Redefining Strength: A Conversation on Masculinity and Mental Health with Don McPherson and Tracy Dando

When Don McPherson, the All-American quarterback from Syracuse University, steps off the field and into the studio, you know it's game time for your perspectives on masculinity and mental health. Teaming up with Tracy Dando, we unpack the layers of toughness in sports culture and the unspoken rules that govern a man's world. Their dialogue cuts through the noise of society's expectations, offering a playbook for redefining strength that includes emotional vulnerability and authentic leadership.

You'll feel the electric charge of our conversation as it arcs from the impact of language on gender perceptions to the importance of community in our mental well-being. McPherson recounts his own pivot from the limelight of professional sports to the frontline of gender-based violence prevention, while Dando's insights on creating safe spaces underscore the urgency of our mission. We confront the shadows cast by social media on our mental health, stressing the need for real, tangible connections in an era where likes can feel like lifelines.

Don't let the final whistle blow on this episode without soaking in the wisdom shared on cultivating positive masculinity and the vital role of education in shaping resilient individuals. It's a heartfelt huddle that calls listeners to action, encouraging us to foster unity in nurturing the next generation. Join us for a conversation that's more than just talk—it's a rally cry for change, with Don McPherson and Tracy Dando leading the charge.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello everybody, welcome to another edition of Skip Happens. It's gonna be fun, it'll be exciting. I'm looking down the table because I have some pretty cool guests right over here. I'm telling you all about this. If you're tuned in tonight, you're gonna want to hang out because I think we have just a great podcast. I have a. I'm gonna call them a superstar. I'm gonna call them an all-American. I'm gonna call him one of the nicest people I think I've ever met in my whole entire life. Wow, you gotta see this. And there he is. You can look right at that camera. Don McPherson yeah, that one.

Speaker 1 0:45

There they're like all over the place in this room. Hey, my friend Don McPherson is with us and if I go like this way, down there at the end of the table is my friend Tracy Murdoch Dando, right, Dando. And she is the founder and director and all the big stuff when it comes to a safe space, and we're going to talk about that here in just a little bit. But I'm going to go back to actually this guy right here. This guy right here. Does he look familiar? All right, well, let me, I had her, I had her. I'm all nervous Guys, I'm all getting. Let me, let me read this while the camera is not on me Don McPherson, in all American quarterback.

Speaker 1 1:22

At Syracuse University, he went on to play professionally in the NFL in Canada. I think it was like seven years, if not a little bit more, and, of course, just you know what was it? 1987? What was it? 11 and 11 and one. Is that what? 11? Oh, and 11, 11, 11. That was it under coach Mack, right? Yes, under coach Mack. How it's, man, do you still think about those days? Does it seem like it was just yesterday, or no, no, it seems like another lifetime ago.

Speaker 1 1:52

Really Does it, does it really Wow?

Speaker 3 1:55

I don't remember most of it. What I remember is what I see on video, so I remember it probably the same way you do, hmm.

Speaker 1 2:02

I don't know, because I watched you. I watched you and I watched you that season under coach Mack and we were talking before we went out with the lights and the camera and cameras and all that. That. You know, I worked at another radio station in town and just coach Mack, I just loved him and I know he just lost Well, his, he's been gone for a little bit and apparently his wife just passed not too long ago. So, but just just a big part of Syracuse University history and used to come big coach Mack would come into the radio station every week and he would bring another player and he brought you in one week and I happened to be the guy pushing the buttons and making sure you sounded good on the mic and all that. And now I look at you, you look the same dude. All right, there's a little gray in the I don't look.

Speaker 3 2:48

I pulled up a picture the other day from four years ago. I looked different.

Speaker 1 2:51

What no way.

Speaker 3 2:53

What.

Speaker 1 2:54

I don't think you do. I appreciate that. I see the Don McPherson. I see the Don McPherson from 1987. I see the Don McPherson from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaker 3 3:04

Yes, you remember those days. I can't touch my toes.

Speaker 1 3:09

What I barely remember.

Speaker 3 3:11

It's not that I don't remember those days, it it. You know I've been really fortunate that I've had a lot of things go on since then. Yeah, like what? Talk to us a little bit.

Speaker 1 3:21

So okay, so you've been working like with mental health, working helping people through different crises and all that, and you yourself you've kind of you're great at speaking and great at putting on these conferences and all that, but then you say that you know that you don't want to be followed. You don't want I. So explain that to me a little bit.

Speaker 3 3:47

Well, I think that what I said earlier was well, something I told, actually told coach Mac when he wanted me to be captain and part of him wanting me to be captain was to corral me, because I was, wasn't and remain a very independent person and I told him that I'll lead the team but I don't want to be followed and and and part of that was that I don't do well with groups, because group thinking tends to cloud individual thinking. And and when you're, you know, 18, 19 years old, trying to find your way, and and the crowd of guys that you, I say we're all in voluntary and involuntary relationships. Okay, and the voluntary relationship was being a part of a football team. The involuntary relationships were the individuals in that group. And so when, when the behavior went in a way that made me uncomfortable, I was never cool, I was never, you know, a slick guy, I was never a tough guy in any way, and the persona of a football player was that I was cool, I was good with women.

Speaker 1 4:46

I mean.

Speaker 3 4:47

I was a guys guy and I was none of those things, and so I had to avoid. It's why I wore. I wore a shirt and tie to the class. So I did when I was in high school just because I wanted to throw people off that I wasn't they're sped and kind of person.

Speaker 1 5:01

You were playing sports. I mean, if you played sports and you had a game that day, you had to wear a shirt and tie.

Speaker 3 5:06

I wore a shirt and tie school every day, oh, every day.

Speaker 1 5:07

Every day. Wow, okay, all right.

Speaker 2 5:10

And why was that? What was the reason in mind that?

Speaker 3 5:13

the initial reason was when I was in high school. I'm all my siblings, so I'm the youngest of five, very close in age, and all my siblings went to a Malvern high school which was a 50, 50 black and white high school A lot of social justice history in that community. But then my sophomore year I transferred to a school that was predominantly white because they had a better football program and I didn't want the white folks in that town and that school thinking that I was a black kid from across the tracks who came in just to play football, which is exactly what I was literally across the

Speaker 2 5:45

tracks and literally just just how do you fit in Right?

Speaker 3 5:51

So I wore a sophomore year high school. I saw I wear a shirt and tied it to school and I kept doing that. When I got here and my teammates still drove in just last week that I carried a briefcase and they always said there was nothing in it. It might have been true, look good, but it looked the part.

Speaker 3 6:07

And it was that I didn't want. I always say that I play football but I'm not a football player and I was always very self conscious about what that connotation of a football player was, because it wasn't me, and if I tried to behave that way, I always got in trouble.

Speaker 1 6:24

You know I'm having a maybe a tough time understanding this because you're a tough guy. Come on you, you, you were the guy. I mean, let's talk about the team a little bit. You were the quarterback, you were everybody surrounded you, everybody protected you, everybody made sure it made me tough? Well, I think it did. I mean, I can see me as a fan watching the game. I'm saying all these guys are tough. I would never want to mess with these guys. I wouldn't. You know what I'm saying and all that stuff.

Understanding Masculinity and Gender-Based Violence

Speaker 3 6:50

But now I'm seeing the side of Don McPherson that is so real and so true to life, authentic, good, yes, um, but what you're seeing is my wholeness, and this is what what I talk to using the word authentic is is, boys, about being authentic and whole and evolving Because, as we were talking a moment ago, we have. We deal with a lot in life. Right, we have to continue to evolve with, with how life changes and on the field, yes, I was very tough on the field. On the field, I was actually um, no different than a lot of I'm laughing because a lot of knucklehead athletes. I once separated my shoulder. It was the worst injury I've had in my life. Oh, it's got to hurt. It was awful If I described it and my bone was literally attached.

Speaker 3 7:36

The only thing holding my arm or my body was flesh, and I literally told Doc Baker, as he was taping me up, that I won't be able to pitch the ball going to my left, that's you know that's yeah yeah that's where my head was, and so denying and, by the way, this is exactly part of the work that I do Denying my pain, denying my physical pain, denying my feelings, denying myself, my feelings is is one of the fundamental problems with how boys are raised to completely ignore our feelings, and so football was, the was the perfect platform to do that and allow people to think that that was who I am. Um, when it didn't define. It defined very little of me, but it was predominantly what made me a quote, unquote real boy or real man, and it was a facade.

Speaker 1 8:24

Wow, what did you? Um? Was it mid nineties that you started working with the gender based violence prevention theory program? You coming out and saying, hey, I'm going to help you, was it?

Speaker 3 8:38

that long ago it was. It was. I'm in my 30th year of doing gender based violence prevention work. I retired from the last seat. Talk about being a detriment, right? Yeah Well, I retired from football and went to to Northeastern University to work with a man named Richard Lapchick, who's dad was Joe Lapchick, the first head coach and general manager of the New York Knicks.

Speaker 3 9:04

Really, and in 1950, there's a film out now called sweetwater. Okay, it's about the story about Joe Lapchick signing that sweetwater clifted into an NBA contract the first black player to be signed to an NBA contract. So Richard Lapchick watched his dad integrate the NBA. His dad was being called all kinds of racial epitets after that and being a death threat to me and was light threatened because he integrated the NBA. And Richard Lapchick, a little boy at the time, watched this go on and literally dedicated his life the issues of racism and sport. So I got to Northeastern at the center for the study of sports society to work with Rich we just come back from Nelson Mandela's inauguration because of his work in the anti-war type Okay.

Speaker 3 9:45

And what I got there thinking that I was going to be doing work around racism and sport is when I met a guy named Jackson Katz, who just created this gender violence prevention program and and I was I was hooked.

Speaker 1 9:55

Now, does that have a lot to do with the, the book that you wrote? You know you throw like a girl and the blind spot of masculinity Correct, so tell us about that.

Speaker 3 10:07

The book was so when I learned about gender based violence, prevention or gender based violence, when I learned about masculinity and violence against women, I there's a title, a chapter in the book, titled 29. It was 29 years old the first time I heard this concept, and I've been doing drunk driving programs and a number of other programs and different social issues. It was the first time I heard anyone talk about gender or issues of of of men's violence against women, and the pressing question for me was why was I 29 years old and first, for the first time, hearing this? Why was I? It was the first time at all the work that I've been doing with young people prior to that.

Speaker 3 10:39

Why was it something I never considered and that I so I started in that process started thinking about? When did I learn what it meant to be a man and how did I learn it? It wasn't, it wasn't explicit, it wasn't intentional, it wasn't deliberate, from from adult men. Everything was inferred, and so I went back to what was the worst insult you could hear. As a boy, you throw like a girl being compared to a girl in any way.

Speaker 1 11:03

Yeah, you know growing up here that all the time you know just different things that we do in life. Come on, man, you throw like a girl.

Speaker 3 11:11

Right.

Speaker 1 11:11

Right Really, or or man up or man up, right man up yeah.

Speaker 3 11:15

Exactly. And so how? The? And so the two things about that language. One is, you learn that women and girls are less than wouldn't be an insult otherwise. And and fundamentally we see, when boys learn to see women and girls as less than. And number two is in that moment that we hear that or we use that, that's our way of saying man up. So it creates this very limited understanding of masculinity, as well as simultaneously saying that women and girls are less than, which is really kind of dangerous If you think about, we're limiting ourselves and yet, at the same time, we're seeing women and girls as less than that.

Speaker 1 11:49

Yeah, yeah, go ahead, tracy, I know you want to say something.

Speaker 2 11:54

Yeah, I know I just, I feel it, I feel that comment a lot and even as a girl that was an athlete like it put us back down even further. And there was no, there was no getting up there, there was no competing with that right, because you were always less than you, were always less than Right. But when I look at it now, less than what? And it was strength, right, like we're comparing strength at this point.

Speaker 2 12:19

And as a woman, I don't want to be as strong with you guys, right? Yeah, that's what we're competing at in athletics, as I also in in what. What's strong to you? What does that? What does that mean exactly?

Speaker 3 12:32

And we, we, I always say that men have co-opted certain terms and then limited what those terms mean. So when you say strength is strength sharing emotions or hiding from them, oh, well, up to this point, yeah. And so we say he's a strong, silent type. No, he's. He's emotionally constipated, he's completely shut down, he's completely devoid of.

Speaker 1 12:52

It's going nowhere yeah.

Speaker 3 12:55

Right. He's completely disconnected from himself, and so is that strength. That's not strength Ultimately. That's breaking you down, that is weakness at its highest. And so, even like when you say, because men have co-opted, what strength is, what power is, what control is, and narrow the ways, the ways in which those things are defined or seen, and that's what I say, I don't, I use the term narrow masculinity because it's narrowly defined.

Speaker 1 13:22

What about? You know women they want to be in. I don't, I don't even know how to write.

Speaker 2 13:28

I say things wrong, just say it's good, I got you, I got you.

Speaker 1 13:32

Thank you, Tracy. God, I'm so glad you're here Because I'm so wrong. I will clean up the pieces, by the way.

Speaker 3 13:38

Thank you by the way, the one thing that I say about doing this work all these years is that women allowed me to be wrong, and it's necessary. And, by the way, it's the same thing in terms of every conversations around race and gender and class, and anytime we have to have a conversation, we have to extend grace to one another. Yes, or we don't learn, or we don't learn, or we don't grow, and we can't do it together, and it's one of the things that our culture struggles with tremendously right now.

Speaker 1 14:05

So maybe we need to do more together. Like would that be with like sports? We have women playing sports like they've never played them before and the way of being on the same team as a guy, and you know we're reading and hearing about all this stuff that's going on. How does that fall into this? You know what I'm saying? Now, obviously, a woman sports or Don, just like you read about. You know like certain schools want to start. You know girls in sports that used to be all boys, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 14:41

Don't think we need to classify what's a boy sport versus a girl sport right. I think that. Do I have any pull to play football? Absolutely not. But if there is a woman that does more power to her like, go at it right.

Speaker 2 14:54

I think that we've always had rules based on gender and, first of all, like we had this discussion a little bit ago, like both of all of us are we. We are made up of Masculine and feminine energy. Right, we've got both. Yet in the world we live in, I'm asked to be a lot more masculine than I actually want to, but to play in this world I I have to. It's my protection strategy. I want to be feminine, but that also gets taken advantage of a lot of the facts.

Speaker 1 15:24

So yeah.

Speaker 2 15:25

I. I think that the world of athletics is says here right, as a volleyball player, here You're incredibly small shorts, tight spandex, tight ass shirt, right Like well, who designed this? Right like who designed this. So what were you say?

Speaker 1 15:45

No, no, no, I was listening to you because you know I've had my daughter's played. I have my niece played volleyball and you're right, they they wear these shorts that are pretty much.

Speaker 2 15:56

I can jump in normal shorts. I can jump in but why?

Speaker 1 15:59

why is that just?

Speaker 3 16:01

I don't know, I don't know there's an explanation for, but I but even the explanation for this pretty simple it's designed by sports, is the dominion of men. It's designed by men and women are going to do it. It's kind of like what I said before about, about what we were talking earlier, about boys who are, who are trying to to, and men who are Trying to to advance and live a more whole, authentic selves, but they're still trying to do it with a sword in their hand. In other words, they don't want to relinquish that which which they think makes them a Real man. And the same thing is true about about how men have allowed women into into the sporting world. It's you need to come into the sporting world. You can compete, you can do all those things that I can do, but we still need to objectify you. We still need to see you as a woman, which is like women in field hockey wearing skirts, right.

Speaker 1 16:44

Yeah, and and, by the way, this.

Speaker 3 16:45

There was just just a story that I saw recently of that that girls are playing hockey at a higher rate than boys now when you talk, and yet the equipment is still designed for boys. And there's a group out of Cornell right now that is looking at the design of hockey equipment and how it's designed for the male torso is designed for. So in the safety aspect, we still have any ball to help girls compete in sports in a more safe way.

Speaker 1 17:09

I have a granddaughter that's playing hockey. Yeah, exactly what you're saying, actually all three locally are playing hockey, and Well, I've won one granddaughter here locally and then two grandsons, they all play, they all play. But you're right, it's all the same gear, it's all the same gear and we expect that women's just conform to medicine saying.

Speaker 1 17:29

Hey, did you what you notice when you drove up to see all the neighbors had their lights up Until I brought it up? And then I'm like, look, look over there. You know, and we have such a not to change subject, but they had a little humor in here. But we have such a close-knit neighborhood. Love it in this neighborhood, been here a long time and we're all like family, we all do our own thing, but so we always, you know, I was talking about the podcast and I said, yeah, tom McPherson's coming over and they're like, but you see, I'm just saying these and you're right, these are people, all right, they're, they're over 40, but still, you know, I mean, but that's, it's a you, a big part of their lives. Just, you know that football team back in 87 here at SU and we're number 9, yes, so you remember that.

Men's Mental Health and Masculinity Conversations

Speaker 3 18:25

Yeah, I remember that part. You know, I I do. Probably nothing warms my heart more than and this has happened recently a couple times when I meet someone and they say my best memories with with my dad going to games, with my grandfather going games, I that that is. That is a gift that I was privileged to, to embody. I I don't take credit for a lot of things that I did not Intentionally do. I can't take credit for my talent. That was God-given. I can't play the piano. I can't sing worth a lick. I tried.

Speaker 3 19:05

Yeah, I mean, we don't want me to bust out the song.

Speaker 1 19:08

All you find more and what you find, equipment will start to melt.

Speaker 3 19:13

But but I could do that one thing that our culture, our society Value to a point now like it's, it's in monetized in a way that I don't like.

Speaker 1 19:24

But our society value and there are, there are so many people who of equal talent and skill and and and gifts to offer that we don't value and that bothers me immensely you here and I keep going back to, but you being who you are and what you've done, and now you're telling us, you know you don't anybody to follow you but this but yeah, no, did you go? No, no, no, I think, because everything that I can't see, what or hear, what's going through your mind, or even I'm afraid.

Speaker 1 20:02

Did you have to actually go and talk to somebody and get some help and say, look, I've done all this and I don't know why I feel this way?

Speaker 3 20:10

Oh no, well, I have gone to talk to someone. I've been in therapy, but not about this. Oh, okay, I've always been very, very clear about this and and you know I'll tell you a quick story, and it's one that that right now the city is dealing with is there's an intersection Underneath 81, right at Harrison I do. If you look up the right side of your car and, as a quarterback and as a starter I was in was in the front seat the quarterbacks would take a car over to the stadium prior to the team would come over a bus and, as yes, so the quarterbacks would get there early so we're getting secrets and We'd always get there early before everybody else.

Speaker 3 20:53

Okay, and no matter what say it wasn't, we did it at home, and so and as a quarterback I was, I sat as a starter, I sat in the front seat for two and a half years and At that light, if you look out the window, the hood is right there, and Right now, if you look, if you go left, the hood is still there. Yeah, and when I say the hood, the projects, I'm right now.

Speaker 3 21:14

I know the worst yeah one of the worst communities for black people in the country is right there, but to the left are billions of dollars worth of right now, of Of of healthcare and medical and medical and higher education, and they're feet away from each other.

Speaker 3 21:31

And I knew then that if I got out of the car and I won't use the language that I typically will use I'll be respectful of your, your platform. If I just got a car, I was just another black man on the street, but I'm gonna go left and fifty thousand arguably fifty thousand white people predominantly are gonna cheer for me Right, and that dichotomy was never, never lost to me. That was my experience and so and I don't say that in a bad way, I don't say that in a negative, I hear you just the reality of being very cognizant of how I showed up, interesting, yeah, in that space.

Speaker 1 22:07

Wow, what do you think? Kind of golf subject again, but with the projects being right there, you know, within feet of a Whole, completely different area. Why do you think that was done that way, do you think?

Speaker 3 22:25

Well, you're getting into the history of of how Communities were redlined and how yeah, this was, this was. This was not. This was intentional, this was. This is what happened in the Bronx. This is what happened.

Speaker 1 22:38

No, I, you know, I've always wondered that.

Speaker 3 22:40

you know I'm not dumb, so I'm thinking they did this because of that and yeah, it's like, wow, wow, it's crazy it's how marginalized communities of a lack of a better way of saying it were maintained, and and how segregation was maintained, and so anyway.

Speaker 1 23:03

I want to know how did both of you actually Get to work together? How did the hot Tracy, how did you meet Don and you know, with you got safe space going and, oh my god, I just. It's so awesome. You've Just been developing programs and I know you took over that building the old Strathmore paint.

Speaker 2 23:29

Different.

Speaker 1 23:33

We have it, I know, with me.

Speaker 2 23:37

So yeah, we're actually in the University black building downtown.

Speaker 1 23:41

Okay.

Speaker 2 23:42

Yep, we just opened this month, so it's interesting because I know when I started safe space, I tackled it from topics that I knew when I understood. When it comes to men's mental health. I'm not gonna pretend I know or understand it, but I have been then affected by it, right?

Speaker 1 24:04

I.

Speaker 2 24:06

I guess that's the best way of putting it and so I knew that when we started our men's group that I needed a very specific person to lead that group. He had to be for lack of a better word a man's man, because he had to be sort of the cool kid. That was like no guys listen, like this is okay, it's. It's actually kind of cool to work on your mental health, and so I found him and I'm sorry it's not, it's not so his name is Mac and he's incredible and so a few months back no, not even I don't know six months back, mac had brought his name up to me.

Speaker 2 24:57

It was like I just wanted to check him out, like he's doing some really incredible things in the community, and so I started following him, cool. And then we recently had a video done. I think it was that. You read, you saw that, you saw a video, you saw something. You reached out. Yeah, on men's mental health. We saw on.

Speaker 2 25:13

Quinn did this beautiful video about suicide and men and the Statistics are alarming like they are alarming and down and reached out, and so we sat down a little while ago and you know how you were talking about what? Did you call it, when we sat down for like hours at the Salt City Market and that's what was happening, because it was like we were so aligned With a mission and we could both see it so clearly and to finally, I don't know, it's like it, it's just yeah, it's just one of those moments.

Speaker 1 25:55

And what about you done? What's, what's your side of this?

Speaker 3 25:58

Well, the, the, the subtitle of my book is the blind spot of masculinity. Yes, and, and where that came from was it's one thing that if we're gonna ask men to address issues on men's violence against women, we have to remove the chivalry from it. Because if, if my job is, as a man, is to be a protector of my woman, then don't mess with my violent masculinity, right, I'm gonna need that to protect. So we have to remove that. And it means that we and I always say that that when the conversation goes Well, we're asking men to do for women, to what we want men to do for themselves, it becomes a scarier conversation for men. And and to Tracy's point, the, the subtitle my book is the blind spot of masculinity.

Speaker 3 26:39

I came from that, from a young man watching me all day at a conference years ago. He was a mentee and he, the end of the day of a long conference. He said now, you haven't eaten all day, you've been talking all day, you haven't. And I said to him I'm better when I'm hungry and on re and uncomfortable. I'm a New Yorker, I need to be uncomfortable and intolerable to you know to, to be effective. And and he said, isn't a blind spot. You're talking about being healthy, you're talking about being whole and and so, hmm, the one thing that I appreciate about Talking with Tracy for that when we met that day was I've spent most of my life doing this work in, in and around higher education and an academic setting, and that doesn't work for men because in that academic setting we are with toxic masculinity is a problem and we're not truly talking to men about how do we take care of ourselves.

Speaker 3 27:35

And I've been doing that. I've been doing. I'm in my 30th year of doing the work that the way that I define it is the work that women and survivors have asked men to Do, not the work that our boys need, and If we're truly going to start doing that work. And that's why, when we started talking, we weren't throwing out all the the sort of the technical terms and the jargon around, whether it was mental health or masculinity right in ways that keep us from this really honest Conversation where we both have to as individuals we talked about this a little bit before we went.

Speaker 3 28:09

We went live was about we're all, we're all experiencing life that's, that's messy, that's hard, that's uncomfortable, that's scary, and we have to learn how to access the language and the safe space to do it, the comfort to do it. That, I think, is really profound. So when we met, it was like all these things that were, it was. It wasn't two clinicians having a conversation, it was. It was two human beings Connecting on what makes us human right.

Speaker 2 28:40

And that was the conversation we had as men throw this out, ask oh, do you actually Is there a part of you that wants that craves, that vulnerability with another man? But like, do you actually feel a wall come up? Like do you actually feel yourself say I can't really go there?

Speaker 3 28:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think I think we've been doing for so long, as a feminist scholar named Bill Hooks we just passed away about two years ago and I quote her in my book is the only person I quote, and the quote is the first act of violence at patriarchy ask of males. It's not violence against women, it's violence against ourselves. It's violence against ourselves and we know what. We know it very, very, we're very acutely aware of it, because it's part of our shame. It's part of our shame that we are not quote-unquote real men. We're not cowboys or firemen, like everybody wants to be a cowboy or firemen when he grows up.

Speaker 3 29:31

Right, we're not that, we're accountants. We're, you know, swim instructors were like we're not all you know tough guys, and so we're constantly Incapable of living up to this unrealistic image of masculinity and so there's a tremendous amount of insecurity. So we know the things that we do In some of it becomes so second nature. We might not even we're not might say, oh, I'm doing it now, but we do it, we all, we all men do it. We crave so it. Sports is so I, we amend have man games right where they can gather.

Speaker 2 30:04

We, we name it something different.

Speaker 3 30:06

Create that connection, and we and we crave the Kind of Connection that we had when we were boys, because there's there's trauma there that we had to start and we had that. The first woman, the first woman that the boys see as less than, is our mothers, because at some point in our, in our childhood, we learned that what mom does is beneath us. It's the less than. I can't wear my mother's lipstick, I can't wear the shoes and and and that though, and we can, later on, see it as being homophobic or anti-gay, but that's not how it's learned. It's learned is as that's beneath you, yeah, and there's shame attached to that.

Speaker 3 30:50

Wow, and that's something that we that we as boys, we learn from a very early age very very early age and we Practice it because it's no info and for for women, who also Promote that. It's not that women are necessarily a gay or homophobic, it's that they're afraid that the boys gonna give up the privilege and the power of being male. Right, he's gonna give up that privilege. He's gonna give up that male privilege, I. So it's a kind of a deep seated thing that we very deep yeah.

Speaker 1 31:24

I'm like going holy cow, it's deep, it's the wall, it is deep, there's no doubt it's deep, just just amazing to listen to this and the relationship now that you two have and what you're doing for the community together. We're just getting started.

Speaker 2 31:43

We're just getting started.

Speaker 1 31:44

And that's why I am like so glad that you're sitting here in my pod zone, which now many people are allowed down here.

Speaker 3 31:53

I'm just saying yeah, Listen, there was a what do we call that door that doesn't really exist.

Speaker 2 32:00

Yeah, it does. It's really impressed, really impressed.

Speaker 1 32:03

When you know, for example, there's a laundry room off the through here, my wife needs to ask permission to cook out these stairs to go to the laundry room. I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 32:11

Is there a secret? Knock there is, there is, there is.

Speaker 1 32:15

And.

Speaker 2 32:15

Zach what that is.

Speaker 1 32:16

He'll tell you what that is, but I do have to say you know I was talking about the neighbors earlier and of course they're watching this, and Maria said over 70 and because we're talking about being over, 40.

Speaker 2 32:27

Over 40. Okay.

Speaker 1 32:29

And she says he still has great eyes. Oh Well, that's the only thing, I guess, the only thing that doesn't go, that's the oh man. Just that. Was reading some of the comments here so, like I said, they're probably there. I'm sure when you pulled up they were like, oh my God, he's there. Look out the window, there he is, walk out of his driveway. No, I'm just saying, I'm just, you know, but we all have conversations in the car and pick my nose.

Speaker 3 32:56

He's human, he's human.

Speaker 2 32:57

He's human.

Speaker 1 33:02

And to go back to that, do you think we all have a blank space? What do you mean? A blank space? You know you were talking about a blind spot.

Speaker 3 33:11

A blind spot.

Speaker 1 33:12

I'm sorry, but do we, do you think we all have a blind spot and then we just don't know what it is yet?

Speaker 3 33:23

We, we and I I'm very careful not to generalize very often about people, but but I've been around long enough and I've been around people long enough. Yeah, we're all you know. It's what's made it worse is social media is anything but so I wanted to talk about it and it is. It is extraordinary isolating. There's recent research that comes that's come out from the certain general that that loneliness has has the health impact of 15 packs of cigarettes a day.

Speaker 2 33:58

Oh, I believe that's what we're seeing of how destructive it is.

Speaker 3 34:01

And so, and that's, that's revealing some of the ways in which we, so many people, are living with their blind spots, so many people living in authentic lives, living lives where they're trying to live up to something that doesn't define them, and and and to the point that we've kind of all expressed it one way or another dealing with either trauma or unresolved things that we've pushed down in order to survive because they can be debilitating. And so we pushed them down, and there's, they don't go away.

Speaker 2 34:35

They, they, they rest in other ways.

Speaker 1 34:37

Don't be in lonely. That has just gotten nothing like it used to be. And I you're saying and I somewhat agree with you that it's because of social media, because everybody's just they're by themselves and they're on their phone. Yet they'll tell you they're not by themselves because they're probably doing something with somebody on the phone, chatting or texting or something. But still so, social media. How do we? How do we handle that? Because reality is we're getting older, times are changing, technology is advancing and it, it all seems to be going in that direction where now we have AI, now we, you know, I mean it's now being in the media.

Speaker 1 35:22

Ai is good and bad, yeah, I mean I, I love it for certain things, I hate it for others because somebody could take my voice and you know that's the bad side of it. Yeah, I'm not going to write a commercial or I need to put some. I'm just having a brain fart. I'll just put the facts in and it'll spit out something for you. But yeah, yeah, that scares me. I put Don McPherson in there, please don't I did. It came out to all American, great guy.

Speaker 2 35:52

Great guy, it did not, you know, yeah, no, oh, I go I think the problem is is technology is moving faster than the human brain and body are? So, that is why we are seeing anxiety and depression like we are. We are trying to adjust as a society and technology is just zooming past us, right, and it's why we're seeing it in our children. And the problem is is we because we haven't been here before, we don't have coping strategies to deal with why?

Speaker 2 36:27

why we're here, we don't teach this to our children. We don't teach first of all feelings, we don't teach emotions, we don't teach of how to process those, we don't teach of tools, and now we're eliminating community. So, like your biggest thing to combat mental health is your toolbox and then your community that surrounds you, and social media is eliminating all of those in one hit, and so that is why we are seeing our children and our teens like take the blunt of this right now.

Craving Human Connection and Intimacy

Speaker 1 36:57

I totally agree. But what do we do? That's a question that I don't think anybody has an exact answer to.

Speaker 3 37:04

You know, there there are some things, and there are some things that I don't think technology, I know technology can't solve, and one of them is this, and we were talking about this, oh, like in the in person yeah.

Speaker 1 37:20

That's why, when you know we set this up and they're like come on over to the studio. Yeah, yeah, we could have done a zoom, we could have done anything like that. But we're feeling each other, we're, you know, we're getting the emotions. And in my line of work and music and radio, and I'm in the country music field, but I talked to a lot of songwriters and you know it's the same thing for them and we got in the pandemic, changed a lot of things, but we they would, you know, during the pandemic they were doing, doing it all over zoom, and they said you know what? It just wasn't the same. But when we get together and a writer's around and we're sitting around a table, you know we feel the emotions, we see the emotions, you can feel the, you see the body language. You're like, yeah, you know, and you start it's like it's energy, and that's how it's working here.

Speaker 1 38:08

Yeah, there's a lot of energy here. There is. Yes, I'm waiting to get hit by a football. Actually it's, it's on the table there, it is right there. And actually my son said you got to put that football on table there. Oh yeah, but see, we have baseballs.

Speaker 2 38:23

I don't know if you, it was nice of him. Yeah, no, we're saying that because some of safe spaces groups are online, right?

Speaker 1 38:30

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 38:32

We've gotten, our society has gotten to a point where they are more comfortable at home in their own space, and so if the only way I'm going to get them to seek help or seek support is get online, then I'm going to go with it. Right? But the magic happens when you put people into a room.

Speaker 2 38:47

It's happening here it is happening here and you, you can't create this through social media, you can't create this through AI. It is just human connection at its core and it's hard to, it's hard to like, describe in words. It really is.

Speaker 3 39:03

Wow, I know I'm just, and I and I think that that, to that point, I think that we need to, to and this is part of of Tracy and I meeting and having and, and we have to be deliberate and intentional about this it's not going to happen on its own Right, Left on its own. We are going in a very bad direction and we need to be deliberate and we need, we need community, and I've, I've I moved to Syracuse about 10 months ago, okay, and I think that part of the reason of moving here is I crave something that I don't have here. I'm completely untethered, I'm as lonely as I've ever been in my life, and and I crave community and and and that's and I and here. The ironic thing is I know that I knew that before I moved here that that's the way that we solve these problems is is is true, and I see it with young people how disconnected we are. Covid was harder on adults than it was on young people.

Speaker 1 40:15

Oh, I believe that by far.

Speaker 3 40:17

Because we were so used to the things that made our lives convenient.

Speaker 1 40:20

Remember before the blind spots right, they took it away from us.

Speaker 3 40:23

And it took it away from us and we were forced to do this again. We were forced with our families, with friends. We were forced to and we chose because of, for safety reasons, we chose all the technology and as adults we got, we got lazy on getting back to being intentional about community.

Speaker 1 40:42

You know I'm reading some of the comments here. Here's a good one. It says girls will ask another girl if they are all right. Why don't boys do that when they see other?

Speaker 2 40:53

boys in trouble. I don't think.

Speaker 3 40:57

I was. I was with a group of. They're too cool.

Speaker 2 41:00

That shows vulnerability, right?

Speaker 3 41:01

Yes, I was with a group of boys the other day and I will say this about this generation of young boys as adults. Adult men are cynical and women Adults are cynical about where? About boys? And this gets into the conversation about masculinity that I'm so focused in and I want to hear this.

Speaker 3 41:18

Why I'm advancing something I call aspirational masculinity. And boys are are and I use this word craving connection and intimacy. And I don't talk about intimacy in terms of a physical intimacy with a, with a partner, I'm talking about human intimacy, this they're craving their ability to live their authentic selves. And I was just with a group. I was just at a school in New Jersey and I did a school assembly and I had a group of students come afterwards and the boys that showed up, the first question they couldn't work with to ask is how do we get past this culture that if I tell my friend? And one boy pointed to his friend and said, if I tell my friend, I like his shoes, that I'm not glazing? And the school was like what does glazing mean? And there are certain things, certain things that when I hear them, I know exactly what does it mean? Well, glazing to me. This is how my brain went back to you.

Speaker 3 42:17

Because to me it was, it was. You're soft and sweet like a glazed donut, right. That was my first thought that you're glazing, and then boys are like, yeah, that's right, that's actually how they meant it. If you're glazing, it's like you're glazing on him, you're sweet on him, right. And so there's a homophobic you know.

Speaker 1 42:34

So now right, so it goes in that direction.

Speaker 3 42:37

And, by the way, I just want to clarify something I say because I don't like leaving words out there, please. I don't like the term homophobic, because it kind of seems to work afraid of gay people and we're not afraid of lesbians. And men who are afraid of gay men are afraid that that gay man is going to treat him the way he treats women.

Speaker 1 42:55

Why is that even an issue nowadays? You know, because we're still there, because we're still.

Speaker 3 43:01

We're still uncomfortable with those things that we haven't been raised to normal. To be normal, and they are normal. We go back before 100% 100%. But that homophobic again I'm using that term is what those boys were saying. Why can't I, why isn't it okay for me to tell my friend that I like his shoes without, without that language, that that again, that goes back to you throw at your girl that shaming language that he, that they hear and they want to be able to do that, the ability to do that without being shamed.

Speaker 1 43:35

Wow, yeah, this is, I mean, the masculinity thing, though just keep going, because this is this is really, really good, and I think people need to hear this. And also I want I want our viewers and our listeners to know that you know this book is still available and I think it's they need to go out and get this.

Speaker 2 43:55

Yes, I have not read it myself. I'm going to go out and get it to know, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1 44:05

And Well, go ahead Well.

Speaker 3 44:07

I Could, I could you know.

Speaker 3 44:10

I could go on for a long time, but I don't, I said before, is that the work that that I and other Men have been doing has been the work that women and survivors have asked men to do. It hasn't been the work that our boys need and and in that, what we the only reason we're talking about masculinity with boys and men, even using that term. I asked men when you hear the term masculinity, what do you think of? And most people think of the word toxic. And Because the only form of masculinity that we talk about is the part of men's behavior that adversely Impacts women's lives to your point that you've been affected by it. So the only form of masculinity that we're talking about with men is to stop that thing. And and and I always remind people that, before we use toxic to talk about relationships or masculinity, we most often use toxic to talk about waste.

Speaker 3 44:57

You separate toxic waste from garbage. We said again, you separate toxic waste, which is why you have two trash receptacles in most most responsible buildings. Right, that'll lead certified is right if you have a certain kind of building that has all up to every code and standard. You have two different receptacles one for one for garbage and one for toxic waste. And this is a generation of boys Who've only heard their identity as being male, as being toxic. What are we giving them? And if we're telling them they get rid of that behavior because it harms other people's lives, including their own, which is where the suicide conversation comes in, including our own. If you, if we're telling them to get rid of that, what are we giving them?

Speaker 3 45:39

And I blame my field of men who've been doing work around men's violence against women For people and someone that that your, your viewers and listeners should definitely, if you're an adult with a child in your life, especially a boy, you should know who Andrew Tate is, because what Andrew Tate is doing he's this former MMM fighter who's been charged with everything from rape to trafficking. Who's who's a misogynist and just an awful purveyor of but boys. He's saying something that resonates with boys. The boys don't like his misogyny. They don't like the thems, the misogyny and sort of the how he treats women, but they do like the masculinity piece. That's where they're connecting because, because he's saying.

Speaker 3 46:21

He's saying, listen, you want people telling you you're toxic? Let's show you what talks looks like. Yeah, that's why I said right, got the sword and you're talking about being a bad dude, right, and. And that resonates with boys, because that's what we've been telling them that they are, and so we have to give boys something To which they can aspire, which is what aspirational masculinity. What do I want for you? Not what do I want you to do for someone else? I don't want you to do this work on you for someone else. I once had a woman who said I don't think men can do this. I said very frankly I'm not trying to make better boyfriends for your girlfriends, right? I'm trying to make better men who are not gonna put a shotgun in their head when they're in the 50s because they don't know how to evolve in the world. Right, right, right and so, or and so. That's. It's a positive approach to being whole and authentic.

Speaker 1 47:08

I know, and you mentioned before, that leads to the suicide Conversation and loneliness has a lot to do with that as well, and we're trying to. You know we need to prevent that. We need to find out why and how can you know what leads one on in that direction, to and let me just say this about prevention I please, we need to stop doing prevention work.

Speaker 3 47:31

We need to do promotion work. If we want to get better in the classroom, we don't teach to not fail and we don't teach to pass by 66. We teach excellence in the discipline. If we want to win in athletics, we don't teach to not lose or, excuse me, coach, to not lose. You don't coach to win by a point, you coach excellence in the sport. Excellent, I love football. I love the excellence of. I don't care, I don't care who wins and loses, right don't? I Don't, I didn't watch the Super Bowl, I don't care when the August there goes.

Speaker 1 48:02

That question yeah.

Speaker 2 48:03

I was blown away by that.

Speaker 3 48:05

I was watching Seinfeld and my cousin, but I can take with Seinfeld, but this is excellent in the sport. And so there's love of the sport, there's innovation, the sustainability and in love, in the love of it. And I love college football, I'm going, I'll go to the Davia Bryant award and forward Texas on Monday. I still love it, but I don't, but I don't care who wins and loses and that's what game day is, I'll go to. You know I love to watch people prepare to be excellent and we have to do the same thing when it comes to how do we move it towards Aspirational masculinity? How do we move towards promote, promoting Positive mental health right?

Speaker 1 48:52

So I know you said you didn't watch the Super Bowl. But, yeah, all right now, neither one of my teams were in the game. But you know what, I did watch the Super Bowl and you know what did I really care who won that game, I just wanted a good football game, sure, and we got a good football, yes, we did so I mean. So it's not like you know, I wasn't particularly cheering for one one team, it was.

Speaker 1 49:20

Watch my board and watching the games. There you go. But no, I wasn't. No, it was. I Guess that kind of goes along with what you're saying is it's more about a good game. Yeah, and that doesn't matter who wins or who loses, yeah, it's a good game and that's what when you played, is that what that was your thinking as well? No one to win. There's an all-american.

Speaker 3 49:46

Competitive in recovery. You know when my, when my daughters were very young, and you know, yeah, how do you cut?

Speaker 1 49:52

I was gonna ask you about your daughter.

Speaker 3 49:53

You cut out. You cut out Cards from remember. You like highlights magazine.

Speaker 1 49:57

Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 49:59

Well, I would, you know. You know, get a little giraffe and zebra and the lion and you have a little card game. I was dealing from the bottom of the deck with my kids, like three and four.

Speaker 1 50:13

I was doing.

Speaker 2 50:13

I was doing.

Speaker 3 50:24

Well highlights magazine.

Speaker 1 50:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean I, I hit a storehead, go ahead. Now you got me. Oh Jesus, my little um. No, no, it's magazine slow around.

Speaker 3 50:35

Is it really they still have the?

Speaker 1 50:38

Highlights is still there now. If I remember correctly, you had a page where you had to find certain animals.

Speaker 2 50:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 50:48

Still have one. So tell us about your daughter's a little bit. Somebody was said ask them about us.

Speaker 3 50:54

What do you want about my daughters? Um, you know I'm why that's deep. I have a daughter.

Speaker 3 51:02

Who's I have a daughter doesn't talk to me and and we've turned it around and yeah, and, and that's probably one of the most painful and and, as you know, it's a gut wrenching daily and almost by the hour. And she's brilliant. She found her, her eyes, saw it when she was very young. She scored a perfect score on our AP art exam and she's a senior in high school. One of 308 students worldwide scored a perfect score and she, she turned a lot of of what happened with the force and co vid and all those things that happened sort of simultaneously and she went inward and she, she, she's an always extraordinary Writer. Even when she was a very, very young, she always had this, this sort of intense introspection.

Speaker 3 51:59

And so that's my younger daughter, she's a senior in high school. And then my older daughter is she's, she's my mini me in good and bad ways, but mostly good and she's a second year student in Ritz-Wilmott and she is Right now studying, doing an internship in Boston. She's kind of cool because she's in the town where I went when I retired and I dropped her off a few weeks ago and introduced her some some of the guys that I worked with, some of the people I worked with back in Boston. She's interning at a ESL school. They're in and she's 19 years old and she's about to be 20 and and she is as independent and she's a pretty incredible young woman and I'm excellent excellent.

The Power of Vulnerability and Community

Speaker 1 52:40

You know what I mean. We've all lived life, we've all had things happen Very similar, yeah. But there's one thing that I found out. Even though they may, their actions may be over here, but I want to say inside, you know what they love you and they love you because you know You'll always be dad, yep, and and it's. It's just, I think they they have to get through this period and then they're gonna go as you're getting older, I'm getting older and I'm like, and I think they're gonna go, they're gonna realize that, yeah, I spend. I'm trying to find the right word.

Speaker 2 53:23

No, you know you're, you're right. What are you gonna say?

Speaker 3 53:26

No, I was gonna say that I've spent my entire life since I was a I was sophomore here at Syracuse Working with kids and working with other people's kids, and I've always had a Much different view of my own. I think the most parents, because I never I Want to say that I never saw them as mine in the possessive. I Always felt like it was it's a parent's job. This, I think, is I think why parenting and being a parent is a mental illness, because I think a parent's job is to learn who our children are, not the other way around.

Speaker 3 54:13

And yeah, I mean yeah, and, and. So we, we spend a lot of time trying to get them to be who we are, or or, and or want what we want or not make the same mistakes or not make the same mistakes, and and and. Their mistakes are give me, if I didn't make the mistakes I made one of them, I wouldn't be here now, right?

Speaker 1 54:33

right? No, exactly. I think all three of us could say that, you know, I mean, oh god, I've made so many mistakes. I can't believe I did have the crap I did and I was still here and I'm still here, and you know what? I think it's made me a better person overall because it's like.

Speaker 3 54:48

You know you start thinking about this stuff and you'll never, you don't want to go back down that road which by the way, and just to just to put a bow on this, on this part of this conversation which is why I don't see the same person you see sitting here Because I don't. I and I was always afraid of People telling me I was something I wasn't. I was definitely afraid of that and and and I never listened to it I I never thought of myself as a star. I never thought of myself as a hero. I never thought of myself as it was always scared the death of me Because I wasn't you know I'm gonna say that.

Speaker 1 55:29

I'm glad you said that, because now I started this conversation I knew you were coming over.

Speaker 3 55:35

I was a little, little nervous.

Speaker 1 55:36

Yeah although I've been doing this for how many years. But it's like, because you are, yeah, I get that, and but now we've had this conversation and I know well, yeah, I see down McPherson sitting to my left, but you know what? I see a real guy here. Yeah, I see a real human being, a very down-to-earth human being, a very smart human being, somebody that you know what I would want to be a friend with and not look at, as you know, as down McPherson, that the all-american and it's great. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 3 56:09

Oh, it's cool, it's cool.

Speaker 1 56:10

Oh.

Speaker 2 56:11

I bet it was cool.

Speaker 1 56:12

But still, now we've had this conversation and understanding where you're coming from it and your inner feelings are coming out a little bit and it's now it's like this guy's really cool, this guy's real, this is, and and and I hope that other Guys that are watching this realize that and listen to every word that you said, because that everything is so powerful and now that you're working with, with Tracy and safe place space, you got it.

Speaker 2 56:44

Yeah, it is a safe place as well. Yes, yes, it is, it is. Those words are interchangeable, you know.

Speaker 1 56:50

I see nothing but just excellence and and helping those that need help and hopefully, if somebody sees this, they they can call Tracy. You're giving somehow go through Tracy to get over you, and maybe there's a guy out there. This is. I need somebody to talk to. I don't know. You know we're all lonely a little bit.

Speaker 2 57:07

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 57:08

I don't care how good your relationship is, I don't care who you are, there's still that little bit that there's that loneliness inside you, mm-hmm you know, one of the things that I have to say is about moving to Syracuse is and being an outsider but someone I've been around this community for 40 years is is what Tracy is doing. Other people are doing not the same work, but are doing the kinds of grassroots work that is so needed, that is so community centered. I think of Joe Hurran, who runs the building men program, who's does. Truly, I admire what Joe is doing. Joe is doing work that that is similar to what I do, but in a much different and powerful way, and we and we have to learn as a community, as a community of helping people, to come together, as a community of helping and Because if we don't come together, if we don't come together, how do we expect people to come to us? Right, right.

Speaker 2 58:04

No, absolutely and action speaks so much louder than words. Right, and we cannot expect to, to, to combat what's happening with our teens, with our younger generations, with our men, with I mean With all if we don't start to come together and that's always been the belief that Mental health and wellness and loan, all of that is so much bigger than we are, so much bigger and community is Is the answer.

Speaker 2 58:29

It's just we. We crave that community and it's interesting because we see it every week at the dome and we see it in these, in these socially acceptable ways. Yet the layer we're missing is this vulnerability.

Speaker 2 58:42

That happened here tonight, right, that happens in circles, it's like take off that layer like stop, stop the Pretending or whatever you're doing right, like what is really going on? And how many of us actually Ask that question to the people we love and care about? How many of us actually hold that space without trying to fix or Try to make?

Speaker 2 59:03

it better but just letting them be. We don't know how to do that. We don't know how to do that, because if it's triggering, if, like, if Don's saying something, and it's triggering something in me, I want to fix it.

Speaker 2 59:15

I can't sit with it right so we are all like you guys said when you're talking so beautifully about your children we are all on our own journey, our own path, and we are only in control of us right of ourselves. And so, like I know that if Don says something that triggers me, there's something in me that I need to start. I need to, you know, continue to work.

Speaker 2 59:43

We don't do that, we project it back on them. So it's a constant blind spot that we work through one blind spot and the next one pops up. Right, we are constantly doing that work and just like our physical health, there is no end, there is no end game with this. We just try and do a little bit better the next day and so, um, this is a community initiative right here and you like it. Just You're back for a reason.

Speaker 3 1:00:12

Oh yeah, and it is daunting as that, I don't feel that's not daunting to me. That is, that is so exciting to me and and but I think for a lot of people that's scary. Yeah, of course, and I like to add humor to a lot of things that I do, because I want people to know that what scares us sometimes, if we really lean into it, can be a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 1:00:47

You know what I say? That's about fear someplace. I've never been right. So now, instead of fear like tearing that, like scaring the hell out of me, I look at it as a challenge, right? Like what's on the other side of this what possibilities are on the other side of this. But for most people, fear holds them back daily.

Speaker 1 1:01:09

Wow, I just well you guys chatting there was looking at some of the comments. Somebody's asking in his opinion. In his opinion, why don't boys or men say I love you to their brothers adult men, in saying by? I don't know, so read it. In his opinion, why don't man, boys or men said I love you to their brothers Adult men, in saying bye, it's, it's it's what I said earlier with the glaze.

Speaker 3 1:01:46

With the glaze with the glaze, yeah, yeah there's a fear that saying I love you again. It goes back to what I said before about how narrowly defined even the term love is, and I, I have my own. I don't do a lot of social media but and I used to do this more I'll just post the word love. Yeah, and the reason I do it is because there's so much negativity and judgment and ugliness and hate coming out of social media that I just like just put the word love out there.

Speaker 3 1:02:15

And I know, with love and there's probably you know, 70 or 80 people that I've, you know through, I know through my life, who always chime in and sometimes they'll, they'll do the Beatles love is all you need, or all you need is love. Or you know, love makes the world go around. They'll quote something or they'll just like it or whatever, but the whole point of it is just to put the word love out there. And and I don't mean romantic love, I don't mean intimate love, I just mean love, I mean just unconditional. I love you, I love who you are, you exist in my world and, and With no judgment, no agenda, I just care that you are well.

Changing Perceptions of Masculinity and Love

Speaker 1 1:02:50

Yeah, no, I totally get that and I'd I'm not. I, I tell people that even other guys and hey, man, I love you. You know it's like somebody.

Speaker 3 1:03:01

But, sir, we gotta put the man in there sometimes.

Speaker 1 1:03:03

Yes, I love you man, still right now I've gone love you, you know, and just a way of, because it's just I'm glad he's in my life and we're good friends and you know there's nothing more than right, so that's but aren't we also changing this, like as a generation?

Speaker 2 1:03:22

like were you guys told I love you from your father's?

Speaker 1 1:03:26

Absolutely not, you know, no, no. So it was a model to two different bringing up, so it just it's it's pretty much the same.

Speaker 3 1:03:35

You know, I it's pretty much the same. And.

Speaker 1 1:03:38

I'm trying to think of mom. Ever really did I recall? No, I know I don't think you're alone in that, I think I know they think the generation.

Speaker 2 1:03:46

You look at what that generation went through, you know, and that's how I I look back and the trauma that they were going through. Right, they were in survival mode most of their lives. Right, I love you, wasn't a thing we did. So, we're changing that, but it takes a really strong man To do that, to say I, I love you right to change how he was brought up and change it for the future of his son and his Daughter strong a zord strong it.

Speaker 2 1:04:22

It takes the change agent right that says I want to do things differently.

Speaker 1 1:04:25

Yeah, well, I make it a point To tell my kids that I love them almost every day. It's Zach, who you saw when you came in, who went crazy. No no but I'm just saying that, it's just. You know, every day I, before I leave, to go to the radio station, it's like I'll go in his room. He's still like sleep or whatever.

Speaker 1 1:04:45

But I'll say hey, dad's going to work. And it'll be like hey, zach, I love you, have a great day. And he was love you, dad, you know. So I always make it a point to do that and even with my daughter, since we talked about before, it's just there. You know, we had those tough times but it's still I love you.

Speaker 2 1:05:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:05:05

I love you and when we do speak, you know, on Sundays, or I talked to my other daughters here, one of them's local it's always the phone call will always end love you. Yeah, you know. So we make that point.

Speaker 2 1:05:17

Yeah, it's family, yeah, and you know you know, my son said to me the other day who's just turned eight. He was like yeah, mom, I know I love you and we talk about our feelings.

Speaker 1 1:05:35

That's awesome. You know, this has been a great conversation here tonight and, of course, the book is out. You wrote it a whole lot of years ago, but it just got published what not that long 2019. Okay, so was it all here?

Speaker 3 1:05:48

quick story from from the book about what you would love to. I wrote the book originally in In About 2000 and no, take it back in 1998. Holy cow, I wrote the original manuscript and I was on Oprah back back then.

Speaker 1 1:06:06

Yeah, I saw that too and and on set.

Speaker 3 1:06:08

I knew that I was gonna do this. I told her during a commercial break that I wrote this book, told the title, she went oh my god, she goes. I'm I got to tell you guys names, you'll get a book.

Speaker 1 1:06:17

You'll get a book. Yeah, oh yeah, sorry.

Speaker 3 1:06:19

She said. She said, call this guy. She gave me a guy's name who's the president of Disney's publishing company and I just thought to myself I am on my way.

Speaker 2 1:06:38

We're changing.

Speaker 3 1:06:43

There's a place called the book review in my hometown. I just saw myself in the book review signing autographs and it was gonna be great and. And so I get back to New York Because I said that the you know the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and you know in Chicago, where Oprah puts all of her guests and she steal the bathroom. No, no, no, I actually didn't stay there, I'm just Okay, okay, but.

Speaker 3 1:07:09

I get home, I call this guy's office and he said who's calling? I said my name is Don the person. Why are you calling? And then here was the line. Oprah Winfrey suggested I give him a call and I was like that's it, I'm like, and, and I got on the phone. A guy called me back an hour later he within within hours, but the manuscript was on its way and within days he rejected it and the rejection, the rejection letter, is in the book.

Speaker 3 1:07:42

Wow verbatim and the rejection letter now paraphrase was women don't need this book. Women buy books. Men won't read this book. Men don't buy books.

Speaker 3 1:07:55

Tell me full of shit, wow, no, but what I wrote in the book currently is that what I was hearing and what, what, what I was hearing from. And I knew a lot of people in the publishing world. I knew if I had friends. You know I was Pretty not famous guy but I was a well-connected guy. I was on the board of the Miz Foundation yeah, the national community for you and women. I was connected and I had. I talked to some of the top agents in book, in the book world. I talked to publishers and everyone told me that the book buying public public was 18 to 35 year old college educated white women and that, and that men don't buy books and they're certainly not gonna buy a book about, about masculinity and all this and and and and. So what I say in the book is well, 50 cent at the time, you know 50 cents, yeah, yeah, it's your birthday. Yeah, that guy I if you said to me, if you said Music.

Speaker 3 1:08:46

I couldn't name 150 cents on so, so that's why.

Speaker 2 1:08:49

I said, that's why I'm asking it's super. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:08:51

I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:08:53

I heard that they loud one of the people who usually takes tickets at the Super Bowl to do the half-time show. I don't know how that happened, but apparently they let in us should do the song. I don't know. I'm showing my ignorance and trying to inject a little bit, but 50 cent had his own imprint and Simon and Schuster. So if you're telling me that the book buying public is 18 to 35 year old, college educated white woman, how many of those women are buying 50 cents books, are buying books about some and again, I'm not saying this to disparage I've been criticized the disparaging 50 cent and some, but it's not meant to be that way. I get you right. So but what's he writing about that is appealing, and he wasn't writing about men being whole and caring and loving. He's writing about it.

Speaker 3 1:09:41

And so the publishing world was dictating what people were reading. The publishing world was saying that men don't care. I didn't write the book because I'm some anomaly in society. I wrote the book and I've been doing this work for four, for 30 years I've been doing this work and I've been in in locker rooms and paternity houses, in in elementary schools in Every, every state in this, in this country, except for last thing in Hawaii, and I can tell you, men do care, boys do want to have the conversation. Yes, and what that publisher was telling me 30 years, 30 years ago Was men don't care, and that's BS and then do care men, do care 100%.

Speaker 1 1:10:19

Wow, go out and get the book Amazon yes, by bunch.

Speaker 2 1:10:24

They come. I need to grab one too.

Speaker 1 1:10:26

Yeah, yeah, me too Thanks.

Speaker 2 1:10:28

We know somebody, you know this is.

Speaker 1 1:10:35

This has been such a great conversation here tonight and so much fun to have y'all here. I'm gonna go back to this camera view. That way we can see everybody. But just Wonderful, can we talk football?

Speaker 3 1:10:50

Maybe, maybe, but go ahead. Philadelphia Eagles know nothing. I haven't watched the. Nfl game in 20. You play for the Lions too, right?

Speaker 1 1:10:58

No, no okay, eagles in the Oilers.

Speaker 3 1:10:59

Oilers. That's what I was thinking of the Oilers.

Speaker 1 1:11:01

Sorry my bad, canada, who'd you play for Hamilton and Ottawa? Was that it? Is it a whole lot different?

Speaker 3 1:11:08

Yes, okay, completely different philosophically, a completely different game. Three downs to the four. Twenty-second play clock Players can be in motion.

Speaker 1 1:11:19

The end zones 15 yards that kind of mess you up. Oh, like knowing you know, playing here in the States, the, the Eagles, and, of course, college years with SU. Yeah, and in all that, I, I can.

Speaker 3 1:11:31

I like to think of myself as a quarterback as a kid. That a quarterback is like an administrator is your job, is the short amount of time that the balls in my hand, the better, and and so In the CFL the quarterback's kind of like a point guard, whereas in American football the quarterback's more like an administrator.

Speaker 1 1:11:52

Really job is well. Yeah, I get that when you watch the way the game.

Speaker 3 1:11:54

Yeah, you know that's why, you know, I really love you know, peyton Manning saying oh my, oh my, which is, everyone gets stuck on that, but what? What Peyton Manning was very good at was being an administrator at the line of scrimmage, was was putting people in the right position to win and and and. So, in that regard, as I said, you, you as an American football, the way that I was raised with coach Mack.

Speaker 3 1:12:15

Yes who was such a technician as a coach. You, you put your office in line in the best position to win. You put your receivers, you put your players in the best position position to win, whereas in the CFL you do that, but you're more part of that Because of this, the way the game is played, and it's a very wide field, and the older I got, the less I was interested in running.

Speaker 1 1:12:43

Nowadays, they don't run unless they absolutely have to.

Speaker 3 1:12:50

The NFL game is it's? I find it extraordinarily boring. I tried to watch games and I I'm like really well, I got Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1 1:12:58

Now it's kind of increased the audience.

Speaker 3 1:13:02

Tell us what was a draw should tell you everything about the game.

Speaker 1 1:13:07

No, no, no and at no disrespect, but but then again it did a lot for the game it no, it did nothing for the game. Well, look at that. Maybe it did it for the NFL.

Speaker 3 1:13:19

It did. It did something for the entertainment of the product at the end of the, the fact that they played the Super Bowl in Vegas.

Speaker 3 1:13:26

No my stomach. The fact that the NCAA holds its convention in Vegas, the fact that Syracuse is gonna go to the Las Vegas for a game Then, as you and I'll be, not give them that but the fact of the new president of the NCAA is saying that college football should embrace gambling Turns my. What's happening now and I'm gonna get me on the soapbox. I really should not get on right now, because your board will light up Athletics and college football in particular is moving towards an immoral place.

Speaker 3 1:13:55

We're where well, we don't care if these guys graduate, right? All these kids that are transferring in, transferring out, how many of their credits are transferring in and out of the schools with them? They're not many, that's true, and and and. What NIL was was a last-ditch effort to silence the people that said that Nick Saban was making too much money and what we've discounted in that is education. I'm not. I didn't move back to Syracuse because I made money playing football here. I'm back here because of the education that I received here and we're back here because of the community that I lived in here. That's why I live in Syracuse but you made your money playing.

Speaker 1 1:14:29

I don't want to even, I didn't, but not here. But the Eagles I mean when you were in the NFL didn't make a lot of money playing football. Well, that was a lot of years.

Speaker 3 1:14:38

I make more money doing what I do now, really playing. Wow, yeah, I once played now.

Speaker 1 1:14:43

It's crazy I once played the.

Speaker 3 1:14:44

CFL and and After taxes, the exchange and everything else.

Speaker 1 1:14:53

Right there.

Speaker 3 1:14:59

CFL at the time, and and what I brought home to the US was Like almost nothing.

Speaker 1 1:15:06

Oh, my god, and you look at it nowadays Just and we talk. Look at the salaries and what these players are making.

Speaker 3 1:15:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:15:15

It's just I have a hard time. You know I look at what I do and you know I don't expect to make a whole lot of money. I expect to make a little bit more, but still it is what it is and I'm thankful. I have a job and I love what I do. But I look at some of these players, whether it's baseball or football. I mean that what these guys are getting paid Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 1:15:34

Yeah, it's like yeah, what, what, what. And now, how can they afford to do that? It's got to be crazy. Well, think about unless Taylor Swift goes every game, then they sell out the stadium. You got all the details without it, okay.

Speaker 3 1:15:46

Look, look, take, take the highest paid player on any team and and understand that there's a bunch of players around him that's making no, maybe not similar, but making a lot of money, and then recognize that there's all kinds of people in the stands that work there who Take tickets and sell hot dogs and all of the in park cars and all those is all these other people. And is usually just one or two or three people who own that. In other words, I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:16:11

You're right, you're.

Speaker 3 1:16:11

There was this somebody else who's making a lot of money than those guys.

Speaker 1 1:16:16

And now look at the betting, look at all that that's going on. And because it wasn't Vegas, the big game was in Vegas and this is why.

Speaker 3 1:16:22

This is why I say record numbers in Vegas turns my stomach. This is arguably no more destructive Addiction.

Speaker 1 1:16:30

And yeah, agreed, and, and it's getting worse, because now we have all these programs, you can sit there and watch the game and have your phone out and have it on these different sites and you can Gamble right then.

Speaker 3 1:16:42

And there it's crazy, and it does become addicted and and the rising a number of people gambling. A young man Can.

Speaker 1 1:16:49

I ask you really Maybe you don't want to answer. You know, and we talk about social media and we talk how bad it can be and and I totally get that and you know I have to with the business that I'm in. I mean, social media actually kind of helps me, but I I see that other side of it as well. But you know, like these games, these football games, and you get the NFL is rigged, the NFL is.

Speaker 3 1:17:15

This conversation with someone.

Speaker 1 1:17:19

Is it?

Speaker 3 1:17:20

no, there's, there's too many. There's too many moving parts and there's too many. It may seem like there's people who gonna benefit from that, but on that field who played in the Super Bowl the other day? I didn't see the game, but I will tell you that there were a bunch of guys on that field who next year will not be in for football. There are a bunch of guys in that field that are making league minimum. There are guys on that field making league minimum the special teams guys there, guys who probably didn't even play in the game.

Speaker 3 1:17:47

Yeah, there's a lot of kid and there's scratching and corn is staying the league, because right now there's another group of kids come out of high school, come out of college, want to take their jobs. So that would mean if it was rigged you'd have to get all those guys on board.

Speaker 1 1:18:00

Yeah, it makes sense. All right, it's good answer.

Speaker 3 1:18:02

I like that you know there's just you. You can't I Jokeily say that I'm a competitive recovery. You tell me you want me to do what? Are you kidding me? Right right, there's no, no way. I'm taking a dive or doing something because wait, because somebody who's not here said something. Are my coaches telling me to take a dive? Or or to minute manipulate?

Speaker 1 1:18:24

No, you realize, I just asked that question and when I walk upstairs after this podcast, my wife's gonna go, you actually?

Speaker 3 1:18:33

But it, but it. But here's the problem. This is why, and this is why I think that that it's going in the wrong directions when you start allowing Vegas into the conversation. And I love the mannings, I know them well there. They are the first family of football all levels. Archie is the head of the national football foundation and I love them and. But when they started doing draft Kings commercials and then whatever else, I'm like are you kidding me? Yeah, what are you people doing?

Speaker 3 1:19:00

It's all about the money, though they're getting paid big bucks to do that and that's and that's where I say you know, when I came out, it's not about me, but when I came out of school, I I wrote a letter to all 28 general matters in the NFL and I say, if you're not gonna play me a quarterback, don't draft me. I didn't care about the money. My integrity and this is the part that bothers me is that we do a lot of preaching about sports. That sports builds integrity and leadership and sacrifice in the community. It's all BS. It was never true. We just it's just, like I said, that men co-op certain things and give it different meanings. We co-op that sports builds character. No, it doesn't, not any more than practicing piano all the way to your fingernails breathe, bleed. It is what do adults use that platform? To teach? Because you can use that platform.

Speaker 3 1:19:48

In my opinion, in sports I win, you lose. Sports didn't build integrity. Yeah, I hear you, and so, and we started that and I was getting on the soapbox. I spent many years doing this work around youth sports and I had a parent many years ago. It was probably the only time I ever broke down not broke down, but cried and lost my voice in the middle of a talk, other than when George D Neone died. But when I had a parent say what happens if my son is not good enough to play, I said how old is your son? She said he's six.

Speaker 3 1:20:23

That that there's no. First of all, there's no sustainers that have been good enough to play. That's why it's called play yeah, yeah, and to tell a child that they're not good enough to play is criminal. And we started going down this road where we started monetizing sports and we've gotten away from those quote unquote the assumptions of altruism and, and we and that's what NIL is. Nil is not teaching young men and women who are competing in sports and in higher education to learn from it. We're teaching them to try to exploit it the same way everybody else is exploiting them. Wow.

Speaker 1 1:21:04

Man.

Speaker 3 1:21:05

Wow.

Speaker 1 1:21:06

To hear that from you, that dude. I just banged my hand on the table and don't know what to say. But wow, you know, so have you.

Speaker 1 1:21:19

It's the first first game. I know it is. You're absolutely right and see, that's what I'm saying. This whole relationship here and now, it's like that's Don, he's my best buddy I'm talking about. It's happening, but you know, playing in the NFL, what kind of crazy things went on. What about? Let's have a little bit of fun. You come on, you're Don McPherson. You played with the Eagles, you were the quarterback. You were the quarterback that everybody was watching and and it was so freaking cool to know that you came from SU.

Speaker 3 1:21:53

I was the backup to Randall Cunningham, who was on the front page of the front cover of Sports Illustrated as the ultimate weapon. Randall was the ultimate weapon.

Speaker 2 1:22:00

You know what that made me the second out, the second, the second one. That was. The second one.

Speaker 1 1:22:05

That was they're out there in his bags, I know, but they're almost Almost not quite, so you don't make the ultimate weapon.

Speaker 3 1:22:14

You're more of a tool.

Value of Education, Building Strong Men

Speaker 1 1:22:14

You're not a weapon. There must be a lot of crazy things that go on that we don't see within the team, though you know what I mean Just kind of fun things and everybody kind of I don't know good parties. All right, don't talk about the parties. Yeah, we don't talk about the parties.

Speaker 3 1:22:32

You know, I think it. I think it in many ways was anti-climatic, it was not.

Speaker 1 1:22:37

Just won't play the game. Get paid. It was a job, it's a job it was a job.

Speaker 3 1:22:41

It's a job, but you loved your job.

Speaker 1 1:22:45

Oh yeah, okay, exactly, so is it really a?

Speaker 3 1:22:47

job. It wasn't Well, yes, and what I mean by that is that you know, once you, once you sign a contract to play, to do the job, it's no longer, it's no longer a choice, right? You've signed the contract to do this job. You don't get to say I'm gonna take a day off, Right?

Speaker 3 1:23:07

You don't those things. And and you know I was I was tremendously jealous of the guys. I remember Steve Young got his law degree and he still wanted to play. I'm like, oh, how do you get a law degree and you still want to play this right? Like, like you you had. And I remember outgrowing it and I was jealous of guys who still I always it was always fun, don't get me wrong, it was always fun. But I outgrew the, the, the, the climate.

Speaker 2 1:23:38

I grew the culture.

Speaker 3 1:23:40

And I remember just, I'm still, I'm still to this day. I see guys who are in it and they're my age and they're still. They're like you know, they still want to play.

Speaker 1 1:23:47

I said to Jeff today, I said I'd be breaking an arm in the leg.

Speaker 3 1:23:51

Yeah, I, they still want to. I still think I can come back Like with my head I don't want to and but my ego says I can still. I can still get out there and do that. I can't. I can't touch my toes.

Speaker 3 1:24:07

But, I was always jealous of guys who who were in it for a long time as players, cause I outgrew that. What about coaching? Once again, I I wanted to be involved with, with us, with. I wanted to be involved in NSU more, and I'm not, I wouldn't be an exes and those coach I'd be more of a of a coach of of environment, of culture, and that was where my interest was with, with, with the program. But I'm I'm. I've never coached, and part of it is it's almost because of what I said earlier, but I'm not overly concerned with who wins and loses. I want to build strong men and competitive players.

Speaker 1 1:24:58

But you could be a coach doing that, but the focus would be a little bit different, Because what you're I get. What you're saying Maybe, maybe that's what they need is somebody, not a coach on the sidelines or whatever, but a coach to work with them as a team or individually and say, all right, guys, get you know, make them feel better, and stuff like that. That's a whole different. It's a coach, but it's a whole different.

Speaker 3 1:25:19

And I do think you know, along the lines of the mental health conversation, you know to be a, you know to be a college student right now and to be a college athlete right now, the scrutiny that they're under with with social media, the scrutiny that they're under with college athletics the way it is now. It is that the need for that, and again, I'm speaking as someone who still thinks and I'll speak specifically here that it's Syracuse University, it's not the Syracuse football team. In other words, it still is. And this is what bothers me about the conversation around NIL is that part of the way that NIL came about was a discount of education, was saying that education doesn't matter, saying these kids are being they need to play.

Speaker 2 1:26:12

I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 1:26:13

No, not only was my experience as Syracuse, as a student, beneficial to my life. You know whether you like them or not, to me is irrelevant.

Speaker 3 1:26:23

But, one of my fellow SU alums is the president of the United States, and the first time I met Joe Biden people were like, oh, you just met the vice president. I met him before. I've known him for a long time. I met him playing basketball when he was in the Senate and Delaware and I was playing for the Eagles. We played a pickup basketball game. He came up to me and said, hey, I got my law degree from Syracuse, right, that's what. That's what, what the value of an education is. That's the value, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:26:47

Oh, no doubt yeah.

Speaker 3 1:26:49

I don't care if you have a kid who makes a million dollars in NIL. That million dollars is going to be gone. You think he's going to be investing in long term. Nfl players are going broke in the way they go broke. What are we doing to help each young man who and, oh my God, you're so right Talking about all that stuff, but, but, but the real value that that they have is the relationships. That's what higher it is. Why do you think the fraternity system is so powerful? It's the alumni, the ability to come out of there A part of something very unique within something very unique, and to come out of Syracuse debt free.

Speaker 1 1:27:21

Oh, it's Syracuse University. I'm just saying it's great, great, great.

Speaker 3 1:27:25

You tell me, but you know, NIL deal that's worth that. That's worth what other?

Speaker 2 1:27:31

people are paying in student loans. I know, I know.

Speaker 3 1:27:33

And so so I get you the whole way that NIL came about prior to the NCA just throwing its hands up. We're a number of states saying that kids are being exploited and they should be able to use their name, image or likeness when I published my book. On the back of my book is a picture of me in the Syracuse University uniform. I had to ask for permission for that and I was, and I I very proudly did so. I had no problem asking because, don McPherson, you know, just a regular football uniform means nothing. It meant something in the Syracuse University uniform. I get more out of them than they get out of me 100%.

Speaker 1 1:28:14

Wow, this has been great. This has been a deep conversation. Yeah, several different. We went down a lot of roads. You realize that we went on some back roads.

Speaker 2 1:28:29

Probably a little nervous about it.

Speaker 1 1:28:31

But I just want to say what an honor it is to have you and Tracy came up with this and just to get you in my pod zone and and it's something I've been doing for a while but to have somebody of your stature to be sitting here and telling your story, what you're about and what your goal is, and you know, getting getting with Tracy and Safe Space is just just wonderful. How is now? If somebody watches this and they want to look into Safe Space a little bit more? Give us some basic.

Speaker 2 1:29:05

Absolutely. We're on social media under Safe Space C and Y.

Speaker 1 1:29:09

Safe Space. They're on social media. I know Sorry Don Sorry Okay.

Speaker 2 1:29:14

And then the website, which is safespacecnyorg, so really you can sign up for classes, groups all on there, or you can call an inquire. Our strategy is to help people sort of dip their toe into this, because Safe Space is a more preventative model. We are done getting people to their breaking point right. We are trying to normalize that community and support circles are a thing of the now and that we all need them. It is not a black and white thing. And so there are. We have 16 different groups right now, and then we have workshops and classes, and so, yes, we ask you to inquire.

Speaker 1 1:29:55

Inquire.

Speaker 2 1:29:56

Inquire away, but you know you're doing all this, thank you.

Speaker 1 1:30:00

Yeah, that would be really helpful.

Speaker 2 1:30:01

I was just going to go because, we are a nonprofit.

Speaker 1 1:30:05

Yes, it's a nonprofit. 501c3 and 501c3.

Speaker 2 1:30:10

Yep, you got it.

Speaker 1 1:30:11

So, in other words, you're putting a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of money into this.

Speaker 2 1:30:18

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:30:19

They need. You know this is your life and what you you I know you you've turned your life around. You have done just a tremendous job doing what you're doing. You got a beautiful family, you're making it work. You're doing personal experience, which you hear at this table today.

Speaker 2 1:30:35

Yeah, it's kind of insane, yeah, facing those fears guys.

Speaker 1 1:30:39

Right, it is. It's singing great songs. Well, how are you doing? But no, exactly right. And now with Don, I know.

Speaker 2 1:30:48

I can't explain this.

Speaker 1 1:30:48

Don's coming on board to help out with what the men's side of it and masculinity and all that.

Speaker 2 1:30:55

Yeah, we don't know what this looks like.

Speaker 1 1:30:56

Yeah right, we're still exploring that but yeah, you know my alignment. You know, the podcast is called Skip Happens. I love that. Think about that, because in life, skip, happens, happens. And when skip happens, we have a place to go. We have a safe space and we got I don't know the best people sitting right here in the pod zone.

Speaker 1 1:31:19

Yeah, and remember when you leave here tonight and just get a little wave to those houses across the street because, believe me, they probably got the computer right in front of the window watching us and they're going to say, okay, when I sign off, they're going to go they should be coming out anytime now.

Speaker 3 1:31:37

I feel like it's like a horror movie we're going to stay down here.

Speaker 1 1:31:42

No, all kidding aside, I'm very fortunate to have what I have and be in the neighborhood that I'm in and you know we're all like family here and they have you guys here and I consider myself, you know, part of your family, I hope, and vice versa. And if there's anything that we could do now that you moved here, you ever want to get together, maybe do some sort of a podcast, or come in and do your own thing, you're more than welcome to come down here and do it anytime that you would like, or I can bring a system to you and we could set up the podcast and you can if you want to do something at safe space you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 1:32:14

Just you two can do it, and I'd set things up for you.

Speaker 1 1:32:17

But thanks for watching everybody. Don't forget, go out and get the book you throw like a girl. I was told that Were you All right, I know I was wrapping it up, that's all right, and we read and I just made a left turn. Hang on, so you've been a quarterback. Have you ever been told you throw like a girl? No, okay, well, that's the end of the podcast. And thanks, don, and thanks for that.

Speaker 2 1:32:39

I'm glad you said that I got beat up every day in my life. I'm the youngest of five. Two older brothers, One played- the NFL.

Speaker 1 1:32:42

The other was a professional boxer ranked second in the world. Holy cow.

Speaker 3 1:32:45

When I was here. So my childhood was a lot of getting beat up every day.

Speaker 1 1:33:00

But that made you a better person and a stronger person.

Speaker 3 1:33:02

I don't know about that. It just makes me not like those people very much.

Speaker 1 1:33:05

You love them. They're family. Come on, all right, don McPherson, everybody's been sitting with us here tonight, and, of course, tracy Dando.

Speaker 2 1:33:13

Mark Lerner.

Speaker 1 1:33:13

Dando, is it Dando?

Speaker 2 1:33:14

It's Dando. It's officially Dando now Dando. Yeah, back to my origins, okay.

Speaker 1 1:33:20

But I want to thank you both for being here. Some great information, a whole lot of fun on Skip Happens and make sure you're looking up online, of course, yes, no, I'd go ahead.

Speaker 3 1:33:32

I just want to say thank you, because this is what Tracy does. Doesn't always get this kind of platform, and so I've been around long enough to know that this is a special opportunity for her, for me, I mean, I get to do this because we can throw some football in there, but to be able to highlight what she's doing is really, really beneficial.

Holding a Baseball

Speaker 1 1:33:57

Thank you, skip. Thank you With your help too. Thank you. To me it means a world. It's pretty awesome. Can you hold a hold? Do you know how to hold a baseball? No, can you hold a baseball. Okay, just like a cave. Put it back. Put it back. Oh, look at you, you got it right. That's how you do it. Yeah, zach, Zach, I'm going to show you how to hold it. Hi, good night everybody. Thanks for watching Skip Happens and make sure you check them out online. The wonderful Dan McPherson, tracy Dando, is here with us from Safe Space as well. Good night everybody. Good night neighbors.

Speaker 2 1:34:31

Good night. Good night, neighbors, see ya.

Speaker 1 1:34:34

Good night neighbors. Yeah, yeah.