Introducing: Not By The Playbook - Why it is never too late

20:39Arshay Cooper:Born in Marshall, Texas in 1949, Big George, as he became known, turned professional 20 years later after winning an Olympic gold medal. He got his first shot at a world title in a bout against the great Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973. Despite his reputation as a ferocious fighter, Foreman was the underdog for what became known as the Sunshine Showdown. Everybody said, Joe, I just fight nothing but tomato cans. He can't beat Joe Frazier, he beat Muhammad Ali. So Joe Frazier started to believe all those things himself and gave me a title shot.

21:18Arshay Cooper:you were one of the youngest heavyweight champions of all time at that point weren't you well i was one of the youngest heavyweight champions of all time of course mike tyson had that distinguished before it was floyd patterson and muhammad ali but i had become heavyweight champion of the world as a young man and i defended the title three times the third time of course i lost to muhammad ali and was that the fight we all think it was yeah it was the famous rumble in the jungle. George Foreman says that although he lost his world title to Muhammad Ali in 1974, he wishes that it hadn't got to him as much as it did.

21:53Arshay Cooper:At that age, I didn't appreciate anything. I received five million dollars for one day's work. No one had ever done anything like that. And I sat around brooding because I'd lost. If I had to do all over again, I would have just had ice cream cones and hot dogs. I would have enjoyed myself a lot more. And three years later, in 1977, Foreman had an experience that changed his life forever. I fought Jimmy Young, and I went back to the dressing room, and I had an experience where I was dead and alive. In a split second, I had this vision, and all over me was death, and they picked me up off the floor, and I saw blood on my hand and my forehead.

22:32Arshay Cooper:I started screaming, Jesus Christ is coming alive in me. and everybody thought I was crazy and that's what prompted me to take 10 years out of boxing to become an evangelist. George Foreman decided that he wanted to help his local community the way he knew best. All of the kids I thought were paying attention to me, I thought they would come to church, but they never did come to church. So I figured I'd better go to them. And I started the youth center along with my brother Roy Foreman in Houston, Texas, where I worked with kids so they could come in and have a place to hang out and stay out of trouble.

23:06Arshay Cooper:But before long, the cost of running the centre took its toll. I started travelling around the country speaking to support the place and I just couldn't do it. And my only way back was to box. And that was 1987. I made my return back into boxing for that main purpose. So how did it feel getting back into boxing at that time? It's just like an artist. I guess once you learn how to stroke that brush, you just have to brush up on your stroke. and that's all I did with boxing. I knew there would be some rust on me, but I never thought anyone ever beat me in the ring. I really didn't. George Foreman's comeback had plenty of critics.

23:42Arshay Cooper:You know, I'm approaching my 40s. I was 315 pounds. I had every insult in the world thrown at me. I got millions of letters. If they'd all put one dollar in each letter, I wouldn't have come back. Nobody gave me anything. But with his past experience, George Foreman believed he could be a world champion once again. I started off as a 17-year-old boy. I left Houston as a 16-year-old boy with nothing, absolutely nothing. And everyone was telling me, don't leave, they're not going to do this. So I was accustomed to being discouraged. But if I could come from a high school dropout without anything and make it the heavyweight champ of the world, the second time around, hey, that would be like a piece of cake.

24:26Arshay Cooper:In 1991, Foreman challenged undisputed world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield in the hope of making his dream come true. Holyfield won by a unanimous decision but Foreman lasted the full 12 rounds and proved he could still go toe-to-toe with the world's best and in November 1994 he got another shot but a major hurdle stood in his way. The World Boxing Association had even opposed their turbulent priest in court trying to have the fight banned by arguing that his age should preclude him thumping anything other than bibles. Foreman's successfully won the case against the WBA, and he was allowed to take on Michael Mora, a champion 19 years his junior.

25:07Arshay Cooper:Heavyweight champ of the world, he'd beaten Evander Holyfield, and everyone was telling him, you're going to kill Joyce, don't hurt the old man. And I said, I cannot believe the pathway has been laid out for me again to be underestimated.

25:23Arshay Cooper:On that November night, both men got in multiple jabs in the first round, but Foreman's left eye was starting to swell. Michael Moore was the first heavyweight champ of the world that was softball. He was a left-hander, which makes him double difficult to really get in position to land shots.

25:43Arshay Cooper:The younger boxer had agility on his side, but George Foreman had a plan. I have manoeuvred him to stand in front of my right hand. All night I couldn't get him because he was dynamic by nature and able to avoid my heavy shots, but I was able to hit him with the jab, go to the body with left hooks, and move him in the right position. And although it seemed as if Maura had the upper hand, a body blow from Foreman in the 10th round badly slowed the reigning champion, allowing the 45-year-old to move in for the kill. I started leading with right hand and throwing hooks, and he just fell right there, right there in front of me.

26:22Arshay Cooper:And I threw the right hand, and I said, you know what, I hurt him. but I better lower it a little bit and I threw another right hand and there he was on the canvas. The preacher had sunk to his knees to acknowledge an extraordinary victory. Those queuing for a shot at his titles will doubtless have to assume a similarly humble position. George says that immediately after the fight people's opinions of him completely changed. Once you win you're no longer the person who they said couldn't do it. The conversation started. They looked at me just like any other champion. I was named the athlete of the year, not boxer of the year, but athlete of the year.

27:02Arshay Cooper:So everybody forgot that they said it couldn't be done. George Foreman finally retired from boxing in 1997 and became known to a new generation for his highly successful range of cooking grills. Looking back on his very career, he says his outlook on life has never changed. I was a family man and a minister number one and two. as the years have gone by, my success now is that I have at least 13 grandkids, even a couple great-grandkids. So my life is built around family mostly and my work still with the youth center. And I travel around speaking and trying to encourage other people who don't feel like good about their life, try to be determined to make them feel good about their lives.

27:46Meg Robson Austin:The wonderful and much missed George Foreman.

27:54Arshay Cooper:Get that Amex Gold Card ready. I'm way too tired to cook tonight. You read my mind. With the Gold Card, we can get up to$120 a year in statement credits. Are you feeling the Cheesecake Factory?

28:06Meg Robson Austin:Five Guys? Either of those sound good?

28:08Mike Flynn:Yes. Which one? Both.

28:11Meg Robson Austin:Pay with the Gold Card to receive up to$10 a month in statement credits at participating partners. Uncover more ways to reward yourself at AmericanExpress.com slash Explore-Gold.

28:22Arshay Cooper:Enrollment required. terms apply.

28:52Meg Robson Austin:at Britbox.com.

28:54Arshay Cooper:Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money podcast on your favourite podcast app.

29:32Meg Robson Austin:From the BBC World Service with me, Katie Smith. This is not by the playbook. Still to come, an award-winning author known as the captain of the first all-black high school rowing team in the US, changing what it means to be part of a crew. But first, living with chronic pain, is all too common. It can affect your capacity to work, impact relationships and halt the ability to participate in social activities, especially in sport. And when pain hits suddenly and you're used to being active, it seems particularly cruel. That happened to our next guest, Meg Robson-Austin. She was enjoying a very successful weightlifting career until injury caused her constant pain and severe depression.

30:16Meg Robson Austin:But Meg was determined to return. And with help from coach Tom Morrison and his simplistic mobility method, she would eventually be re-crowned the world's strongest woman. When I spoke to her from her home in England, I also what pain was to her. The two words that pop into my head is soul-destroying, or it can be if you are unable to get a handle on it. It was very soul-destroying when I didn't know what it was to start with and when I didn't have any hope or any plan or know that there was a way to move forward. So I think even though you feel the pain physically, for me and I know many others, it was mentally, the mental weight that I carried with it probably was worse.

30:55Meg Robson Austin:And was that because you felt as though there was no answer to it or no solution? Was that the mental weight? Yeah, going from, you know, all the competing and being a really athletic individual who loves running around and very active to not, and then to just the not being able to escape the pain, being in constant pain, not being able to pick up my daughter. You know, she's only seven now, but when she was tiny, I wasn't able to pick her up and walk around with her. And yeah, just, you know, it impacts every single part of your life. I can imagine there's an element of hopelessness as well. If you are, you know, especially someone of your kind of level of athletic ability, where you probably felt like you tried every solution as well.

31:40Meg Robson Austin:Yeah, but what I didn't try was not giving up. And I would do these, I'd get a foam roller or I'd get whatever the next gimmick was and try that for a week and that didn't work. So I'd then write myself off. And instead of actually taking ownership of it and taking responsibility for my own recovery, I'd rather buy someone or buy something or pay someone. So taking ownership of that and recognising that I'm the only person that's going to be able to fix me, that was the game changer for me. So talk us through that moment then. You're in constant pain. I don't know. Are you starting to think maybe I'm going to have to give this all up and, you know, not be able to do anything?

32:16Meg Robson Austin:Or maybe you're already at that point where you're basically doing nothing. Yeah. So after about nine or so years of competing, I did stop competing because I could not figure out why I was constantly injured, constantly in pain, constantly exhausted. Then I had my daughter and it made it even worse. And like I say, there was days when I couldn't even get off the sofa. and I was very much in the place, well, this is me forever now. But I did start looking on Facebook and a Tom Morrison ad popped up and it said something along the lines of, you're not special. Why do you think you're the only one that can't be fixed?

32:45Meg Robson Austin:And I was like, oh, he's just reached into my soul and spoken to me. So I reached out to Tom and it sort of explained the situation and he gave me a bit of advice, which I started to follow. And that small bit of progress then started leading on to bigger and bigger successes. it's so funny that isn't it that idea that we all think we're special yeah but we're really not but also in the way that we always think we're special in a bad way almost you know that i'm the one that it can't fix you know you are you try me i'll be that the the sob story that won't it won't happen to and yeah it's actually quite a powerful emotion i can imagine if you flip that around and say do you know what maybe i'm not special that's actually the incredible thing yeah it's being able to disempower the hopelessness, like I took the power of the hopelessness away and gave it to myself.

33:36Meg Robson Austin:Anyone that ever doubted me, they don't get to have that space in my head. Like I'm not letting them in. So I would much rather be led with love and kindness and people that believe in me and people that have invested their time in me. Why would I listen to people that are doubting me? I'd much rather go. Yeah. And I'm a very strong believer of you can't hate yourself into success and you can't hate yourself happy. And it's a much nicer place to be. That's for sure. So what was the journey of recovery like for you? Timeframe wise, you know, pain wise? When did it start feeling like actually this is getting better?

34:09Meg Robson Austin:It started a little bit too quickly, to be honest. So I started getting better after a few months and then I was like, oh, I'm fixed now. So then I started trying to compete and broke myself again. So it was a very sharp reminder that just because something is working, it doesn't mean you stop doing it. It means you continue to keep doing it. I think it took me about a year to when I won my next competition. I'm very well aware of what I need to do now and I'm very good at managing it. So take me right back to the start then, Meg, with your, how would you describe it? Weights journey, lifting journey?

34:42Meg Robson Austin:What is it to you? So I actually started weightlifting because I broke my leg playing rugby and I couldn't run anymore. So I decided that chasing egg-shaped balls around the pitch wasn't safe. So I'd pick up big concrete ones instead. naturally yeah I was in the gym one day and I was only about 60 kilos at the time and one of the personal trainers said to me Meg come and have a go at deadlifting and I just walked up to this bar picked it up and all the boys were like oh my god so it weighed about 100 kilos and they were like oh my god you're really strong and one of them then said for a girl and I was like what so at that very moment I decided that no one would ever add for a girl on the end of the sentence I was like, I'm going to get so strong, I'm just going to be strong.

35:23Meg Robson Austin:Saw a competition advertised. My first strong woman competition, as much as I love the running around with the weights and stuff, I got a real insight to what women supporting women look like. And I'd never had that before. And it was just the most powerful and amazing thing. And I was just like, yeah, this, these are my people. And this is my jam. And yeah, it started from there. So in what way? What did you love about that? Complete strangers. So my fiercest rivals are some of my closest friends. And my first competition and all the women were supporting each other lending each other kit showing each other how to do things cheering each other on and just you know we've all kept in touch ever since and it was just it was just a really amazing experience and has anyone added for a girl since that moment i don't think they have i don't think anyone's been brave enough to quite what kind of deadlift personal best are we talking these days i've got a world record for the master's lightweight, which is 230 kilos.

36:20Meg Robson Austin:That is obscene. Do you have any direct comparisons for us on what that would weigh, I don't know, to a car or something? I mean, it's not a car, but you know what I mean. I don't, I'm not very, I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to have a think about that, won't we? Google, yeah. I remember, because I love my weightlifting and I remember when I was doing some stuff around the Paris Olympics a couple of years ago and Emily Campbell, who's one of the British weightlifters, yeah who clean and jerks about I think something around 160 and and that's the weight of an African lion which is pretty cool it's very cool yeah she's incredible I love weightlifting as well so Joel knows anytime we get someone on with a massive deadlift I'm like tell me everything Joel's looking at me like what on earth are you talking about but I do wonder if you are still

37:07Mike Flynn:working to the goal I thought we'd agree which was that one day you'd be able to just pick me up

37:13Meg Robson Austin:Oh, yeah.

37:13Mike Flynn:No, I'm trying to lose weight, but I'm still a good 130 kilos.

37:17Meg Robson Austin:Well, my deadlift's 110 now, so I'm not far off.

37:20Mike Flynn:There you go.

37:21Arshay Cooper:But I thought we'd agreed over your head or nothing at all.

37:25Meg Robson Austin:Oh, fine. Okay, working on that then. I just got shown something to compare. The 230 kilos is about the size of an alligator, which is quite, that's a lot of handbags and shoes and belts to be good. Oh, that's fantastic. I love that. Oh, brilliant. Well, I'm glad we got our comparison there. I'm going to always remember that one now. But that must be so empowering from you going from something that I guess you found a natural strength for, but then to have trained to a point where you are one of the very, very best in the world. It was a moment in time that even now, like what we two years later, yeah, when I think about it, I'm like, did I really achieve that, given what I was like as a teenager and all the terrible choices I made?

38:12Meg Robson Austin:Should we go back to some of them then? And I don't want to make light of this, actually, because you had a tough time, didn't you? Yeah, I was very badly neglected as a child, badly, you know, physically, emotionally neglected. I turned up to school looking like I lived on the streets. So I've got a thing about wearing nice shoes now because my the bottom of my school shoes, the sole was always falling off and my feet would always be cold and wet and my uniform was old and dirty, which then led me to have a lot of self-loathing. didn't even have any like for myself which made me quite susceptible to being taken advantage of and yeah making a lot of bad choices and started taking drugs and drinking at the age of 13 and just yeah lived a very very very different lifestyle to what I do now that's for sure.

38:57Meg Robson Austin:And how long did that go on for for you? Probably till my late to mid-20s. There was one major turning point I was around someone's house and I'd never done anything like smoking crack ever but they gave me a crack pipe and I literally took a breath in and as I blew the smoke out I saw two, I still to this day don't know if it was a hallucination or not but I saw two tiny little kids sat in the corner and they were in dirty clothes, skinny, scared and my brain said to me you need to get up and you need to get out right now because if you do not leave that's going to be your children and this is going to be you for the rest of your life and that was a huge turning point for me.

39:37Meg Robson Austin:And did you get up and leave at the moment? I did get up and left. Again, I can't remember. That's the only bit I remember. I don't know where I was, don't know how I got home. But I knew from that very moment, like things, things needed to change. And that road to recovery, though, I can't imagine was straightforward from that point, right? No, because when you mask things with drugs and alcohol or, you know, there was self-harm, there was eating disorders. When you stop doing those things, you then have to listen to the trauma that's going on in your head. So you have to find a much healthier way to cope with it.

40:07Meg Robson Austin:I started training to be a counsellor and a therapist and a coach, which really helped. And then doing the weightlifting, because a lot of my trauma was caused by females or being in, you know, not a very nice environment when I got bullied at school. That healed, being with those women healed a lot, like a lot of that past trauma for sure. Does it feel like a different life to you now? So different. Like, it's just crazy to look back at the Meg I was then, not achieving anything, not sticking to anything, not having any self-respect or any like for myself to who I am now. Like, I love the person that I am today.

40:44Meg Robson Austin:And my biggest achievement is that I can look in the mirror and go, yeah, you're doing all right. Like, I like the person looking back at me. I wonder as well, Meg, going through that time as a youngster and you talked about self-loathing, but body image as well as as a woman who's now gone into a world where actually being big and strong, powerful, eating a lot is so important, isn't it? Yeah, so I've always had an athletic physique and I used to get told I look like a man, but more at school than I do now. And so I used to hide my shoulders and I used to hide my arms all the time and you would never see me.

41:22Meg Robson Austin:you know I would always have long sleeves and stuff on being powerful and strong is a good thing whereas I would try and shrink myself down and you know hold myself back constantly because I didn't want to be put in the spotlight whereas now I'm like yeah check out the guns like you know if you don't like it don't look that's absolutely fine but yeah I don't uh certainly don't shy away from getting the shoulders out anymore yeah and what what do you say to yourself now Meg when you look in the mirror in the morning what do you see hence wherever I'm having a good hair day or not But yeah, I look back and I think about all the things that I've achieved.

41:57Meg Robson Austin:I often talk to my younger self. I do a lot of work with my younger self. If I'm having a bit of a bad day, she'll talk to me and say, look, look how far you've come. Or if I'm getting a bit anxious or a bit nervous, I know it's come from her, not me. So I'll have conversations with her. And yeah, I don't, it will always be a work in progress, but there's very few days now, very few days where I'm like, no, I can't do this. This is, yeah, this is rubbish kind of thing. So are you proud of yourself? I'm very proud of myself. And it's taken me a long time to have the courage to say that out loud, because especially as women, you get told you're arrogant, you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't be shouting about your achievements.

42:35Meg Robson Austin:and we get told to stay in our boxes and stay in our lanes. But I'm really, really proud of what I've achieved and I'm not afraid to say it anymore. Well, here's to stepping out of our boxes, striding out of our lanes and seeing what we can achieve. Meg, thank you so much for your time. I love chatting to you. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Meg Robson-Austin, quite rightly proud of all she has fought to achieve.

43:06Arshay Cooper:Hey, hey, producer Joel here with the answer to this week's Brain Teaser. In 2022, Lester Wright broke the record for the fastest time anyone over the age of 100 has run the 100 metres. What I wanted to know was, what is that record? And for context, don't forget, Usain Bolt holds the current record for the 100 metres, at any age, at 9.58 seconds, sets in 2009 when he was just 22. Well, Leicester, aged 100, set the record in an incredible A, 26 seconds. Just let that sink in. Lester Wright, aged 100, run the 100 metres in just 26 seconds.

43:54Mike Flynn:That's probably half the time I could do it in, and I'm half his age.

44:07Meg Robson Austin:I'm Katie Smith, and this is Not by the Playbook from the BBC World Service. Sometimes it can seem like it's too late, even before you get going, that the random chance of being born into specific circumstances can dictate large parts of your own life. Arshay Cooper could easily have slipped into gang life and violence, but he carved a different path through sports. Not in itself unusual, but when you hear that Arshay's chosen sport was rowing, then you can start to understand how different his story really is. We started with his early life.

44:44Mike Flynn:I grew up on the west side of Chicago in a city that had great sports like Chicago Bulls, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Bears. And you grew up believing as you go to school every day and pledge allegiance to the flag or take the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution test, that this is your city. this is your country that you belong and you are an American citizen and you have a birthright to all of these things that people on the other side of the water who don't look like me will have maybe a little bit more than me have. And then you get older, you join this elite sport and you start to see the difference in the world that certain kids are allowed in stores that I'm not allowed to go into just because the color of my skin or where I'm from.

45:34Mike Flynn:There are certain boat clubs that I couldn't step foot in because I couldn't afford it. When you say this is your city, and this is like a public park, there's police that shows up in certain folks that you meet who don't look like you neighborhood right away when they make a call, but it's not available to you. And so that's a little bit of what I was talking about, mainly focused on how I grew up and how I became more of me, becoming me as a young rower, athlete, author, etc.

46:09Meg Robson Austin:And we'll get to the moment that rowing kind of entered your life, I guess would be a way to say it. But take me back to childhood then. What was it like? You mentioned that side of town in Chicago. It sounds like it was a tricky place to be.

46:24Mike Flynn:Yeah, it was a place where talent was everywhere. You know, humor was everywhere. Good people was everywhere. But access and opportunity was not. What you see in Chicago is what happens when have not must have. People join gangs to make money. Through that, there was a lot of violence, fights over territory. I heard gunshots when I slept. I ran from my life. I skipped over pools of blood. I've seen what some soldiers have seen in war, but before I was 15 years old. And that was challenging. And it was very hard for a lot of young people to go to school and try to solve problems like what's 20 % of half or who really discover America when you're facing these challenges every day.

47:10Mike Flynn:And so it was hard to get into good high schools and public schools because of your grades, just because of the environment. And that was every day on the west side of Chicago. And for me, you know, my mother wasn't around half my life. I've never said the word dad a day in my life. And it was it was tough. So it was hard to believe that God exists when you felt like there was no good in your neighborhood.

47:35Meg Robson Austin:And you sound, I mean, from the couple of minutes we've only been chatting so far, a very thoughtful, very intelligent person who has clearly really developed that side of yourself. But I can imagine from the place you're talking about, that was a hard thing to do. And probably it wasn't encouraged, right? You weren't encouraged to be this kind of person.

47:56Mike Flynn:Yes, yes, absolutely. You know, you get that from some teachers, but it was hard for them. You know, I always say to people that the wisdom of the world is free in the library. So I was able to sit in the school library and try to create these worlds that I read about in my head and in my future and pursue that to get out of the war zone I was living in.

48:21Meg Robson Austin:Did you have feelings of maybe envy or anger towards perhaps seeing that life that you could have had maybe on the other side of town or even in the library? You're there reading about these people that have things you don't.

48:35Mike Flynn:Yeah, you think, why not me? Like I've done nothing wrong. You know, I have never broke a plate in my life. I've been suspended from school and still my life is like this. What like what did I do wrong? You know, so that was envy at the same time there. Also hope through people who look like me, who fought to be at a place that I wanted to. And I saw that through different leaders that I admire as a as a kid. And so that that kept me going.

49:05Meg Robson Austin:Where did rowing come into it then? Because everything you've described so far doesn't feel like it leads to a boathouse, Arshay. Tell me how we got there.

49:16Mike Flynn:It was definitely unexpected. You know, my school at that time was the second most violent high school in the west side of Chicago. It was a all black school, you know, very neglected school. There wasn't a lot of, you know, new books or opportunities there. but one day i walked into the lunchroom very loud lunchroom and i see this boat this white boat and i was like whoa what if like what is that start staring at this boat and this little white lady and it wasn't all white teachers in my school but this white lady was there and she said you want to join the crew crew i was so confused because you're taught if someone asks you to join a crew run the other way as fast as you can and i was like there's so many gangs in this school so many crews now white ladies start a crew in my school like what what what is what what is this?

50:04Mike Flynn:You know? And I said, what's crew? And she said, cruise it's wrong. Let me show you. And behind this boat was the TV monitor and they were showing the Olympic games. And the way these guys were moving this boat seemed so magical. The rhythm was just like something I felt when I listened to grandmother's favorite music, like the rhythm of the boat and the rhythm of the Orloks. but because no one on the screen looked like me or reflect the world I was used to, although it seemed like an opportunity, I said no to the opportunity. This is not for me. This is not the world I'm used to. And I walked away and no one really signed up.

50:48Mike Flynn:And I remember going back the next day and the boat was still there and everyone was signing up. And I was like, why is everyone signing up now? And I walked towards the boat again and there was a big sign that says, if you sign up, you get free Chicago pizza. And I was like, wow, I love Chicago pizza. And so me and a friend signed up and we said we'll give it a try.

51:10Meg Robson Austin:What was it like that first time?

51:12Mike Flynn:Everyone was on the wrong machines. I think my first thought was, wait a minute, all these guys are from different neighborhoods, different gangs. Like, how is this going to work? Like, it's no way this is going to work. There's no way these guys are going to come together. I know some of these dudes, they just don't have any love for each other. The thing that caught my attention was when we went to the water and these different guys, different neighborhoods got in the boat and they pushed us out to open water. Everyone was scared. There was a lot of fear. But to go from seeing dirt and concrete every day to water and grass changed to everything.

51:49Mike Flynn:before it became a sport of competitiveness. It became a sport of meditation. I mean, it was non-combative. It was non-conflict. We was downloading that serenity.

52:02Meg Robson Austin:Did it feel like an escape?

52:03Mike Flynn:And not only an escape, it was like it comes those storms that you go through every day, the noise, the chaos. It was not an introduction to sports. It was an introduction to wellness, environmental wellness, social wellness. It was physical wellness. It was emotional and mental wellness. The only person that can talk in rowing is the coach of your coxswain. And they're like, sit tall, breathe, you belong here. And that was like peaceful. And it was an escape.

52:33Meg Robson Austin:But you belong here. That's such a powerful thing to say as well. And I feel like that carries a lot more meaning because this conversation, it feels quite personal to me. I grew up rowing. I grew up on the banks of the River Thames in London. And it was an amazing sport. Everything you're saying is hitting home in such a way for me. But at the same time, I've got to be completely honest. There was not a single person who looked like you, Arsha, at my boat club. And it's still a problem in the sport. It's a sport with an elitist kind of tagline, isn't it? And so to hear you say that your cox is telling you you belong here, that actually carries a lot of meaning, I think.

53:11Mike Flynn:Yeah, no, for sure. And I wasn't totally aware the first time how elite the sport was. I knew those people who didn't look like me. Not even poor whites were rowing. These were like very wealthy white people, you know. And the belonging for me was like, okay, I am downtown Chicago. I feel like this is my water. This is my boat. I'm with my teammates. We started experiencing the elite part of rowing as we spent more time in the boathouse because we shared a boathouse with four private schools. We were okay with that. And that didn't really change anything for me. The difference was, it wasn't how we looked at the elite.

53:51Mike Flynn:It was how the elite looked at us. Meaning like what they heard about the West Side of Chicago, you know, hiding their things or taking their back with us because they think we're going to take it or someone's going to steal it. As we got closer to that, we heard someone say that when I used to drive through your neighborhood, my mom would say lock the doors because it's a bad neighborhood. And he thought just because his mom said it's a bad neighborhood, well, they must be bad people. Right. And I think that's what we felt. And so although when we on the water and we're looking at the tower, the towers on downtown Chicago, it felt like our city, but the boathouse felt like an away game.

54:36Mike Flynn:and that was challenging because we also would go back to our neighborhood and our coaches would say like football coaches would say that's not a real sport where everyone was like oh why are you guys rowing what kind of sport is that it's not even real sports recreational sports or you would go back to your community and you have your parents and be like hey if you can put all your energy towards the sport put it towards the sport like basketball football where you actually get paid and be a professional athlete and make money not just rowing so it was hard every way we turned, but we knew every single day we became more trusting of each other.

55:15We learned how to

55:17Mike Flynn:swim. Our bodies change. Our minds change. Our well-beings change. The way we thought about each other change. That is what kept us going in the midst of the storms that we were going through every day.

55:30Meg Robson Austin:Because it really reminds me of what we were talking about right at the start of this. So a world that isn't built for you, that you feel like you don't quite fit into any part of it. And that's exactly what you're describing there. You're kind of not enough to be part of this community, but you're too different to be in that one. And therefore, the only real meaningful moment for you where that all disappeared was in the boat, where ironically, you're working with people that on the land you might not have been anywhere near as close to.

55:57Mike Flynn:Yes, absolutely. And I felt like Rome was the one sport that was able to do that for me and these guys, because, you know, although I love basketball and football, those sports are very combative. You had to tackle someone. You had to stick defense on someone. You had to be physical with someone. And we just needed something that was the exact opposite. We build a brotherhood that is still very tight until this day. The world is beautiful, but you know, Katie, it's very challenging. It's very hard. You know, you feel like you're breaking your back. You're ripping apart your hands. You know what I mean?

56:33Mike Flynn:You know, in rowing, there are no busloader fans. There are no million dollar contracts after college. There are no cheerleaders. But what you will find is someone who will show up every single day to rip apart their hands and break their backs for the person who sits in front of you and the person who sits behind you and themselves. There's no hidden agenda. And I said, those are the kind of people I need in my life.

56:57Meg Robson Austin:Well, and talking about taking that almost a step further than not just your boat, but what you can do for other people, you know, other young black communities of young boys, girls, whoever, who maybe had never seen a black person in a rowing boat and had realized that that is absolutely something they could do.

57:16Mike Flynn:I went to a school in Dallas, Texas, and I asked all the kids, what's your favorite sport? And these are all young black children. They said basketball and football and volleyball. And I said, well, I'm going to talk to you about rowing. And I went back to that same school a year later and I said, OK, what's your favorite sport? And they all said tennis, tennis, tennis, because that's when Coco first won. You know, they saw themselves. And so that is just so important.

57:45Meg Robson Austin:And that's incredible, the work you do. I mean, you literally see what kind of impact that can have, because I sometimes wonder if it feels like a bit of lip service when people hear, you know, phrases like you can't be what you can't see. But actually for you and the work you now do, it really is life changing, would you say?

58:04Mike Flynn:Yes, very life changing. I mean, there are kids now in our program who grew up like I did as similar stories to I have that's growing at some of the top schools now. There's kids we have. We have kids running at Harvard. We have kids running at Penn. We have kids running at Cal and so many great places. And it started with someone who who decided to say, I am going to go to the places where no one wants to go and give them the same opportunity that I got. And that's all we're doing. And they're doing the work and they're doing the same, too. And that's how we create that ripple effect. Right. That's how we see more of us.

58:41Mike Flynn:And what we're trying to do is make sure that every bull house reflects the full diversity of this city. The more we meet people who don't like us is that we are more alike than we are not alike. And that's what we see in more through our programs.

58:55Meg Robson Austin:And what role does rowing play in your life now? Are you still getting out on the boat?

59:00Mike Flynn:You know, I have a boat. I don't go out as much, but the times I do go out is when I go visit a high school row and team and I get out there with them. That's pretty fun.

59:08Meg Robson Austin:And are they showing you up or are you still doing all right?

59:11Mike Flynn:I cannot keep up, Katie. I do my best. You know, I have a good game face. But, you know, and you see me walk straight to the bathroom puking. That's kind of what's it.

59:23Meg Robson Austin:We'll give you a minute, shall we, at that point. and just finally the most important question that I forgot to ask earlier is of course did you get your Chicago pizza in the end because that's really why you started rowing in the first place absolutely I got my Chicago pizza and getting to eat a lot that was my favourite thing about it because you burn it all off don't you

59:43Mike Flynn:yes yes absolutely

59:46Meg Robson Austin:Arshay thank you so much for taking so much time and thought in explaining all that to us and sharing it with us We really appreciate it.

59:55Mike Flynn:No, thank you for having me. And maybe when I'm in the UK, we can go for a row together.

1:00:01Meg Robson Austin:Oh, yeah, I'm holding you to that. That would be great. I'll show you around down on the Tideway. That's where I row. So you know where they do the boat race between Cambridge and Oxford. That's my end. So I'll invite you over. There's some decent pizza as well. So we could check that out too. Thank you. I'd love that.

1:00:18Mike Flynn:That'd be great. Awesome. Let's do it. Appreciate it.

1:00:27Meg Robson Austin:That was Arshay Cooper. And I think what it left me thinking is that feeling of identity and how you can live in so many different parts of your life, you know, your home life, your school life, your communities outside of those spaces and not feel like you fit into any of them. But that ultimate cliche, we talked about cliches in the interview, but the fact that sport can be an escape from all of that and the way he described being in a boat in the middle of a beautiful setting when you've only lived in an urban environment, to feel that sense of belonging, it sounded like really for the first time in his life, with a bunch of people that should have been, in a lot of ways, his enemies, that's a really powerful thing.

1:01:09Meg Robson Austin:And I think he is the perfect kind of advocate to take that messaging to young people, particularly black communities around America, and hopefully really feel like he's having an impact on them as well. and that takes us to the end but it's not too late to check out previous episodes if you want to hear more amazing stories like those of Arshay, Meg, George and Mike but anyway from me Katie Smith producer Jal Hammer and editor Matt Davies it's bye for now.

1:01:40Meg Robson Austin:Thank you so much for listening Not By The Playbook won't normally be here in the documentary So if you'd like to hear more episodes with titles like Fear and Risk, Second Chances, or even What's in a Name, then search Not By The Playbook wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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