118. Patrick Godfrey: Taking Ownership of Your Dream

All right, welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. I'm really excited for this episode because.

The gentleman I have here on today, I'm excited to share his story. It's really cool story of, let's call it Little Adversity, Overcoming the Odds, Having Massive Success in College sports. And then as you, as you know, if you listen into the podcast, it's about what people are doing in chapter two of their life when the sports career is over. So with that being said, Patrick Godfrey, I am. I'm excited to have you on today, man.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to it. And, you know, I think you guys will kind of see with my mission. I'm just hoping to get the word out there of how you can translate sports into success in other realms.

That is what this podcast is about, my friend. Now, if somebody were to go look you up right now, especially on LinkedIn, they're going to see that you're a financial analyst at Wells Fargo. And no offense, that's not the exciting story we're about to share here. Right, but take us back. Let's. Let's start. Start at the beginning. You grew up in Long island. And you know, it's so funny, Patrick, because I listen to a lot of.

Podcasts, read a lot of books, self help, personal development, and a lot of, you know, interviews with highly successful people. And it shocks me the number of successful, and I'm talking like billionaire type success people that come from New York City, Long Island. I don't know what's in the water over there, but we'll get to that in a second. But why don't we just start with your childhood, Patrick? Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you grew up. What kind of sports were you into when you were growing up on Long Island?

I really played everything when I was a little kid. My dad has been a high school football lacrosse coach for pretty much my entire life. So those were the two biggest passions early on. But I played everything from baseball to basketball to golf to tennis as well. So I was that kid playing sports at all times. In terms of my family, I kind of had a dynamic childhood that I'm pretty grateful for because I had a stay at home mom, my dad was a teacher. So early on in our life, that kind of meant we're more of a lower middle class family, and I never necessarily wanted for anything. But in my community, there's a lot of kids who had all the excesses of life, and that certainly wasn't My family, we were raised to earn everything that we ever got over time. Slowly, things got better. My mom eventually went back to work. So I got to kind of, I guess, see both sides of the socioeconomic spectrum as a kid, which is something that I become really grateful for later on in life. But yeah, I was that kid always who was just setting ambitious goals, always overloading his plate. And when I was told that I couldn't do something, that only meant that I was going to double down on it and try that much harder. So I, I guess given the environment on Long island around lacrosse, where it's maybe the best hotbed in the country for that kind of talent, versus Long Island's reputation in football, where it's really almost a wasteland in the eyes of a lot of big time programs, I saw that challenge and unfortunately I decided, hey, let's take this harder path, because that for some reason appealed to me.

Well, and we're going to get into that how you, you know, taking advice, people telling you you can't do something, don't do something, don't take that hard path. We're gonna get to that in a second. I knew you something in common. My father was also a teacher and a coach, so I grew up in that same household. My mom was a teacher too. And I love what you said offline before the app, before we started this episode is, you know, what football is to Texas, lacrosse is to Long island. And you know, as you got older, you, you became pro, definitely a two sports star in both football and lacrosse. And I think you had opportunities in both sports. What drew you to taking the path towards football when you grew up in such a hotbed for lacrosse?

You know, it was multiple factors. I think really one of them for me was just kind of the cultural factors. Anybody who's very well connected in the lacrosse community will tell you that it's an interesting dynamic because there's some undertones of almost the surfer world and more of a laid back type of vibe. And you know, I to have a good time and relax, but certainly that's not a mentality that I harbor when I'm out on the sports field. So I always was a bit of an outlier amongst my peers in the sense that I was that very intense guy listening to pump up music before lacrosse games. Everybody, pat, chill, chill, chill. And football really, really fed into that side of me. I loved going to a different place when I was getting ready to play, you know, and just, you know, being ready to go out there and almost feel like you're going to war. It's like the closest interpretation of war you could probably get is going out there for a football game or one of these, you know, contests. So I always loved that element of it. And when I felt like football was feeding into my aggressive, intense, motivated side, more so than lacrosse was, I all of a sudden started feeling like, wow, maybe this is really my true sport. This is maybe what I should truly be pursuing.

I like that. And inquiring minds want to know. It's the championship game for the conference in high school. Right before the football game, what music are you turning on?

There's a song by Young Jeezy called Put On, I put on for my City. And that one always really spoke to me because I grew up in a little town on Long island that most people have never heard of. So every time, whether it was in high school and I'm trying to put my school on the map or later on in college, and I'm trying to put New York on the map, I always thought, you know, I'm really representing for my people back home.

You know, it's funny, it tells me how old I feel now compared to, compared to the younger generation, because back in my day it was jock jams, it was AC dc, it was Journey, the Final countdown. You know, all those 80s and 90s songs that we use to get ourselves pumped up. But, but. So let's talk about this, because I think your high school journey in football actually mirrored my baseball journey in high school a little bit because going into my senior year, I only had one scholarship offer and it was to Division 2 school Winona State University up in Minnesota.

I think your football journey was very similar, you know, going into your junior and senior seasons. Tell us a little bit about, like, where were the offers coming in? Where were the opportunities that you saw potentially to play football at the next level?

Absolutely. So, you know, for me, one thing that was tougher is I was a bit of a late bloomer. And football, that really isn't conducive to the recruiting process really. A lot of the big schools are looking for guys who, you know, sophomore, but at the latest junior years or closer to finished products. And you can tell this guy is going to be a talented top level football guy. For me as an Irish kid, I came into high school at about 5 foot 6, 135 pounds, and by the time I finished up, I was about six' two and a half, six' three, 250. So I went through quite the transformation in high school. So My junior year I was only about a 200 pound offensive and defensive lineman, so I got a little, I got some looks, I was a talented player. So going after my junior year, start getting recruiting by the Ivy Leagues and some SMFCS schools. Going into my senior year, still didn't have any offers, but went out there and put out a really good senior year and wound up getting a couple offers from Bryant and Lafayette and a couple of smaller Division 1 AA schools. And nothing against those programs, but what I kind of found is my senior year I went and I visited and I'd walk around and it was beautiful, but they'd have a 5,000 person stadium. And I'd say to myself, I really, really want to try to associate and be part of the best of the best. And for me, as much as I love it here, I don't necessarily know if this meets the dream that I might have had when I was a little kid. So I had a really difficult conversation with my parents, my coaches, you know, my friends and basically said, hey guys, even though I've been given some incredible opportunities to go and play at the Division 1 level, I think I'm going to forego them and try to walk on at a big time school.

And that's, you know, I love that right there because literally going into the playoffs of my senior year, so we're talking may of, of senior year, I'm graduating in less than a month. I had one offer, it was Division 2 and I was like, you know what, I'm not satisfied. I want to play, I want to play Division 1. And I love your story because for, for the, you know, Bryant Universities, the Lafayettes, you know, I still love the fact you call it Division 1 Double A. I know we call it FCS, but I'm like, no, it's Division 1 AA. You weren't satisfied with that. Now for me, I ended up getting a Division 1 offer to a mid major Division 1 school. Dude, you went to the top. And this is the story I want people to hear because when you said I'm gonna, I'm gonna forego and I'm gonna go for it, we're talking about today one of the top dynasties we have seen in football. We're not talking about, no, I'm gonna go try to make it at.

At, I don't know, Pitt or, or, you know, no offense to the, you know, the smaller division one top, Big five schools. Dude, you went to, you wanted to go to Clemson. Talk about that journey. I think it's fascinating.

Yeah, it Was a really difficult time, you know, for a 17 year old. I, you know, sometimes I like to put myself back in those shoes and everything seems so unstable in my life because really I had come to regret the fact that I had made my recruitment process so public because I unwillingly put immense pressure from all outside forces on myself. And that's what I felt walking around as a senior. And really, for a while it was, let's do the Ivy League. I had gotten some interest from the Ivy League, got a gray shirt offer, which means I could come in after taking a prep school year to Dartmouth. But that wasn't what I wanted to do. And everybody was waiting, waiting on my announcement. And that's one of the downsides of being a talented athlete in a small town is everybody's in your business.

Made that decision. And I'd gotten into Clemson academically, gotten a good academic scholarship and had a little bit of correspondence with the coaching staff, but it was far from a done deal that I was going to get to play there. Everybody looked at me and kind of laughed at me. And this really was a true motivating factor, kind of for me going forward because I really, really was frustrated. I was like, why can't you people give me the chance? Why can't you guys believe that I could do something special? And this was even coming from my high school coaches. I had sit me down and say, hey Pat, you're giving up on an opportunity that a lot of people had dreamed for, for what most people consider a pipe dream. This really, really hurt me. But I only turned into working out that much harder, that much bigger of a chip on my shoulder. And I really said to everybody, I said, I promise I'm going to make the team. I can't tell you if I'm going to be at Clemson for five years, try out during 10 different semesters and make it the final go round. I can't tell you if that's what it's going to take, but as long as it's going to take to make the team, that's how hard I'm going to work and that's how many times I'm going to try. So I went down there getting ready for a tryout with a lot of uncertainty in my life as an 18 year old.

What advice, you know, before we get into that journey, what advice would you give? I feel like, you know, for that 16, 17, 18 year old high school athlete out there, whether you're a boy or girl, you have a lot of adults who are trying to Control your decision, right? Let's face it, parents helicopter their kids more than they ever have. You have all these recruiters, all these counselors at school, your coaches all telling you what you should be doing. And I actually love that you went against the grain and you're like, no, I get it guys, thanks.

But I know where I'm headed. What advice would you give that kid, that athlete who is getting pulled in so many directions?

You know, everybody's gonna have a different outlet for this. For me it was going to church and praying. But I ask all those kids out there who are uncertain of their circumstances to try and practice mindfulness. Try to sit back and really think about what's going on in your life and decide, okay, is what I'm currently working towards what I want or what somebody else wants? Am I trying to placate somebody else? Or is this truly my passion and something that's going to make me happy and leave me fulfilled? Because as many parents out there as there are that want their kids to play Division 1 sports and be superstars, ultimately what you realize is when you get to college, there's a whole lot of work and if you're not doing it for yourself, then it's never going to be worth it.

Well, I love what you said there. Sorry, Patrick. I love what you said because I think not only 18 year olds suffer from that hell, there's 35, 40, 45 year old people who are still in a job, in a career, whatever, because of something somebody said or because that was the job some they thought they had to have because of somebody's other somebody, somebody else's influence.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So it has to be your. You have to take ownership of your dream. Yeah. If you're fulfilling somebody else's dream, then guess what, you're going to fail at.

Their dream bomb right there. Take ownership of your dream. I absolutely love that. So, okay, so you get to set, you get, you get down to Clemson, South Carolina.

This is 2016, right? 2015.

2015.

They're already double Sweeney's already got them on the winning path. You know, for a while there, what was the phrase they always used on ESPN for years? Clemsoning, when, when Clemson would have a great year and then they lose the one big game they've got to win and now the season kind of gets derailed. Well, Davos shows up and the rest is history. We don't need to have a big conversation about that. So you get down there like, and you're not on scholarship, you have to try out Tell us what that was like.

You know, it was a really, really terrifying position in my life because I had gone down to Clemson, my parents dropped me off at, you know, move in weekend and I'm staying on the side of campus as all the other students. So the athletes are kind of blocked out, they have their own little section of campus. I'm staying in the honors dorm. So there's certainly not a lot of, not a lot of football look alikes walking around that side of campus. So everywhere I would go for my first four or five days on campus, everybody's asking, are you a football player? Are you a football player? You know, I'm the only 250 pound freshman walking around and I had this awful explanation of, well, maybe, hopefully keep my fingers crossed, we'll see. So my fifth day on campus was the big day and I show up really, really nervous. I can't tell you the kind of anxiety that 18 year old is going through in class knowing that at 4 o' clock today I'm going to get to play in front of the Clemson coaches. So I show up, hundred man tryout and I look around, I'm like, I think I stack up pretty well against these guys. I think not all these guys had Division 1 offers and luckily, you know, it was an hour long tryout. I actually during the tryout played offensive line and defensive line. I was the only guy trying out for each. So I had two on one, two coaches on one guy for both sessions. And I remember it's about 100 degrees and I'm just cooking, going over and over again. My hand keeps sliding off the pad as I'm punching it and I have my coach tell me, if you can't hit a stationary target, how you ever hit a moving one? And I think to myself, oh my gosh, I might get cut. So the practice goes on. I hear Dabo whisper to one of the other coaches, can you believe this boy is from New York? And I said, all right, that can't be a bad thing. So afterwards I walked away from the field, went over straight to church, downtown Clemson. And I sat and I prayed for about 20 minutes and I said, you know what, God, I've done all I can right now, so I'm leaving it in your hands and I gotta have peace with whatever that conclusion is. And went home. About an hour later got the phone call that I was one of four guys to make the Clemson football team and I was gonna show up for my physical the next day. So that, that'll be a day A moment that I'll never forget. My family.

What did you do right there? I was gonna say, when? Let's go right to that moment. Cause I remember the day I got the call both for my offer at UWM and then a call from the brewers to sign as a free agent. Those are moments you'll never forget. That moment. When you got that call, where were you? Who called you? Take us through that, Mormon.

I was sitting in my dorm, and they had told me it was a Friday night, and they had told me that I'd hear back on Sunday or Monday. So I was just kind of prepping myself for that uncertainty. I don't know how I was going to make it through 48 hours, but I went and I checked my email, and I pull up an email about an hour and a half after I left, and all of a sudden I'm reading through it, and there was a cryptic email at the beginning that said, thank you for your time. We truly appreciate your efforts at coming out. And with that said, we'd like to let you know that you'll be added to the 115 man roster tomorrow. And I got a call from the director of Football ops congratulating me. I called my parents screaming, screaming joy. I started crying. I had my buddies on campus that time freaking out. It was a jubilous occasion. I was a very, very happy camper. But about 30 minutes after that happened, I realized, all right, I guess you got to go down there and start blocking and start hitting against some of the best players in the country. So it was certainly a double edged sword.

Yeah, it was. It's like, oh, now it's time to get to work, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Break this down for the listeners, because you walked in with 100 people fighting for four spots, and you were one of the four. This kid from Long island who comes from a lacrosse hotbed. And here you are trying out for, at that point, one of the top two teams in the country. Three, you could say, arguably, Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State. Right.

If you had to break down how you did it in a matter of a step or two, what allowed you to. To stand out from 100 guys and be one of the four selected?

Well, I think this lesson kind of has applications a lot further than football. I worked really, really hard. But don't work hard in the dark, because there's a lot of people out there who like to go and claim, all right, I'm putting in the longest nights, I'm putting in the longest days. I don't want Any attention. I'm just going to go about my business, and there is something to be said for that. But also, when you're working harder than everybody else, take credit for that work. So one thing I did leading up to everything is I was killing myself in the weight room and trying to be the most talented strong guy I could be when I arrived on campus. So what I did was I sent videos of me lifting weights to the coaching staff. So they knew before I showed up. We got this guy who has elite strength for this age and, you know, for the country, we have a guy who has some good athleticism. I sent a video of me dunking the ball. I think there's a lot of people out there, you know, when it comes to the job market, athletes, athletics, whatever it may be, who are hesitant to put forth their strengths and be confident in what they have to bring to the table. And I made it a point to let them know, okay, I'm different than the rest of these people showing up because not only am I working this hard, but I've got some degree of natural ability that I want to convey to you before I even show up on campus.

What was it like? I'm curious, because now you're here. I think the lessons from this journey are so important because, you know, it would be so easy. It would have been so easy for you at any moment during that tryout to just quit, right? Because what are the odds? 100 guys, what are the odds I get selected out of four? And.

What you just said is so important is it's. No one can see you put in the work if you don't let anybody know you're putting in the work. And I. I'll admit I talk often about the. It's all the work off the field when no one's watching, right? And that's where the habits are developed. But like you said, no one's going to see you unless you let them know that you want to be seen. And I. That's going to get into your Chapter two, I think, very, very much it's going to play very well. So let's go here. You're now. You've hear, you're now playing. What was it like, honestly? Because if you are a college football fan at all, and you do the math, you were there from 2015 to 2018, arguably one of the most successful runs in college football history for a program, and it still continues for Clemson.

You played alongside some legendary defensive lines.

How many national title games?

Three national title games, two ways, two wins.

What was that like when literally you are now you've gone from Long island under underdog to the expectation that you win a national title? What's that like?

You know, it was amazing to watch that transformation on campus because really, when I showed up at Clemson, there's a completely different set of expectations amongst the student body and the fan base to what it grew into during my time there. So when I arrived, you're the number 12 team in the country. We had had a lot of success in the previous five or six years, but it wasn't national championship or bust by any means at that point. My freshman year, about midway through the season, we rose to the number one team in the country. And it was amazing watching the buzz around campus, around the surrounding areas. It literally dominated the conversation lines for the entire season. So year one, everybody's just through the moon that we even made the national championship game come home after a loss to Alabama out in Arizona in 2015. And there's probably about 25,000 people in the parking lot waiting to congratulate us and thank us for the run that we had made. But then it very quickly became, hey, if we can play up here, then we're going to be competing for national championships and anything less than that is no longer acceptable. So it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure because it's really not easy. People don't realize, for instance, a guy like Bo Schem Beckler at Michigan never won a national championship. Thought of as one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. It's that hard that there's legends who never do it. And when you're being asked every single year, either we're going to win it or it's going to be a bust. It's a lot. But what I really saw was the ownership over the culture by the players, really made sure that that standard was held across the, across, across the board. Because the difference between your fantastic programs, the Clemson's, the Alabamas, the Ohio states that are, you know, consistently in that rare air versus the teams that might pop up for a year and then come back down to earth, is the culture that is ingratiated in the building. And our guys knew we're gonna, we're gonna outwork everybody. We're gonna have as much talent as anybody. So let's go do this. Anything less than that is an acceptable.

Well, and it's, it reminds me, it's funny because I think a lot of sports fans have come to dislike the Alabamas, the Clemson's the Ohio states because they're always good. Right. It's easy to dislike the team that's always winning. But I'm a Wisconsin fan, so I'm a Big Ten guy. And I've said it for. For the last three or four years. Ohio State isn't giving up control of first place anytime soon. And I would say the same thing about Clemson. They're not giving up control of the ACC anytime soon. And we can complain and whine about the rich getting richer, as you hear people say about college football, but they're just recruiting at a higher level. These other teams need to step up if they want to compete with these teams. It's not. That's unfair. They get all the good players. Right. And I. It reminds me of, actually, the. The school I grew up, the town I grew up next to Arrowhead High School, they had a string. Patrick where they went to. I'm making numbers up, but it's close. 15 state, you know, 11 or 12 state title games in, like, 15 years.

Wow.

I remember the high school coach saying, because people, that's when you could start open and rolling and you could pick a high school to go to, and. And all that. And people were getting mad. All these kids are transferring to Arrowhead. It's like, he's like, listen, go look at the trophy case. That's why they want to come here. I don't have to do any recruiting. They want to come to win. And so for you, you know, going to a program like that, where it went from, we now have the expectation of winning a national title every year. You're right. That comes with a lot of pressure, but it's got to come with a lot of pride, too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, there's. There's a certain swagger when you get off the bus that Clemson has that other teams don't have. And, I mean, you buy in as a player, and I think a confident football team that's still focused on their goals ahead is a very, very dangerous thing. We're always confident. We're never cocky. And that's something that I try and bring into every element of my life. You know, if I believe that I'm there and good enough to get the job done, well, I'm gonna let you know. It's certainly what.

We had a couple more questions about your time there, and then we're gonna get into your journey, you know, with. About you, which I absolutely love. One, you got to run out of not one tunnel, but three tunnels at the national title game. What was that, like that first one, when you're in the tunnel, you're in Arizona, you're in the last game of the year, the most important game of the year. What's that feeling like sitting and standing in that tunnel?

You know, it was such a whirlwind because it felt like in about 10 or 11 month span that my life had really come full circle because almost a year prior I was sitting there, you know, second half of my senior year as a very, very uncertain, unconfident guy whose life was just a complete fluctuations and you know, to go from there to that morning, I'll always remember that morning of the national championship game. Meeting out the hotel parking lot with my parents and just looking at him being like, can you guys believe this? We're here. This is Arizona and we're here. So I remember running out of the stadium or out of the tunnel for that first national title and, and really just looking around and trying to soak it in and saying, thank you God, because I had no idea that this is what you had in store. And all those schools that I thought, you know, the Harvard's of the world that I thought were really dumb not to take me. Now I know why they said no, you know.

Really special.

Well, and I think as a team for you, that first one, there were probably a lot of starstruck athletes on the team, right? Like, wow, we're here. We finally made it. By that third one, you guys were probably like, yeah, this is our home, like we expect to be.

Exactly. And I mean, I think that's a really big differentiator when you look at, you know, why is it that the Alabamas and the Clemson of the world are able to retain that place on top? I think as much as anything is, they know they belong there. And that first season for us, you know, my first year, 2015, we lost 45 to 40 in the national title game as a heartbreaker. Onside kick in the fourth quarter is a great game. But the most important thing about that game was it left us with the belief that we could win. Because going into it we knew we were good. But there was always that little lingering doubt of this is Alabama we're talking about and this is the national title game. Do we really belong here? But then the next year when we came back, we knew we could play with those guys. Any of those doubts have been washed away. And I think that's why you see these same few teams continually dominating. It's because their cultures tell them that they belong there, whereas it takes A little bit of time, you know, to get over that hump.

Yeah, no, that's. That's phenomenal. And that first national titles with desean Watson, right? Is that the one?

Yeah. Yeah. First national titles with desean, and then my final national title is with Trevor Lawrence.

Trevor Lawrence, Yeah. So when I look at Mount Rushmore of college football coaching, I feel like Nick Saban's face is already entrenched as one of the four. But I feel like Davos Sweeney's face is now starting to get etched into that stone. What was it like to play for him?

It was demanding, but very rewarding. Because, you know, one thing that I really respect about Dabo and that I'll always take as I try to become a leader and transition into my business career, is he asked a lot of his guys, of his coaching staff, his players. He held everybody accountable, equally, across the board. And you knew that if you were slacking, that he'd get after you. But with that being said, nobody in the building ever questioned if Dabo cared, if he cared about the team, but more importantly, if he cared about you as an individual. And I think the issue that coaches have sometimes is if they're not properly getting across that I want to do this to help you, then they can be met with deaf ears. Dabo always made sure to let us know, hey, I care about the man that you are, the student that you are, the father you're going to become someday, a lot more than I care about your performance at X practice. And that's important. And as a result, everybody always bought in for Dabo, because if this guy's cussing at me and going crazy, at least I know that at the end of the day, he cares about me and he wants to. To see what's best for me. And that's what he's trying to drive home. But he was a lot more demanding than he, you know, would indicate to the public eye. He's not always just a good old boy who's, you know, looking to, you know, crack some jokes and have fun and dance. He's like any other football coach. He'll really get after you out there. But the difference is, you know that when you come see him after, after practice, at dinner or whatnot, he's going to be joking around with you and he's going to really care.

Yeah. No, I love that because I think that's what makes.

Coaches. I think in our. Let's call it our cancel culture today, everybody wants to spotlight that one moment when that coach is in that player's face, and that's the moment they highlight as the snapshot moment. And that this why this coach needs to be let go and this coach needs to be fired. It's like you don't realize at the end of the day, the work those coaches put in and how much they care about those young athletes, especially college athletes, because, you know, you're 18 to 21 years old, you're still very influenced by. By your coaching staff. And so, you know, I look at guys like Nick Saban and. And Davos Sweeney.

Yeah.

Are they demanding? Hell, yes. But there is not a soul on that field who cares more about those players than that. Those two guys right there.

And. And they. They guard their cultures to the death.

Yeah.

It's really one thing I've seen, because that's one of the most difficult elements of a college football environment, is you're really pulling people from. From all walks of life. I mean, it's a great.

Preparation tool for life because I really got to interact with a wide array of different personalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, races, et cetera. But it can be very difficult to make that all gel when you're getting it working and you've got your rich white kid from X area hang out with your guy who grew up in the ghettos of Atlanta, and they're all functioning together. That's something that you need to be very protective of, and that's a very delicate balance for all these coaches. And, you know, I watched my first season, a couple of guys, if we had buy in from 110 guys, there was five guys who are lagging behind, and that held that team back from winning the national championship. So once you get into that rare air, it's really the most small little details that can make all the difference. And a lot of that is locker room management. And that's really what Dabo and Saban have been so excellent at, is because they're able to bring in talent from all across the country, but then they're allowed to get. They're able to get them to buy in and be a family. And that's the real differentiator.

Let's go. Let's go there, because I want to talk about what you're doing with. About you. The social. You talked about the socioeconomics of, you know, bringing a culture together of a locker room culture where there are so many athletes coming from so many different geographies, so many different socioeconomic situations.

And.

And really with. About you, you know, I know you're a financial analyst at Wells Fargo. But the work you're putting in with the about you outreach I think is really fascinating to help, let's call it the underserved athletes around the country. Talk a little bit about what you guys are doing at about you today.

Sure, absolutely. So about you, kind of my background of how I got involved was I had a mentor down in Clemson who has ties to New York City area and informed me last year during the pandemic about a really good friend that he has who was running a charity that does academic preparation but also some football training for kids. So I started showing up once a week up to the Bronx during the middle of the pandemic to give practice to inner city kids, anybody who wanted to show up and refine their skills and stay in shape for their upcoming season.

So I went one time and immediately completely bought in because what I noticed was, wow, I'm in the Bronx right now, but I'm working with kids this 9am on a Sunday morning who've come an hour from Brooklyn, you know, come 45 minutes from Harlem, from all around the city who just want to get better and just want somebody to care about them. So I started coaching and about two months into this whole experience, the mayor of New York City cancels the upcoming football season. And for kids, you know, from urban areas like the kids I'm coaching in New York, football is seen as a way out. It's an opportunity to better yourself and better your circumstances. And when they lost football, they felt like they had lost their chance. So my charity, I came together with the, with the founder of the charity and I said, we need to do something for them. And we founded something we called the Elite five Football Showcase. So Elite Five for the five boroughs in New York ran it, the initial Elite Five back in October. And basically what we do is we deliver really, really low cost recruiting opportunity to diverse and low income kids primarily. And I use my network of about 100 schools across the country to get a good buy in from all levels. Clemson recruits the event, Notre Dame recruits the event, Ohio State recruits the event. And it was a fantastic first run. So what we quickly realized was, wow, even though we might have set this up to bridge the opportunity gap during the Pand, the opportunity gap in whether it be recruiting or academics or understanding careers is a lot more widespread than just New York City and a lot more far reaching than just during a pandemic. So this year we're expanding that out into three events. It's going to be an Elite 5, Long island, an Elite 5, New York City and Elite 5 Boston, a total of 1,000 kids going through. We're going to have mandatory career workshops for all the kids because ultimately what we want to do is drive buy in that, hey, you're not just going to college to play football and check a box. You're going to build skill set that you're going to use for the rest of your career that's going to give you a wonderful career that's going to change your family's destiny. So it's been very, very rewarding, a lot of work in that field. But I have felt like from the incredible experiences that Clemson football afforded me that I don't always necessarily know if I deserve, I was obliged to pay it forward.

Well, and I something you said that I want you to talk about.

When you and I were connecting offline, it.

Was.

Growing up in Wisconsin as a baseball player. I used to complain that I didn't have the same exposure as a, as a baseball player from Florida, Texas, California, you know, the, all the big schools were recruiting in the south, right. And I complained about my lack of exposure and that's why I wasn't getting the same opportunities. But hearing what you said about these kids coming from inner cities, like I ain't got nothing to plan about, man. Talk about how hard it is because you talked about this is their way out. Talk about what you see right now in collegiate athletics, how so many of these good athletes from these inner cities boroughs in New York get overlooked. Is it because the colleges just aren't taking the time to go there, explain the difficulties these kids have to get seen?

I mean, it's a unique set of challenges. You know, for starters, the areas that these kids are coming from aren't always the safest. And it's really, really difficult to live in an environment where there's going to be a murder on your street almost every day and you're going to still have to walk to school, carry your books, try and stay focused and stay on that straight and narrow. So we've got an uphill battle with some of these guys from the start beyond that in New York especially, but this is a widespread problem. You have a failing public school system in the city. When I look out and I do a lot of background research in order to fine tune the Elite five to take care of the communities that are truly most in need. One thing that was really, really shocking to me in going through New York City public schools is probably about 80% of New York City public school students are on government free lunch.

And that raises a few different questions. Number one, I know that an area like New York City might have some poverty, but it certainly has incredibly wealthy segments as well. Well, those are universally in private school. So basically they've left the black and brown kids from poor neighborhoods to kind of rot. And that's really, really sad because a big issue when it comes to recruiting down the line is these kids aren't even NCAA qualifiers when the opportunity arises. So even if you are good enough, you're not going to be able to qualify to play an NCAA sport. And even the guys who are good enough to qualify oftentimes have to show up at college and take remedial courses for the first year and a half, two years. So they're on a six year track to start. So that's, you know, some of the disadvantages that we're working with. Beyond that, you know, from just a pure sports perspective, it's not easy for college coaches to get up to New York City or get up to, you know, one of these major metropolitan areas and recruit. It's not easy to navigate and they'd much rather, you know, hop on i95 and go through Georgia, go through Florida, go through South Carolina and stop at five high schools where the talent's gonna be a lot denser. So what we're kind of hoping to do with the Elite Five is, number one, you know, our whole charity, a little background into the charity. We do mentorships or professional development and mentorship for high school kids, SAT prep for middle school and high school inner city kids. We do sports specific training, we do physical fitness preparation, and then we do the Elite Five. So basically, it's a holistic charity looking to drive academic improvement through athletic buy in. So really, you know, with the Elite Five, we're excited because we think that it can address a few of these different issues. Number one, we're driving buy in for these kids on the academic side because we're very transparent with guys. There's a lot of kids in New York City who think that they can, can sleep through class and still go play Division 1 football. And unfortunately that's just not reality and their role models have failed them. And we're coming in, we're trying to fix that issue. Beyond that, we're really looking to ease the friction for anybody who wants to come up and recruit the inner city. For a lot of college coaches, they don't want to come here to recruit because they might have to go visit a kid in the Bronx and then it could take them half a day to get across to Brooklyn to see a second kid. And it's just too difficult. We make everything virtual so you can sit on your couch and watch the entire showcase. All three events will be live streamed and broadcasted afterwards for all the coaches. And we aggregate the top talent. We get them all in the same field at one time. So, hey, you might not love the density of talent in New York City, but on sheer numbers, I can guarantee you that there's a lot of top guys that coaches are already and will be excited about. So our kind of motto is a rising tide floats all boats. We're trying to make this process as easy and streamlined as possible for collegiate coaches. And we know that as soon as the collegiate coach from Clemson starts looking at that number one guy from New York who in years past might have gone to UMass, that number two guy will follow suit and so on and so forth, where a kid who probably might not have gone to college getting a Division 3 opportunity. And we care just as much about that guy as the guy who, who we'll see on ESPN in a few years.

I love that man. Because when we think about, we all know growing up, if you're an athlete, you all know that one guy you talk about where you're like, man, remember, you remember so and so. That guy had more talent than anybody I've ever seen. But nobody saw him. We all know that under that underappreciated athlete or the athlete known, recruited, and you had no idea, no idea why. It's because no one saw him. Right. Now, here's where I want you to wrap this story up. You told me offline about, for, you know, to give a, give a real life example of where about you is really helping these athletes, especially from the five boroughs in New York City. Talk about the, the camp you're going to be taking a couple guys down to in Clemson and what that could literally mean for their life. Because what. I love what you're doing, Patrick, more than anything. Sports has often been the way out for these guys and, and these women. Right. But you're also teaching them life lessons to get a way out, even if it's not athletics.

Absolutely.

But talk about the, the trip. You're about to take some of the football athletes down on down to Clemson for a camp that could literally change their life.

Yeah, my charity is very excited. I'm really, really excited to be a part of it. So next week on June 5th, so this upcoming Saturday, we're taking seven kids down to, down to Clemson, all from Inner City, New York. All Harlem Jet alums and Harlem jets are our partner organization. It's the largest youth football organization in New York State. Bringing them all down. So we got two sophomores, two class of 20, 23 guys, one freshman and four eighth graders coming down on the trip. And one of the reasons we're so excited is we view this as an opportunity to make a statement to the rest of the country that, you know, you might not have historically thought of New York as a hotbed for top end football talent, but we're showing you right in front of your face that New York has, you know, as good of athletes as anywhere in the entire country. And that old rumor, that old, you know, belief about New York guys that they're too dumb or, you know, too hood rat or whatever, the different misnomers, you know, that were floating around out there were all these guys we're bringing down have great SAT scores, great grades. Their characteristics are really everything that you'd be looking for in a good man. So we're really, really excited. We've got two guys, the two sophomores, who are prime candidates to get a scholarship offer. They both have scholarship offers from various other large Division 1 programs. But Clemson means a little bit more because they're the big dog in college football. It's either them or Alabama in terms of probably the biggest offer out there. And one thing that we're excited about is we know that when we go down there and these guys play the way they're capable of and leave with scholarships from Clemson around the country, all of a sudden there's going to be years perking up saying a couple of guys from Harlem all of a sudden are going down to South Carolina.