Shane Young: Inner-City Rugby (Pt 2)

Published Oct 31, 2023, 4:00 AM

Shane is the co-founder of Memphis Inner-City Rugby, which has brought a sport that was pretty darn foreign to the inner-city to 2,400 students! 100% of them have been accepted into college or the military, 60 of them have played collegiate rugby, and they've helped their players receive more than $5 million in scholarships.

Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. And we continue with part two of our conversation with Shane Young right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, and now we return to my reading of a testimonial from yet another rugby player and getting Shane's reaction to it. I used to hang out with a bad crowd, but rugby changed my whole view of life, and it's made me rethink what I was going to do. I used to be what people called a troublemaker, and there's like zero tolerance with the attitudes. That is Giovanni Merritt, and he said, so I learned to channel my anger into something productive. Holy moly, that line, if we could get something to learn. Two a one poplar for those listening, is where the jail is here in Memphis, and it is seven story stall back to the gills, overcrowded, and I'm not sure if it's not more dangerous into a one popular than outside of it. It is a disaster. Every city has one in Memphis. On the streets, you don't say going to jail, you say going to two to one. Everybody knows what you say when you say, if you don't straighten up, you're gonna end up into a one. I used to say to my players at Manassas early on, is two to one is filled full of people who didn't know how to manage their anger.

It's fair, and you know it's it's because it's funny. Who made that quote. That's Giovanni Merritt, who is now one of our best coaches. Giovanni is it's a young woman. And you mentioned you know who is the first person to sign that girls rugby scholarship. Giovanni Merritt tell us that story. So Giovanni pioneered girls rugby at Memphis inter City Rugby, you know her and coach Sinnam Cotton, another teach for America transplant from Chicago, played rugby at University of Illinois, got placed in Memphis in twenty fourteen, got placed at which school, Soulsville where Brad, who had already started the Soulsville boys team, was an administrator, and boom, we had access. It was like we didn't need to now go ask principal. Of course we did, but like we were already in can we start a girls team? Saam's teaching at the school the perfect access and Saam is a big personality, bullish, you know it, really hold you accountable, get in your business, kind of a young woman coming from Chicago, and so she starts with the girls team of that school. Javanni is one of the first players to come out. Giovanni kicks, but she honestly, it was tough to watch her tackle some of these young girls. She'd murder them because you would see head whiplash, you'd see concussions, you would see a lot, and like she was just so physical, so talented, and it got everybody really excited about girls ruggy. It was like, well did you see Giovanni? Like who is that? And she ends up getting recruited by a life university, which is, you know, a perennial national champion women's rugby team in Maryetta, Georgia, near Atlanta, and she signed that scholarship I think it was twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen and sort of blazed the trail there.

And so she went to play college rugby on a full scholarship and if I understand that's right, she was the first woman of color to ever get a rugby scholarship to that university.

Definitely from this area and at least from Tennessee, and so there was a lot of historic components to what Jeovanni did. Now I will say we do have kids on full scholarships because of rugby at like Ivy League schools and different institutions right now, Giovanni, And what gave life to a lot of our alumni sports services is that rugby scholarships usually aren't full rides. You have to package them together with different you know, financial aid packages and scholarships, and so we do that now. We are like an agency pro bono that puts together financial aid packages, including rugby scholarships for kids. For Jovanni, we had to do the same thing before we ever had that systematized.

Rugby is like a family. Seniors that would never talk to me because of this ball, now do Samuel Johnson said, they want to see me do great and be a better person. So what they instilled in me, I'm still another guys now.

We were just at Sam's wedding two weeks ago and now in Memphis Inner City Rugby. His little sister Caitlin has signed a Division I women's rugby scholarship. His little brother Jacob is one of our top referees at age sixteen, he's America's youngest referee. His little sister, his little brother, Christopher, is a great leader for a PCA, the team that Sam helped start with. Me and Christopher's also are built in MC. When he comes to games and he's not playing, he's on the speaker narrating what happens. I'm trying to think if I'm missing a sibling, But that's Sam Johnson, who just got married, and all of his siblings play rugby, and we love the Johnsons.

I never played sports in high school before the tenth grade. Rugby has taught me to be a leader outside of my sports and inside my school. I've never been the type to stand up and speak loudly developed me as a person. I wasn't a very outspoken person at first, and it taught me the difference between being a leader and being bossy.

Wow wow, Yeah, that's That's one of the things I love the most is the leadership development we are. Our best coaches can push the buttons of kids to bring out whatever, whether they're leading by example or vocally. I love to see our kids unfold as leaders is amazing.

All right, So you've talked a little bit about it this team at Kingsbury and then at Freedom Pop and then the four teams became an organization as a result of what you guys started. Tell us what that organization looks like. You've talked a little bit about the programming you do, but we need to remember this came from nothing, from the people, not even from a city, who just had a passion and a discipline and saw an opportunity. Tell me what this organization is today, so today and what you do.

So today I serve as the co executive director.

Maybe you're not teaching.

I'm not teaching anymore. We have five full time employees and I'm one of them. So we have and I won't take you down the whole organizational chart, I promise you, but I will just kind of outline it real quick, which is me and a co executive director. So we have two directors, you know, and then a alumni Support coordinator who runs our whole alumni support programming. That's Morgan. And then we have two full time Pathway coaches and that's Savannah and Mariah, and they oversee really all the youth programming that happens. And so our organization has two main main pillars, K through twelve programming, and it's a we have to maybe relabel that because it's not really K through twelve, it is middle school in high school, so really it's like sixth grade through twelfth grade. We may do elementary at some point, so it's K through twelve programming and then alumni support and so our kids are engaged in MICR year round. We do seven on seven rugby in the fall, fifteen on fifteen and rugby in the spring, and then a dynamic summer program and so they're getting all of those services that I've been rattling off to you, nutrition, transportation, mental health, counseling, college counseling, travel opportunities, academic support, case management, will we will do anything we can for our kids. So when I'm rattling off all these services, those are codified and systematized and we're accountable to deliver those. But we do a lot more than that too, And so these kids receive these services year round, and then when they become juniors and seniors in high school, our alumni support coordinator starts to engage with them so that they have access to our scholarships, our internships, ninety percent of coaches at MICR are our own alumni. I mentioned Giovanni Merritt, she's a coach. I mentioned Colvin Gentry, he's been a coach. Most of our coaches are alumni.

It is.

It is one of my favorite things about what we do, and same with our academic mentors and alumni support. These are mostly first generation college students who don't have strong backgrounds, but they're getting recruited to go play at Brown University, to go play rugby linden Wood elite institutions. There's really academic gaps there, especially since the pandemic. So our mentors are and certified to help close those gaps. And one hundred percent of those mentors are alumni under the leadership of our Alumni Support Coordinator, who delivers all the services of alumni sports. That's why it's a big family.

You're telling me you have kids from the inner city who whose prospects of even getting to college were low, that are at IVY League schools as a result of their involvement right now in rugby.

Right now, and it won't be the first either. We have IVY leagues recruiting kids for the class of twenty twenty three right now, first generation college students who found rugby, and it's not the institution that's recruiting them, it's that institution's rugby coach that's recruiting them. And one of our students that's an IVY league is Akuila Cathy, who's two sisters also played an MIICR. One of them went to Lindwood on a rugby scholarship. Aquila goes to Brown on a rugby scholarship. She also is a member of USA Under twenties right now. She was in Canada this summer playing against Wales, scoring against Canada, wearing the American you know, symbol on her chest. And when we talk about you know what pissed me off about how I made the USA team and we went and got killed, Well, this is this is you know, starting to happen the right way. I think now people like me will never hopefully make the USA rugby team again if if we're able to like do a good job what we're doing in Memphis.

You know, I remember hearing or reading a story that I think had to have been some of the impetus for you developing all of these systems, and you can fill in the blanks for me. But you had you had a player who did great, got a scholarship, but didn't have all of the function around going to college and ended up only a year later homeless because he couldn't pay a like one hundred dollars fee or something. To me, well, share that story briefly with us. But is that story not one of the very reasons you decided you had to do all this support stuff as well as rugby and everything.

Else one hundred percent? You know, such a heartbreaking situation and did did absolutely color in give life and provide the DNA for what was eventually our codified you know, system of alumni support directly responsive to situations and casework like this. And I won't name him because it's such it's so sad, and it didn't really have a great ending, and you know, but it was one of our one of our original graduates who was super talented on the field, you know, really really bright. So the academics were there able to figure out a scholarship. And now this is us without any real alumni support systems being college counselors.

On it this early on.

I mean, we would meet at McDonald's on the weekends to be like, all right, let's look at cap. We were just to get the Wi fi in his neighborhood down the street from his apartment. We'd pick him up, go to McDonald's and we'd be there as long as there wasn't a rugby game. And then when it was time to do financial aid, okay, back in the McDonald's. I remember like it was yesterday, sitting in the McDonald's doing college counseling work. And I'm not a college counselor, but we figured it out and and so we sent sent him out. I keep make sure I don't say his name, but we sent him off to a Tennessee State university. And you know, he did well for maybe a couple of weeks before some of that stuff that first generation college students don't have the awareness or safety net to deal with. Oh this class, you got into it. Cool, your signed up.

Cool.

It has a lab component. By the way. That lab has an access code. By the way, that access code costs one hundred and twenty five dollars. Oh, and here's a parking ticket, because when you relate, you parked in the staff only parking at the student union to come ask a question. So here's your parking ticket. And you know, this young man has no resources, no money, and not a It's not that he didn't have stamina, but when you face those obstacles and your parents didn't go to college, and this is so strange, and it doesn't seem like people around you are struggling. And you know how Memphis has this boomerang effect too, You know that from working with you young people, the boomerang, they go and they come back. And maybe that's because Memphis is great, it's home. I don't know. But sure enough we couldn't get a hold of him, cell phone turned off, like the bill wasn't paid. How do we even reach him? I honestly, Bill, I don't even remember how we found him. But we were driving around apartments in North Memphis, and in this apartment with no furniture, a wood floor, there there was you know, our young man, twenty pounds later, you know, and telling us how you know, he's been like eating like once every three days when somebody comes by and helps him out, and he had just it was it was just not good. And so we went grocery store, you know, loaded him up.

But the point is he got into college and He might have been prepared academically to handle coursework, but he wasn't handled for the culture of the social aspects, or the financial the rigors, or the financial aspects. And that is when you guys decided, we're coaching and we're making a difference, and we're spending our weekends at McDonald's helping people get into college.

But even that isn't enough, and he was and this case is one of the most heartbreaking because of who he is and how bad it got. But he is certainly not the only case that went like that. And so we learned through through a lot of trials and tough times with our young people the type of services and support they need to thrive in their post secondary pursuits.

Which led which led to what you have now.

Alumni sport.

Yep, yep, we'll be right back. Tell me your favorite story of a kid. I know you've got a bunch. Let me say it more fairly. Tell me one of your favorite stories.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are so many, so just bear with me, and I promise you I'll get you one here. It's just crazy to try to to try to pick one, but I'm going to and it's you know, what I think it's I think I'll pick this one because it aligns well with some of the some of the things we touched on on this episode, and I think it aligns well with kind of an army of normal folks. And so this takes us way back to twenty sixteen, when we were a year into our Girls programming and Girls started to kick. But you talk about documentaries, if you ever go on YouTube and look for you could just google Nike Rugby Memphis because Nike came to Memphis and filmed a short film about our girls team in Westwood who went to the state championship.

And Westwood is a tough, tough, tough area.

Yeah, And so this, this team of inspiring young women fought through incredible obstacles to change the face of rugby and Tennessee and they were unstoppable. And then the pandemic happened. But I'm taking us back to twenty sixteen when a lot of those state champions were just getting started playing. They were in the state semi final where we were playing against a team of you know what most other rugby teams looked like outside of micr you know, homogeneous, you know, and demographic as all white people, and their sideline was loaded with parents, you know, and our parents are often working on the weekends, you know, in different things. So our parents are you know, our sidelines not loaded with our you know what.

Where is this The game.

Is happening out in actually Millington, so not too far away. But we're hosting a team from I think the Middle Tennessee area, got it, And we're playing and in the first half it's it's competitive, you know, our girls are are going back and forth. It's a competitive game. In the second half, our girls really start to unclip, you know, they are starting to tackle harder, they are not getting tired, they are scoring, and this thing is opening up. From what I think at halftime was like twenty two to twenty five. Now we're talking about like forty six to twenty five, you know what I mean. Like the score starts to open up. And I am not coaching this game. Remember I already coach a different team. I'm kind of coaching the coaches. I'm kind of the administrator, you know, I am the volunteer director of MCR. There was no nobody was getting paid back then, and so one of the volunteer roles is carrying a flag up down the sideline so that the referee can see you raise it out of balance, bull the whistles. So they're called touch judges, and I'm serving as basically a pseudo referee, a touch judge, And so I'm sort of in disguise because I'm running and I'm raising my flag and I'm helping the ref but I'm on the sideline of the parents of this opposing team who in the second half are starting to go what is that tackle? You start to hear the word animals, You start to hear the word you start to hear words that are problematic because our girls, I'm watching the game I played rugby of my whole life. They're not doing anything besides winning. They're playing hard, they're not letting up. There's nothing wrong with that. But boy, these parents were not liking it. They were not liking it. And specifically one one mother who just kind of people were starting to kind of go to her and say, hey, calm it down, like you're starting to like, these kids might hear you, and then it might escalate. And then even an off duty police officer comes over to her and goes, ma'am, like, do we need to you know what I mean. Like, So that's kind of how the tone and tenor was. Game ends. Nothing on the field happens besides a lopsided victory for our Westwood girls. And I'm observing everything that's happening. I'm watching my coaches break their team down. I'm watching the sideline to see anything, and I'm noticing this woman aggressively pack up her chair and she looks like she's gonna go confront somebody, and she's marching on the felt Old where the kids. At the end of the game, I promise you, I'm gonna start talking about the student. You know, I'm getting I'm getting to the student to the young woman. But what we do after the girls games, after any game really is meet in the middle of the field and give out the gatorade for the girl of the game, you know. And so the captain of that team and the captain of our team meet to talk to just hey, we we noticed your number six. It was all over the field. Here's her gatorade Girl of the game. So our girl, our team is doing it. And and Shanaya, you know, who were super close to even today. She's one, you know, one of our best coaches of the organization. She she's about to graduate college. She's been in our alumni support program. You know, she's the captain, and she's given out the girl the game. She's explained it. Why meantime, the mom that I'm talking about is walking up, you know, and I'm I'm watching the whole thing, and I know she's going to confront somebody or something. There's nobody walks that fast, you know, or so says a lot of those things if they don't mean you know, mean business. And and so she walks up, and right when she walks up, she hears Shanaiah like articulating, you know, like how she felt about the game and how you know, she she she was encouraging the team that she just killed. You know, she she had beat them so bad and she was now trying to lift them up.

You know.

So the mom saw that happen, and I think the mom, I don't think the mom had interacted with black folks a lot, you know, I know, she doesn't live in a black community, and I don't think she's ever really seen you know, young women play sports like that before looking you know, while black. And that's some of my assumptions by the way, I you know, and I but I think I think I'm probably on point with it. And the crowd starts to, you know, disperge the girl. The game situations are done, and the mom now has sort of calmed down, and I think she Shanaia showed her humanization, you know, of of them. It was no longer an athlete and animal. It was a human, and it was an articulate person, and it was a talented woman with tons of potential. And I think the mother saw that, and she went up to Shanaia and like hugged hers, like thank you, thank you, you know, and Shani didn't know why. You know, she's getting hugged by everybody is one of the big states. I'm my final. Everybody was ugging her, okay, you know, a good game.

You know.

She didn't know what the mother was reflecting on or why she was being thanked. And then she went up to another couple of a couple more of our girls and hugged them too, and she just was like I don't know if she was trying to apologize or what, but I just saw like an adult who was wrong, you know, change, change in front of in front of, in front of me. Not nobody else was watching that whole thing like I was, and so I kind of that's the story is special to me. And I'm sorry getting emotional because Jania is so special to me. That team, what they did for girls rugby in Memphis and for their neighbor, for their community is special. And that's such a small micro example of how we put.

The point is. I used to say to my guys at Manassas when we went out to some areas like that, that we wanted to win the game, and we were gonna win the game, but you know what, we were also going to win the referees. We were gonna win the other team. We were going to win the fans in the opposite stands. And what I meant by that is there is a societal preconceived notion about who you are as kids from Anassis coming to play football out in a community somewhere else, and by the end of the game, they're going to respect your ability to play football, but they're going to respect a whole lot more when we're done because of the way we conduct ourselves.

Can change that. There lens on your.

Community, right and the story you're telling, And I know why you're getting emotional because I feel it and I remember it like was yesterday. But that young lady on your team won the rugby match because she was a beast, but more importantly, she changed hearts in minds. Yeah, she won a community and man, screw the score of a rugby match. If you win that, you win at all. And again, none of that happens if to normal goofball kids and teach for America, don't decide, Hey, these kids in Memphis need to learn how to play rugby. I mean, is that not the payoff?

Yeah, it's one of the many payoffs, and that just it's just it's just such a case because I can't imagine now that we've scaled, and I don't see every game anymore, and I'm not always running touch and I'm not always you know, I'm not always the secret agent able to observe all these things. But I know that that story that I just told is happening every time we take the field and make those impressions. You know, I think our kids have challenged the institution of rugby by making their own culture in it and winning in it, you know, and then watching these phases of people not be super thrilled that we're winning, but then see that we're great, you know, and that we have the space in the sport, and then embracing us. And I think they've moved the needle. They've created systems level change.

They've moved the needle from.

Themselves and themselves, and.

They moved the needle socially. Yeah, how many teams are there now now?

We have twelve teams middle school and high school girls and boys are about fifty to fifty.

Yeah, And how many kids have been served over the last ten years?

Just under three thousand in the last decade. And we serve right now at scale, like we can't really serve many more than we do right now. We're about at four hundred participants. And then our alumni support, you know, has a caselow that they can they're bursting at the seams too, because we engage you know, one hundred plus alums a year, you know, we employ twenty plus. And then in our academic mentoring, there's another you know, fifteen right now across the country. So there's rugby mentoring too. We hooked them up with USA Eagles Olympic players to you know, who are people of color who mentor are young women and men who are breaking into college rugby. So that's just a little bit of the numbers.

I guess, Well, can't Birmingham, Nashville, Little Rock, Omaha, Fort Myers, Why can't Dallas, Atlanta, Montgomery? Why can't Miami, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Boise do this?

I'm really glad you asked. And there's a lot of reasons why. And I know we don't have like all the time in the world to break it down, but I will. I will just give you, you know, I will give you the what we're doing about that. You know, in twenty twenty two, we were trying to bring our kids to the HBCU Rugby Classic. It's something that is kind of a new tradition exists in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You can imagine HBCUs. Historically, black colleges and universities don't have rugby, but a few of them do and they come together once a year. That's a black institution. Our kids are black rugby like that there. We need to be at that, right. We need to get our kids around those people and that and that so they can be at something that they're finally not the strangers and the outsiders at that's what it'd be special, right. We tried to do it, but it didn't work out. They were gonna have us plan a Sunday, it didn't work with our budget. It was all these complications, and so we quickly launched the first ever Urban Rugby Championship in twenty twenty two right here in Memphis at our home field Advanced Middle School, and we brought uh, there's an inner city program in Los Angeles, there's one in DC, and there's two in Dallas that we to Memphis and we got funding to bring them to bring them to Memphis to have a tournament, and that was at the Urban Rugby Championship. It was such magic, it was so special. And there's also if you go on our YouTube channel, you can look up the Urban Rugby Championships twenty twenty two, you could see a short film on that. Then we did it again in LA just about six months ago this past spring in Los Angeles for the second annual Urban Rugby Championship. And I'm almost done here explaining it all, but we're doing the third annual in DC on March ninth, twenty twenty four you could start to see this thing getting legs, and we just launched Urban Rugby America when you can go on Urban Rugby dot org and see our website, which is our attempt to sort of rescue the broken institution of American rugby by uniting, advancing and empowering anybody a teacher, a coach, a rugby enthusiast who's trying to leverage the game to make a difference in underresource communities. The institution of American rugby is literally bankrupt. USA Rugby doesn't have any money, they're in debt. There is no one they can turn to. They don't have any expertise and understanding of these urban education landscapes where you can partner with schools and where you need to institute trauma informed coaching, where you need to provide access and new services. At Urban Rugby America, we're pretty much the experts of that because of what we've done in Memphis and how we've linked up with the group in LA and co founded Urban Rugby America. And so that's just getting started. It has no money, it has a website, it has some people. We are just trying to get it going right. Now to sort of solve for what you were just mentioning, why can't all these cities do this? Well, it's so so hard, and that's why we launched Urban Rugby America to make it not so impossible for those who might want to do in the future.

We'll be right back. So somebody listen out here has played Rugby nos Rugby sitting into Peak and says I want to do it, Go.

On the website, fill out the application to be an affiliate partner, and they'll be eligible for our services, which are not mud right now because if.

They what if I want to know the truth about how it was and all of that, can email.

You in the first call or interaction email, like I'm gonna I'm gonna tell them, like some of these people I'm gonna try to scare away because of how hard it is. But but you know some of them who are already going or show the propensity to make it happen, like we're gonna run with them.

Do you get to hold their hand and help them to.

The extent that we have the band with And that's that's why like I can't, oh absolutely, I've already been doing that for years, you know, any I get a call once a week. It seems like from Oakland, Baltimore, New Orleans. I've helped people in Philadelphia, Oakland. I've helped people in everywhere across the country. People, Hey, I tried to call us there. What do you guys do down there? How do you do it? I get emails, we get Facebook messages. I get it all the time because people like what we do and they want to see if they.

So, how do they contact you so they.

Can do anything? So I'll give you a couple of them. S Young Shane Young, but s Young at Memphis Inner City Rugby dot org. Or if you're national, you want to fill out that application on Urban rugby dot org. Do that. You can go on Memphis Inner City Rugby dot org. You know, fill out the contact us. We don't have a marketing team at Memphis inter Cidio Real I have, you know, I do that all myself. So if you message our Instagram, our Twitter, ours Facebook, it's me, so you can get me that way too.

Dude, you're a New Jersey transplant shows up in Florida from a failed diner who gets into the easiest school to get into, kind of by hook or Crook in Florida, ends up teaching for America because you have a heart to serve, start a rugby team in inner city on a wing and a prayer by Hooker Crook, and ten years later have served three thousand kids, many of whom are going to college, most of whom now go to college, some of them go to IVY schools, but most importantly, who have changed their entire approach to life. What is it that you think about when it's just you and you at night and you go to bed, about this experience and where you're going. Because that is a phenomenal story, Shane.

And I appreciate it. And this isn't one of those like coach speak humble answers. It's almost a problem with our sustainability because you know, you can talk about the past and an organization and think about how hard and gritty, you know, and inspirational those early days were. But it is no easier today. In fact, it is harder. In the post pandemic era of social emotional regulation, of trauma, of deepened poverty, of academic melt. We are dealing with extremely difficult problems with our young people and funding and capacity, and we are doing our absolute best. So when I lay down at night and when I reflect, I'm still robotic. I'm still in robot mode, meaning I just have im survival mode for lack of better words, because I have to go do the really hard stuff the very next day and then and then try to motivate every coach who got burnt out, who got beat down, who you know whose kids didn't show up to practice, or those who got third five at practice and then their assistant coach wasn't there, so they were all alone and a fight broke out, and somebody at the basketball court was a distraction. And then this kid you know, who's the best player on the team, failed out of math class, so they can't play this weekend, even though we're building the game plan around them, keeping all those coaches managing all four hundred k through twelve you know students right now, keeping them motivated, so like, and then I got to raise the money and then go do all that. So like, I'm not complaining, but I'm just highlighting there is no world and no day and no no situation where I'm sitting there going, man, this was special. This was what an achievement. Because I can't take a breath. And while I'm saying this, it's my plea to those listening to invest in things that are grassroots, things that are gritty, things that aren't shiny. Open the hood on the charities you donate to turn the stones of where you invest. Maybe go on one less vacation a year, because that's how deep the deficits are in the communities we're serving. That's how I've given it. I gave my whole twenties to this.

I have no.

Problem telling people to make sacrifices because I gave. I gave everything to try to bring it to this. And so there's no time to sit there and say this was great, because we're still on the brink of existence and I'm hoping and praying, and you know, I said, I have to create an enemy to fight against. I'm creating them every day for myself so I can end these unsustainable, difficult days and bring us some breathing room, and buy our employees some sustainability, and give our kids more resources that they deserve. And so again I'm not complaining. I just have to highlight that because there's no there's no reflections and warm feelings when we are still very much in survival.

Mode ten years later. Yeah, would you go back and say I'm not going to do it? Uh?

No, because it's I don't know who I would be with that Like it's it's almost like it's who I am, right, it's like my story. So I don't know what in life I would have done, or where I would have gone, or what I would have become if it wasn't for this community embracing me and these kids doing such a incredible things through rugby and embracing this work. So no, I don't regret it. I would still do it. Let me tell you a hard question to answer, because it was still hard.

It is hard, and I remember the days I had four kids and a wife at home too, and I had a business to grow, and there's nothing easy about it. But I can give you three thousand reasons why every minute of it's been worth it for you, And I can give you, let's see an average of fifty times seven. I can give you three hundred and fifty reasons of my own case why every minute of it is worth it. And that's what it means to be in an army of normal folks. Members of the army fight, but at the end of the day, it's worth the fight because you exact some measure change in your corner of the world, and my friend, you have made a massive difference in the lives of three thousand people and the next four hundred a year more. I want to give you one chance to play. Every organization like yours needs money and funding. If somebody doesn't coach rugby but loves what you're doing and wants to drop a check in the mail or reach out to you to talk about what you need to continue all of the amazing services you're doing far and beyond coaching rugby, what do they do well?

Just thank thank you Bill for the encouragement and the platform and so you know, just go on Memphis Inner City Rugby dot org, you know, and there's a big donate button in the top eight corner. So we just need all the help we can get. And you know, if you're local, or even if you're not, please travel in. On December eighth at the Memphis Botanic Gardens, we have the fourth annual evening for mic R. It's a really special event. It sells out every year. It's an absolutely magical opportunity to honor our students, our alums. You will see the MICR family front and center when we do that, And we're also going to premiere a short film at that just to highlight the magic of our alumni support programming, which is kind of the misunderstood thing of m I c R. But he know, as we play rugby youth programming, but they don't see the special nature of our you know, the economic upper mobility we cultivate through alumni support. So we'll premiere a video about that December eighth at the Memphis Botanic Gardens. You can buy tickets now, buy tables now, get it, get it, gets your sponsorship package on Memphis Inner City Rugby dot org and there's the event tab or just donate if you're not able to make the event. And just thank you so much for anyone who's able to contribute. We really need it.

We bought a table, right, Uh, yes, you.

Guys did, and we look forward. Yeah, that's that's our actually.

Fast, that's Alex, the producer said to that gum check.

I'm embarrassed because I didn't even say that. The first sponsor for the fourth Annual Evening for m I c R is an army of normal folks and so thank you for coming in as a sponsor. It's it's just you and World Rugby Shop right now, and we appreciate it greatly. You may not want me to say this, but it's a brag on Bill. It's really Bill in this company doing that. It's really not the army, so.

No leave it as army and normal folks. That's who's doing it.

We promise you.

It doesn't matter you run across a guy like Shane with that passion, that energy, and that willingness that has made that much difference in this city. A little bit of money to buy a table is no big deal. Shane, you are just phenomenal. Your passion oozes out of you. I know why the kids around you at the very beginning played so hard, and I know why the people around you work so hard for your organization. I hope to goodness our listeners hear your passion through this microphone, and my friend, you're absolutely in an army and normal folks. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing your story with us today.

Oh my gosh, such an honor.

Bill.

Let's to hear that from you means a lot. And I just appreciate the platform. This was a fun, fun conversation, so thank you.

I appreciate it.

You might if we quickly cover a couple of things.

Why not you always do? See what I have to put up with Shane. This is my wife, Lisa. Hi, Lisa, Shane. You know all about Shane. Now, yeah, there you have it.

It's not.

No, it's not no, and ironically enough, Uh, he's now going to go start a surfing team.

I've served.

He's ad his parents would if they saw his hair, all right, and on behalf of all the redheaded people on the face of the planet. We really appreciate you guys for joining us this week. If Shane or another guest has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by starting an inner CP rugby team, by donating to Memphis Center City Rugby, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normal Folks dot us, or you can be like Badger and call us at nine oh one three five two one three six six. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it, become a Premium member at Normalfolks dot us do all the things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. For Premium members, we'll have bonus content from this episode and it's Shane and I are talking about the awesomeness of rugby culture. If you don't want to miss it, become a Premium member today thanks to our producer Ironlight Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.