Arshay grew up on the West Side of Chicago and his life was forever changed when he joined the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation (and became the captain). As an adult, Arshay found success as a chef before returning to his true passion by starting inner-city rowing teams. He’s the author of “A Most Beautiful Thing,” which was made into a critically-acclaimed documentary by Common, Dwayne Wade, and Grant Hill.
Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. And we continue now with part three of our conversation with rche Cooper. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, let's now return to Archa on one of his crew members.
There was this kid named Alvin. He was in the biggest gang.
Which was what was the biggest game?
It was Travel Vice Lord. They call the set Sla straight off all money.
Tell our listeners what the nickname is for the neighborhood because of all the lords.
Yeah, so there's a gang called vice Lord and vice Lord broke broke into many lords. The neighborhood is called Holy City because all the games were vice lords. You had conservative vice law travel and vice lad insane vice.
Lord committing courvitive vice lords. What are they like Trump? Vice Lords? They vote for Trump.
No, they were more like you know what I mean, like I guess they would say, they're more organized than the other games. We're not just going to beat you.
Down, but because wait, we have this document you need to sign before you're beat down, because as you know, you broke rules fourteen B. Now sign this and get your APPO. And so they were all divisions of lords, and everybody was something lord something Lord something Lord Lord, and people actually referred to each other as vice lord. But did they call each other lord lord, Like what's up? Lord? No?
The lord was going on Lord. No, man, you know it was lord.
And then it became, ironically enough, the most unholy of holy situations became nicknamed holy shit.
Holy city, Holy City. And I think this is an important piece in the story to help people understand this gang life. I told coach and came up. You know, I can probably talk about this. I said, Alvin shouldn't be in the gang because he's I mean, he shouldn't be on the team because he's fighting people, beating up people. He was like, no, he's strong, he's good. He's strong. And I was like, it's toxic, you know. But he's been coming to practice and he's been training with us. In the first trip to at we real talk. Were you afraid of him a little bit?
Oh?
Yeah, definitely afraid of him.
You know.
You know, me see this dude beat people down with his crew. And I remember we go to Philly and I sit next to him on the bus. I've seen he's like this guy, this guy even showing up every day. And I said, Alvin, you know why you why you?
Why?
What's up at all? The fighting? Like beating up people, you know? And and we wrote, I wrote, he actually wrote right behind me. So we started to build a little connection. He's having the seat behind me, and so we rode in pairs, so he was We started to build a little connection and we started talking a little bit, but just like basic stuff, you know what I mean. And and I sat next to him on the bus and I said, hey, man, like, why are you fighting? And he said, man, listen, I have never had a fight because of me. I've never started a fight. When I first moved here, me and my brother would jump by ten people and I just told my brother to run to get dad. Run. I take it. I take it, I take it. And he said when they when they finished jumping him, a guy from across the street walked up to him and said, listen, this is always gonna happen when you go out of town. When you leave, it's gonna happen to your little brother. Unless you help us, you will never have the help. And Alice said, I had to make it. Not a bad choice, but a challenging choice. For myself and my brothers, And so every fight he had he had to help someone else who would getting into fights just so he can so he can always have the protection. His little brother can have the protection when he's gone.
All right, here we go breaking down stereotype number seventeen. In this episode, there is a belief that these kids get into gangs because quote, they just need a sense of belonging. There may be some truth to that in some respects, but that has not been my experience. My experiences, they join the gangs because they're scared to death getting their asked.
It's very not that.
They want to be part of that. They would much rather be part of a team or school or nurturing situation or grass or green or something. But it's all that's available to them, and if they don't, they often become the victim of the very gang that they subscribe allegiance to.
It is dangerous being in a gang, but it's even more dangerous not being in a gang.
So it's just a reality. It's a survival mechanism.
I say in the film, the big question is not what college you're going to go to, but what gag you're going to join? For protection. That's the big question.
People listening to this need to just let that marinate a little. When your dream is to eat it's paulty, or go five miles from your neighborhood just to see a series tower, and that your reality is not where you're going to college, what kind of job you're going to have, but which gang you're going to join. And then you don't understand after hearing that, and you and you can't get your arms around that there are people in our country that simply don't have the same privilege of freedom to grow as other people in our country. Doesn't speak badly about anybody else. It just speaks to the reality of situation of guys like you and where you grew up.
Yeah, second, desperate, Yeah, secretary education are one Duncan white man. He said it. It spoke to me, he said, if more people look like me, if more people live downtown, it wouldn't be tolerated.
Wow, And I guess that's strict. Do you find that truth?
I find it true, you know. But what I did say to Alvin was, if you notice, for two months you haven't been hanging out with those guys. You've been in practice every day and That just shows that talent is everywhere, but access and opportunity is not. Alvin Brother said in the film when they tore down to YMCA, and that happened often because of funding, he said, I ran to the streets. I don't care if you white, black, Hispanic, Asian. There were one hundred and fifty kids at that YMC. That's where the counselors, the coaches, the mentors were at. And now it's torn down and there's one hundred and fifty kids hanging in the street. So it doesn't matter what color you are. If there's one hundred and fifty kids hanging out with nothing to do, it's crazy. Stuff's gonna happen. Yes, you know what I mean. And U but rowing came and pood ran to the rowing team, and so you talk about the outlet for two hours, like what are you run into? Like why are you showing up to practice every day? Why are you showing up to rowing every day? You know it's yes, it's it's an escape.
And then through the hook of the respite and escape, little by little, you kids didn't realize what you were actually gaining, which was experience you wouldn't have ever had otherwise had in teamwork. And my guess is, I mean, I've rote a john bowed across the lake before, and that will wear you out. And my guess is if you're with other guys trying to go fast, I mean it's core strength, it's arm strength, it's cardio, it's you know. So there's both physical and non physical attributes to a successful role. What are those?
Yeah, I mean, I mean height helps being tall, But you know, I think the it's it's a lot more than the physical piece, right, like being along, being flexible or being strong. But I think the most important attributes is like for some people, understanding as a follow you have to learn to be a leader. As a leader, you have to learn how to.
Follow because you're all in union.
Because you're all in unison.
You know.
I learned in rowing that I cannot do the work of eight. I have to find eight to do the work of one. And then we get the job must gone faster. And it's not about you. It's about the person who's sitting in front of you and the person who sits behind you, and the discipline show up every day. Understanding that the chemistry that you have in the boat doesn't just happen in the boat, but it's what you do outside of the boat, when you're asking each other question is like what keeps you up at night? What keeps you going personal questions. When Alvin told me that, I was like, from this day four, I will always pull for you. You know, when you're willing to get personal, when you see someone that's working hard and crying out there and ripping apart their hands and breaking their backs for each other man, that is something that Alvin always wanted and was looking for later in the film, and not to tell the whole story, I start showed up to his house every morning before school, walking with him every day to school. He's the best man in my wedding. You know, that's what sports does, and and that's that's kind of just like, honestly, what what what we needed?
You know, we'll be right back. So when you joined when when when the white boat and the White Lady and the everybody showed up, you were were you a freshman or a sophomore?
Sophomore?
Your sophomore? So this led to three years of rowing. How good did y'all get?
We got good? I mean you know I say this, we got really good we got really fast. They came to a point where we lost Preston, who was amazing, but he said, man that I'm like, I was doing good, I was learning a lot. But his mom was still a drug dealer and he said, you know, the streets were calling. I saw what she was making, you know. And he was a great accents to the team, and we lost them. It was Malcolm was the strongest guy on our team, and his dad was like, no, he can't be on the team, and I don't want you doing like you know.
His dad.
Brother was hung on a tree in the South and he just never Malcolm had to sneak to practice. That just never agreed with him, you know, he just didn't want him on the team. He was just like, I don't trust the space, right, I don't trust the space. And so we had to recruit other kids, right. So we were always at the same time in the constant state, me and Alvin and the constant state of rebuilding. And then we got more competitive and we got a new coach and we got faster, but I think at the same time, performance wise, not only preparing to be good, it was real hard at the same time that we still had to go back home and we're losing friends, and we still have to worry about stuff at school. We had to still worry about the mental peace. And oh my god, my cousin got shot. They oh Alvin. Oh man, Man, my cousin just got killed. I can't go to practice this week, guys, like, you know what, I got to help my mom work. I got to miss practice this week. You know, I got a babysit. My mom got to work with double. We had a lot of that to deal with. We were act we were strong, but we had a lot.
To deal with. Once again, not the same reality as your competition. So what do you do after you graduate high school?
Man, I graduated high school. I've dedicated a year in my life to full time service with the Mara Corps. I wanted to do more. I wanted to dedicate you in my life to my community. And I learned that from just like there was one rule that coach Victor, he was the black guy. He had. He said, leave the pole house better than you found it. And he said that when I was the captain. I became the captain of the team.
By the way, football coaches said that about the locker room. So leave the locker room better than you found it. Don't believe your yes. Yes? And I used to stand another very valuable left.
Yes. I used to step over it all the time. I step over He said, no, you leave the bow house better than you found it, even if you didn't make the mess. And I would say, well, how does that teach responsibility to the person who was here before us? He was like, in our poll house, you leave it better than you found it, even if we didn't make the mess, because it makes it easier for the next group. And he's like, yo, you'll get it. And what I learned. It's like man like, some people will say, I have nothing to do with what those black kids were doing, you know when the cops beat them up. Oh, I had nothing to do with what happened in the South two hundred years ago. You know. I have nothing to do with kids who have mental health issues. I have my own kids to worry about. We step over it. But we benefit from this country, and so we can leave it better than we found it, even if we didn't make the mess. It makes it easier for the next generation.
All right, that's awesome. Say it again.
If we can leave this country, our community this world better than we found it. Even if we didn't make the mess. It makes it easier for the next generation.
Do you love this country?
I love this country.
How do you feel when you watch people kneel during the national anthem as a black man?
As a black man, I understand because this country. I love this country.
But that's disrespectful.
It's not disrespectful to me. Here's why, because, oh.
But it is disrespectful because everybody says it is. Yeah, talk to me about it. Talk talk to me about it. I want you to explain it to me.
I want you I explained it this way. It's a little bit of what I said earlier. I don't know if I would have thought this way if I didn't have the interaction with the kids that became my friends, the white private school kids. The moment that I was walking from the boat house in the white neighborhood with my friends and the cops came and they looked at me, opened my book back and they emptied. I was like, what are you doing in this neighborhood. They used to happen to me all the time in my neighborhood, and I would say to myself, okay, because it's a bad neighborhood, it said, challenging, challenging neighborhood. So of course, like they're going to look through my stuff because people got guns. I didn't think about that as a kid. And then when I was in this good neighborhood, what it was, no violence, it still happened to me. And that's when again I said to myself, like man, like I volunteer. I'm the captain of my team. I passed the Constitution test, I know the Declaration of Independence, I know the Preamble. I've never been since spendings for school, never got in trouble. And then when I ask my friends did this happen to them, the white private school kids, they said, it have never happened. And I realized, I said, you know, I went to a baseball game and I sung the national anthems with goosebumps in my arms. And when I ask other people who don't look like me that they didn't experience what I experienced with who I consider an American hero, it made me feel like I was living in a certificant in America. And it doesn't mean that people who grew up like me are disrespecting it. We're trying to help people don't understand.
So who is your American hero?
My American hero is it's the grandma's, it's the pastors, it's the educators, it's the normal people who are trying to just leave the boat house better than they found.
It is George Washington worthy of our price?
I don't look at it. I don't. I don't know if I like it that way.
I without them, we don't have a country.
We don't.
He also owned slaves. Yep, it was also two hundred and whatever sixty years ago. How do we how do we balance that from a from a black dude from the West side of Chicago that admittedly made friends with white kids from the nice part of town. You have a very unique perspective. Yeah, so I think that. I will tell you so many especially in the South, but so many white folks. Again it's it's it's like the it's like the white privileged thing. They do want to understand, but they also are very off put by the degredation of people that we see as founding fathers because two hundred and fifty years ago they were slave owners. And people have a hard time balancing, you know, how do I check myself and learn and be real and become present and cognizant with the reality of the plight of a lot of black folks from inner cities, but also not not allow what I do believe a positive heritage from the people who found our country left us. How do I balance it?
It's a hard balance, you know. And to be honest, I think I'm still working on that. But Rowan and people may disagree agree with me, like Rowan taught me, you know, and rowing you row forward by looking in the opposite direction. That is so I learned that it's okay to look back as long as you keep pushing forward. It's been a trouble pass, you know. And it's o Kate acknowledge that these things happen, and there are generations of trauma because some of it. But you have to keep pushing forward.
So AmeriCorps for two years. That's cool. But I read you, Uh, you learned to cook a little bit somewhere. Where'd you where'd you go? You went to culinary school or something? Wrong? Yeah?
I went to look corder on blue and where I started off in Chicago and then raised a little bit of money to take some lessons at the QUARTERA on Blue England, which was amazing. And London, London, England, that's.
One of my favorite cities. Oh that's such a good London. So you you you went to culinary school in London.
Yeah, and the way you do.
You dreamed to see Sears Tower five blocks away and now you're cooking.
Well, I have to tell you this, and I think, you know, it's it's awesome to have, like great like those entrepreneurship classes really helped. But clonary was introduced to our high school for anyone who wants allowed to cook. But I only went because you know, we didn't have a ton of food. So I was like, yeah, yeah, you get to eat what you cook. So and I realized I was really good at it. And I was like volunteering on the weekends and not only volunteering on on the weekends, like the Hilton O'Hare, Like our teacher really hooked use with some really great internships and so I was rolling and doing some internships and racing too and doing a lot. And then when I went to the Quarter and Blue, I was like, man, I got how do I pay for this? And I was like, can I need a plan? You know? And and what I decided to do is I got a job at the Starbucks in Little Italy, which is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago. And that's what all the men goes into, you know, lawyers, doctors, everyone. And so I'm there and I'm meeting all these folks and I'm like, hey, my name is Roche. Every now and then, my coffee's on you. And they said, oh, if you ever need a dentist.
I got you.
If you need a doctor, I got you. If you need a lawyer, I got you. And I was like, yeah, yeah, how's your family doing? And so I went up. I went to this restaurant called Blackbird. It's a French restaurant. I talk about it in my book, and I said, can I work? You know, chef Paul Kahn just won the James Spirit Award and I worked for free. Can actually got me hooked there and he was like yeah. I was like, I'm just cutting mushrooms, I'm cutting carrots, simple stuff. Best French restaurant in Chicago. I go to my school and I asked them to help me make some business cards and I found five good guys from my class. I go to Starbucks every day. I make these cards. I start putting in sleeves of the starbus comings. That's hilarious and CATERI families, couples and everyone else. And they say. Everyone was like, you want to cook? You a good chef. I was like, yeah, I go to the Quarter Blue and I work at Blackbird. You work at Blackbird. I didn't tell I was cutting onions for free. I said, yeah, I work at Blackbird. And I started getting a lot of business and I was making money and I was paying these guys at school ten dollars an hour and I was making some dough and so that's how I was able to pay for that trip. And so from there I got a job. And I say that to say that after the Quarter on Blue, this guy named Bobby, this guy named Jeff linked me up with this guy named Bobby. Bobby was head of hospitality and cooking for the World Wrestling Entertainment WWE with John Cena, the Rock, all these guys. And he was like, and I go for a job. I tell him my story about intern for free at a sport where there are no cheerleaders, they're no busload of fans, but it's rowing the Starbucks story, the BlackBerry story, and he said, because of what you've done as a sixteen, seventeen, eighteen eighty year old kid is the reason why you have the dream job today. And that's what I always tell young kids. What you do today, what you do now, matters for your future.
Man, that is a long way from a boiling water fot pull of chitlings laying as a long way away. So then then you like her cooking? It did where else?
Oh Wanner broa WB So I was doing like cooking on food sets. Yeah, we're wrestling entertainment the whole thing. Yeah, I'm doing catering.
And like, so, I mean, you reaching a dream and then you say, you know what, I love this, This is great. But I'm called.
That happened during that Chipotle story. When they asked me, you got to tell these kids your story you're here, I was like no. When I went home that night after thinking about that kid, I am not Everyone faces Goliath in their youth. I didn't deal with my trauma. I just buried it and I talked about it. Is you buried it alive. It's always there when you don't deal with it. My mom being a drug addict, not saying the word dat to day in my life, teacher telling me I was gonna die before I was eighteen, fell in the eighth grade. All that stuff came back when I went home that night in my swinking New York apartment, and I had a moment like when hope and the ability to change the world, Like that feeling that comes upon you is not always present, but when it's there, how do you take that moment and go with it? It was almost like when you was a kid at night and you watch a commercial at like three o'clock in the morning and it says feet these starving kids in Africa, or or be the abused dogs. Yah, yeah, yeah, and then the numbers in the bottom. He's like, oh my god, I gotta do something and do something, and then your show comes back on. You start laughing, you fall asleep, you wake up, you gotta go to work, and you forget about everything that you just saw the night before, right, And I had those moments every time I went to church. So I went to a gallap I went to an event where I was say, I gotta do something, and then I got distracted by the need and I fell asleep on the knee. I forgot about it, and I didn't want that to happen, because that's your pole. A story just stuck with me, and that's when I started writing my first sentence. It didn't it didn't start off that way. First sentence of my mom was a drug addict, and I was like, gosh. And that's when I wrote the story of the fan Wow. And that's when I started writing my book no On.
And I get your you know, starting to write the book, but you don't have anything. Nobody really knows your story. And you start working yourself out of your cooking career and into your current I don't know what you would call it. I guess nonprofit profit career. I guess, yeah. So you know what was? How did you how? And why? What precipitated you walking away?
I call it, like you know, I returned home to the place that gave to me. I didn't move back to Chicago first. I actually started going back, which is important to the story. I decided I can. I would volunteer with that group at the school it's a charter school, and start working with them and giving them the same answers that was given to me. And then I went to another school called Eastside Community High School, and I was like, man, these kids need rowing, you know. And so that's when I was like, I called up up to and I was like, hey, I want I need rowing machines. I need to get keep as called up. Can I need some rowing machines. I want to teach kids how to row. And so I started rowing program while still slowly cooking, working my way out of this job. And I'm still writing and.
They started rowing team. You're writing, You're still cooking, so you're really transition transition.
And eventually I stopped cooking because more people was like, our Shay come to my school and he's getting paid like one hundred dollars to speak out of school, one hundred and fifty dollars. But that was a lot for me to just to tell you the story, you know, and people start hearing. And then someone said, hey, I want you to speak at the US Rowing Convention, and that's when I exploded. People are like, oh my god, this dude got a story, like you got to come to my bow house and help me, help me bring people together. We are a programm in a white community, but we need to we want to engage the black community.
How do we do?
How do we do? How do we go in there?
What do we do?
You know? And and so I started helping in that area, and then I'm writing my book at the same time. And it's good because I forgot a lot of the water terms and so being around that it helped me to write.
Again. That's interesting because probably as you're writing, you're reliving. You're reliving, and as you're teaching, it's helping your writing. Yes, I mean, it's the whole thing is kind of organically marinating.
Yep, marinating. And I finished the book. I shop it to eight editors and publishers. They all said, no, you didn't win gold, didn't win a championship, You're not a writer, and that a lot of no's, And so I was like, I'm going to self publish it. I'm going to hustle. I was a hustlers, a self.
Published Yeah, it's the same guy that was putting business cards inside the I have no doubt that you were going to hustle it up.
And so I'm dropping books off everywhere, Meilon books to everyone, books in the Olympics, like sending the books to schools. Blah blah blah, and I'm getting all these calls we love your story, we love your story, we love your story. And they got into the hands of Mary Mazio, filmmaker Olympic Rower, who said, I want to turn this book into a documentary. My friend Gret Hill, I want to bring them in as a producer, and Gret Hill got Dwayne Wade and they got calm and involved, and the buzz was picking up. Or Shade not only wrote this self published book and during this film, but he's doing work with kids who grew up just like he did. And the kids are going to college and they'll come speak. That's when the big publishing house, Macmillan, was like, we read your story, we want to do it. We want your book, and we want to get it out to a broader audience. And they did, and I started seeing the people the books are winning awards, and I saw the people who I pitched the book for retweeting. And so from there the film got out and people loved it. It was amazing, It changed lives. He brought in more money to help the foundation, which gave.
You now the platform, gave you actually work.
The found nine cities later and good news this year our Shae Cooper will be going to South Africa and the Bahamas to help launch a new Prime program.
That is so cool, that is fantastic. We'll be right back. Incredibly. Archey's book, A Most Beautiful Thing was then turned into a great documentary by Dwayne Wade, Grant Hill, and Common, and he and his high school crew members did something pretty unusual during the filming. You guys have a uh have a reunion road and uh and if I get this right up, will let you tell, but I'll just lead it in. I think one of your teammates had an ankle monitor or the other jail and the cops were not part of their reality. And then you and your brilliant bright by decided, Yeah, let's row with cops. Talk about it. It's so cool.
Yeah. You know, while we was filming, there was two things that stuck out to me. First was the mom said, there's two fears they have. My black sun interaction in a different neighborhood in our community, my son interaction with white police. And I was like me, being a person who loved to preach, hope and go after things, I said, what can I do to reduce the fears of my moms. I know I'm helping with these communities, but I gotta do something about the other fear. And I know that there's some things in this world. I learned from Rowing. There's some things in this world you won't see unless you do it. And I said, I I talked about that that quote that Rowin taught me that I can't do the work of eight, but I need eight people to do the work of one, and we get that much faster. In our community, there are black activists working with educators, preachers, business owners and grandmothers and politicians. But why not the cops because they have to work there every single day, seven people pulling the eight. You'll move, but you won't. It won't move effectively unless the eight is moving. And so and the Costs is one of the eight, and they're in our community. And and so I told the guys, I was like, listen, I think I'm uh want to get cops to Row. And they were like, yeah, yeah, we can roll against them. The boys can be over here and our people can be over there.
I was like no, no, no, no, no no no.
I said, you know, as a teacher, you will always forget some of your students but as a student, you'll never forget your teacher, and we have our opportunity to be a teacher, to teach them something about us, about this sport and bring them to the same water where we didn't get along at first, where we literally hate each other, and somehow it became a place of healing. And to be real with you, I made that decision based on building the bridge. They made the decision based on survival. If we interact with them and they get to learn our teenage, known about our teenagers who where they hook and sag their pants, but great kids, that maybe it will change something for them. And I found four white cops and man, it wasn't It was awkward at first, it was very awkward. But in order to have alignment, you have to readjust the lands. You have to be able to talk to each other, and to move anywhere in the boat, you have to be moving to each other. To move anywhere in this world, you have to be moving together. And I told my story and I wanted to hear their story. But I have to say this because it's not in the film, it's not in the book, it's not it's not anywhere. There's a scene where the guys were rolling with their kids. Did you know kids how to row? Before that scene? After that scene, we was going to do the scene with the cops, but the cops came with some of their kids. And what broke the awkwardness is that when the cops kids and the guys kids all got in the tanks and they were pulling and they were having fun and they were talking and it wasn't a care or disconnect in the world, and it was a learning opportunity for all the adults who have in their heads this is the way it's supposed to be. Oh, this is our brotherhood and NAI's debro. There was none of that.
No, Actually, the kids in the boat is the way it's supposed to be. Yes, Yes, when the kids in the boat was the way it's supposed to be, and everyone was like, dang, like this is the way it's supposed to be. Like they taught us, they didn't even know. And that's when we all got in the boat and I was coaching. We invited the Olympic coach out and we started moving together and we had conversations that were uncomfortable but was amazing, And the most powerful part was Alvin who was my best man at the Why and who was fighting? Who searched four our four years in jail later on in life because he shot at someone who beat up his sister, officer Lou. Also, you didn't even know how to swim. We didn't even know it. And he's scared.
And why didn't know how to swim?
He didn't know how to swim?
You mean you mean you mean that happened? That happened. Well, there's another stereotype just destroyed by you.
Up and I heard Alvin say sits Hall, like I got you. Here's this guy who's done four years. There's this copy in front of him that has a lot of fear, and Al's like, dude, I've been here, I got you. And ever since that day, the way both of them gravitated towards each other was something I have never seen. This unlikely lifeboat changed these guys life.
There's a guy in Las Vegas named John Ponder, twenty year criminal from Brooklyn who ended up finally going to the federal PENITENTIARYA because he robbed a bunch of banks and through a long series of circumstances and what he would tell you or blessings, he's come out, and he started a re entry program. And the recidivism rate that his organization experiences is like ten percent against a national average of somewhere around eighty percent. Those numbers are close, but the point is unbelievable successful. And you know what his success he attributes to is that the returning citizens from jail that are paroles are, like lots of these organizations, work life skills, learn how to do internet and email, and learn how to get a job and go on an interview. The difference with his is each one of those guys are matched with a Las Vegas Police Department man or woman at THEI whatever. And what John said that I've never forgotten to me is what happens is the cop starts seeing the convicts without the orange jumpsuit on, and the convict start seeing the cops without the badge on. And when the jumpsuit and the badge is erased, all you have are two people. And I gotta believe when Alvin and the cops and the whole mixed up crew was going on, the cops weren't didn't have a gun or badge on, right, and through rowing, they got to just see each other's human beings.
And that's what Macco said in the film. He said, once they got on those uniforms, you know it was cool. They go back home to families and wives and kids, and they human beings and they saw us the same. And I would say the most powerful moment they have volunteered with me. They helped me bring growing back to the high school. I was in California and they showed up to help. I was just at Northwestern University and the other showed up to help like they've been there. But the most powerful moment is that we filmed this in twenty eighteen twenty when George Floyd was murdered. We have this group chat because we all chatted all the time.
You mean the road, your rogue guy and the cops, because.
We raced together, because we won team We have one eight we raced together goes to the neighborhood. And the beauty of that when we raced together in July to have a tent of like their colleagues and their kids and all boys from the neighborhood and and and all together and cheering us on. And then you hear the guys from neighborhood tell the cause, say this is my son, like he's so good man. Sometimes you have bad days, but he's great, like, you know, the it was just just cool.
It was cool.
And he was making jokes like, hey, the cops get one the guys, Hey, where does why?
I know you always wear white?
Started. It was all these jokes, right, and.
Like, but that's when race doesn't matten, when you can joke about it with it really doesn't.
Yeah, it was It was awesome. The powerful moment was George Floyd was murdered and I started messaging with the guys, and right George Froy's murdered, we did a top a a segment on the Today Show and with those guys, and one of the cops said, he said, when George Floyd was murdered, I was working downtown on the protest and had a ton of bricks thrown at me. And he said, I realized that day, through our relationship, that I can go home and take my uniform off, but you can never take your black skin off. And I said, thank you for saying that. How do you have that conversation with your colleagues? And that opened the door for some really courageous conversations with us, and that was always a turning point in a good way, because we always had a mission. One mission of mine is to keep kids safe, both of us, both groups. And there was times of like, well you need to see this is the way I see. You don't understand when the grandma calls and say he has a blue sweater. You see your kid's a blue sweater, and grandma got robbed and grandma got hurt. We have to make a decision to take all three, you know what I mean, Like you're helping us to understand, but also telling them, hey man, Alvin joined the game because he had to help others, and they were like, oh my god. He didn't make bad choices. He made tough choices, Like the conversations were conversations that I can't have at a protest. But once I invited him to my boat, my barbecue because they work in our neighborhood eight hours a day and they need to learn our names, and I want them to hear my story and I want to hear their story. That's when we started to connect. So the way you mean when you're just human beings, we just human beings. And so the mistake we make in our country is that we do too much calling out and no calling in.
And you yeah, you you.
But it reminds me of Valvin. If I would have saw him the first time it was like, hey, you don't need to be on this team, he would have socked me in a jaw. But I called him in. I set next him on the boat. I sat next to him on the machine, and I said in my book, what I loved about Ken, our coached is Jewish guy, University of Pennsylvania. What he done differently is that my relationship in school with security guards or teachers that I only heard from them when I was doing wrong, talking at me, and then when I had a bad day, they was like, tell me, what's the problem, what's going on at home? I'm not telling you right. But Ken made deposits. When you go to a bank and make a deposit, you can't get it. You know, you get a withdrawal, but you can't get a withdraw if you don't make deposits. And so when you have coaches and people making deposits in your life, and when you ask what's the problem, you will always get a withdrawal. And so I learned to call in. I learned to make deposits in cops light. So when I say, hey, man, tell me about George Floyd, I always get withdrawal because I'm making deposits.
We'll be right back if we're ever going to ail. So much of what divides us as a country, which is not just racial, it's racial, it's political, it's faith based, it's abortion, it's all of it, right, But what scares me so much is that wokeness cancel culture and political correctness. It makes us really afraid to be willing to talk because I might say something that is a talking point for one group or another, and then you automatically sum me up and assume you know exactly who I am, what I think, where I'm from, and I what's you know? And in tool we break down those barriers and talk like white cops and black row people? What a what a row people called oxman or something?
Yeah?
There it is row people, right. But what I'm saying is is that is that I'm so I am so anti cancel culture, woke this political that not because I don't think there's a need for us to watch our tongues and how we approach one another, because we do, but because I think with the pendulum has swung so far in our culture now that it is prohibiting people that aren't just like each other from simple having simply having real civil conversations about stuff that matters. And without that, we're never going to be able to learn the humanity about one another and grow. And your story illustrates that when those barriers are removed, the phenomenal growth that can take place. So what are you doing now? Man?
I have a national foundation what's it called a Most Beautiful Thing inclusion fun In the last year and a half, we introduced two thousand kids of colors of this what if rowing in what cities and Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Newburgh, New York, Waco, Texas, Stockton, California, Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey.
Y'all going to screw up Rowland. Y'all go into y'all gonna end up making rowing look a whole lot different.
Yeah, you know, I was it's good. You know, someone told me in the interview, they say, so our share, it's amazing, you're changing the face of rowing, And I was like, you know what. I what I told them is like, you know what, though I don't want to change the face of rowing, I want to add new faces to rowing and beautiful. It's a beautiful thing because the history of sports have told us.
That you're the Serena Williams of rowing. Man Man, and you know, I A.
I don't want to do so much more when I roll in my neighborhood Bill, just like when people watch your yeah you know, or where I grew up. I don't want people to say that's the author, that's the chef, or that's the rower.
You also don't want to be the black rower. Yeah, no, you don't want to do that.
Yeah, but I want people to say, you know what, that dude, that's the hope for my community, that's the hope for our kids. When I think of some of the greatest leaders like MLK, I don't think about his career as an educated preacher, but I think about the hope that he runs in his country. And I think about Harriet Tubman. I don't think about a career as a union spy, but the freedom that she brung to so many people who look like me or even Gandhi. I don't say, oh, the attorney, but the piece that he brought to so many villages.
Can I ask you a question, I hear what you're what you're saying, and I think it's cool and you and you evoked Harriet Tubman and MLK and Gandhi all people that are black and brown. Can you evoke a would you, in just natural conversation evoke a white hero?
Yeah, I was gonna say about the Teresa. I was gonna say about the Teresa next.
All right, what about it? What about a white male? Yeah?
Absolutely, man. I mean I think that you hit the are in white savior, right. I think that we all have the ability to be heroes. And I think that Ken was a hero and can now part that's the guy who team Bob Mouseikowski who started a baseball team program. They were heroes. I think that sometimes where it gets people should never take away the work that the work and the love that a white man had brung to a neighborhood of folks who don't look like him. I think what people, well the right people will say, well, I've been doing this in this neighborhood and I don't get the media attention that that person got because it's different, and it's ways to address that. But we should also take away the work that Can and other men like you have done and at at the moments, I lost sight of that. But it changed when I spoke to Seattle scholars and this white dude said, I have this was recent. I have sixty white men on my team, and I'm working to change that. But forty of these guys said they're here because of r Sha Cooper.
Okay, what that is perfect, And what I'm getting to is you naturally evoked heroes. And you said m O. King and U Joundee and yeah, all right, And I think if I'm sitting asking a white guy, he's gonna say, fix some white people. It's just natural, right, I mean, if a white dude, yeah, I mean maybe it's I don't know. If it's baseball, it's Babe Ruth. Yeah. Who would be your hero in baseball?
Yeah, Jackie Robinson?
Right, Okay. If it's football, maybe Joe Montana. Who's yours?
Oh wow, Well you know that's for me. It's a Chicago guys.
I was going to say, I was thinking's Walter.
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, Yeah, it's somebody O waltsa Paytony why not?
Why not man? Why not buckets? Yeah?
He loved the film, by the way.
Okay, but you see my point.
I see your point.
You know where we got to get where white people and black people don't even consider race when they think about their heroes. But we don't get there until we can have the conversations. And we don't get there until people are not surprised when they see black kids rowing.
Yeah wow wow.
And you're part of that solution. Your life is part of that solution. I mean what Baltimore, DC, all that stuff. I mean, that is just so cool. But we can't get there unless we can talk and figure out each other's humanity.
Right right, I have to say this last thing. I mean, if whatever, I won't know how much time we have. I got a call from a library and he said, we bought three hundred books we donated to a school and the school has just seen your movie Ourshae Cooper. You need to come here, beautiful. I said, okay, okay, this was going six months ago. I said okay, okay, and they said, no, we need you to come. I said, okay, where where do I need to come? They said, Alliance, Ohio. Where Alliance, Ohio.
I was like, that's got to be in the middle of note.
I was like, where is that? And they said, you got to fly to Pittsburgh and drive an hour and a half into Alliance, Ohio. Fly to Pittsburgh, pick up my buddy Matt. From Pittsburgh. We drive to Alliance Ohigh five minutes left in the GPS, and it's Confederate flex everywhere. I'm like where, man, I go to a U turn, you know, and so you know, I go into the school and I'm thinking.
Of my head driving school, thinking do these folks look like I know, you know what?
When he said I need you, they need you, I was thinking in my head that they were kids who looked like me. Because he's like, oh, they.
Got to you know, they got to meet I know where you're going. Yeah.
Yeah. And I walk into the school, don't see a kid that looks like me, but they would cheer me on like I was Lebron James.
Man. Was it as white as your high school was black?
Yes?
That white? Yes? Like white white white?
I mean like white kids have never heard of rowing white And they were.
Like white kids never heard about country.
Country man and the first kid. I have these kids messages on my phone from Instagram because they have the best messages I've ever seend. I've received so many amazing messages. The first kid stood up and said, Bill, thank you for your story because I have unlearned everything that my parents taught me about people who look like you. I couldn't even finish the rest. Man, I was like, the teachers will tell you. I stood back, like I couldn't even answer other questions because I couldn't get past that. That's when I knew I was making an impact when I see kids who look like me and said, Hey, you spoke at my school three years ago. Now I'm ruining at cal Berkeley.
You know.
Now I'm ruining at this college. Like I knew, but I didn't really understand it until like this kid who walked into the boat house was like, I mean there's launcher. Was like, I'm not doing that's no one looked like me, Like. I just didn't understand until that day that man, like, Wow, when you act being on yourself your career, man, like, true change happens, you know what I mean? And man, it's I realize at the same time that the hope I was given because we all have kept I've received hope at some point in our lives. The problem is that we keep it. It was never minded to keep, but to also give. And I realized it's all about the hope you give.
From stepping over pools of blood running from gunshots that was so monotonous that it was no more noticeable than the clicking of a fan in his apartment all the way to Rule, Ohio, where a white kid thanks you for changing his perspective of people that look like you income from places like you learned all from the bottom of a boat. What a story, bro, And you're still involved, Yeah, not quitting. Let me ask something. Somebody wants to start a row team in their city. Can they call on you?
They can call on me. We're ready to find you. Hey, they can find me rsha Cooper dot com. My email is there, our work, our articles on what we've done, and we'll come with our team. We'll check it out and then we'll introduce them to wellness.
What if somebody wants you to come speak to their organization and tell them about that same.
Thing, same thing? Hit me up. My email is there. I always respond and I love to come speak.
My brother. I can't thank you enough for joining me today and sharing your story and your wisdom. And you know there's some questions I asked with specific intent, and some things I said that I really just trying to get the listeners to to think a little deeper and maybe a little different about some of the realities of our world. But you're a hero man, and you are just a normal guy who's done extraordinary things. And I know you're an inspiration to a lot of people, but you're an inspiration to me because if there's more normal folks like you in this world, just filling the needs in our communities, we can fix a lot of what else is an army of you would change everything. And I just I can't thank you enough, and I can't tell you out how much I've enjoyed being with you.
Thank you too. And I have to say that I didn't know many years ago, when I was sitting in my couch watching the trailer to Undefeated, that I'll be sitting here across from you well dreams of still being eliminated.
We're both dudes and never expected to be here. Through God's grace, we are and hopefully some people got some inspiration from conversation. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for joining us this week. If our Shay or another guest has inspired you in general or better yet to take action. Please let us know how I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast, rate it and review it, share it with friends and on social The things that will help grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.