Latest / Beyond the Paw - Clemson Athletics / Ep. 42 - Saving Lives and Saving Goals with Aiden Hampton

Transcript

Ep. 42 - Saving Lives and Saving Goals with Aiden Hampton · Beyond the Paw - Clemson Athletics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Poll.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Today we have a special guest, Aiden Hampton, who we
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: talk about his journey to Clemson, being a D one
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: soccer player while also being a firefighter, and some amazing
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: challenges this summer.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Let's go beyond the.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Pop today we have Clemson goalkeeper Aiden Hampton. Aiden, welcome,
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having of course, how's your
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: day been so far?
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: It's been pretty good.
• 0:27
  Speaker 5: This is my first podcast, so I'm not gonna lie
• 0:29
  Speaker 5: to today. So I'm just kind of the nerves building up.
• 0:32
  Speaker 6: You're just like waiting for the podcast.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no nerves. It's fun.
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, we're glad that you're here with us.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really appreciate. Thank you.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: So this is your this is your last year.
• 0:44
  Speaker 6: It's the last semester, last semester, your semester.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm wrapping up so oh wow.
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: I was a mid year when I first got to Clemson,
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: so I showed up January twenty twenty two, so this
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: is technically wrapping up my fourth year.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: How fast did it fly by?
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: So fast? Yeah?
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: It's really incredible, Like you come in and I don't know,
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: like obviously you're just a high school graduate and you're like, oh,
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: I have to do another four years of school and
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: then you blink. And it's so cliche because you hear
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: everyone talk about especial when you're freshmen. You always hear
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: the seniors talk about and you're like, it's not going
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: to be like that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It is it?
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: Really is?
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: It goes by quick unless you take six years like
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: some crazy people.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: For old people, I wonder who.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: It goes by quick, though it does. That's insane that
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: it's your last year. You've been a part of a
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: team that's won an ACC championship and a national championship.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Can you kind of walk me through what that's like.
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So, you know, it's a pretty incredible experience and
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: I'm super thankful to you know, come from that and
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: continue to strive for that as a program. But I
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: mean that season twenty twenty three, I mean, we knew
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: that we had something special and it didn't start out perfect.
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, we started out the season on a loss,
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: and I think that was the first time in a
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: decade that we had lost a home opener at Rigs.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: And then the next game we played you and C.
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: Wilmington and we tied one to one, and then we
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: went another game and it just really wasn't working out
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: and we couldn't find our rhythm. And you know, eventually
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: we got together as a team, we talked about our
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: why and really came together and from then it was
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: off kind off to the races. And you know, one
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: thing I'll talk about a lot, and I'll probably mention
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: it again in this podcast is culture. And that's one
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: thing that the Clemson soccer program really strives itself on
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: and I think that's what separates us from and makes
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: us uncommon from other teams in the country.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: That's really special too, like talking about your why, like
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: as a team, like why are you here?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Like why are you doing this?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And I think that's something that's really special that you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: guys did and you know, reroute what you're doing and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: let's see what we need to do to fix that.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think that's something that takes courage too, because stopping
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: you know what, a loss or a tire or whatever
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's it takes courage.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I also feel like that gives like you a perspective
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: on your other like teammates as well, and like why
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: they're here to do what they're doing, you know, like
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: you could have teammates from like across the country too,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: like why are they here to play soccer? And like
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: it just gives you like a greater outlook on them
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: or a better outlook on them, and like makes you
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: appreciate them more and makes you closer as a team,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: which like all in makes you do better. Like that's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: so cool. I think every team should do that, quite honestly.
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And it was very natural, like that was not
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: something that was like, hey, this Tuesday, we're gonna come
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: together and you know, that was just something that our
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: leadership group at the time, like Adam Lunder, Garber's a captain,
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: Brandon Parrish, Guyle Jibert. It was kind of something that
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: was like you just felt it in the locker room,
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: you know, And I think that's a huge important aspect
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: of it. It was not something that was forced, like
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: let's just sit together and talk about or why Like no,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: it's something that we all kind of bonded over of
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: like no, like you know, I want to get to
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: know you, like I want to know why I want
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: to like give everything I have on the pitch, or
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: like why I want to do the extra.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Stuff outside the facility like for.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: You, you know, and it was kind of like that
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: the guy in the left and right type of thing,
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: you know, and that I think that really is what
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: helped us this season. Is something that we still talk
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: about in the in the team today.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Because wasn't there like a moment? Was it?
• 4:10
  Speaker 7: It was one of your teammates. I feel like I
• 4:11
  Speaker 7: heard this story that was like, okay, you must know
• 4:14
  Speaker 7: because you're like reacting, but like it was like a
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: really big moment that was a turning point, and like
• 4:18
  Speaker 7: one of your teammates really shared like what their mission was,
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: like what the heck we're doing here?
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm gonna be honest.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: I wasn't there, so I didn't travel for that game,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: but word spread pretty quick. I remember I was with
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: the non travel guys. We were actually at my house
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: watching the game. I think we were playing USF SO
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: down in Florida and it was just not going our way.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: I think we were down one nothing, maybe two nothing,
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: and you know, non travel we were watching the game
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: like what is going on?
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: And anyways, we ended up coming back.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure we won that game, but it was
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: we kind of heard stories after the game with Guyela
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: transfer from Oregon State, went in the locker room and
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: just lit everyone up, like and you know, oh he
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: held everyone accountable, which is a good way.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in a good way.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: Like I don't mean that to be like, oh he's
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: being mean or no, he was holding guys account but
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: he was pretty much like this is it for me,
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: Like this is my fifth year, Like I didn't come
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: to Clemson just to like play and not come up
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: with any civilware.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: I think he really like got into the guys. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: was like, this is it. You know, I'm I'm leaving
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: after this season, Like I want to go pro. I
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: want to win a championship. If you guys don't want
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: to do that, then get out, you know. And I
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: think it really resonated with us. And obviously, like the
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: word spread and he was I know a lot of
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: guys would agree with me on this. He was kind
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: of an honorary captain that season. He was definitely a
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: guy that we all looked up to. And yeah, he
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: definitely set the standard and the tone for someone who
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: I still look like or still look to as a
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: leader today.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it worked. It worked just
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: A yeah, I do.
• 5:53
  Speaker 7: I think the men's soccer culture is so cool, and
• 5:57
  Speaker 7: I think you have a great staff and what Coach
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: Newton is about out and I know I enjoy being
• 6:01
  Speaker 7: around them, but it's just year after year there's always
• 6:03
  Speaker 7: great leaders, but it's a great team and it just seems,
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: you know, especially being entire leadership academy, I always feel
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: like the men's soccer guys like they know the team expectations,
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: they live to those standards, and it's really cool to
• 6:15
  Speaker 7: see you all share that with other athletes as well.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: No, one hundred percent. I mean, I think one thing
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: that the our team does very well is we were
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: very adamant about and no we're not We're not just
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: an eleven man team. You know, we're a twenty eight
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: man team or whatever the full roster is. And you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: that's something that touches home with me as someone like,
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm a backup goalkeeper. I've maybe seen fourteen
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: minutes in my four year span, and to have that
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: come from the coaches and have from older guys on
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: the team that like I can go into a room
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: and say something, I can holy guy accountable or have
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: an opinion on something and nobody's gonna shut me down.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Oh you don't play, you don't you don't have an opinion, Like, no,
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: it's not like that at all. Nice to reminds me.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: It's funny story. We had a freshman the other day
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: and talking and he was making a point in film
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: or something, and he just kept like he had a
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: very good point, but he kept going back to, well,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: I wasn't there. I don't understand. I can't imagine what
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: it was like like. And I remember I talked to
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: him later on after and I said I was kind
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: of messing with him a little bit. I was like, dude, like,
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: say with your chest, Like, no, no one's going to
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: say something to like, that's not what we're about. He
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: was talking about something like it was a very like
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: soccer mistake, something very easy, like you point out. And
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: I was like, dude, like, say with your chest. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: I was like, even if someone disagrees with you, like
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: they're going to say it respectfully, it's not going to
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: be they be quiet. You're a freshman year. You don't
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: know what you're talking about, Like, that's not what we're about.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: That's something that we really strive ourselves on. And I think,
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: you know, all the seasons till twenty three season, I
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: mean even right now. The reason we're successful is because
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: we play as twenty eight.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Or thirty guys. You know we are we are Clemson United. Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, yeah, because.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I feel like there's so many teams that like bank
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: on like the upperclassmen having the voice on the team
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: and like setting the standards and telling people what to
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: do and this and that, and like just making sure
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: that everyone no matter your age, what year you are,
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: if you play, if you can pee, or if you don't,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: like you have a voice in your voice matters. Like
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: I feel like that makes for such a better team too,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in a better culture as well. Like that's amazing that
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: you guys have that, and it obviously shows up, you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: in your guys' seasons and stuff like that.
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it's it's you have guys that, you know,
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: especially the freshmen, younger guys, they need to listen and
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: they need to like watch from experience. But you know,
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: the leadership guys are the captains James and Joseph, who
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: have been doing an outstanding job.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, we make it very clear that you know.
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: It's not just us that needs to step up, Like
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: anybody can step up. And I don't care if you
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: have four seasons. Know you're built or you're a red
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: shirt freshman, like you're there for a reason. You can
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: say something and you can be a leader.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: It's definitely like the coolest thing about like an awesome
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: culture and something a program that you guys have well
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: established is that everyone on the team, no matter who plays,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: who contributes, who doesn't, Like, you still have a voice,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: you still matter, like I think that's super important. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: obviously it's showing off on the field too.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's a lot behind the scenes.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: I mean, you guys know, like there's a lot of
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: people that work insanely hard behind the scenes. I don't
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: know if it for soccer, I don't know volleyball.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: You guess.
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: We have scout team, so when we're prepping for a game,
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: you know, we we have guys that don't play and
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: we're trying to prepare for the next game.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: But those guys work insanely hard.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: You know, those guys, they work their butts off and
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: it's not easy at all. I mean you're pretty much
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: asked to be I mean, how much or more other
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: center do you have to be to do that. Like
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: that's you're saying, Hey, I'm probably not going to be
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: able to play, not maybe going to go into this game,
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: but I need to step up. I need to push
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: my guy in my position. I need to be a
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: good teammate. And that's not an easy thing to do.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: It's easier something done, for sure. And there's a lot
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: of guys on our team that that do that day
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: in day out, that just play to the standard, push
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: pushed the guy ahead of them, and that's why they
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: make We make each.
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: Other great, the unsung heroes for sure.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a full team effort, like everyone's making
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: each other better and like that's the beauty of sports too,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and it's Yeah, I.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Also feel like the soccer guys just have like a
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: genuine relationship, like even though like you guys are from
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: all over the place and there's so many people from
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: so many different countries, like who even speak different languages
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: and things like that, Like you guys find like a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: common goal and you guys just gel like genuinely. When
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: I see you guys, I'm like, oh, there's the soccer eyes,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: you know. Over there, they're always having a good time
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: talking to each other, joking with each other, Like that's
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: so cool that you guys are teammates, but like you're
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: also genuinely friends.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we're friends or family, Like I mean,
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: we do. We spend a lot of time with one another.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean it's easy when you have a
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: common goal, Like obviously everyone wants to win the championships
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: and stuff like that. So that's that's always easy to
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: be a part of. But it really starts in the summer.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: I mean we set the tone pretty early on, like
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: this is what we expect. These are the standards, you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: and we're going to hold you to it. And you know,
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: like I'm a locker room guy. I love the locker room.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: I love hanging out with the guys, like I love
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: making jokes and stuff like that. So you know, that's
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: kind of my my niche.
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: But don't you guys have a ping pong table?
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Yes, we have a pink pong table. It gets very competitive,
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: I'm sure. Yeah, that's where you lose friends.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: Honestly, that's where the real competition very competitive. We have
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: a bracket going on right now.
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: Who's in the lead, who's the best.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: Well, it's really between it's really between Ransford and I.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: I think I have the edge on Ransford. I hope
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: he listens to this.
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: And I need like a team like one on one challenge,
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: like mac is going to take on the min's soccer
• 11:51
  Speaker 7: at ping kong.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't start that ping pong, Yes we should.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I was on my high school ping pong team.
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: That was, yeah, a legendary.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Okay, I want to.
• 12:01
  Speaker 7: See like every team send your best player at ping
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: pong or meeting soccer.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: All right, that's pretty loud. Yeah, I did not know
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: that about me. And that's a fun fact. That's pretty cool.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: What are the soccer workouts like in summer summer? Because
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I feel like that's like it's not it's part of
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: your preseason, so it's the hardest part of your season.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: Correct, so you know, being a goalkeeper, it's it's different.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: I always make the joke it's like they have a
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: really hard session, like that was brutal to watch.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: It's it's a lot of running, lots lots of running
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: and then lifts and nothing crazy. I mean, you're it's
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: more just like the daily grind. I mean you're up early,
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: you're you know, the workout is going to suck. You
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: know that the lift's not going to be fun, You're
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: gonna be tired, and it's more just the day and
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: day out grind.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: That's where the like what we just talked about, that's
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: where the chemistry really comes to play.
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: You know, we we go through ad versus together, we
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: really come together as a team. And you know, the
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: rest of the day of off, so guys are going
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: up to the dicks, or they're going to the rowing
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: docs or you know, you're going out to eat together.
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: So that that plays a huge part. And you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: I think it's little things. It's like you go through
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: a really hard running session and then it's like, you know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: you're hanging out with the guys and you're like that
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: sucked earlier, and you're you're bonding over that, you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: And I think that's something that's super important. In terms
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: of the goalkeepers. The field players make fun of us,
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: and I would too. Literally, we literally do jump sets,
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: like we just do jumping in agility, like while so
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: while these guys are like running.
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: And running for like eight miles.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Like hitting the floor, puke whatever, But I got my
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: hands on hips. I'm just like jumping I'm like, you guys,
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: let's go like I hate it, like.
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: But you can be a vocal leader that way.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's hard.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Like you know, we do, like the keepers, we do
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: some running, you know, we stay in shape. But I
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: definitely have like a little like, you know, I'm not
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: I feel bad, you know, I'm just like watching I'm
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: doing literally like literally doing skips and you know, these
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: guys are running for their lives. But you know, I
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: think that's where for me it's easier because I come
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: from a lot of experience on the team at this point,
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: you know, so I don't have a problem you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: being vocal about it or knowing the standard. When you're
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: a freshman goalkeeper, it's a little bit different, you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: it's definitely a little more intimidating.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I feel like the goalkeeper position is definitely a more
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: mental side of soccer because like, yes, the other the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: other players are like running and doing what their position
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: is supposed to do and stuff like this, but like
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you really have to have your mental locked in and
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: know how to read someone else's body language to be
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: able to protect the goal.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: You know, Like it's it's very mental.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: I mean I think Joseph and Dama's biggest strength aside
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: from just being an outstanding goalkeepers, he's his consistency and
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: his mentality. I mean, that dude's a dog like he
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: he has that winning mentality or you know, whenever he plays,
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: it's just he's he's going to go out there to
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: the best he can. And you know, I don't I
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: don't want to speak for him, but it's like almostly
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: he's like not nervous, Like he just has so much confidence.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: It's not arrogance.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: And to make that clear, like he's just so confident
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: in his ability and that he's he's a great teammate too,
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: So he's we talk about like stress makes you selfish,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: you know, and that dude he's just not really.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Stress and think about myself.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, shout out the milk.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: But uh, when you know, when he's not stressed, he's
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: he's a great teammate. He's a great leader on the field,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: and he's kind of just able to do his thing.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: And you know that's the signs of it. That's the
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: marks of a great goalkeeper. And that's something that you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: as the goalkeeping group we really take pride on and
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: trying to you know for me, that's the hardest part
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: about it. Like you know, I'm I can die whatever,
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: you know, but consistently going into training or consistently preparing
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: for games, like can I be like can I play
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: to my standard? Can I prepare to my standard? And
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: that's that's and that's very difficult. That's not something that
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: I just was told and was like, oh, you're so right,
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Like no, it's it's something you gotta work on it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: And then something I'm still working on as a senior.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: All right, how did you get into being a goalkeeper?
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: Okay, so there's there's kind of two. So the first
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: time I was in second grade, I used to I
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: still do, but I used to get super nervous before games.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: So I think this time I was just I think again,
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: I was nervous, but my stomach hurt. I was on
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: the way to the game. I told my dad, was like,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: I'm not feeling good. He told the coach, and the
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: coach was like, all right, I just stick him in
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: goal and ended up being just fine. So I actually
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: enjoyed it, like I was making good saves and uh.
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: I kind of from that point, from second grade to
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: fifth grade, I was doing both so I was playing
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: the field still and then I was going back into goal.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: But then, you know, I made the decision I wanted
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: to go to travel league in the sixth grade, and
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: I tried out as a field player, so I I
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: was a left winger. Believe it or not, I used
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: to be fast, I used to be agile, and used
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: to be able to shoot the ball.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: I can't anymore at all.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: But I tried out as a midfielder, and I remember
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: I didn't end up making the team, and that they
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: left it at that. But then we got a call
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: later and they're like, you know, we want him to
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: be a goalkeeper. And I don't know, it's the weirdest thing.
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: I don't know why they knew I was a goalkeeper,
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: had figured it out. Maybe it's a person knew a person,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: but you know, obviously I was like, sure, so I might.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: I kind of make the joke nobody chooses goalkeeping first.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: It kind of chooses you. So I got into goalkeeping,
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: and then you know, I ended up being pretty successful
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: that in the travel team or whatever, and I decided
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: to know it is something I'm good at, and from
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: an early age I wanted to pursue the want athletics,
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: and I thought that, you know, I enjoyed goalkeeping. I
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: thought it gave me probably the best shot at getting
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: to a D one team at some point, so I
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: kind of just stuck with it.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: And then now I'm here.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're from Sorry, you're from Connecticut, right, what
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: brought you to Clemson South Carolina?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: So I'm not gonna lie.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: The story is crazy, but it's it's close to my
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: heart and it's it's the reason why I have a
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: love for Clemson. But I was a senior in high
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: school and again, this is during COVID and all that,
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: so recruiting was very tough, like very difficult on not
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: being able to travel, not really to be able to
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: go showcases, and especially I'm from a small town. Yeah,
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: I'm from a small town in South Break, Connecticut, so
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: there's not a lot of marketing out there. You know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: I wasn't playing for some big team and uh, I'm
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: trying to think my head.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so okay, so there were no really offers.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: And I I'd applied to Clemson like as like a
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: regular student, and I got waitlisted and then May of
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: my senior year, I got off the waitlist, and you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: I called my mom.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, I'm going to Clemson.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: Like my best friend at the time was before I
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: had a deposit down at West Virginia University, but that
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: I wasn't even playning on going at the time.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Like it was that up in the air, you know.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: I was really I was really fighting for soccer, and
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: it kind of got to the point where, I think
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: a week before Clemson accepted me, I was like, pretty
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: much a college s sooker is not gonna work it out, workout.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna have to accept it. You know. It was
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: very tough.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: I mean I worked really hard to try to like
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: get an offer, and I had to go through a
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: lot of things, and it for not to work out,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: it was like wow. But anyways, I got accepted the
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: Clemson so I decided, you know, I'm gonna go be
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: a regular student.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: I'm having a great time.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: And my mom was like, you know, have you reached
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: out to the soccer coaches at Clemson?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: And I was like, come on, mom, you know, they're
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: number two in the country.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: I didn't even get an offer, you know, and she's like, well,
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: why don't you just try?
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I was like, all right, so.
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: Like in your mind right now, you're like, I'm done
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: with soccer.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: I'm done. I'm done with soccer, Like I'm moving on.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: Actually funk that I was gonna be an Air Force
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: artc person at Clemson. Uh yeah, which uh yeah, I
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: or I was planning on it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: I wasn't.
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: It wasn't firm, but that was my plan. Yeah, and
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: but yeah, my mom was like, you you should just
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: reach out, and I was very hesitant, like this is
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: a waste of time. And so anyways, I did reach out.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: They ended up getting back to me and they said,
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: you know, why don't you uh, why don't you come
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: down to our camp in June whatever? And it was
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: like three days after my high school graduation and you.
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: Guys have to report early, yeah, summer.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: So this was for the ID camp.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: So this was not even like a garret like this
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: is like, hey, come to our D camp you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: gotch And the other funny part of it is it
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: was scheduled during my senior trip, which I had booked
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: in like January, so you know, so I was making
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: a big decision here. I was like, okay, you know,
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: and I've been to a lot of ID camps obviously,
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: and you know some schools are just like, oh, come yeah,
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: you'll pay all your money and we'll look at.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: You quote unquote you know. Yeah. So you know, I
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: don't know Clenson.
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: At the time, I'm thinking this could be that, this
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: could be sure, Yeah, we'll have a look, like come
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: down to our camp, you know. And uh so, but
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: I always kind of say, like when Alabama football calls
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: your name or Clemson football calls your name, like you
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: go no matter what. So for me, that was like
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: Clemson soccer, you know. So I was like, I'm gonna go,
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: you know. So I went down there. I had a
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: good idea camp. I met with coach Camillo Camilla Rodriguez,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: the goalkeeper coach at Clemson, and.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: You know, he said he liked me. He said, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: why don't you.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: I was in mid year, by the way, I was
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: something a minute, so he's why don't you when you
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: come in January, He's like, you'll get with the team,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: you know, and we'll pretty much give you a trial.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: And uh yeah. So I that that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: October I went to my first official visit to Clemson
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: and then I went on the spring and went went good,
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: and I kind of just say I never got cut
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: since I ended up making it to my senior year,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: but yeah, I pretty much I walked on.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: So that's amazing.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty cool and moral stories. Moms are
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: always right.
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, listen to your mom's.
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: Such a cool story.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Like the mindset of like being done with soccer, like
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: you've done it all of your life and you're kind
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: of like, oh, like I'm retiring and getting this like
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: second chance to do the sport that you love again,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Like that is so cool and that like just shows
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: me and again another reason why Clemson is so special too.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm the courage to go for it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: Yeah, like, especially if you're already thinking that you're done
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: with your sport and you're taking another risk that if
• 22:26
  Speaker 7: it didn't work out, that you went for it, and
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: I'd say it worked out really well.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: I Mean my mom and dad were always saying, like
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: you had nothing to lose, you know, just go out there,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: have a great time. And it felt like home here.
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: And I know that everyone says that it's a clich yet,
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: but like it really did. You know, I the staff,
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: the players, you know, when I went to ID camp
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: and when I went on the official visit, there was
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: something different about Clemson. You know, not to hit on Duke,
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: but when I went to Duke I D Camp, those
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: players did not want to be there and they did
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: not want to be counselors. And that was something for
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: me as a reruit, like, all right, these guys like
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: don't even care about us. When I went to Clemson,
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: different story. You know, you're at the ID camp, Like
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: maybe they did or didn't, but like those players were
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: like talking to the campers, they were helping the campers out,
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: and they were talking to me, you know, And that
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: was a big difference.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: And same for the official visit.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: You go on there and they welcome you in through
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: the family, and that's pretty cool, and that's I think
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: that's special.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: In what makes Clemson uncommon.
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: There are children of all ages in South Carolina who
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: are in need of a forever home. Many are teens, siblings,
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: or have complex medical needs. Public adoption through the South
• 23:26
  Speaker 7: Carolina Department of Social Services can be not only life.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Changing for them, it can be life changing for you too.
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: When you provide stability, guidance, and support, you're giving a
• 23:35
  Speaker 7: young person the foundation to succeed.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: In school work and life. In return, you'll gain a
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: meaningful connection.
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: Learn more about public adoption in South Carolina at DSS
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: dot SC dot dive.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Now back to the show.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: What else have you been doing here other than soccer?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I know you've been doing sack sack right here, Vice President,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you're doing like ms work, fire work, firefighter. Can you
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: just like go through you know, your experience outside of
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: being an athlete.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So Clemson has really been the place of opportunities
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: for me. I remember I worked with Ashley Pearson with
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: and like to get involved with you pick and get
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: an internship set up. And I did a research internship
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: at the nursing Department.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: Didn't really work out.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: I did not like it. Research was not my thing.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: And I remember I went back to her and I said, hey,
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: you know, I want to I want to have a
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: job where like I'm hands on, I want to help people,
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: you know, like fire something like that. I was like,
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: and if you could get me in with any of
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: those guys like sweet and sure enough I got a
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: text like a couple weeks later like fire departments willn't
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: take you.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: So I was like, okay, sweet. So I got.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: In touch with the fire department and so I was
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: an intern with them a Spring of twenty twenty four
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: with you Pick. So I essentially just did ryelongs for
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: the entire semester and it was a blast. I mean,
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: all those guys down there are awesome. They really like
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: took me into their family. They even gave me like
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: a locker and it says they actually call me Sack
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: because the.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Shirt you're wearing.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: I wore that one day to the department and they
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: thought that was my name. So I have a locker
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: with a magnet that says Sack on it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: To this day, it's still the nickname, which started to
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: take pride in. So I'm Sack.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: But but yeah, I finished up the internship, had a blast,
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: and I remember I met up with Chief and I
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: was with Lieutenant Dante and they were like, you know,
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: we had a great time with you this semester.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: You know, if if.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: You'd be willing to go to the local Coney Fire school,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: get you all your crads and then we'll help you
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: get an EMT certification, Like if you're willing to do that,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: like we'll get you going on it. And I was
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: a little work because of soccer, you know, scheduling stuff,
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: you know, that's kind of a big.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: It's hard to balance, yeah, with school and soccer, and.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was definitely kind of a I
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: had to sit down a little bit.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: I remember I was talking to my parents and you know,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: the biggest thing was, you know, I didn't want it
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: to affect soccer. But it was hard because it was
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: something I did want to pursue and I saw it
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: as a great opportunity to get some professional work experience,
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: you know, And I ended up saying yes, And that summer,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: I in June, I went to like a local like
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: the fire school and a coney got all my credentials
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: finished up. So I became a South Carolina firefighter.
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: That is insane. That is crazy.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Like you said, it's so we're sitting amongst a firefighter.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, I got to respect the fact that there's
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: guys that go to like the South Carolina Fire Academy
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: and it's a very different. Like I went to a
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: fire school, so I still got the credentials. I'm still
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: the same, but you know, I didn't go to the paramilitary,
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: so I have a little respect for the guys that
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: you know, went there and got yelled at. So yeah,
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: but yeah, so I fished that and then this past
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: year I was working on my ANTI certification over the
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: whole year, so I was able to pass my exam,
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: so I'm officially anti SORTIF certified.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: So I got it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: Let's go sack.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: So you know, they're they're great guys down there, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: they're really hard working, and you know, I'm thankful to
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: a lot of them that really took me in and
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: even through all the jokes and pranks that they made
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: me one of theirs and they were able to give
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: me a lot of those opportunities. And you know, even
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: still to this day, I'm still able to work with
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: them and hang out.
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: How was that like balance going?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Like, I know, it's got to be like a lot
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of extra work and you know, along with soccer in school,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: like that's got to.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: Be a lot. Yeah, it's not as bad as you think.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: So I've kind of remained intern just because it's way
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: more flexible. So you know, I'm technically a part time
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: firefighter for them. But the problem with being a part
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: time firefighter is like you kind of need schedule to
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: match up on like a specific day. So obviously when
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: I'm doing soccer in school throughout the year.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: It's kind of hard to.
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: Have like a random you know, in firefighter, like we
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: all work twenty four hour shifts or they work for
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: twenty four hour shifts, so.
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: It's not to be on call.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so when you're there, like you're pretty much you're
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: on call the whole time.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: You have a different role. So you know, if I'm there,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: you know, I might be on the engine, like the
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: fire truck.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: Do you ever get to slide down like the.
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: We don't have a poll, sorry, biggest question.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: I know, I get it asked all the time.
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: I'm like that, It's okay, I get asked that all
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: the time.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: It's mean too.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: I wish we had a poll, but no, no poll.
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: But everything else, you know, those sirens go off in
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: the building and you got to get to the car,
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: and you have like dispatch and stuff like that, so
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: a lot of communications come through like the radio and
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: you're just trying to get as much information as you can.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: And then we have like software that like really helps
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: out with you know, who's who's going, because not everyone
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: goes like if it's a commercial alarm, you know typically
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: only like it's called engine nine one, like Engine nine
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: one's going.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: So that's like just one fire truck.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: But if it's you know, some kid downtown falls and
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: needs stitches on his knee or something like he has
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: a laceration, like that's just gonna be It's called Medic
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: nine one. So that's just the ambulance. So you get
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: information like that. So but yeah, you're on call like
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: twenty four to seven when you're there. Yeah, it's it's
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: not it's not easy. Yeah, there's a lot of down time.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: But I mean I always like like to say, like
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: those guys are funny, because a lot of them are,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: you know, they're jokes, there's whatever. They're really good guys.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: But then they have that professional switch. I mean they
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: those guys are smart. They know what they're doing. I
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: Mean I was shocked to know how much paramedics have
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: to have to know, like what they're what they have
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: to do.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: On the job is incredible.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: I Mean, one of my mentors, Brendan Harrington, he's a paramedic,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: he's my empty instructor. He's one of the guys that
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: really took me in and that dude is one of
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: the funniest guys you'll ever meet. And you would not
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: believe you'd be like, this guy is saving someone, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: get a little worried. But no, when you're when you're
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: on a call with him, I mean that dude is
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: locked in and he is professional, he is calm, he
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: is composed, and that's something that's very hard to do
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: depending on the call. But yeah, that's that's not easy.
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: And he's got it down and the rest of them
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: have it down too, And that's that's all of them,
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: And it's pretty cool to watch, you know. When the
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: call goes out, it's they're they're on it, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: And that's all the guys I met the department.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: I just have to say, like I have so much
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: respect for firefighters too, like just in general, because like
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: in Los Angeles, my hometown, we had the LA fires
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: and all of that happening, and I saw so many
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: videos of people like literally sacrificing their lives for other
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: people's homes, for other people's animals. Like you literally have
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: to have some sort of quality about you that's like
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: self sacrifice kind of like that way or like that's insane,
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: like the stuff that they do to save other people
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: and save their belonging, save their things, Like it's incredible
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: to me. So that's so cool you're doing that wall
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: playing soccer like at the Division IE level and doing
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: school and.
• 31:15
  Speaker 6: All of that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm really glad it worked out. It's been a
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: great experience.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: I've been able to go on some interesting, cool calls.
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: I guess, you know, I'm during my time. So yeah,
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty thankful for that.
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: What's been your favorite favorite I mean, not favorite.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to say that most interesting,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: the most interesting.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: Well, so I had my first empty patient contact like myself. Now,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: I gotta like hippa and.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: All that and the other, but yeah, I like that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: But it was during the soccer camp and we had
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: a one of the campers had a seizure. So I
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: was with Greg Gregory, one of the athletic trainers, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: we got kind of a phone call and I could
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: tell something was up, you know, and I want to
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: be a part of it. So I was like, Greg, what, like,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: what's going on? He said, you know, come with me.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: So we went and uh, you know, a kid was seizing,
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: so we just kind of got on the field with
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: him and Greg and I just kind of went to work.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: And Greg is pretty cool. About kind of letting me
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: handle it, and you know, I was. I was able
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: to not screw it up, so he was he was fine.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: You know, we got him to the hospital and he's
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: he's okay. And uh, another crazy one was a year ago.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: I was a part of my my first cardiac arrest.
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: And yeah, so that one that went off, I was at.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: I was at station one that one went off, and uh,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: but station two was called to it first. It was
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: just a separate station, so we were kind of just waiting.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: You could hear it on the radios, and then eventually
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: we got called out for it, so we knew it.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Was kind of something. Okay, this is this is big,
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: And uh we went out and I remember I got
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: nervous because the same guy I was talking about, Brendan Harrington,
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: he was on the engine with me, so I wasn't
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: on the ambulance. I was on the engine with him,
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: and he was like, you ready to like be prepared
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: to do CPR and all that, and I'm like what,
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: you know, Like that's I was kind of scared. You know,
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: it's intimidating, you know, it's it gets real. Thankfully I
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: didn't have to he was he was brought back by
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: the time he got there.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: But it's a very surreal experience.
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: It's that was the first time like I've saw I've
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: seen it like firsthand, like aside from like the movies
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: or TV zo it's like, oh, someone's like they just
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: grabbed their chest and they fall Like no, I was
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: not like that. I mean, it's it's complete chaos, uh.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: I mean the patient, you know, pale, you know, the
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: whole nine yards. They don't they don't look good, you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: they and it's kind of a scary site. You kind
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: of freeze up a little bit. And again I shout out,
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: like those paramedics are incredible. I mean I remember as
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: they were working on this guy. I mean they're they're pushing,
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: you know, the medications, and they're they're getting all the wires,
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: like all everything set up, and it's mayhem in there,
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: and the family's in the living room. I mean, it's
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: these paramedics they kind of maybe see that I'm a
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: little like I'm a new guy. I'm like, whoa you know,
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: And I remember this one paramedic he turns me, He's like, hey, man,
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: like what's your name? Like, and I'm like Aiden, he's like, hey,
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: do you mind just like grabbing that for like so calm,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: you know, and that.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Kind of like switched me out of like oh okay, like.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: Mack, we're just composed. Yeah, like we don't need to
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: freak out, like we know what we're doing. They know
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: what we're doing, you know.
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: So like meanwhile, he's helping something. He's like, hey, can
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: you know.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: He's literally with the patient, and like I'm more of
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: like I want to make sure like I'm not in
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: the way, like I'm here to help, so if I
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: need to grab something, I need to like support in
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: any way possible shout me out. But like he was
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: literally with the patient and he like turns me. He's
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: just like yeah, like what's up, buddy, Like what's your name?
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: Like we haven't met, Like I'm like, dude, what are
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: you doing? Yeah, I think like he's yeah, whatever. But
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: but that's like again, that's one of the qualities that
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: those guys have, and that's you need that, you know,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: to be able to just be that level headed in
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: a moment like that, you know, because you know, sometimes
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: like when you're going on a call like that, adrenaline
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: spikes and you're ready just like you're so excited, you know,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: and you got to bring yourself down because you know
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: you're more likely to make errors when you're that jacked up.
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: You know, you got to bring yourself down, and you
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: got to think clearly of like kind of what's your steps,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: What's what's the first thing you're doing off the truck,
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: you know. So it's kind of went off track there,
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: but we got the patient out and we were we
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: were able to life light him. So we had a helicopter.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: That was my favorite part about it. I had someone
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: toss me the keys to one of the cars and
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: I had the light, the lights and the the siren
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: and I got to drive like one hundred feet.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: But I loved it. Was the best hundred feet of
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: my life. I was driving it.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: We set up a perimeter and helicopter came in and
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: took him, took him away. So and he actually ended
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: up surviving with no brain damage, which was huge.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: So that was pretty cool to be a part of.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: And again, like the people that the nurse or the
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: flight nurses, the paramedics, I mean, the people on the scene,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: they are incredible people. I mean the way they act
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: so quickly and calmly, and you know, like I would
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: not be alive today without without their quick thinking and
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: quick actions.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And I know how like soccer obviously and being a
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: paramedic very different things. But do you feel like soccer
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: has like prepared you for that kind of pressure and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that kind of like chaos that you were talking about.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, for sure.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: I mean it's yeah, it's it's completely different realms when.
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: Waiting for a penalty kick and then also waiting to
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: save again very different.
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: It's it's different.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: But I mean, you know when we work with you know, uh,
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: athletic services what I can't think of the name, but
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: like Milton, like Corey and those.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: Guys get there and so like, yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: You know that that stuff applies to everything, not just
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: your your sport. And that's something I take away and
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: apply it to the fire department or when I'm running
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: an AMT call, you know. I I think, you know,
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: we we kind of preach like not being too high,
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: not being too low, just being level headed, falling back
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: in your training, you know. And that's something that you know,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: I apply, I use for soccer and then I take
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: it to on an empty call or on a fire call.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: You know, it's kind of like I have a job
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: to do, I know my role. They trust me. Okay,
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: I'm just gonna do my thing. And then if I
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: don't do something right, like, we're gonna debrief about it
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: and we're gonna talk. We'll fix it. In soccer is
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: the same way. If I make a mistake, coach mill
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Is gonna pull me aside and be like, it is
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: what I think you should have done.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: You coached on it.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: Funny fun fact, I actually get more nervous for soccer,
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: to be honest, really, I get pretty bad nerves in
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: soccer sometimes.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: But I don't know if it's because the stakes are
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: higher on the other side, I don't know. I don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: know what it is like. But yeah, most of the
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: time I'm more.
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: Fa Yeah, I don't.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: I don't. I don't really know why, but I think
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: it's I don't know.
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: I just that's that's good that you're not as nervous
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: in that environment.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Definitely more stressful.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: I don't have as much as responsibility as a paramedic,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: so maybe that's why maybe if I was in their shoes,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: i'd be a little bit more nervous. I'm more of
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: like the empty support guy. You know, but yeah, no,
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I guess Yeah, you're right, it's.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Not a bad thing.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: And tell us about the summer.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so this summer I went to so asch is
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: called Seal Officer Assessment Selection. It was something I was
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: trying out for. Did not go to plan at all.
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: And uh so you were applying to be a seal.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that was a big goal of mine, was
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: to become a Navy seal for for a while. And
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: I just I thought it was for me, and you know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna say here for it. Just get out of
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: the way. Like I I went to so AS and
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: I quit, like it was not for me, not yet,
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: you know, at the time, and uh maybe in the future,
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: maybe down the road. I mean there's a lot of
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: like technical stuff I wasn't so infatuated with. But yeah,
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: it was when they say like it's not easy, it's
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: it's it's hard. You know, you get all the things
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: on social media, whatever those guys are doing. I mean
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: you can it's easy to like look at watch on YouTube.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: You know, I can do that, you know, and when
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: you put yourself in that scenario, it's a it's a
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: reality check for sure, and it was. It was a
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: very extremely humbling experience. Now I'm very thankful for it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: You know, in the moment, I was like, why did I.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: Sign up for this? But no, after the fact is
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm thankful that I went and tried.
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: Where was it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: It's in San Diego. Oh okay, yeah, so it was.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: It was definitely interesting. I got to respect their policy.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: I can't talk about anything that we did there, but
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: it's basically you do some training and uh yeah, but.
• 39:38
  Speaker 7: It was it was.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Sorry, that's good too, like to figure out what you
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: do when you don't want like you have to try everything.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a crazy process. I mean it's a
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: long it's a year long application.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of work.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: Wow. So you know, you have to do a lot
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: of thing because you're essentially applying to officer school at
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: the same time, so you have to do a lot
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: of uh interview too, not necessarily interview, I mean you
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: have to get like recommendation, and then you have to
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: do like a PST, which is like the physical screening test,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: and you know that that was hard balance with a
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: soccer because very different type of fitness. So you know,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: doing the push ups, the sit ups, the pull ups,
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: the run, the swim like it that's that was kind
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: of difficult to balance, but you know.
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: You have soccer training on top of that.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there is one morning hard.
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there was one morning I had to
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: I did a PST and this is all like you
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: don't do this on your own, this is all like
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: there's an assessor there. I think one morning I went,
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: like six am, did a ps T hit like it's
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: it's a five hundred yard swim, it's max push ups,
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: max sit ups, max pull ups and then max or
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: not max miun and a half run and timed and
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: so I went did that at six am, went to
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: training right after, kind of cuts into myself because I
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: was like if I didn't play as good as like
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: I didn't.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Want to coach a you know, but had attack.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: Oh by the way, like that's like the baseline, Like
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: that's not even like oh you can do like that's.
• 40:59
  Speaker 6: You know, that's easy.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really like those guys.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Are doing that like all the time, and you know
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: what I did, Like there's like competitive scores, there's a
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: lot of stuff for that. So yeah, it was a
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: crazy experience. I'm thankful for it. The guys that do
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: that job are incredible people and you need people like
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: that to you know, defend our country and right uh,
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: you know, and a lot of the guys I met
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: down there were great guys, and you know, it taught
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: me a lot about if you if you want to
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: achieve something, you know, you have to endure the process
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: and you cannot just show up and just expect to
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: be given something. And it was a it was a
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: humbling moment for me. You know, I don't think of
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: myself as like an arrogant guy, but I think for
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: me in that experience, it was kind of like, you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: I do the fire thing, I do the student athlete,
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: like this just makes sense. Like let's just go be
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: a Navy seal, you know, that would be cool like this,
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: And there's a little bit of like I'm just going
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: to show up and they be like, dude, you're so cool,
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: Like yeah, like for join us, you know, and it's
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: it doesn't work like that. So and that's something that's
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: awesome about their program. So you know, you could be homeless,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: and if you have the drive, the determination, and you're
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: willing to endure that process, you can go become a
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: Navy seal, so it wasn't for me.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: I it taught me a lot about you know, you're
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: not as mentally tough as you think you are, which
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: is a good and bad thing. It's a little in
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: the moment you're like, you know, crap, But learning from it,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: you're like, Okay, I need to work.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: On this, you know. But you know I was, I was.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: What's the words, like I cracked under pressure, Like when
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: they made me uncomfortable. It was very clear, like I
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: could not handle, you know, I was. It was very intense,
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: and you know, I learned a lot about myself. I
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: learned a lot about going for things in the future.
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: So whatever that ends up doing, you know, if I
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: go for that again, or if I go up go
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: end up even something like medical, like I don't know, sales,
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: Like yeah, it's not you have to endure the process.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: You can't just show up and expect to just someone
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: just hand your stuff. And that was a big lesson
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: I learned from that experience.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: I'm that's just crazy.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you haven't even talked about anything that
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: you did or anything like that, but I can just imagine, yeah,
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: and that scares me.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: It's an emotional experience, you know, and uh, you know,
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: going from civilian to doing that for two weeks was
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: definitely uh yeah, definitely different.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: They they told us, they're like, this is going to
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: be like, you know, drinking water from a fire hose.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: But and it was something along those lines. But you know,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: there's guys that do that. You know, There's there's a
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: bunch of guys I met that were in sales and
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: they said, I just need to switch up and they
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: did great, you know, And I think that was the
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: difference for me. It was like I was not willing
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: to go that distance of like I was not willing
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: to die for that contract. Like I was not willing
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: to put all everything I had out there. And there's
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: a lot of awesome guys out there who you know, again,
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: I'm glad that they're the ones.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: That are serving, like serving our country doing it.
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: Because those guys are willing to do anything like they
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: it didn't matter what they were told to do. It
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: was like, Okay, I'm going to do that to the
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: best mind. For me, it was like I kind of
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: want to go like hang out with my friends after college,
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: Like I want to you know, go to my friend's weddings,
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: you know, like there's a lot of time sacrifice with
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: that career, and I just I wasn't all in, I guess,
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: And yeah, it was a big learning lesson for me.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: And it was the first failure I've had, like the
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: first major failure I've had. You know, you have niche
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: ones or like little ones in soccer, like oh, you
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: don't make the travel roths or whatever. No, but this
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: was something that you know, I talked to a lot
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: of people, I networked with a lot of people, I
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: did a year long application, and I went and I
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: crumbled and failed miserably. And that was a very like
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: like I had to call all those people and tell them,
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: like they're like, what happened. I'm like, I quit, you know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: and it sucks, like it's super you know, it does
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: not feel good at all, and you're very disappointed with yourself, and.
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: We're proud of you for trying, right, I mean, so
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: many people that would never even attempt that that you
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: could fail.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: And yeah, you got it.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: I you know, I give myself the credit for going,
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: like I.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Went on a short notice, put yourself out there, flew
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: all the way across the country, like.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And then followed up with people right, also like for
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you to be like I did fail, like it didn't
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: work out like. I think that's important too, because so
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: many people, I feel like, just either try to push
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: through it and just like mentally destroy themself, you know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: like it's just like you're a freaking machine.
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's just I don't know about that. There's guys,
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: there were machines.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: You're a d one athlete. You persevered, you're firefighter, like,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, and then you do this thing. Yeah,
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: and like you're not even done yet. You've still got
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: a few more months here.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: So all in all, I'm thankful for the experience, you know,
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: for time in this time in my life. It's not
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: for me, but you know, I'm glad to have gotten
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: my failure out of the way early on. It taught
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: me a lot for going forward in life and with careers.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: And all that.
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: So I'm thankful to be, you know, a twenty two
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: year old man and have that kind of out of
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: the way.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: People don't.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: They don't experience that until they're like thirty forever.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: So important because it helps you grow and it helps
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: you learn, and the fact that you got to experience
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: that is so cool.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, and so that's the biggest thing I've taken
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: away from it.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: So, you know, I'm.
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: Thankful the guys that do that job, thank for the
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: guys that were there with me, and for successful. I
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: watched them the best, you know, but for me it wasn't.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: And you know, I just those guys were dogs and
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: those some of those guys are studs.
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: So yeah, that's cool.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about your work with
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Valiant Player to the Greenville Hospital and the kids there.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: So I've been working with Valiant Player for a long
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: time now. Shout out to Johnson is an outstanding person.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: And one thing about him that he always talks about
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: the athletes like always is crediting the other people like that.
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: That man is like he's setting up everything, like he
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: makes it easy for us to work with Valiant Player
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: and do the children's hospital visits and really do whatever
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: we want to do, you know.
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: And good guy.
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: And he's the I can text him like today and
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: be like, hey, like I want to set up a
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: hospital visit and he's like okay, like like you know,
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: and he does all the work. So he doesn't get
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: enough credit. In my opinion, he's does so much work.
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: He's been doing that program for years now. Yeah, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: I don't think a lot of people know who he is.
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: So he's an incredible person. But I started with Valiant
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: Player in my freshman year and I was with the
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: store kind of goes like this, So I you know,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: when I was a freshman, that's when NIL is kind
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: of becoming a thing. And I was on some NIL
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: space where it was like some software, but they it
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: was like some charity NIL. He didn't get compensated for.
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: It was like you you help do this and they
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: give you like a shirt or something like that. But
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: it was I think it was like for like childhood
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: cancer patients. So I was like, you know, I'll apply
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: to that whatever. And I didn't get it. I was rejected.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Ah, I was like, okay, like but I want to help.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was definitely odd.
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: I yeah, it kind of taught me something about like
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: the NIL space at the time. I was like, really,
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: you know, probably the ugly side of the business world,
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: you know. But so anyways, just like your guys reaction,
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: I remember I was with my teammate Dylan Sullivan, at
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: the time, and we were sitting out on the porch
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: and I was telling him the story and he was
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: flabbert what that's crazy, And we kind of just had
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: a conversation going about like why do we.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Need to do this nil?
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: Like why can't why can't you and I just start
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: something and you use our platform and keep it anonymous,
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: by the way, like let's let's just do something like
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: out of the goodness of us and for other people
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: and having not be some nil deal or whatever and
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: credit to him. I mean, that was really Dylan's idea
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: and I followed. I obviously agree with it, and we
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: kind of got together and was like we kind of
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: picked our you know, playing like, hey, what do we
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: want to do? And I really wanted to do the
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: children's hospital and he was he was cool with that,
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: so he said, you know, let's us work on that.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: And this is literally sitting on the porch like the
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: night before, like we had training. It was just hanging out,
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: and I remember we texted coach Rob Thompson, director of
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: operations for our team, and you know, we kind of
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: told him our idea and he hooked us up with Tory.
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: Well.
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: I didn't know at the time, and this is all
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: by email, so I didn't I didn't know who who
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: Toy was. So she was very big influence and helping
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: us get that set up, and she connected us with John.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: So wow, So you guys started working with Valiant Player.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: You guys were like forefathers for that.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: Valiant Player was there for a while.
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: This is this is before so but I think there
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: was a little bit of a gap period where Valiant
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: Player was a little absent.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, I think there was a little So we
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: were put.
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: In touch with Valiant Player and we we had a
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: couple of phone calls with with John. And originally it
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: wasn't just children hospital visits. We we wanted to, you know,
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: bring children's hospital patients to our Clemson soccer games and
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: we wanted to do like the Clemson Soccer experience. So
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: that's how it started. I was like, we want to
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: bring kids to our games, not just like give them
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: tickets to show up, but like come down to the
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: field after maybe they get a scar for sure, or
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: jersey or whatever it was, and we wanted to like
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: really kind of make them feel like they're part of
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: the Clemson family. So he told John our experience and
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: our plans. He was really on board with it and
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: he was like, let me see what I can do.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: So we were able to get in touch with the
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: Point Dexter family. So Jeremy Pointdexter is the father, so
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: we reached out and connected with him and they have
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: an autistic son named Calvin. So that freshman year is
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: a little intimidating, like the first time, like you know,
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: you had a patient coming to your game, and you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: Dylan and I were nervous, like how.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: Is this gonna go? How is this gonna work?
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're pretty much hosting and uh yeah, I mean
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: Jeremy Point mister Poindexter and he always brings his youngest
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: daughter Adia to the games and Calvin there. They've been
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: awesome and it really worked out freshman year. You know,
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: we were able to make Calvin our honorary captain. He
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: had a plaque for the season. They they've really we've
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: really brought them into our our Clempson family and they're
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: still part of it. They still go to games. So
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: you know, our freshman year they went to every single game.
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: Sophomore year, same thing, June Si Lake. So they're still
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: there and they're still part of our family, and I've
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: been able to kind of grow up with them through
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: my time here at Clemson. And and then on top
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: of that, John and I we've really worked on doing
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: the hospital visits.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we go there quite often.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I enjoy it.
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: You know, it's it's something that's in my mind. It's
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: easy to do, and you know it's it's I enjoy
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: that work because you're able to see a positive impact firsthand.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: And there's a lot of times, you know, I think
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: the kids are incredible, you know, they they're inspirational. And
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: I don't just mean that like just saying like I
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: mean there's there's kids going through it, you know, and
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: chemo or they had a major surgery. And when you
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: go into the room and they're you know, joking around,
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: they're smiling, and they're excited to see you, I mean,
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: that's pretty cool. And then you're coming back, you're like, like,
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe that soccer thing wasn't a big deal.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: You know, it's just a little bit of a reminder.
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: It's like we play a game, you know, these guys
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: are these some of these kids are dealing with a
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: lot of serious things. And yeah, that's why I try
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: to bring as many guys as I can up there
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: because it's a good reminder. You know, we play soccer
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: like this is this is real, you know, like we
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: we take things serious, but like this, you should be positive.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: Like when you don't have a positive attitude in the
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: locker room, like maybe rethink that because this kid has
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: a positive attitude, like why don't you?
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, kind of puts everything into perspective, and that's.
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: A great way to summing it up. It really puts
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: things to perspective, like you.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Have someone fighting for their life and they are happy
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: to do that, and you're complaining about some soccer drill
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: you have to do.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Definitely, yes, it makes the soccer drill seem not that important.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, where can we find you on social media?
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: I think it's under Instagram, so underscore Aiden Hampton. Underscore
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: pretty sure. But if you look up Aiden Hampton, it
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: should just come up.
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: Okay, Instagrams pretty much it back a lie. I don't
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: have Twitter, I don't how days book any of that.
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: But Aiden, thank you so awesome, thank.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: You, thank you so much.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: I really appreciate it. It's awesome that you guys do.
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: So I'm really thankful that before I graduate, I was
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: able to come on.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: So good luck this year with soccer and this season
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: you guys are doing amazing, So yeah, thank you very much.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: You guys the best, awesome, Thank you so much,