're playing with Magic Johnson and kreom Abdul Jabbar.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: And then at the end of your career you're playing
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: with Moses Malone.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: This is lots of the game League in reading.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Mind, worrying all us, and.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: The game carrying in the play the past, but it's annoying.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The game.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Born to the Game. Produced by Archamedia Group
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: in collaboration with Inflection Network and distributed through iHeartMedia. This
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: is a space where the children and families of iconic athletes, entertainers,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and cultural figures share the truth behind legacy, not just
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: what their fathers did, but who they were and how
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: that legacy continues. Today's guest is Zach Woolrich, the son
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: of Orlando Woolridge, a former NBA player whose legacy extends
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: far beyond the game.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Zach's story is one of navigating identity, ambition, and loss
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: while learning how to carry forward a legacy in his
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: own way.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: From competing in.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Elite academic and athletic spaces to building a career in finance,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: he has learned how to move with intention and rooms
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: where not everyone looks like him. Today, he opens up
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: about his relationship with his father, the journey of grief,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: and what it means to lead with grace while building
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: a life of legacy of fame his own.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Please welcome to the show, Zack back will rage. Hey, Zach,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: what's going on?
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: No, hey, what's going on? Trying to keep low, you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: just key king right before these cameras started gossip.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to put you guys on. I'm just trying
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to get educated.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: And you did you put us onto the Korean skincare?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Did he.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: You? You were outside getting ready?
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: What happened with the Korean skincare?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: You will have to continue?
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: And then he was telling me some because y'all know.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I use a little bit sometimes.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's why your your face looks like your
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: skin looks like glass.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: There you got collagen face wash, It's great.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: College was there you go.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: It takes a real man to use collagen face.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Was right?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: So that means you have a sister.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I do have a sister.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: That makesense. That makes sense. We're going to dive into it.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: We're going to get to know you better for the viewers.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about your dad, your upbringing, We're
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: going to talk about your career, where you're going, who
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: you're becoming, all of the things. And we're going to
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: play a little game because that's what Tamary and I
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: love to do. We love the kiky around here.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: We we love games.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: So my first question, what was your experience like having
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a father who played in the NBA And when did
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you first realize who your dad was to the world,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Like what was your first memory of being around it?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: What I always tell people when they ask that question,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: because it's unique, right, Like everyone's parents have their own journey,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: whether they're educators, whether they're they work in finance, their lawyers.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I just knew my dad played basketball. That's so for me,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I just didn't know any better. I was like, you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: know what, hey like our family outing is we go
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: see Dad compete on in the basketball court, and tens
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and thousands of people happened to watch him play basketball.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But again, it was more of a journey of not
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: really seeing anything different because I didn't know any better
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: answer the second part of your question. It was really
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: more just when we were out in public. I think
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: those are the moments where you know we're out and
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: everyone's kind of gravitated towards him in different capacities, like
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: whether it's we're oute to dinner and people I want
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to take a picture, I want to get our graph.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, we're just going to dinner like a normal family,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Like we're just going to Gladstones and messing around back
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: when they had peanut shells on the ground. I don't
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: know if anybody remembers that Gladstones and Pacific palisades.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I don't even know.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, way way back in the day, going
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: way back. But but yeah, I think just instances like
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that was when I really could see like, Okay, this
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: guy had he carries some gravitas in this world.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, otherwise, just as a kid, I tried to,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you know, credit to my parents for trying to raise
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: us as normalst possible palisades for homeal that can be, yeah,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: but just you know, trying to have that like you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: eat at home, you know, go to school, some foundations exactly.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, So take us back. So you were born where
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: and dad played where?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is gonna be a journey. So I
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: was born in Chicago, moved to New Jersey was a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: few months old because my dad was playing from the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Bulls for the Bulls from eighty one to eighty six.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Moved to New Jersey want was a few months old,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: played for the Nets for a couple of years, then
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: moved to LA nineteen eighty eight. He was with the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Lakers late stage showtime, so eighty eight and ninety and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: crazy enough, probably those two years out of the thirteen
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: he's probably the most known.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: For and with the Lakers.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Yeah, And my mom reminds me of the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: story often where when he was making the decision of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: coming to LA, there are some advisors around him that
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: told him like, hey, your years in LA are going
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to define your career.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And I mean pretty much anyone who approaches me to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: this day about him, they refer to his time in
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: LA almost more often than not.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Wow, So do you have any like vivid memory of
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: you sitting in the arena watching him play, watching him score,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: what that feeling was like?
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So probably, and this is going to be a fast
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: forward to the story a little bit. So he ended
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in the NBA in nineteen ninety four, played in Italy
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: for two years after that. Italy is probably where I
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: started to see like, oh, this dude a can hoop
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit, but you know he's
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: out here dunking on people and embarrassing people and this
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and that. But just seeing how fans react and mind you,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have been around European basketball.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I know there's a gentleman who's working in production right
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: now who's played over there, so he could speak to this.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Fans are crazy over there, crazier, oh for sure. Like
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: have you ever watched like soccer, like European soccer. Yes,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: they carry that same passion for basketball.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Do you have a moment that you can recall what
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: happened overseas?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not like one moment, I mean there's many.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: It's just you know, when they would win big games
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and just how people would be like, you know, just
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: watching the games, watching the fans react, and you know,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: again just walking around the town and just how he
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: was received. But I would say again, I mean, if
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you fast forward, see I was born in nineteen eighty six,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: so ninety four to ninety six, eight to ten years old.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Memories formed a little bit more around that age versus
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: his time.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: In the end.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Mkay, so you were so what age were you when
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: you went to Italy?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I was eight, okay?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And you spent how many years over there? Two years?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And then when you come back to the States, you
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: moved to.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: We moved back to La so we held our house
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: in La So basically fifth grade on where grew up
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in La.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: So how was the how was that? Just the challenges
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: you face from moving from city to city then you
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: move internationally and come home were their challenges?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So kind of goes back to the answer before like
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't know any better, okay, And thankfully, I mean
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I probably end up crediting my mom through a lot
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of this discussion. You know, she tried to create as
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: much normalcy as possible for us, try to create a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: foundation at home and just kind of creating that I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: guess routine if you will have like, look, you're still
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: going to go to school, still going to get your
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: homework done, You're still going to achieve with whatever you
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: choose to do. So it's just more keeping my head down.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: But absolutely when I look back at it, you know,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: thirty plus years ago, like having to make friendships close out, friendships,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: make friendships close out, friendships go in, you're a new
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: kid in school again Italy. It's funny because like, you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: people do the comparison with like, oh, well, Kobe was
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in Italy and picked up the languages, and that mine
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: was a little bit different. I didn't. I couldn't pick
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: up the language for the life of me. Like I
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: had teachers that are like, yo, is this kid gonna
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: be okay? Like you can't pick up the language, struggling
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to you know, talk with the kids and hang out.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So there was a lot of solitude in that. But
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the funny part is, and that the joke I kind
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of look at is like if I wish I could
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: go back to those teachers now and show like, okay,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: well here's my college degree that wasn't that was halfway decent,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Like I figured it out, but you know, but in
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: another country where you don't speak the language. You're a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: young kid, you're impressionable, You're just trying to figure life out.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It's definitely a journey.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So did you go to your dad during those times
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: when it was it may have felt a little bit
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: of challenge. Did you look to him for any advice
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: or I guess before you answer that, describe your relationship
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: with your father in one word.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, might have to be a few I might have
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: to mention a question a little bit.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: We can do. Let's do three words.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably more lead by example, if you will.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I think one thing that I kind of took from him,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: just understanding how he was with people, was, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: my my parents from the south, you know, northern Louisiana.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Oh lord, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the sticks sticks sticks
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: stick sticks. Yes, Like people from Shreveport don't know where
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the town is that my parents grew up in. Like
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: it's to that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: They're from Shreveport.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Station there, Yeah, thirty minutes south of the street Port.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I took. Just to add a little insert, I would
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: take the train from New Orleans to LA and I
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: was stopped there. Wow, I was stopping Streetport. Okay, it's
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: very small. I had a driver drop me off there
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: at the train station. It was just me and my
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: baby and the driver. There was there was no real like,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: there wasn't anybody operating the train station. That's how small
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I remember, yeah, Streetport. I mean people would go to
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: casino is over there.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, very cool.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, but yeah, but I mean reason B is this,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: like my parents is just Southern hospitality, right, and it's
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: just they just knew how to be nice, polite, warm,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And that's what That's what my dad was. You know.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I think every situation that we went in, he brought
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the same person that he was, you know, just try
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to accommodate, just try to be polite.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So that's that's why I say, like Lee by example,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I just tried to you know, again, for who he
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was and what he meant to a lot of people.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: If I can kind of embody that and do that
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: with my interactions with people, and I've done something right,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: very good.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: So did you your love for the game. Did you
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: pick up a basketball because of.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Dad or this is the funniest thing ever, No, oh,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I learned I picked up the game on my own.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Really Okay, I played baseball first. Wow.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah so I played so I mean I did
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: like wreck ball and like elementary school but like kind
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: of like everybody like your kids played a yso or
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: something like I played rec basketball, but yeah, no, I
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: played played baseball, played it through middle school. It's probably
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: late middle school that I started taking basketball more serious,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: probably around seventh grade.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: MM.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And your dad wasn't trying to push it.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: On you at all, not really, that's what's crazy. He well,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: not really crazy. He just was very much like just
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: find find what you love, like do like you guys
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: are kids, yeah, go be kids like he thankfully was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: not one of those fathers that had to live out
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: some dream through us, because I think he was. I mean,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: he was living out his dream. I mean, the dude
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: was drafted sixth in the NBA draft. You know you
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: play in the league thirteen years wow, Like so he
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: didn't have It wasn't like Okay, now my kids need
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to come through and like outdo me. It was like yeah,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: like he again, he's a kid from small town Louisiana
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: who got to play basketball at Notre Dame and play
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: in the NBA. So yeah, yeah, he was the first
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: person in our family to go to college outside of Texas. Louisiana.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Wow wow wow.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So and I mean think about going from northern
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Louisiana to Notre Dame. It's very different world.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Think absolutely south Benda on.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Top of it. So late seventies, early eighties too. Yeah,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: so think about difference, yeah, very big. Yeah. Yeah, and
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: he figured it out. I mean I've I've talked to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: his teammates about it, and he navigated it somehow. But
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine, like you know, at least for me,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: like going from Pacific Polis Ades hard Westlake to Princeton,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: there was a little bit of a difference, but not
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: as much. I couldn't imagine. I mean, I'm trying to
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: draw the correlation, like it's to go from small towns,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: segregated Louisiana to Indiana where I mean, again I can't
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: speak to late seventies, early eighties in Indiana, but like
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I know, yeah, recently, I know how those
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I mean like it's private school, yeah, where you have
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: legacies and this and that. So I can only imagine
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: there are some unique challenges they face going through that journey.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: So what's one challenge or what do you think most
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: people misunderstand about being born into legacy? Do you think.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I think kind of what I was alluding to earlier,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that they were more aware of what we were born
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: into than we really are. Okay, So I think walking
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: around in us like people is thinking like, oh, well,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: because he's so and so kid or this and that,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't know life outside of being
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so and So's kids.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going through life like you, trying to,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you know, learn from people how they may treat me,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: how people like, what my encounters are. So I think
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: if I were to say, like, the thing that's a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: challenge is just having an understanding of just our walk
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of life is probably more similar to yours. Granted, granted, look, okay,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: there might be a little bit more money. Yeah, yeah,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: we might get a little bit more access to this
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and the other. Yeah, but we're still kids, we're still
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: growing adults, We're still going through Yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: So you did continue to have a career in basketball
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: after middle school and high school. Did you put pressure
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: on yourself to exceed expectations or did that come from
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: in house? Was there any pressure at all? For you
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to become this great basketball player because of your dad.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Right, So, and I guess probably need to talk about
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: this as well. So my parents separated, well, was in
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: fifth grade, okay, So my mom primarily raised me from
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: fifth grade on. Okay. And the reason why I bring
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: that up up is that, you know, my mom made
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: this sacrifice of like, look, if we're you know, either
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: she could take us all back home to Louisiana and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: go back to a family that we know and this
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and that, or have this opportunity in LA where it's like, look,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: we have exposure to the best you know, educational institutions
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: out there, you know, wealthy people who are movers and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: shakers who have influence. And she kind of saw the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: world that was building around us when my dad was playing,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: so she almost felt like it would be sinister to
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: take that away and just go move back to Louisiana
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and just go start from square one. Okay. So with
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: that in mind, she was very much about like, hey,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: whatever you choose to do, just do it well, okay,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna do well in school, Like you're gonna
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: keep your head down. Because if I would make the sacrifice,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: like you guys, all whatever it is, whatever happiness is
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: for you, but at the same time, hopefully happiness is lucra.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: But no jokes aside. It was like whatever happiness is,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: like I need you do well in school and I
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: need you to excel at whatever you choose.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Wow. So is there any piece of advice that your
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: dad has given you that sticks with you? And did
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you allow him to still have his hand on your
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: basketball career during that time when there was a separation
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: and he wasn't in the home.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I guess yeah. He never pressured me. I mean, it
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was just more just giving myself a chance going out
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: there and just you know, again like don't because by nature.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I think I get this more from my mom's side,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Like I'm just I'm highly analytical. I can get in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: my head very very easily, and I think he is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: very much the like and it, you know, credits my brother.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: My brother got this gene from him a little bit
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: more of being able to just shut off the world
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and go do your thing and get on the court
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and just move. So I think for him, his big
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: thing was like dude, just go do you like, just
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: just just play, just be free, like whatever is with life,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Like just give give a self a chance, don't be afraid.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's a great piece of advice. I think
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: all of us need to have some of that. I
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: know it's hard for me to be free. I'm always
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: up tight, like walking around with bricks on my shoulder,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: like relax, just play, And my dad would always say
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: that to me. I didn't play basketball. I played volleyball,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: but it was the same thing. I was extremely analytical
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: about everything, and I overanalyzed everything, and so when people
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: would say to me, just play, I didn't know how
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: to do that. I knew what they meant, but I
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: think it was just harder for me to figure out
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: how to actually go out there and play and be free.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Is there a favorite memory or moment about your dad
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that you want to talk about? And is when in
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: regards to his basketball.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Career, I think the part that gets overlooked way too
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: often with his legacy is I think it was an
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: eighty four I can't remember is eighty four to eighty
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: five dunk contests that he was the first person to
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: dunk between the legs in an NBA dunk contest. That
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: is true, and I will ten Too's downstand on that one.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know this.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how often do you watch the clip? Can you
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: watch the clip? It's on YouTube, right, it's.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It's on YouTube, yeah, if you look up now. But
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. He also was going against somebody named
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Michael Jordan.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I thought Michael.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Michael never dunked between the legs. Michael had
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of other amazing dunks. Obviously one of the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: dunk contests. But yeah, I know that's.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Right, mister Orlando. No, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's very quiet.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I learned something new days.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So how has the debate happened? If you know that
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: your dad did it and then people still pin it
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: on MJ. I mean that has to be it has
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: to feel a way.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's I think it's more. I think it's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: j R Ryder. I want to say who people penned
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: as one then obviously Kobe did it, and then over
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: time people have remixed in different ways. But yeah, no,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's just interesting that it doesn't get enough pub
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, you know what if I could be
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: one person sounding off like, hey, technically he did it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: No, that's right, I love it. Well, I learned something
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: new I'm gonna watch the video when I get home.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And you're gonna have so many people after they watch
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the episode go and try and find the.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I think, Evan, we should edit it. We're gonna edit
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: it in Oh, I can see it.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: So let's get into who you were as a.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Kid, yes, tee, Okay, so you went from shy Town
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: to Jersey to l A. I want to know, just
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: first off, who has the best food?
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean you're asking me when I was a kid.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I mean I'd have to answer that more from adult experience.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't matter from wherever. I mean, you've
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: experienced all three places. Let's just end this debate. Okay,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that's always the debate about who has the best food.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: But these are three very very pivotal places. So Chicago,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Jersey and LA.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So overall, l A. I'm just gonna stand on that one.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Here's why I said overall. I said overall. Let me
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: expound on that. Okay, Chicago for sure, pizza. I'm a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: deep dish guy, let's see. And I went to college
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey, so that was probably more of a
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: fresh memory than any of them. Jersey to New York. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I mean New York. I will say this, Like New York,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get some of the best Italian you can
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: find anywhere. And you can go to a hole in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the wall and go to bodega anything and you're gonna
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you're gonna find that. So I would say New York
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: has that. But I think if you go a to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Z any sort of cuisine that you want, you want
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to you want some sushi, you want to go get taco,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you want pizza, you want you know, foe whatever, like
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: whatever you want. I think because of the cultural mix
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that LA presents that to be honest, you look around
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the world, you don't have a lot of cities that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: can execute on different cuisines the way that l A can.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: Okay, man.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Wrong, I'm like yo, I'm like to me, Chicago was
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: gonna say Chicago has the best food.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: We need food though they got, they.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Got and And the thing is.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Is the least thing I like from Chicago, I do
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: not like at all.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: That's on the bottom of the list.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Out of the three l A is my least favorite place. Chicago,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: New York.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: L A Chicago has the best.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Has the best food A.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Sorry kay, this this is definitely a debate We're going
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: to have to continue.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: After off cameras off camera, but that just.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Look, your life just led me back into that debate
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: where you lived.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: So just with that with you know, transitioning to from
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: basically from coast to coast, what was the transition like
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: and having to be on the go and you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: just having relationships and connections.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: How was that?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: The beauty of doing that as a kid, especially in
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: elementary school in preschool is it's before the age that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you really can understand that. If I mean, god forbid,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I would have to do that middle school in high school,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that would be much different answer for you. But I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: think as a kid, you just kind of go with
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the flow, like you're like, okay, guys, we're going to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: pack up and we're going here, and you just you
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: don't really know any better. So I think probably difficulty
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: was more. I mean, i'd say like moving around that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: much is more of a leading indicator of like maybe
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: potentially developing a little bit later than I meant, So
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: potentially like going into middle school and high school where
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I'm with a lot of kids that are used to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: their communities, you know, Like I remember going to Harvard Westlake,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, I know Evan's back there somewhere he
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: can speak to that. Like you have these kids that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: go to the John Thomas Dyes, the Curtis Schools, the Center,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: all these different schools, and they're like, oh, I've had
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: my friends since I was four or five years old.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand that concept. Like I was like, oh, well,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I just met you, and most people I've known for
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: a year or two, and I've had to kind of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: rinse and repeat and keep doing this numerous numerous times over.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: So I think probably just getting used to being around
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the same people and trying to build relationships, I think
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that was probably more of a journey. And then also
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: just you know, kids are kids. Kids are gonna say things,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: they make comments, and I think that was something I
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: had to kind of come to terms with too, because
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: by nature, I'm just I'm a nice person. I mean,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: people may disagree with that now, because you know, just
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: basketball fastball does stuff to you.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: People don't say you're not a nice person. They don't.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I'll put this like the people who know me best,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh, he'll he'll throw some jokes every
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: now and then, but you know try I try to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: be depends on what the joke is. Yeah, I was
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: about to say it depends what you have on Yeah,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the original point, like I, you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: just being a nice kid and just trying to fit in.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Where you got these kids who have grown up, they're comfortable,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they're maturing and this and that. It kind of puts
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: you at a disadvantage. And I think developmentally it didn't
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: kick in until later where I'm like, Okay, getting more
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: comfortable himself and knowing I'm going to be here building
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: who Zach is? That journey just happened, probably happened a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: little bit later from it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: Gotcha? Yeah, gotcha? So what kind of kid were you?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Were you?
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Were you ambitious? Were you mischievous? Mischievous? Mischievous? Mischievous?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I can't we met. Was I a bad little kid? Nah?
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I was very much the opposite, oldest of three, oldest
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of three, single parent household by that point in fifth
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: grade onward. So I always just felt I was the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: example and don't don't put more stress into a stressful situation.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: That was kind of like my philosophy when I was younger.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I was a kid like seventh grade,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: got you know, woke up on my own, put together
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: my own lunch, walked to the bus myself like I was.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I was definitely the what do they call it? L
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: seventh square like that that was me. I was like,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you know what, just don't cause a fuss, Just put
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: your head down, get your stuff done, which again I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: think from a parenting side, probably makes life easier. From
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a developmental side as a kid, I think kids need
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to mess up sometimes and kids need to just live.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And I think I put that pressure on myself because
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for my mom, Like I put that pressure
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: on myself to like be the leading example for my
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: brother and my sister and try to just instill some
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: normalcy instability.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, do you think that's because of what the dynamic
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: with you and your dad? Do you think you felt
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: like you had to put pressure on yourself or you
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: just I think just a.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Dynamic of just how much we had to move, we
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: had to move all the time, and just all of that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I think that part because then like again, once once
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: we moved here and we were settled here, then it
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, if we're settled here, we're gonna be
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: stable here. Now, let's keep our heads down, let's keep pushing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense, that makes sense.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I wasn't a bad little kid. To answer
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: your question, we know with siblings.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: To verify, okay, they would, they would whoop me on
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: this one.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: They'd be like, oh, Zach, is such a square?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Can people say that? Because why is that a square?
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Why is I caught a square all the time? Why
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: all the time?
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I guess because I don't know. The person that causes
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the square has to come to the front.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: But people make it, see they have it has this
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: negative connotation around it, and nothing wrong with you.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Just mean straightforward, right, like just you know, just kind
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: of you just.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You didn't you didn't dabble in bad you didn't dabble
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in the crazy parties or trying to get in trouble
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: in school or trying to miss school or whatever one
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: would think. I think as grown ups we would say
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that's great. Yeah, when we were kids, our brains were different,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Think it's different for men and women. I agree because
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I felt like I walked a straight line and I
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: didn't really get pushedback or people calling me a square.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: So I think for men it's a different right. People
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: have a different perspective on it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: You guys. Also, I mean I think if you think
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of the time, so let's just say teenage years, early
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: teenage years, late nineties, early two thousands. Yeah, think about
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: hip hop culture at that time.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: True.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody wanted the eminem Yeah, fifty cent you know,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: gangster wrap, whole thing. So I think everybody was trying
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to be like cool and hip and gangster and this
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and that, which always looking back found it hilariously. I'm like,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: we're going to school in Bellair and Studio City and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we're trying to sit here at ak hard. It's like, dude,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: for kids, We're just kids. A nice area.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Before you continue, I do just because this is on
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the top of my brain, so please let me. Didn't
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: you your pants?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I did not know. I did not say evant this.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I did not sag Okay, like.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: You can't be a gangster from bel.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Air, you can get fresh. I was about to say,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I get fresh, Prince of bel Air. But Will Smith
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: was coming from Philly. Was he wasn't. He wasn't Carlton.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, sorry, go.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Ahead, te so funny I was gonna say. I was
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: like I was, you know, everybody was trying to be cool.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: I was back home learning how to knit. So right again,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: that's why I walked right into my square.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: My squ raise your square.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: It's okay, that's all. Maybe it's what I am.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: That's all good, okay, all right.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So Zach, So when you were young and you said that,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: you you know, you you kept a straight path, right?
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: What made you happy though as a kid, Like if
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: you could be a kid and just kind of free
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: and let loose, what are some of the things you'd
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: love to do?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Obviously as a kid you were yeah, yeah, so it
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: kind of led to what I studied in school, Like
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I was very much like engineering mind, problem solving mind.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I remember. I mean, it's crazy. My mom loves to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: tell the story, like when we were in Italy, we
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: bought this lego set that was an actual like roller
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: coaster like legit like operating roller coaster, and I was
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: It was when I was in third grade and I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: was homeschool, so I had some additional time to kind
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of put some work into it, and I found joy
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and like putting together this lego set where like I
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: wish my hopefully you can find a picture of it
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: somewhere where like it had like the actual car that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: could like move through the track was set up the
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: whole thing, so I think again, my my biggest obsession
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: was just like the whole problem solving aspect of things.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: You know. I was very much like a numbers person.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I guess not to foreshadow, but that's why I'm where
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I am now in my career. But yeah, that was
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that was My biggest thing was probably problem solving. Loved cars,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: which kind of goes into engineering as well to a degree.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Used to be able to name almost any car that
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: would pass by on the road. Uh yeah, I used
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to know cars like for real, real that person.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Who was like, what was a little the little buggy?
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: The buggy? We are definitely and you had to like
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: you had to hit somebody if you saw a buggy
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: talking about punch buggy, punch buggy that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. My siblings used to do that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: My siblings would do the punch buggy thing.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I'm like, y'all stop punch buggy.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wow, this a heck of a call. And
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I haven't thought about that one a while.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I haven't either day, Maria.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know what made me think back in the day,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: all the way back.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: So so you kind of answered the question about you
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: having to you know, kind of grow up fast because
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: you had to be you know, have responsibilities and be
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: a responsible one. But what role do you feel like
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: you played in your family though, like amongst your siblings
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: and the households, especially when your dad was on the
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: road or anything like that.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I think similar to what I said before with just
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: lead by example. I mean I don't want to say
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: like leader because realistically, I mean I was my mom.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: My mom was a matriarch and she did all that
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: she could, so I don't want to take that away
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: from her. But I think, however, best I could lead
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: just as you know, the oldest of three and setting
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: an example. Yeah, that was my main concern. It's like
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: if I had, you know, whether it's bad bad grade
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: on a test, or some happened at school, or some
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: happened in a relationship whatever, Like I just you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: was trying to make sure I was leading the best
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: for my brother and my sister.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Wow, almost like you didn't want to stretch your mom out.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: You didn't want to have to be the problem, correct?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, growing up that was a big thing. I
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: think as I've gotten older and you know, then got
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to college or whatever, that was my own person. But
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: while I was in the household that was that was
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: definitely I don't want to say concern, but just something
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: that I challenged myself with.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Wow, okay, very cool, very mature. Again, very mature.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: So when you look back, what do you think your
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: younger self needed.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Stability? But that the only reason why I stop on
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that is that I have to kind of go with
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: what life's realities were just being part of an NBA
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: family and just the topsy turvy nature of the NBA,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: because I think stability would have led to me probably
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: developing quicker with like self confidence and understanding my identity
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and who I am. I think when you put two
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and two together it makes it a lot easier. I
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: used to say often when I was a kid talking
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to people who had more traditional upbringings, like I'd say, like, look,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I kind of envy you, knowing like you grew up
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: in this one house since you were two years old.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: We've had the same friends for a while because you
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: were able to go through life and I don't think
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: anyone's I mean, you're in twenty twenty six, traditions kind
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of gone out the window on whatever that is for people.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: But there is something to be said about some level
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: of traditionalism.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: To be.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: The best way to grow up. But again, twenty twenty
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: six is different. But I think back at least in
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the nineties and early two thousands, that would have probably
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: been helpful for me. Granted, things have been just fine.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: If I were to if we're going to go into
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: overcorrection zone, I would say probably.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: That do you think this lifestyle or your particular journey
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: has caused you to have trust issues or make you
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: want to be more I don't know if reserved is
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: the right answer, but just more kept to yourself.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yes and no, Okay, I'll go know first and then yes.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: The no is you know this way more than I do.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: That anything that happens in a family where you have
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: somebody who's well known, everything's public.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So to some degree, I think I probably speak very
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: direct to people because that's how I received things as
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: a kid. So like say, if dad was in the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: newspaper for god knows what good bad reason, like mom
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to tell you direct, because this
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: is how you're going to hear the newspaper. I'd rather
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: as a family, deal with this here first before you're
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: hearing this secondhand and then coming to me. And then
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: so I guess that kind of goes into the trust
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: where it's like we had trust within our family because
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: it was like, hey, let's protect us first before these
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: things come out. I think to a degree I want
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: to say, I'm like, I don't trust anybody, but I definitely.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And this is the dynamic I saw when my parents
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: were together versus when they broke up. Is you start
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to understand the value system a lot of people have. Okay,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: yea reason B is you know Dad's around, cameras on,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: you know, big house, the party, smile, smile on the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: whole thing, and people are like, ooh, I want to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: be associated. And when that light goes away, all of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a sudden, it's like you just go back to being
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: a normal human. And then it's like, wait, I thought
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: you liked me for Zach. Oh you liked me because
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that's home.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: So dive into that. So when you had that moment
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: of oh, you only like me when the lights are
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: on and you see the big house, but in reality,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: you know that wasn't the truth. So I guess, how
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: did that make you feel and how did you go
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: about handling those moments or that situation?
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Right? And I think that was probably more after my
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: parents separated for some time, I started to really understand
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: that dynamic of just the human experience because everyone's obsessed
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: with celebrity, right, And I think I learned that lesson
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: probably earlier than most people on this earth would nor
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: should learn that lesson. Okay, So it just again I
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: don't want to say it like it caused me to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: not trust people, but it gave me more perspective of on, like, Okay,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: this is why these people may operate a certain way
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: when they're around other humans. So I think so that's
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: why I say, like I've going back to my original
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: answer about like stability and traditionalism. I do appreciate that
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I also got that sort of heads up on life earlier, okay,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: to kind of help me carry through as well.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, would you say that it made you more careful
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: to connect with people like.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Some people, yeah, some people, yeah? And then and that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: and I carried even into my adult life. I mean,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: we'll get into that a little bit, but you know,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: like my first job that I had out of school
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: was with the prominent sports and entertainment company. And because
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of that, it was like, oh I had access tickets.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I was going to certain events, and it was around
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: certain people, and you know, there would be times when
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: people reach out and I'm like, okay, I've seen this
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: playbook before because I sound this playbook as a kid,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, is this you really want to
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: reconnect or like what's going on? Like let's be direct
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: on what's what's happening here? Wow?
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So it's like it prepared you for what life was
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: going to be offering you anyway. Okay, interesting, We're going
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to dive into your basketball career playing at Princeton, right, okay,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and then we'll dive into your career after you left Princeton.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: But first, let's play some games, right, yes see, all right,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: let's play some games.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: This is our favorite. So this is called this or that.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: It's supposed to be rapid fire. So don't take all
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: day answering because it's that.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: And give him the good ones, tea, like, give him
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the get and sprinkle in some dating ones too, because
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I need to know.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, I would love to get messy. Okay, here we go,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: it's a couple. Let's start the first one. East coast
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: or west coast? Okay, West, Well I knew you were
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: gonna say West.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: There was Yeah, I didn't even flinch. And you you've
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: watched me this non time, and I tried to be
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: calculating answers. I didn't calculate that one.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: That was just a straight up the west, Yeah, got it,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: got it.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: Beach vacation or city trip.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: City trip.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Beach me baby, I.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Love beach me always, always always. Okay, windows seater or
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: asle seat.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Ale need to need the leg room, you need the room,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: need the leg room. These knees they tell you sixty six.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you need the leg room. Window because I'm not moving.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: A fair point.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Let's see. Shoot, I'm trying to find some good ones
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: on here. Oh, homebody or outside? Now this is a
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: dating one, Okay, a homebody or want somebody outside?
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Uh twenty twenty six, thirty nine year old Zack homebody
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: all day homebody? Yeah yeah, probably ten ten, ten years ago,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: maybe that'd be a different answer, but at this point
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: in life, that's that's a homebody.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I'm with you. We need we can, we can watch
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: a good show and door dash, post me cook and
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: call it a day.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Keep it simple. Go to sleep at a normal time,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to go to wake up early, go work out. Just
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: keep it simple.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I'm with you, okay, well said you, since you said
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: work out, morning workout or late night grind.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Oh morning guy, morning guy. For sure. People who know
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: me well know my time that I.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Go in and don't say anything before five, Zach please
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: all right?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Well, first off, gyms don't open before five.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like Evan has texted me and been like, yeah,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I'm heading to the gym at.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Like four, So Evan so on Instagram. We have gone
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: back and forth on that one because I'll look like
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I'll be sitting there in the gym. I'm like, man,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Evan's already in there doing this thing or whatever. But yeah,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I get in now. Difference between me and Evan Evan
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: has a family, very true. I'm solo dolo, so like
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Evan has a reason why he needs to get up
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: earlier and knock it out, whereas me, like, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I have work, but I have colleagues who go in later.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I work out it usually get to the
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: gym at five thirty in the morning.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Who I just want to be that type of person.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I don't like I'm rolling it at ten o'clock.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah it's not. And ten is early, you know what
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: it is. And we're going to get into this. But
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I played college volleyball at the University of Florida and
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Georgia Tech, and so you know early morning workouts, Yeah,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: I hate. I hated them. And the very my very
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: last day on campus, I said I will never willingly
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: get up to go to the gym before ten am.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I can't wait for this answer.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Not going to happen. So you already know that I'm
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: going to the gym at ten pm. I'm not going.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: That was the way you built that up. I really
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: thought it was going to be like you know, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I got into the morning gym thing. I didn't, So
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that's the whole point.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: No, once I was done being a college student athlete,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that was it. You couldn't pay me to get to
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the gym early. No ten o'clock at night.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Well, no, I can't. I go to gym at ten
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: o'clock a night. I'm gonna be up until three in
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: the morning.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Even when I played basketball, y'all getting up at three
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a thank you.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: I'm not getting up there. I'm getting up at nine
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: thirty and i'll be there by ten.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I'm with you there, teach, that's all right, that's okay.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: But we'll just we'll set thing while we're in bed. Okay,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: here we go chase or being chased and we're still
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: on the dating topic.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, you gotta define on which side of
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: things and dating chase or I guess being chased.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: Being chased.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I'll say being chased because I was sending there thinking
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and like, but it's when I tell you it's like
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a fifty two to forty eight though, like it's almost
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: like it's close.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: To fifty forty eight is so specific?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's like I'm like, it's because on the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: one hand, yeah, I'm a numbers guy, but no, I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: think because with dating there's a fine balance between someone
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: showing genuine interest towards you, okay, and enjoying that interest.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: But I think going back to traditionalism, like as a man,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: you need to feel that I guess to go to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: actually pursue somebody, right, if you don't have that interest
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: level to do that, Like, so that's why, like it's
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: kind of a harmony of both that you need to do.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I agree with that. I do. I do agree.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: I don't think that women. I don't think we should
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: act like you know, we're indifferent. I think we should
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: if you're interested, you need to at least relay that
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: because it gets confusing. And I think we play games
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: sometimes sometimes I'm not saying all the time, but I'm
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: saying sometimes, you know that happens.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you gave you know. I'm a girls girl,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: so I was not to say chase me down, the girl,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: chase chase down. But I like you.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: You know, it's a harmony. It's a harmony of folk.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, harmony.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, where are you going to first day? You're
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: doing first day dinner? Or are we doing an activity dinner?
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: Why might as well?
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: It's funny. When I was younger, I probably would have
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: said more activity. I think now it's more dinner forces
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: us to sit there get to know somebody. Because activity
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: if you go see a movie, you go on a hike,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: you go do whatever. Like sure, it's a fun activity,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: but like, how well are you getting to know somebody?
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And I think when you're sitting and maybe it goes
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: back to my professional life and just relationship building in general.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: That when you said, and you have a meal with somebody,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: like sure you're eating, but you still are pretty like
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: tied in on, like there's not a lot of distractions.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: You're really sitting and asying, I mean asking intentional questions,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: like you're really trying to get through, whereas like if
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: you go on a hike, you're sitting there. I don't
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: know what sort of shape some people are in, so
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: you might be walking like, so what's your favorite color?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: What type of shape somebody is in?
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Zach, you can be look ozempic is a thing. Stop
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: it like you could you could You could look right
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: and you might be internally and you could.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Be walking exactly right. I'm with you.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: So here we're going to segue into my next one.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: This is not on here, but I'm gonna say it. So,
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: would you like a gym partner or no?
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: Let me go by myself.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm okay with that journey on my own. I'm okay, Okay.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: How many women are gonna be okay with? Like, oh,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: let's go to the gym at five thirty.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Like to work out together.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, morning, Yeah, let's keep it.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Just keep people that.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I don't want to put that pressure on somebody.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: I just want you don't want to deal with Hold on,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: hold let's go. Let's roll back through what I was
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: talking about. I was talking about I don't want to
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: put stress on my mom. All right, so I'm not stress.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, if you to the gym at nine am,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: go to the gym, am.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: But what if she's like, babe, I want to go
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: to the gym with you at five thirty in the morning,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: what are you gonna say?
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: I'll be like, cool, let's see if you actually wake up. So,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: because I've had one of those, I was like I
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: canna say that.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: And she didn't get up about no. He but you
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: don't have a problem with working out with your partners
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: more so you want to make sure that she's comfortable
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: and exactly, you know, not feeling pressure to be there.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to that pressure because and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: here's the thing too, then if you're in the gym
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: with me, then it also turns into like how much
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: of how much do you want to do what I'm doing?
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Because if you're just going to go in there and
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: do your own thing.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: You can take pictures.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, if you're gonna be cute and take pictures,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, don't be a tourist, Like, be an actual
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: inhabitant of this area. Don't be a tourist.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Hilarious.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I couldn't go to the gym with Zach. Zach will
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: kick me out after ten minutes of me taking my
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Instagram pictures. He'll be like, girl, go home, just go you.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Know, hey, go be happy. You might might need to
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: be happy somewhere else.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: You'll be happy.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Hilarious.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Talks about this one on the break. Private relationship or public.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Love PRIs private, private, private? After what we just private?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Everybody go private, just very private. Private is the best
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: way to be.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, let me delete my husband
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: off my off my private night, I mean after look,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: just I agree, go private.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, I think I know this one from I think
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: we know this one Mariah for Zac always later, always.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Early, always early.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: How do we know that?
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Have you ever been late?
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: So? Okay. Evan doesn't know this because he wasn't on
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: team at this point, but like my freshman year, we were,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: so we still were living in the Palisades and the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Upper School for Harvard. Westlake is out in Studio City,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: North Hollywood area, so not close my So my freshman year,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: they have this jolly idea. Mind you, I've been playing
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: basketball seriously for like two years. They're like, you know what,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: hey play varsity basketball, which obviously you know into the
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: ninth grade. It's like, oh cool, I'm gonna play varsity.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: The whole thing. Well, here's the thing. I didn't drive yet.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: My mom had to drive. And it was I think
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: it was like a I think it was a Saturday
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: practice or something, and it was like the first two
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: practices we had. Our coach Greg Hilliard had a rule
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that was the first time you're late, you run two
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: suicides in front of everybody. The second time you're late,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: there's a seat put at half court and you watch
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: everyone else do two suicides in front of you. Third
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: time is the suspension. Okay, I was late my first
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: two practices because my mom was driving. I don't want
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to throw mom under the bus, but that just happened.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I love you looked in all fairness, I think we
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: were still going through some stuff with like I don't
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: know if we're trying to move out of the house.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: There was a legitimate reason, like it wasn't mom being
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: like mom, mom, Mom raised me so obviously, like she's
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: on her stuff, and it was.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: A valid reason. It was intentional. You were lilagag.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, it was like, yeah, I got there late.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: And then second one, I forget what happened, but it
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: was like something happened. And I remember after that second one,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: there's this guy and we're cool. Now I'll put him
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: on name on it, Craig Weinstein, great dude. Cool now
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: like his kid, watch his kid play soccer, the whole thing.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: But in high school he's highly intense and he was
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the captain of our team. And I remember after that
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: second time he was like, Zach, if figure it out,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: like there's gonna be a problem. I'm probably saying it
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the nice way. So I was like, okay, yeah, it's
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: so thank you. Craig got me on point.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Like what was he gonna do? Craig geez Okay, okay,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: well glad, well that's still you weren't intentionally late.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: You're still like, yeah, it was a good lesson, you know.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: A credit credit to Greg Coach Hilliard, credit to Craig Weinstein,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Like you know, it's I think those are good lessons
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I learned. Yeah, you know. Now I just try not
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: to be late.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Now I will say this, My father has to be
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: two hours early for.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Everything, oh like two hours.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Like when I tell you, the man hates to be late.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: So it could be just being a part of sports.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: You know, you have a schedule, You got to be
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: on time. Places that man hates to be late like
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: him and I would argue if we're going to the
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: same place at the same time and we riding together,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: if I'm a couple of minutes late coming down them stairs, but.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Two hours, I'm just stuck on two hours.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: What So we leave tomorrow. Our flight I think is
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: at eight or nine. We're leaving at five.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: So what do you do at I mean, what do
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: you do in the meantime?
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Look at each other? We look at each other and
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: just looking silly because why did we get up at
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: three am to be here at five and our flight
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: don't leave until ten?
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Make it makes But I bet you never missed your flight.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the coach. That's that coach mentality different.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: They're so different. But he's like, yeah, he's always going
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: to be like that. So I I appreciate people who
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: enjoy being on time. I'm fifty to fifty. I try
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: to be on time, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Okay, anymore,
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: you want to.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Do tea or yeah, let's let's do a couple more,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: move on, okay, okay, text all day or talk later.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Text all day. I talked to a lot of people
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: because of work, like I, okay, yeah, I don't look
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I would enjoy to hear obviously it's this dating related question.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming before it wasn't.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: It wasn't, but let's take it.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You took it. I volunteered myself. Yeah, no, I I
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: mean I guess because I talked to a lot of
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: people like, yeah, I would like to hear my partner's
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: voice at some point. I just don't have as much
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: requisite time and energy to sit on the phone at
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: like eight eight thirty at night. It's like, hey, you know,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to wind down, get to bed, whatever. But
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I will say this work related, I for
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: sure would prefer a phone over text, because lord knows,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: we've all been in situations where you get caught in
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: paper tiger or whatever and you pick up the phone
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: two minute conversation knock everything out.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see that for you too. Yeah, Tamara,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you know we FaceTime, but we don't have to get
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: into that, but we'll FaceTime you. So don't look that
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: after tomorrow. We're just going randomly FaceTime on this one as.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: On this one. She she'll tell you, I mute all
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: face time. So you got if we call you tomorrow
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I commuted.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Will you answer? So I said no, maybe we'll see.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: We'll see. Well now, now, to be spiteful, I'm probably
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: gonna answer it now.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: All right, very good, that's the whole point.
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: Very good. You're gonna break your own rules, exactly good.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Right, So mother Sday is coming up. So are you
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: calling your mom or are you texting your mom?
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I'm taking my mom to brunch. We are doing the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: in person. I'm going back to traditional.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: Oh Man sense the good son.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to do that in person. I mean, well especially,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, we're in the same city, so at minimum,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: but I mean, to my sister's credit, I would I
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: think we'll see. I know. Sometimes she'll fly out from
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: New York like for a day or two and then
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: fly back. So and she has a crazy schedule.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: So your sister lives in she lives in New York,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: in New York, Okay.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she's a doctor too, so you.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Know that schedule and what kind of doctor is she?
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Sports medicine. You go, girl, she's the beast. Wow.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: All right, So this perfectly segues into your educ your
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: education and career. So what was your experience like at
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Princeton University, just alone at Princeton University and being there
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: as a black student athlete? And why Princeton of all places?
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'll go I'll go backwards, Yes, I'll go backwards
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: chronological so on the answer. So why Princeton? So in
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: my senior year, so probably like junior year, junior summer,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: just talking to a number of schools, Princeton was the one,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and at the time, John Thompson, the third was coaching there, okay.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: And his recruiting style is very is no highs, no lows.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: It's always consistent.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: So and you know how recruiting is, like you get
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: coach is that show up everywhere, blow up your phone,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: want to talk to the family, do all this on
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: the other And what I appreciate about coach Thompson was
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: that like everything like you knew what to expect, but
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like he was blown. He wasn't gonna blowup
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: my phone. But he wasn't going to get out of contact,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and I appreciated how consistent he was with it. He
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: was also a Princeton grad obviously comes from big pedigree
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: with his father and coaching at Georgetown. And then you know,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the school speaks for herself, right like, it's it's one A,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: one A, one B. Depending I know we have a
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Harvard gradd in here, so I gotta be respectful of it.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: So it's one A, one B depending on the year.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's it's a great it's a
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: great institution. I think, you know, with basketball at the time,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: they were doing really well that my senior year in
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: high school, they had gone to the tournament, they were
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: returning a lot of the same players. So from a
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: basketball side, at least before the rest happened there like
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: everything looked great. Then an interesting program that I pursue
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: operations research and financial engineering. So as I was kind
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: of detailing the journey I had hobby wise and just
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the way my brain fires that that fit into it.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: So all things considered, it kind of looked like a
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: cool option to go to. So that's that's the why. Now.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Individual experience there, what I learned very quickly was oh,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of legacy kids here and there's a
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: lot of tradition here.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So like and I just I started learning very quickly,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: like you know, because again La is La is kind
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: of like new. Everything's new every day. Like it's just
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: there's change, there's flow, there's different cultures. Princeton is Princeton.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: The Orange bubble is Orange bubble. Wowka, take it, love
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: it or hate it. They are who they are. I've
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: learned to appreciate it over the years, but it was
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: kind of it was a stark difference from what I
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: was used to before. Okay, getting to the racial aspect
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: of it, that's another thing, right, Like you have Los Angeles,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: which is a very culturally integrated city. So this is
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: why I'm a stand stand on business on this one.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: LA is probably the most culturally integrated city in the
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: world potentially. Okay, if you look at the backgrounds, you
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: know you have, I mean like where I live in
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Miracle Mile is a heavy Jewish population. You have Korea Town,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: which is the highest concentration of Koreans outside of I
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: think was it Soul Korea and like Beijing, and you
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: can go on and on about the different groups that
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: are here. Yeah, get to Princeton, all of a sudden,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I don't see that many Hispanic people.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I see some of us. But again,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: at the time, it's gotten better with the school, but
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: American born black people that you didn't see a lot
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of that. A lot of the black people came from
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: well to do families in Nigeria or in Africa or
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. So I think coming
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: in like that was a little bit of a learning
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: curve because I'm like, oh I okay, so this is
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: not representative of something I've been around before. So I
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: think that first year was a lot of learning and
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: trying to learn how to adjust and going back to
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: like when I was a kid, Like when I was
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: a kid going to these different schools, that's you know,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: that was just what I was used to. I wasn't
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: fully developed yet. Going in at seventeen, eighteen years old,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: it was a different And then it's like because then
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, you're trying to get used to like
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I'm in college and like, you know, basketball and figuring
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: that all out. Thankfully, the school work, I mean sure
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: it was harder, but Harvard Westlake, Harvard west prepares I
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: can't think of the word thank you, thank you, thank you,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it prepares you very well for like highly
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: intense and highly competitive situation. So that part I wasn't.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, granted, still, you go from Harvard Westlake, which
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: you have the best in LA to you go to Princeton,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: where you're having the valedictorians of like everywhere and sometimes
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: the smartest kid in the whole country. Yeah, so like
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: you those sort of things. But I think it was
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: just more just trying to get used to the day
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to day life more than anything. And I think that
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: did have a little bit of an impact on my
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: performance as a student and a student athlete, because it
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: was just trying to understand that confluence of everything, because
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: it's just it's it could be a lot, it could
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: be overbearing.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: So did you ever feel like you had to prove
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: that you belonged on campus? Did you ever have imposter syndrome?
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Or did you just walk on campus and know that
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: I was meant to be here.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Basketball has a very good way of putting you on
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: a pedestal. Pedestal coming into a school. Okay, and you
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: know this from from Florida and Georgia Tech. Like you
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: walk in the door and you're like, I'm an athlete.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I'm one of at least basketball I'm top one of
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the top fifteen basketball players here. I mean, obviously you
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: got people do inter mules or whatever, but like listen,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: for the sake of the conversation. You're the top of
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: your sport there. You're on TV, like people know who
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: you are, like they can look you up online. So
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I think I kind of had that look at and
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, what I have my own identity with
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the basketball team. And also like I'm mean I'm out
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: of LA Like so I think in over time there,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I don't want to call it brash, but I did
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: kind of develop that, like you know, I'm I'm the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: LA guy. Yeah, like take it, take it or leave it,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not I'm not the fifth generation Princeton kid
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: that's going to wear a double popped callar Like this
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: is not me.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, there were obviously challenges that you faced on campus.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: You did you play you played apt did you, yeah,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: play minutes? It?
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Well? So I actually, I'll be honest, I rode the
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: bench all four well.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: I mean I did too.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Late late in my senior year, I started playing
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit more, but for the most part, I
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: was not the rotation. Okay.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: So when you're going through those challenges, did you look
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: to your dad ever to help you navigate through that space?
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Actually? No, I mean I really, and to be honest,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: not my mom as much. If anything, I felt bad
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: with my mom that like cheat because I know I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: was the first one, and yeah, she's you know, dealing
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: with me trying to navigate like I'm three thousand miles away,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: my siblings are here, Okay, basketball is not working out
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: the way that should right. It's also, I guess, big
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: big thing for the story. John Thompson the Third went
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: off to Georgetown right before I stepped on campus. Okay,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: so that also, I mean, I think in the transfer
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: portal era, I don't know if I'd have a Princeton
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: degree right now, Okay, but purely because you know, seventeen
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: eighteen years old, when your brain fires, you're like, wait, no,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the coach I committed to he's not there anymore. Oh,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I'm releasing my commitment. Okay, that's just I mean, that's
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: is how kids think.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: So how did you cope through that? I guess the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: four years that you weren't playing when you I'm sure
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: had expectations to at least be part of rotations, right right.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Also coming out of LA, Yeah, I think the era
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that I came out of LA. I mean there's numerous
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: NBA players who and I just had like short careers,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: like longer careers. And there's a guy Aaron Aflalo that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: we used to play against every year. Yeah, Like I
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: used to match up with Aaron when we played Comptence Centennial.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know, I think even Evan and I
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: mean we had a guy Bryce Taylor who was a
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: great ballplayer, played at Oregon, played overseas you know, for
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: a long time, and I was a great, great coach.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: So like I was around Nick Young, Swaggy Peak another
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: great example, he Swaggy Pere. We were also like I
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: was exposed to these guys coming up because we were
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: all the same year. And I mean, granted, I'm not
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: gonna see I put myself in the same sensus those guys,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: those guys are obviously highly talented ball players and have
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: done extremely well for themselves. But like I was exposed
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: to that early. So then to then go to Princeton
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: and IVY League institution, that's not It's not you know
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Pac ten or Packed Pack twelve. Now it wasn't Big
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: East like for Ivy's and then I'm not playing there
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: like that. That was at first it kind of hurt
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, Okay, I I used to compete at
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: like the highest level with the eyes people, and now
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: arbit whether it's arbitrary or not, I'm sitting on the bench. Okay,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: So I think that part was kind of hard, but
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: it just it kind of went back to, Okay, but
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: what am I playing this game because I want the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: accolades to come with this game? Or am I playing
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: because you know, in some weird sick way, I love
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: getting out here and trying to get better in my
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: own way and running and running my own race.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: So eventually basketball ends and then you transition into the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: real world. Did you were you able to take anything
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: from those four years being involved into sports into your
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: professional career and if so, what was that and just
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: kind of walk us through your professional career once you
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: left Princeton.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Just the competition in trying, in competition, sense of urgency, execution.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of those things are what you
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: take because you know, at the end of the day, with basketball,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: like you have you have played, like you have scouting
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: reports that you have to follow. Yeah, you have playbook
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: that you have to know, you have to be early
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: to practice, got to work out. I think a lot
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: of the building blocks of what you learn, and especially
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: in college, right because high school you can kind of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: get away with certain things. If you're just that talented,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: you can get away with a lot. College is where
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: that starts to happen, where just being and I saw
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a lot. I had a lot of talented teammates at
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Princeton that played maybe one year or two years and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: then quit because they're like, oh, this commitments a lot,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: like I want to go be a college kid. Yeah,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I want to go party. Like school's hard, I'm homesick.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, kind of seeing that over
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: the years and like each year people dropping off and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I'm still kind of there that kind of developed that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: side of like Okay, well maybe I'm developing some character
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: that I didn't realize I was going to develop, sticking
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: this out and trying to push to whatever sort of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: dreams I have with this game, whether it's I get
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: to play overseas or the last game I play is
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: my you know, last year, my senior year, or last
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: game of my senior year. Yeah, So translating that to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: the workplace is just, you know, again just showing up.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: If I say I'm going to do something, do it,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: be prepared, you know, have good relations with my colleagues.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of the same stuff that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: were the survival techniques, if you will. Yeah, being a
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Division I college athlete, try to carry that with my
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: day to day with sport, with with my career now
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: going into my career. So I wanted to I wanted
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: to work in sports. I did. I interned at Washerman
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Media Group going into my senior year of college. That
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: was to see if I wanted to be an agent.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Realized I don't know if that world's for me.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: It was you would have been a great agent, Zach.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Just throwing that out there. I think you would have said, there.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: There is when you're an intern and you see the
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: inner workings of working out a big agency that will
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: kind of tell you, some people want to do that,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: some people don't. I just it wasn't for you, It
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't for me. So then the next part was like, okay,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: what on the business side is going to be unique? Right?
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: So originally I was going to try to work in
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: basketball op That was kind of my first I was like,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: let me try to go to the ops rout and see
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: what that looks like. I wrote my senior thesis on
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: objective player analysis or advanced analytics for NBA players, understanding
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: how do you basically through a formula, get to a
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: win and what that looks like. So wrote my thesis,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: shared that with a few people in the industry or
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: like few gms, what have you. What ended up happening
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: was I was probably a number of years ahead of
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the times, because if you think about it now, like
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: analytics are everything, yes, what people base every decision off of.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: At the time, that wasn't it. I mean you're talking
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, like people
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: are still going off the old school. What I see
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: with my eyes, that's what I justify my decision on
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a player with. So fast forward. So I was like, okay,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: let me try to do this, but then a lot
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: of gms are like, Okay, this is great, but do
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: you want to just be like my gopher picks up
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: the players to go to practice and whatnot. And I
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if that's gonna work.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: You know, and empower to the people who did those jobs.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there are gms who have been basketball
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: operations assistants and they were patient and navigated correctly and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: got to the positions that they're in. So I don't,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I think for some people as a good route.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: Didn't feel that that was right for me.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Company by the name of Vansoots Entertainment Group. They were
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: one of the premiere, if not the premier sports and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: entertainment presenter around the world at the time. They were
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: expanding very quickly with like different teams that they owned,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: different venues that they operated. You know, they have a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: music side that's very well known. Obviously probably no Golden Voice,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: you know Coachella Stage Coach, which is going on right now.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: So you know, they were consolidating their sponsorship operation in
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: LA and they were trying to hire analysts right out
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: of school to kind of help with the sales and
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the services side of corporate partnerships. So that was kind
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of my way to get into the industry, and something
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I thought was going to be, you know, just one year,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: let me just see how it is or whatever, ended
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: up being a ten year career. So I've spent eight
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: at AEG was an exciting time. You had the see
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: the LA Kings won two championships or Stanley Cups my
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: apologies twelve twenty fourteen, Galaxy I think won three MLS Cups,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: the Lakers one in twenty nine and twenty ten, So
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: you put all together like it was just an exciting time,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: all the different events that were going on in there.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I went to numerous Grammys, went to Wow sb's just
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you know. I think one of my crazier things I
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: got to work on was during E three, which is
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: a big video game conference that used to happen in
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: LA every year. We put a kid you not a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: sixty foot arcade in the middle of chick Hern Court
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: between Crypto dot Com Arena and LA Live.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: A sixty foot arcade.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, I probably will have to get a picture of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: it for you, but legit, it was like an activation
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: thing for Freedo, LA because they're trying to figure out
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: a way how to do like a large scale activation
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: around e three. Yeah, okay, so they ran concerts every night,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: like Steve Aoki was performing on that stage, Like they
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: had Madden that you can play during the day. It
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: was a whole and one of my clients I had
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: to help them carry that out.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Good for you, Okay.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: So yeah, So when it came to like sponsorship activation,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: like I was starting to do stuff on like larger
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: scale and then go to LAFC in their infancy, I
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: was employee number thirty six, I believe, and was able
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: to kind of go from soup to nuts everything with LAC.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Granted I worked in sponsorship, but when you're that early
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: on with an organization, you're putting on a lot of
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: different hats. So yeah, you know, I think I was
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: able to get the full fora there, and you know,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: after about two years, there was kind of looking at
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: my career. At the time, I think I was thirty
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: one thirty two, and it was kind of like that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: point of do I keep pushing to try to be
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: like an exec in sports or is there something potentially
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: out there for me that's different. Okay, So that's why
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: I pivoted in the finance and Bank of California, which
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: is my largest client. They wanted to give me the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: opportunity to be a banker without any previous financial markets
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: or financial her banking history. So I then pivoted at
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: thirty one, thirty two years old and started completely new
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: career in finance.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: So I think that perfectly segues into Tamara the importance
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: of relationships and networking and yeah, Tamara, you you take
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: that one on, but that perfectly awesome.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: So you make this pivot into finance. So what does
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: it mean to co chair the Black Employee Network? Is
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: that a part of your finance career or is that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: something separate that you've that you've.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Come up with the latter, So I got I guess
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I'll fast forward a little bit. So I got to
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: JP Morgan about three years ago, you know, working in
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the private bank, and I think, you know, I'm very
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: involved from a volunteer standpoint with two different nonprofits away
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: from my work, and you know, I really and then
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: on top of it, for Harvard Westlake, I chaired the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: African American Alumni Network. So when I look at my
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I guess extracurriculars outside of my job. I wanted to
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: find opportunities to kind of marry that same passion with
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: what I do day to day. So you know, there's
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: a beautiful opportunity that popped up with JP Morgan. Where
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: with the Black Employee Network, you know, obviously we're in
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: an interesting time politically, especially with regard to DEI, and
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: you know, credit to the firm to you know, put
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: their foot down to go like, hey, let's figure out
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: how to give a sense of community and a sense
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: of identity two groups, but obviously not take away from
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: the fact and be not take like a separate approach,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: but just bring people together. So really, I would say
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: ally ship along with identity are two things that we
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: try to focus on. So it's been great that I've
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: been able to work on that with JP Morgan. Really
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: just community building, bringing people together, making sure that they're
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: having events together, Understanding like there's people you can talk to,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: whether there's advancement at the firm, just understanding the day
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: to day, trying to get acclimated with the firm. I mean,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: look like JP Morgan is JP Morgan. It's the top
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: of the street. You know, you say it to anybody,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: whether they're you know, somebody who just goes to Chase
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: to get a few bucks, or you know the largest
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: hedge funds in New York, Like, it's a very well
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: known firm. So I think, you know, my little way
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: of helping people who look like me acclimate with the firm.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: If this is the way that I can do it,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: then happy to do it.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: Okay. I've been with them since I was like sixteen
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: years old.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I have a really I've been with.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: Them for a very long time anyway.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: So when it comes to networking, I mean, it's obvious
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: why networking is important, but from your POV, why is
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: networking so important when it comes to whether it be
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: black employee network or even in finance period? What is
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: the the reason why that networking should be the top
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: of our list when we're talking about finances.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: I would say a lot of different ways, because networking,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to figure something out, like the shared journey,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: is the best way to do it. So, say, if
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: you're trying to get a certain job and you see
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: somebody who either looks like you or maybe they don't
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: look like you, but they want to support you in
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: some way, shape or form. So I think networking can
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: get you to sponsorship somewhere or mentorship if you will. Yes,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: So I think that's something that's big with networking. Also,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: we all have probably tried to apply to jobs on
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: LinkedIn or do other sort of indeed or zip recruiter
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and you're just you get thrown into the
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: masses and you don't really stand out. Well if you
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: build a relationship. I mean that's how I got from
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: AEG to LAFCS, how I got from LAC to Pink
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: California and back Big California and JP Morgan, And I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: think just having people who know who you are and
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: they've and not just like once like the repeated effort
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: of like intentionality of let me sit down, let me
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: take you to coffee, let's have lunch, let's work on
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: a deal together, you know, coach me through this, that
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: and the other. Like when the more times the iterative
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: process that you go with somebody to really understand what
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: like learn, teach them who you are, and build a bond. Yes,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: they're gonna want to help you out with whatever that is.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: And I've had the good fortune and really it really
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: goes back to my mom on this one, where like
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: she understood trying to raise three kids in LA, she
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: was able to seek out the right people that we
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: should connect with to kind of understand how to navigate
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: this city. So I've just tried to take that same
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: example that she set for me and just try to
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: go through life and connect with the right people. I mean, look,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to build a book, you got you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: got to get in front of people, and sometimes cold
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: calling is not the best. Sometimes you gotta go with
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: warm relationships. And I would say, yeah, with jobs, that's
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: the best. Trying to get business, that's best. There's one
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: other one with dating, might as well say that too.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: There you go there you wanted to.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: I mean no, but I just I need to go
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: in post about that.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: That said, if you want to fix your they didn't
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: say job, but they were like, if you want to
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: fix your you know, your income, fix your relationship. It
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: was very interesting but discorrelating the two. And you know,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: when your relationship is right, your business will be right.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: So it's very very interesting. You said that, and you
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: talked about intentionality.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: And you you seem just.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: Listening to you over our time here, you seem to
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: have always been intentional, even when you were younger. Where
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: do you think that drive comes from to continue to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: continually be intentional even when you were in fifth.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: Christ Yeah, it's changed over time, I would say more
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: recent and we may cover this. I mean my father
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: passed away back in twenty twelve. Yeah, yeah, So I
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: think it goes back to that a little bit of
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: understanding just how fleeting life can be. And you know
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: that what the fleeting moments, you really can only give
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: the authentic experience and people, what people are going to
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: remember about you is how you made them feel. And
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: usually if you're going to give a good experience with somebody,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: they're going to remember if you're intentional and that you
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: were you know, you were attentive with whatever they were
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: working through or conversations. So I think that's a legacy
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: item for me where like I think about that often,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, look like, hopefully my words aren't getting
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: misconstrued at any any given point, Hopefully my intentions were
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: never misconstrued. I mean I'll give like a little thing
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: like if anybody, if anybody were to tell me, like, hey,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: like I didn't understand what you said or what you
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: meant by this like, I take I take that heart
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, I know how intentional I am. So
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I got if I misled you me, of all people,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: something must have happened, right, Yeah, yeah, I take that person.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that's what you pride yourself on. So
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: that's great.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, before we move into grief, what was one relationship
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: that changed your life?
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: That's a heck of a question. I don't I don't
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: know if that was in the pre questions.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: When I was looking through it, I was like, I
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: think that would be a.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: Good one for Yeah, I'll put this one. Another basketball
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: legend who passed away not too long ago, Jerry West.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: He so I actually interviewed him for my senior thesis
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: and actually my mom thanked the Lord. She's had a
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: great relationship with Karen West and was able to put
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: us back together to kind of talk, just kind of
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: coached me up earlier in my career when I was
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do and you know,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about grace. I mean, this guy
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: put in a call to the CEO of AG like, Hey,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: I know a great guy. Can you just sit down
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: and have coffee with them? What have you, and I
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: still remember to this day. And thankfully I was young
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: enough that, like I didn't understand corporate hierarchy, so like
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how big of a moment this was.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: But now looking back, and my, oh my god, I
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: walked in there and I had no clue who these
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: people were. I walked into a room where it was
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: the CEO of AG and then like two other presidents.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: I think it was like the president of Global Partnerships,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: which is a group I ended up working in, President
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: of AG Sports, and I think one other person. And
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: I remember the guys as Tim light Wickie or he
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: was a CEO at the time, and Tim goes Zach.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: Jerry West never calls me for anything. You must be
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: the second coming of Christ if he called me, and
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: we're sitting here right now. Wow. And I remember at
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: the time I just laughed. I was like, oh, ha
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: ha whatever. But like in retrospect, I'm like I probably
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: would have if I was Tim, I probab would have
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: thought the same thing. But you know, for someone that
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: you know, blessed our family with the opportunity of you know,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: because Jerry was the gem of the Lakers. My dad
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: came here so you know, the grace that he had
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: to bring my dad in to play with the Lakers
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: when they're in you know, some of their best years.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: And then the gift that keeps on giving helps me
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: with my senior thesis, assists me with getting in a
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: big way with getting my first job. You know, I
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for the West family.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that just again explains the importance of
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: relationships and networking. And wow, wow, I'm happy you asked
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: that question to you because you didn't mention that when
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: you were going through and how you got from point
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: A to point B. Jerry West had a huge part
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is great. He's a great man. He's
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: a great man.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: So the journey of grief is something that you learn
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: to live with. What does that look for you as
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: you're navigating life now in your career and personal relationships.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's been an interesting journey in the fact that,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: as you guys have heard over the last however much
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: time we've been speaking, like, I've been very big on
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: like keep your head down, push through, figure it out,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: don't give yourself excuses. Yeah, And I think as I
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: got through life and especially with my father's passing, Like
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: I kind of kept carrying that through and I think
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: over time it inhibited my ability to really understand people
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: when they you know, I know we're joking about like, oh,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: going to the gym at five the morning versus nine.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: The answer I gave about like does my person need
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: to do it the same way as I do? Like
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: getting to this point in life was like, you know what,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I have to accept people where they are and be
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: completely fine with that and not in a way that's
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: kind of like not frowning upon them or looking down
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: upon them. Like, look, we all have different journeys. And
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: I think with my father and you know, later in
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: his life and some of the you know, trials and
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: trip relations that you had and then obviously how it ended,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: like in just how stuff was with a family or whatnot,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Like I try to take on that like head down, whatever.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: And I just noticed what I was doing with the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: relationships of folks closer to me and you know, and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: funny enough, I mean some people will have to go
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: to the therapy route. Thankfully, I can get pretty self reflective,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: so that's why I did it. And yeah, I just
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: I started to realize, like take three, steps back, like
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: no one like everyone is special and great in their
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: own way, and how do you leverage that for your
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: own and not necessarily leverage that, but like how do
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: you their their journey and seeking happiness if they're seeking happiness,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: like they're doing well okay, and for me personally, Like
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm like, you know what it really should
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: just all be about just be happy.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: You know, So can you explain three steps back? What
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: is like talk walk us through that that process.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: It's unlike the self reflection and all that just yeah, yeah,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: self reflection just more so going I think it was
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: those first few years just really seeing like okay, how
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: how am I processing? Okay, what's happening to me? How
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: my how am I processing? Like the dynamics of my family,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: how my processing things with work or you know, romantic relationships?
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: What have you? Just going through that? Like you just
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: you take different notes in different you know, different points
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: of like okay, where was I great? Where was I bad? Okay,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: and be very frank about what that is.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: Did you do you feel like you allow yourself to mourn.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: Later? I did? Okay, later I did because I think
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: at the time it was there was a lot, a
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: whole lot going on, so I just kind of rushed
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: through it. I think it took me later on and
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: not necessarily to mourn, but I think and this is
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: credit to a lot of people who have like talked
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: to me over the years, like the great parts by
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: my dad's life, you know, And I think there's he's
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of great he did in this world,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: which is and not even just on the court, like
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: even just on an interpersonal level, Like I mean anecdote,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: last Wednesday, I was playing basketball and one guy was like, hey,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: like I fished with your dad a few times. Yeah.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: Another guy who was on the court was like, I've
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: played pick up with your dad before, and like certain
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: certain ways that you've talked or like passed a ball
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: to me or this and that, like it kind of
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: reminds me of your dad.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: So how does that make you feel? When people are
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: sharing those stories?
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: It's heartwarming, Okay. And it's heartwarming in a sense of
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: like it's legacy. Yeah, And that's the legacy he left
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: on this earth and reinforces the whole notion of like
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: life's experiences and shared experiences of what people are and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: remember about you.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, do you feel like you your grief journey is
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: different from your siblings?
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? Okay, absolutely, But also that's more we're all wired different,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Like okay, I mean my brother and sister if they're
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: sin here right now to be like yeah, Zach, Zach's
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: like the robot, Like he just goes this, that and
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: the other. He's very direct and this and that.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: I think that's why I actually like, did you allow
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: yourself the freedom to let the shield down and mourn
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: or do you feel like you had to keep the
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: face for your family?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: I think my by nature is you could tell like
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I just am stoic by nature. I think as I've
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: gotten later in life, I've started to develop that more
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: like you know, emotional or being able to emote a
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: little bit better. But when I was, yeah, it's just
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: I know my limits and like I'm never gonna be
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: the like, oh, I'm super happy in the clouds one
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: day and the next day I'm like, don't ever talk
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: to me because I'm in a terrible mood. You're always
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: gonna You're gonna get somewhere in between. And if I
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: get too far down, I'm probably gonna remind myself like
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: get back up. Here if I go too high, like
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, reality is around the corner. So that's
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: just me as me as a person. So I have
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: to be mindful of who I am and know that
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: like my version of letting loose and mourning and a
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: mooting is going to be a different docible level than
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: anybody else.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: And that's fair. So what does grace look like to
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: you today?
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: Acceptance? Okay, yeah, I'd say acceptance just going through and
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: whether it's people I meet through through business or I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: meet through friendships or through dating or family friends, and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: just whatever differences there there might be, just just taking
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: them on with grace, and it's being happy that that
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: we're there together, we respect each other, we're enjoying our time,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: not not getting caught because we just were in a
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: divisive world, and being mindful of the divisiveness and just
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: not not letting that dictate how I view people. So
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: you got it.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: I was going to ask you, how good are you
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: giving yourself grace?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: What you said that you're like, uh, much better, much
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: better now and it gets better by the day.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, it is.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: It's a that's a daily journey to have to sit
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: and look at and be like look like whether it's
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you know, something happened with the friendship and I'm like, hey,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: you know this and that happened, or I lost a
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: deal with work, or I got a great deal with work,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: or me and my mom are doing great, or my
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: mom mad at me for being Zach. Sometimes it's just
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: like anybody else in this world. I think it's just
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: looking at each opportunity that I can where these things happen,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: and just being patient with myself and being patient with
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: the people, and actually more importantly, being patient with the
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: people around me.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: So as you are continuing on your journey and you're evolving,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: and you are learning how to give your self grace
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: and other people grace, and you're going through this process
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: of carrying grief and so many other things, has your
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: understanding of your dad evolved?
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: Yes? Okay, absolutely, he had a lot he had to
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: carry through. He you know, has a very publicly chronicle
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: journey with addiction, and I think as a kid, I
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: didn't understand how to really square that box, if you will. Yeah,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: going through life and having friends who've had issues, having
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: friends who've passed from certain issues like life's delegate, and
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: everyone's equipped differently to deal with the different aspects of
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: life throws at them. And then also for a guy
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: like him, like I can only imagine coming from a
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: town of ten thousand people segregated, you know, colors on
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: this side, whites here, and then you're going from that,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you get thrown into like
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: the bright lights of Notre Dame and every the domers
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: and this, that and the other, and you have a
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: heck of a basketball career there, and then all of
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now you get drafted sixth and now you're
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: playing in the NBA in Chicago. Then fast forward a
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: little bit. You have this guy by the name of
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Michael Jordan who's now Then fast forward another few years.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: Now you're playing with Magic Johnson and Kreum Abdul Jabbar.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: And then at the end of your career, you're playing
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: with Moses Malone. Oh, I don't know you play you
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: playing Moses in Philly. So that's just a very quick
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: ascension in your life of like all these different things.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: And you know, again, when you're a small town kid
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: from like I had the good fortune of being here
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: in the bright lights, so I can kind of see, like,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: you know, to kind of sound like a quarterback. You
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: could see a play play out, like you know, we're like, Okay,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: this corner is gonna come in here, the safety is
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: gonna pop up whatever, Like you could see that coming.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: He didn't have that awareness. And I think, going back
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: to the grace topic, like you have to understand like
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: everyone deals with that differently, and I think I don't.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say my dad didn't have the tools,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: but I can only understand like that that journey was
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: not It wasn't a linear journey for him. It wasn't
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: an easy journey. And you know, I think there are
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: things that if he had an opportunity to go back
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: and redo, absolutely and also the most important aspect of it,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: it wasn't about me, I you know. And I understand like,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: look like you know, there's me and my brother, my
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: sister and my mom. Whatever's relationship was my mom. That's
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: for them. And yeah, but I wasn't like I was
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: a part of that journey in now as this kid,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: but I'm not a part of his journey of the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: difficulties of trying to navigate all that and.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: Why some of those things may.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Have correct Yeah, So I don't so the better part
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: of that question is like I don't carry the guilts
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: of like I'm the reason why. Like, no, I do
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: not carry that at all.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: Like that, So there wasn't a time that you did
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: have you felt like that?
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: I very I mean, I think the part as a
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: kid that was tough was just having that part ripped
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: out of, like not having the traditional like father and
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: son thing going through. But I also know my mom
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: had to do what was best for her. You know.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: I think every relationship, you know, whether it's death, does
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: you part or on this earth does you part? To
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: some degrees my business, some degrees none of my business.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: And they did the best they could. And I think,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: you know, and the best and look the fruits of
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: it got me to where I am today. So I
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: have no problem with it. But yeah, went back to
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: your original question about you know, just my dad and
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: just the perception really understanding like talking to his former teammates,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: talking to friends of his. I mean, like I have
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: a prospect for work that his older brother and my
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: dad were like really close friends. It's a super small
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: world on that, and so like I'm just getting perspectives
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: from different people, and I'm like, you know what like,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: that's that's gotta be a lot. Yeah, it's gotta be
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: Beautifully said. Beautifully said, I'm going to ask you one
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: more question and then we can wrap. But when people
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: think of Zach years from now, what do you hope
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: they say your legacy was?
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: I was? I was straight up Yeah, you know, I
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: was intentional, tried to do the right thing, supportive. Yah
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: had his quirks to him, what you do, Yeah, at
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: my quirks. You know, he'll throw a few jads every
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: now and then, but just you enjoyed them. He's a
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: good guy. Yeah. Again, try to do the right thing.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: Beautifully said. Again, you have been a joy to talk
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: with the last one hour and a half. We've been
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: talking for like Evan has been flagging us the last
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: thirty minutes, Like wrap it up and here we go
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: just a chit chatting. But before you leave, we wanted
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: to gift you with something. My mother wanted you to
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: have this. Oh wow, she is, you know, full blown
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: mommy mode. She's like I she was like I remember
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: when Zach was a baby. That's the thing about being
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: born in to the NBA. Everybody knows everybody, everybody knows
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: everybody my mom.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: I'll be back to mic. Yeah, so my mom, I mean,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: she'll tell me. I think we were in like Hawaii
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: and like Danny Ainge was in the uh by the
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: or picking up our bags, uh huh and walked up
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: and next thing you know, it's like, oh, how's it going? This,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: that and the other. And I'm like, how you know
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: Danny Ainge? But I was like, I guess they.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: All, oh, yeah, it's a small world. So she's like,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: I have to give Zack something. And so that's for
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: you from my mother. Thanks Mom. She she would have
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: been very pissed off if she watched this episode. It
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: did not see your gift getting your gift on camera.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: So Mom, here's proof it made it to Zach. Zach
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: has it. She wanted you to have it.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Mama would say.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, and just even give a shout out
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: to your mom. I know, we we you've been able
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: to talk about her a little bit, but just even
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: giving mom a quick shout out. She was She's the
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: real MVP here and Mom, you did a great job
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: raising your children, Zach.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: So thanks Mom. I appreciate you. Love you all, right, Zach.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: The intentional yes, we love it alrighty guys, thank you
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: for tuning in to today's episode of Born's Game. I'm
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: your host Maria.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 4: And I'm Tamara, and we'll see you next time.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: Make sure to like, follow, share, share with your your mama.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 4: M yeah, do all.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: Things all right.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: Bye,