 I'll mark up to grow of the president, CEO of the LBJ Foundation, and on behalf of our partners on tonight's event, UT's Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation, and UT's Center for Sports Communication and Media, I want to welcome you. To the friends of the LBJ Library in our audience, this ushers in another seize of programming that, in addition to tonight, will include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin, who will be here next Tuesday, former CIA director John Brennan, who will be here next month, and California Governor Jerry Brown, who will be here in November. How about that? We're not messing around here. To those of you who aren't members of the LBJ, the friends of the LBJ Library program, just, just, did you hear that response? That's what you're missing. Please consider joining our ranks. You'll see some of the biggest names and best minds of our times on this stage, and it's one of the best deals in town. I want to thank our friends' program sponsors, including St. David's Health Care, the Moody Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Tito's Handmade Vodka. Two quick bits, big hand for vodka out there. There always is. There always is. A couple of quick bits of housekeeping. One is, copies of Iptehaj Muhammad's book Proud will be available for sale after the program in the auditorium lobby, and second, following our program, we invite you to visit our current exhibit, Get in the Game, The Fight for Equality in American Sports, on the third floor, which is just one floor up. It's a wonderful exhibit created by the LBJ Library Museum staff that shows how sports has been used as a platform for civil rights and social justice. The event was generously sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin. We have a number of administrators from the university here tonight. I want to thank you for being so generous. It's now my pleasure to welcome Michael Butterworth, the director of the Center for Sports Communication and Media. Michael will introduce tonight's panelists, who I have the privilege of moderating. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Michael Butterworth. Thank you, Mark. It's my privilege to be here this evening and welcome our guests. The September 24th issue of The New Yorker released online today includes a column titled Should We Keep Politics Out of Sports? It's actually a book review of Republicans by Sneakers, too, how the left is ruining sports with politics, written by talk radio host and provocateur Clay Travis. As implied by the title, Travis is among those who believe sports in the United States have become increasingly politicized, held hostage by liberal media decision makers, uninformed athlete activists, and social justice warriors policing the boundaries of diversity and political correctness. Such a perspective has emerged in recent years as a backlash to a perceived breach of the apolitical terrain of sport, whether it is the politics of inclusion symbolized by celebrations of athletes such as Caitlyn Jenner and Michael Sam, or the collective efforts of college football players at Northwestern to form a union, or the protests against racial violence staged during performances of the national anthem. Indeed, politics have become increasingly visible in recent years, and observers from fans to journalists to academics have taken notice. But to say that politics have become more visible in sports is not the same thing as to say sports previously were not political. Commentators such as Travis may believe there once was a time when sports and politics were separate, and the New Yorker's headline, Should We Keep Politics Out of Sports, implies such a thing is possible, whether or not it may even be desirable. As our conversation tonight should make clear, regardless of recent actions and moments, sports are already political, and they have been for a long time. Operating on the assumption that politics are not merely about elections and legislation, but also about resources and power, I would suggest our nation's history reminds us time and again of the political significance of sports. That's the beauty of the LBJ Library's exhibit, Get in the Game, which documents the moments in sports that show the politics already in play and the capacity athletes have to shape a better world. From Jackie Robinson to Billy Jean King, from Muhammad Ali to Ibtihaj Muhammad. Acknowledging individual trailblazers in sport is important, especially because it allows us to understand the politics of representation and the struggle for inclusion. But politics are not at all restricted to matters of identity, as sports routinely position us to examine questions about labor. For example, should Division I college athletes be paid? Do Major League Baseball teams exploit young talent from Latin America? To economics, how do we justify public investments in ballparks and stadiums that now can exceed $1 billion in cost? Is hosting an Olympic Games or a World Cup worth the investment? To diversity, if 70% of NFL players are African American, 75% of NFL coaches are white, and 97% of NFL CEOs or presidents are white, does that constitute a plantation system? If 40% of athletes in the U.S. are women, why do they still only receive 5% to 8% of sports media coverage? Or to nationalism, why and when was the national anthem introduced as a daily ritual before games in the United States? Are military celebrations at sporting events modern forms of propaganda? These are the kinds of questions that have motivated my own work as a scholar and teacher, and they are the kinds of questions we keep in mind in the Center for Sports Communication and Media. The Center is a new initiative in the Moody College of Communication, and our aim is to bring together a range of academic disciplines, not only to help train students who want to communicate about sports, in other words, to be journalists, broadcasters, producers, PR officials, but to help everyone process and evaluate what sports communicate to us. In other words, how and why do we invest so much of our individual community and national identities in sports? And how can we make critical and ethical choices to keep in balance our passion for sports with our commitment to democracy? It's clear that we are not alone in asking these questions. Indeed, today's guests demonstrate for all of us the power of sports, both symbolically and in the very real conditions of people's lives. First, Ibtahaj Muhammad is an Olympic fencer, a bronze medalist from the 2016 Rio Summer Games. She is the first Muslim-American woman to compete in the Olympics wearing a hijab, and she is the first Muslim-American to win an Olympic medal. Named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, she serves as a sports ambassador for the U.S. State Department, co-founded Athletes for Impact and the clothing company Luella, and inspired the first hijabi Barbie in her likeness. Nate Boyer, who to my knowledge does not have a Barbie, is a former active-duty Green Beret, a philanthropist and community leader, and a former member of the Seattle Seahawks. After volunteering for relief work in Darfur and serving tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Boyer became a walk-on long snapper for the University of Texas football team. He later played an unexpected role in one of today's most well-known sports controversies. It was his advice that led Colin Kaepernick to take a knee rather than to sit during the national anthem. A protest started during the 2016 NFL pre-season as a response to ongoing racial injustice. Boyer's willingness to acknowledge multiple points of view regarding the protest has made him a highly sought-after commentator, evidenced most recently by an interview published just yesterday in the Los Angeles Times. Darren K. Roberts is the founding director of the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation at the University of Texas, one of our co-sponsors tonight. The center is the first university-based institute dedicated to developing leadership and character curricula for high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. Roberts is a University of Texas and Harvard Law School graduate, a former NFL coach, and the author of Call an Audible. Let my pivot from Harvard Law to NFL coach inspire your transition. That book was named a number one new release and bestseller by Amazon, and Sports Illustrated selected it as one of its best sports business books of 2017. There is much more to be said about each of our distinguished guests this evening, and we will certainly get to know them more throughout the course of the upcoming conversation. On behalf of the Center for Sports Communication and Media, please join me in welcoming Iptehaj Mohamed, Nate Boyer, and Darren Roberts to the stage. The book's given you remarkable lives. Two of you have written them, including Iptehaj's, which as I mentioned is on sale after the program. And I want to just talk a little bit about what led you each to the spotlight. And Iptehaj, I'll start with you. And in the New York Times in July of this year, you wrote, as I write in my new book Proud, Living My American Dream, when I looked at the Olympic fencing team, I didn't see many women of color. I felt like going after a spot on the team was an opportunity to challenge myself. But I also wanted kids who feel like they don't belong because of their skin color to see someone like me on the national team. So when did you first pick up fencing, and why? I started fencing at 12 years old. I played a ton of different sports growing up. But for me as a kid in each of these different sports, my parents always had to adjust the uniform by adding long sleeves or adding spandex under the team shorts to make it more modest and accommodating to my religious beliefs because I were hijab. And at 12 years old, we discovered fencing. We were driving past the local high school. My mom saw athletes that had on long white jackets and long white pants. And she's like, I don't know what it is, but I wanted to do it. And that was how I started fencing. I never imagined that I would become a professional athlete that the Olympics were in the cards for me. There was so much pushback and so many obstacles for me as not just a Muslim in the sport of fencing, but particularly as an athlete of color. For anyone who knows anything about the sport, it's predominantly white. And it's very, very expensive. And for me to come up through the ranks and qualifying for the team, as you read in this piece from the New York Times, for me, I felt like it was something I had to do not just for myself, but for my younger self and for young kids out there. We have to push the boundaries and move the needle in a way that's more inclusive and more diverse. And even as a member of the national team, and I talk about this in my book, there's so much pushback from not just teammates, but from coaching staff, because people are afraid of change. And for me, I've always wanted this, again, not just for myself, but for others in a way that I want to break the mold. I want to break the barrier and I want sport to be inclusive for everyone. When did you first know you were good at the sport? Am I? I don't know. I'm just very competitive. You've got a medal in your sock drawer. I just heard that saying. Now everyone knows where it is. I got to move it. I don't know if I'm any good at the sport, but I can tell you one thing. I outwork everyone around me, and I've always been that person. I'm a workhorse at heart. And I love a good challenge. So for the people of my life who served as haters or trolls on Twitter or wherever you are, I use that as motivation to push forward and to prove that not only can I do it better than you think, I can do it better than you. We'll come back in a moment to some of the challenges that you have faced in your journey. Darren, I want to go to you. This is from a 2012 article in Sports Illustrated. It reads, Resume A, B.A. in Political Science from Columbia, J.D. from Harvard, President of Harvard Law Review. Resume A, B, B.A. in Plan 2 and Government from the University of Texas, Student Body President at University of Texas, M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard, J.D. from Harvard. The first resume is that of Barack Obama. The second belongs to Darren Roberts. Wow. He might have become the governor of Texas. He might have become a Supreme Court Justice. All were his career goals at one time or another, and he was well on his way to any one of them. And yet, you wanted to be a professional football coach. Yes. So here we are, man. Yeah. So talk about that journey, Darren. Why did you want to be a football coach? What were your career aspirations and why did they eventually lead you to the NFL? So I came to the University of Texas in 1997, and I was going to be governor of Texas by 40. So I turned 40 November 29th. So obviously I took a wrong turn somewhere. Actually, he's come to campaign for your vote tonight. Before it's too late. We're just fooling the political action committee. I got to campus, and I was a high school football player. I love the sport. For me, it was a way to connect with some kids that I didn't get the chance to see in my classrooms. But forgot about it when I came to the University of Texas and was going through Harvard Law School and was on this very linear, if A, then B, if B, then C type of plan. And a buddy of mine asked me to work a football camp with him in South Carolina. And so I said, yeah, I'll go with you. And I ended up coaching 66th graders, none of whom had any athletic talent whatsoever. And so luckily they had a coach who couldn't coach. And so we spent three days together and it was the best 72 hours of my life. And I just saw how, for very brief moments on a football field, race, socioeconomic status, what grocery stores your parents shop at, all of that flies out of the window. And you just have 11 guys trying to execute a play. And I decided I wanted to be a part of that and become a coach. And wrote a letter to every team in the NFL, and there are 32 of them, received 31 rejections. And for some reason, Herm Edwards, who was the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, called me up and said, look, I don't know what's wrong with you. I said, well, nothing that's been documented to date. He said, like, I've got a training camp internship for you, and no paid, no benefits, 18 hour days. And that led to seven years of coaching in the NFL in college, and then came back to the University of Texas. And the Ray Rice episode in 2014 convinced me that the university could do more to help develop our student athletes, could also help to develop coaches, and so created the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation in conjunction with UT Athletics. We teach a class to every freshman athlete that centers around leadership and financial management. So my work now is trying to change the conversation around sports and to show young people that they can leverage it to create real change in their communities. We'll come back to the center you founded and talk more about what you're doing in a moment, but Nate will come to you. And this is from an op-ed you wrote in the Army Times on August 31st, 19, or 2016, 19. My God. Oh, that old. Oh, man. You look good. An open letter to Colin Kaepernick from a green beret turned long snapper by Nate Boyer. This is just, there's parts of the letter that Nate wrote. You'll see the entire letter in the exhibit get in the game if you visit. You write, I'm not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. It's your inalienable right. What you're doing takes a lot of courage and I'd be lying if I said I knew what it was like to walk around in your shoes. I've never had to deal with prejudice because of the color of my skin. And for me to say I can relate to what you've gone through is as ignorant as someone who's never been in combat in a combat zone telling me they understand what it's like to go to war. Even though my initial reaction to your protest was one of anger, I'm trying to listen to what you're saying and why you're doing it. There are already plenty of people fighting fire with fire and it's just not helping anyone or anything. So I'm just going to keep listening with an open mind. I look forward to the day that you're inspired to once again stand during our national anthem. I'll be standing there right next to you. Keep on trying. This very stirring letter went viral almost instantly and launched you into the spotlight as I alluded to earlier. What prompted this letter and talk about your relationship with Colin Kaepernick after this came to life? Yeah, you know what prompted it was just I think the general mood in our country because I feel like even today, a lot of people were feeling the same things that I feel, you know that they may have, we all have opinions and feelings and beliefs that are shaped by our experiences and everything but I think most of us are generally good people and we're open minded and we're reasonable and our voices are not heard anymore, you know what I mean? And because of that, all we hear are these very extreme voices, the ones that get the clicks on the internet and the ones that the mainstream media wants to continue to give the microphone to because it's divisive but it's also sexy and violent and all those things that sell advertising spots. And so it was just frustrating. When we were in the middle of an election cycle, I mean we were in the middle of the election actually, it's late August, the election day was November 8th that year and it's Trump versus Clinton and it's like you gotta pick a side and you gotta like believe all these things or all those things and you gotta spend all your time proving why you're right and they're wrong and like not listen basically. And the whole point of that letter, I guess it's an open letter to Colin but it's really for all of us and myself because I struggle with it as much as anybody. Like I can't help it but I make judgments, I make irrational decisions sometimes and I have to like stop myself and slow down and be like dude, just because you feel that, that doesn't mean it's true or right or the only way. And that's all I was trying to communicate with the letter. And when I wrote it, I mean I was sitting in this big stupid recliner in my apartment and it's like ridiculous. And I sit there and like lay in the thing and like just get comfy and I had a glass of wine and I'd been reached out to by a few different publications to write something and I was like, I don't wanna write an opinion piece, like there's already a million of them. And the army times just kept prodding and nobody reads the army times. Like nobody in the army reads the army times. I'm sorry. But they kept hitting me up and I'm like all right, all right but I'll do it with another note. So I sat there that night, I had the glass of wine or maybe a couple and like an hour and a half I just banged this thing out and it was just streaming consciousness, just how I was feeling. It was my feelings but also like through the letter even, it's like this is how I feel, this is what I experienced but then I'm like but I wanna understand and I wanna learn and I know this is not the only, this is not the only opinion that matters just because it's mine. And Colin, it went viral like you said and Colin actually reached out through his publicist the very next day and she was like, they're playing tomorrow in San Diego against the Chargers. He's pledged to sit again but he was really inspired by the letter and he wants to meet. So I went down there, we sat in the lobby of the team hotel and just had a conversation like you and I had today, like we've had many times we have different experiences and we don't agree on everything but it was very respectful and he was sensitive to not only my service but just my opinions and feelings and through that conversation we came to this idea. I would call it mutually. I mean I know, I did suggest kneeling because I thought it was another respectful way and I wanted him to be alongside his teammates but it was both of us that kinda came to this place where he wanted people to definitely understand that this is not, I'm not attacking the country or especially not the military. I mean I've got great respect for veterans. He sort of asked, is there another way to demonstrate and I just said, what about kneeling? And he thought that was powerful. Talk about why kneeling though and it relates to the military which was of interest to me. I mean that's interesting. It's not like I went down there with this agenda and idea of like, I gotta get him to kneel at least. It was just, I just wanna talk to him but when I was sitting there talking to him I could tell how much it mattered to him and it wasn't just something he did and all of a sudden it's like blowing up like crazy and it definitely blew up more than he thought it was going to but he was very genuine and like I said sensitive to my feelings on it. And yeah, I just was sitting there talking to him and thinking about it and when he asked if there was another way or what just jumped into my head almost instantly was, okay I think he's gotta be next to his teammates like you were talking about sports and teams and we're all different out there on the field. Different backgrounds, religions, colors of skin, beliefs and we put that stuff aside. Fans do it too at games. We put that stuff aside for a little while and we just play the game and it's very uniting. It's awesome and I'm like, is there a way he can protest but still be, I mean he's the quarterback. That's a unifier, that's a leader. And I said it's gotta be next to his teammates and I literally couldn't think of anything else. That was the only option. If you're not going to stand, kneel. And as I thought about it too, I was like, I mean when has kneeling ever been disrespectful? Like we need to pray, to propose. You take a knee in front of the king and the queen and I couldn't think of a time that it was disrespectful. We take a knee in front of a fallen brother's grave to pay respects and in football, when somebody's hurt on the field, the players take a knee. The cheerleaders all take a knee. That's what we do, it's respectful. So when I suggested that, he instantly was like, I think that's actually better and more powerful than sitting and that's where that came from. Talk about your journey to the NFL and what led you to the Seattle Seahawks. After being at Greenbury and coming here and then trying to get into the NFL. Trying and failing, miserable. But it was a good try. Yeah, I grew up playing a lot of sports just like you and I never played football and I regretted it and I think it was just, we've all got insecurities, no matter what age we are, but there's a lot of women when you're a young person, I think. Yeah, I remember when I was really young, my mom didn't want me to play because she was worried about the injury stuff, which makes sense and she's like, you can play when you're a little bit older, a little bit bigger. I was kind of a slow, a late bloomer. And then when I'm at that age, I got to go to high school and I could play if I want. I was afraid of failing. I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough. I was afraid if I did that, then maybe I won't be as good at baseball or basketball or these other things and I didn't do it and I regretted it because it was my favorite sport and that regret just hung with me until I was 29. And I was in the military, I was back to duty and to make a decision to re-enlist or to go back to school. One of the main reasons I decided to go back to school was because I wanted to try and play football and if I didn't do it at 29, I definitely was never gonna do it. And so I came back here, I got in to Texas and walked on and tried out for the football team and I made it and was trying to find a way to get on the field. The easiest way to do that is take the most thankless job that's available, which is long snapping. Nobody cares if you do great. They only care when you screw up. So I started long snapping, taught myself to do it and then fortunately got an opportunity at the next level. I only played in one game. Cool thing to know about this discussion real quick, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but. That one game I played in, just like I did in all my college games, I was asked to leave the team out of the tunnel with the American flag and that was always an honor to me just because of what it represents in my world and the veteran community. I thought I was always honoring them. And in college, we don't come out on the field for the anthem, but we do in the NFL, obviously. And that night, I'm on the sideline for the first time in any football game while the anthems played. And I like just, I mean, a lot of it was the moment. But I started crying because of, yeah, just that the emotions that that song represents kind of brings out for me. And the only other time I've been on the sideline during the anthem that I can recall was next to Colin, which is really bizarre. Was this before, after you met Colin? Before. Before, yeah. Did you guys win? This is 2000. We did. No, we didn't. We lost. No. It felt like a win. I thought there was a happy ending. I thought for sure this is going to be an amazing story. No. I mean, sometimes when you lose, you really win. That's true. Touché. I did get to warm up next to Peyton Manning at the beginning of the game. Highlighted. And they went on, the Broncos went on to win the Super Bowl that year. So you were the reason that Peyton won. Well, they cut me three days later, which was the biggest mistake in the Seattle Seahawks event. Big time. It's been down to this. I saw that on first take, actually. By the way, when you hear Touché from a professional fencer, that's really, really cute. I didn't, I haven't liked him. You've got to feel really good right now. That's a good point. If not, let me go back to you. You have felt acute discrimination in your sport, not only from fans, but from your teammates and from your coaches. So what is that like? How do you overcome something like that? I was on the national team for eight years. And that was, my first team was in 2010. And things were great for me in terms of just getting there, right? Because once you make it, you're like, this is going to be awesome. My teammates are going to be really supportive, you know? Because you're just trying to break through. And for me in qualifying for the national team, you know, as an older person, right? My first team was at 20, 22, 23. And that's kind of unheard of. Most people who qualify for a senior team at that point have been on cadet and national team. So I'm already, you know, going against the grain a bit because no one expected it from someone, you know, at my age who didn't have the experience. And once I made the team, things were good for me in a sense where I felt like I was competing. I was trying to, you know, like, just get a better world ranking over the next few years. But when I really broke through and started to, you know, to climb the ranks, you know, number five, six in the world, is when I noticed kind of this relationship change. And I'll never forget when I beat one of the, like the top fans around our team at a World Cup. And I saw like the relationship immediately shift in a way that was unsavory, that became very ostracizing and, you know, very exclusive in a sense, where it was like you can't sit with us. I found that it was a very odd story and you could read all about it in the book, but our, oh, Spencer on our team, her mom manages the national team, the women's saver national team. Her coach is a national coach. So it became like a very nepotistic environment to kind of exist in. And when you're seeing no longer as, you know, an ally but more as a threat, I can't even begin to explain how just a toxic the environment became. I felt like I was dealing with harassment in the workplace where, you know, flights weren't booked for me like everyone else. Hotel rooms weren't booked for me like everyone else. I was intentionally left off an email, or sorry, emails. So there are four people on the team. If you drop one person from the email, you can't tell me it's a mistake, right? You had one job to send an email to four people and you only sent it to three. So, I mean, it got to a point where I wasn't told about team practices. And, you know, it's one of those things where you face discrimination, you face adversity, you don't stop everything and say, hey, quick question. Do you not like me because I'm brown? Do you not like me because my hijab? Like you don't ask that. You just, and especially as an athlete, my job is to win, right? It's not to be so caught up in things I can't control. I can't control if you like me or not. Like I hope that you do, but I can't control if you do. And also it doesn't help me on the fencing strip. So my job was to take care of myself mentally and emotionally. And I saw that the adversity and more harassment that I was facing as a member of Team USA it started to affect how I felt about myself. And I suffered from depression for two years on the team. I was going through these motions of traveling to 12, 15 different countries a year by myself on the road, being made to feel like there was something wrong with me. I was told that I was strong because I was black athlete. But I couldn't think tactically. I was incapable of doing that. And that's something that a lot of black athletes face when participating in sport. And there's this idea that we have to be exceptional in order to be accepted. And that was something that I felt as a member of Team USA. And I'll never forget in 2015, this is right before Olympic qualifiers started, I said to myself that I was gonna change the way I thought about myself, the way I thought about my situation. I wasn't gonna feel bad for myself anymore. And one of the most conscious decisions that I made, the most helpful decision that I made was to ask for help. I realized that I was sad and I couldn't really pinpoint why. The sadness and depression that I was experiencing, I didn't really understand how to fix it. But one of the greatest things I did for myself was to ask for help. And I work with a sports psychologist and have all these different medical ways to help myself out of what was manifesting itself into performance anxiety. Like I would travel to China, 15 hour flight, get there and lose in the first round because my anxiety was manifesting itself physically where I would be paralyzed. My body would say, let's go take a nap. I don't wanna compete, let's leave, right? So I literally was just paralyzed and I wasn't doing well, but to ask for help and to make a conscious decision to be happy was the greatest gift I ever could have given myself. I stopped caring what anyone thought about me. I stopped caring about the national coach. I started booking my own flights and my own hotels because I'm like, well, I need to get there, but I also can't control these things, right? And in making a conscious decision to be happy and live in the moment, I had the best year of my life during Olympic qualifications. Was there a catalyst that, which I'm gonna be happy, but was there a pivotal moment when you made that decision consciously? I was just tired of crying. I was tired of being on the road and being sad. And I was this athlete, very lucky and blessed that I got to travel with my sister. She also competed. She's so close to making an Olympic team, but chose to get married during the Olympic qualifying season. Like who does that? But, and I always say like, she's so much more talented than me, but I work harder. But anyway, I was really blessed to travel with my sister, one of my best friends, my sister, Mexico. And I remember sitting with them at a World Cup and just saying, you know, like, this is ridiculous. Like this is controlling my happiness. And I kind of like reclaim my time and my energy and my own like, I think just my mental health. And I honestly, it's a very simple way to say it, but I feel like I chose happiness. Yeah. Darren, you work with athletes all the time. Is discrimination routine in the sports world? You know, I think that we've, you know, this whole notion I was listening to Michael's introduction and this notion that we can separate race and sport and politics is just a farce, right? And it's, you think of Jesse Owens versus Hitler and Cassius Clay versus United States. And although it has become somewhat more refined, it's still there. And I think players are acutely aware that when they make decisions that they believe in, they will, there will be a very visceral response to their actions. And I think about, you know, I was listening and I've known Nate's story and kind of this interaction with Colin. It always just strikes me that you have a white, former NFL player, Green Beret, who sort of has this conversation with a player and they come to this conclusion. And even that's not enough to exonerate Colin's actions, right? For those who want to say that this is about patriot patriotism, you would think that the fact that that conversation alone, say, okay, look, this can't be an unpatriotic move, right? We have a Green Beret actually proposing it. But that just shows you, I think, how deep-seated some of this racism and discrimination is and what we're really using, we're using sports as a proxy for race, right? This country really hasn't dealt with race in a meaningful way, in a very introspective way like countries like, I think, South Africa have. So it's there and I think that until we continue to have hard discussions, it will just continue to percolate and percolate. How do you coach somebody who is facing the kind of bigotry that Eptahash faced? I'm like, let me take out my notebook, take some notes. I truly believe that there has to be something bigger than you because listening to your story and one of the main things that we center our work around is empathy and how can we attempt to step outside of ourselves and just take the perspective of someone else, doesn't mean we agree, doesn't mean we disagree, we just wanna take that perspective and so hearing what you went through, I thought your question was great, like what was the pivotal moment? I don't know how many people on this earth could make that turn, right? I mean, how many of us would just yield to that sort of pressure? I'm sure that I could not have made that turn, right? And chosen happiness and so I think it's tough but I think so many players, I think their faith comes into play, I think their families. It always struck me that for the ways and the terms that we use, he's a beast. The way that we've chosen to sort of dehumanize athletes, when you go inside a locker room and you look inside of lockers, it's pictures of kids and brothers and coaches. I mean, they're playing for so many more people other than themselves and I think that gets missed in the span of a three and a half hour football game. Nate, you told me when we first met that the national anthem has not always been played at sporting events. It's not like this great American tradition that goes back hundreds of years. Talk about the impetus for the national anthem being played at sporting events, if you would. Yeah, it was originally a military song, adapted from a poem and there's obviously controversy within the lyrics as well, specifically the third verse but as far as the Star Spangled Banner, the song itself, it was first popularized at a sporting event back 100 years ago this year, in 18, excuse me, 1918 during the World Series, also during World War I and we'd already lost quite a bit of men fighting overseas and this is game one of the World Series and the way that I had researched it quite a bit now the way the story sort of goes is just morale country-wide was pretty low. Baseball wasn't really doing well and you've got these big names at that time too. I mean, game one of the World Series is the Red Sox versus the Cubs at Wrigley Field and Babe Ruth is pitching. You know what I mean? And from as the story goes, it just wasn't, it wasn't what people were sort of used to. I mean, we had other things going on. You know what I mean? We were very distracted as a country. So it's a seventh inning stretch in the game. They're taking infield out there, the Red Sox and the third baseman for the Red Sox was a guy named Fred Thomas. Fred was in the Navy. It was granted furloughed to play in the World Series by the Navy. So, seventh inning stretch back then, they would have these military bands that would frequent the games and they'd play songs. They didn't, you know, it wasn't, no one's going to, you know, has a walk-up song by Drake or something like that. It's a very different, you know what I mean? Surprise, surprise. And this band starts playing, the stars bangle banner. And, you know, Fred Thomas is on third base and he like stops what he's doing, whips around, salutes the flag, the position of attention. And I guess the other players in the field were like, looking at him, okay, what do we do? You know, and out of respect to him, they all took their hats off. And it was just like, apparently this unifying moment in the stadium, a lot of the fans started singing the song as well. And, you know, it's pretty amazing that that's how it all sort of started. They did it again the next night during the seventh inning stretch again. And then when the series went back to Boston, they played it before the game. They brought wounded veterans, military on the field, they were honored. It was like, the whole purpose of it was to honor the military, because it was a military song, you know? So you fast forward 13 years and the Star Spangled Banner actually becomes the national anthem at that time. And one of the main reasons was because of its popularity at the sporting events and how it seemed to kind of bring everyone together. You know, which is an interesting story. And I think actually last time we talked, I talked about that. And it was almost like this feeling of being in defense of the anthem and the feeling like I had to, you know, stand up for the veterans side of things. And I still will always do that. But the more I've thought about it recently, I thought about the stadium itself and like what it looked like. What would it have felt like to actually be there and look around the stadium, you know? And first of all, everyone's wearing suits and ties and hats and it's pretty much all men. And they're probably almost all white. And if there is people of color, they're probably sitting in a different section. And all these things I started to think about as well, which is an interesting thing to know, you know? Because yes, it was probably this very patriotic moment. But patriotism, just like anything, is very different to everybody. You know, their perception of what it is and what it means. And yeah, it's an interesting story. It's actually a really cool story. And I'm surprised it hasn't really come up through this whole situation. The reason I think it hasn't is because there's no real polarization with that conversation. People want to just focus on like when we talk about what Kaepernick has started in this movement, it always goes back to, they're protesting the anthem. They're protesting the anthem. They're not protesting during the anthem. And they're not, you know, it's not about social injustice, racial inequality, police brutality, mass incarceration, all these other things. It's not about that. Like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why they're doing it. But no, they're protesting the anthem. It's just like, okay, that's a hot button phrase. You know what I mean? And we keep circling back to that. And you know, I blame a lot of people. I blame the media quite a bit. I blame a lot of people in power in some ways. But more than that, I blame ourselves because we're letting it happen. And we're not being bigger than that. You know what I mean? Them, those voices that are shouting at us and getting us stirred up and emotional and angry. We're letting that happen. We have a choice to react. You know, just like you said, things will happen to you that you can't help. You're either out of your control. We always have a choice on how we can react. We may perceive it in a certain way, but we don't have to react on that perception immediately. Also, when issues of police brutality continue to happen, and we become desynthesized to death, which I think is one of the most scary thing that's happening to us as Americans is, you know, we see people die every day, right? Especially through social media. It's like the click of a button at the end of a hashtag. These really sad stories that transpire, and we just kind of move on with our day instead of really honing in, and each of us in our individual lives becoming agents of change, right? But let me challenge what you're saying. It's difficult, I think, for many people. You have the flames of discord and division being fanned at the highest level of government. And this is a tweet from our president from September 25th, 2017. The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race is about respect for our country, flag, and national anthem. NFL must respect this. A more recent tweet, just I believe on September 5th, earlier this month, from President Trump as well. Just like the NFL whose ratings have gone way down, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea it would be this way. As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch and always will until they stand for the flag. So, Ibtihaj, what's your view on this? Is this ultimately about disrespecting our flag when an athlete kneels for the national anthem? But as Nate says, stands by his players while doing so. Is that a disrespectful, unpatriotic action in your view? If he's kneeling and he's telling you, I'm kneeling because I'm kneeling to protest police brutality in this country, the disproportionate numbers in which African-Americans lose their lives at the hands of police officers, I don't see how we can argue that and say, no, no, no, this is actually what you're doing. He's telling you why he's kneeling. It's very clear, right? He told you why he's kneeling. And the media has now hijacked it. Trump has hijacked it and made it something that it's not. And I've been at the receiving end of people just kind of twisting something and making it something that it's not and it's frustrating, especially because, again, we see people lose their lives every day and it's disheartening. No one wants to talk about the issues at hand and it's easy to ignore the issues when they don't directly affect you. We have a white guy in office who's saying, that's not what it's about, but it doesn't even want to talk about it. He doesn't want to address police brutality, he doesn't want to address the issues of gun control in our country because they, one, don't directly affect him in a sense, I mean they should because he's president, but he is not a black male, he's not a person of color, he will not be on the receiving end of police brutality. Like I know for myself as a person of color, I think twice before I call the cops because I don't know what would happen to me, I don't know what would happen to my loved ones, and I'm the child of a cop. My dad was in the police force for a really long time to retire a narcotics detective and my dad feels the same way because he's a black male. Right. Dan, what's your view? Yeah, I think we've lost the ability to, maybe we never had it, to assume positive intent, right? When someone says something in this country, kind of impetuous statement, right? Like he's telling you why he's protesting, but then you're like, no, no, no, you don't mean that. Like we want to create realities for other people. And this again for me comes back to, how can we bring this notion of empathy? Like how can we bring Brene Brown into the world of Bill Belichick? Because no one's willing to step outside of their small domain, right? To say, okay, I'm a fifth generation East Texan. When I drive my kids from Austin to Mount Pleasant, Texas, I know at a certain point, we start to count Confederate flags. And I tell them, and I said, listen, and the way I was raised, my dad said, listen, I have no problem with people wearing the flag or flying it, putting it in the back of their truck. I would rather know. I can now identify this person. That's fair. I'd rather have that. Right. I'd rather have that than the covert, politically correct version of that same stance. But I have to have that conversation with my eight-year-old, my six-year-old and my four-year-old to let them know that, listen, you have to have some heightened sense of awareness. And other people can say, oh, well, it's not really that dangerous, but this is our reality. And I'll say this, we all remember that Charlottesville and President Femvis made the decision to bring our controversial Confederate statues down here on campus. I was teaching a class and we were talking about empathy. And I made the decision to bring in the president of the Sons of the Confederacy class. And in vetting this with the university, they said, okay, don't tell any of your students you're doing this. Don't let any of them tweet while this man's talking. And he came and he presented a presentation. I paid a PowerPoint. And I said, listen, I'm gonna be quiet. I want you to present your case as to why you think these statues should stay on campus. And we're all going to listen for 30 minutes. No one's gonna say a word and then we're gonna have a discussion. And he made the case and it was a painful experience for a lot of us. But I think we all left there, at least feeling, we understood where he was coming from. Not that we believe that it was right, but he talked about his upbringing in Virginia and the way that the Civil War was painted to him as a young person. So I just think having the courage to listen, we don't do that. I think it's easier for us to stick a label on someone and then go to the next tweet. But that courage to listen is something that we're missing. Are athletes of color in the NFL or any sport for that matter, pressured to use their platform to make a statement about race? What does that look like internally within the ranks of athletes? For instance, there are a number of athletes who have been criticized for not taking advantage of the podium that they've been given. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods come to mind. What's that like for an athlete? It's tough, you know, so I teach this in my class and we start with Jack Johnson and work through, you know, Jesse Owens taking on Hitler in Munich, right? And then work our way to Muhammad Ali. And I think for us, Muhammad Ali sort of stands as this bookend to which we compare activism from athletes. And for so long, people have wanted Michael Jordan to sort of rise to that level, but that's not his persona. I think athletes are trying to find their way. I'm also very slow to sort of prescribe what I think athletes should do because they are taking the safety of their family's lives into account. And so I'm very, you know, as a father of five and a husband, I understand that you look at the LeBron's home that was defaced with the racial epithets and, you know, you look at the Donald Sterling. I mean, over this, the last five years, athletes have been in a position where they've been under assault. You know, the one tweet you left out was the sons of, you know, from our president. Vitches. Yes. He's running for governor. He can't say that. He can't say that. My kids are going to watch this on Longmore Network someday, so I don't want to, you can't do that. But, you know, the dissapointing, that's all. But that's, you know, that's where we are. I just, you know, I look at LeBron and the I Promise school. What a powerful statement. Like, I can both voice my opinions. I can do more than dribble and I'm going to help fund a school. He can shoot, too. And he can shoot, too. He can dribble and shoot. I'm going to fund a school that's not only going to change these young people's lives but also their parents' lives, with, you know, GED financing. I think that's the sort of activism that can help us get to the next level. It doesn't necessarily mean a picket sign or an op-ed or boycotting a game. This economic empowerment can also help to move, I think, the levers of change. But I think LeBron has done that, right? He wore the I Can't Breathe t-shirt. He's done both, yeah, yeah. I think that he is the benchmark right now for a lot of athletes, or I think that he should be. I mean, he's a little bit different because he's like a goat, right? I feel like he's going to have a job no matter what, where some people don't have that same luxury. But I'm on, and as a professional athlete, I believe that we each owe it not just to our communities, but to ourselves, especially as athletes of color, right? I mean, you mentioned Muhammad Ali and to me, he's laid the blueprint. He sacrificed his own financial stability, his freedom, his family's safety to make sure that we each have equal opportunity no matter where you're from, your ethnicity, your faith, whatever. And I will never waver from using my platform because I don't know, and you talked about having maybe it's faith, maybe it's a spiritual base. I get that question a lot. Like, do you ever wonder if your activism and your choice to use your platform to combat like social issues, will that affect you financially in terms of endorsement deals? And I'm like, well, it might, but I never wanted to partner with those companies anyway, right? So that's the way I see it. And I also think that things that are meant for you will never miss you. But again, I think that that just ties into spirituality. Yeah, I want to go back to what you said earlier that you went through a period, and this is documented in your book. You went through a period, a two year period of depression, real depression. And you also said you have to find ways of sustaining yourself mentally and physically. So what example did you look to? Who inspired you when you were going through that time? You mentioned Muhammad Ali, were there other athletes that you looked to or other examples that you looked to help sustain you during that period? I would say not necessarily athletes to sustain me, but just having like a strong base. Family is really important for a lot of athletes, not just to keep you going, to keep you motivated, but also keep you grounded. I spent a lot of time talking to my mom, who for a long time I thought, we all think our moms are doctors, right? So I was talking to my mom about having these bouts of sadness. I'm like, wait a second, she's not a real doctor, right? Mom's a teacher. So I actually asked, you know, I saw like professional help and sports psychologist, but I learned that self-care is really important and not to be afraid to say, sorry, I can, I'm gonna take a break, I'm gonna take time for myself, I'm gonna rest not just my body, but like my mind, to take some time away from this toxic space that I had to exist in because it's war. Nate, you've been a voice of reason in this whole controversy around the anthem, as exemplified in your letter to Colin Kaepernick. What do you tell your friends in the military who think that kneeling during the national anthem, it's any kind of protest during the national anthem, is an unpatriotic statement? Well, the oath we took when we decided to join the military and enlisted is to defend the Constitution, you know, it's not to defend the flag or the anthem, it's to defend the Constitution in the First Amendment, includes freedom of speech. And so we also fought for the man that would take that flag down right there, put it in front of me and burn it. I don't like it, it would destroy me, you know, it hurt more than almost anything as far as symbols go for me, but I still fought for that. And that is why this country is the greatest country in the world. And we're not perfect, we're not perfect, we still have, we thought about this earlier, we have a long way to go. We have come a distance and what this country is supposed to stand for. You know, what hurt me more than anything about what Colin first said in that initial kind of interview about this, because he talked about, like you said, and like you said, about why he's doing it. But he did say I'm not gonna stand for the flag of a country that oppresses black people and people of color. And for me, that hit me as the flag is not doing that, you know, there are individuals doing that. The flag is not stand for that though, you know. And that hurt. But the more I listened to him, the more I talked to more people about this and their experiences, the more I understood where that came from. Just like as hard as it was to hear, you know, sons of the Confederacy guy talk, you're like, okay, now I understand why he feels that way, you know what I'm saying? For me, it was different though, because I agree with the fight that Colin is making. I don't necessarily agree with that fight. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. But I mean, but that was- I'm not with that guy. No, no, no, no. Yeah. But you know, as hard as that is, we also fought for that as long as he's not hurting people. I did fight for that too. So it's been this tough place to stand and to be in the veteran community. It's hard, man, because when you see one of your brothers in a wooden box with that flag draped over, it's different, you know, it just is. I had a really close friend of mine who the day I was, actually the morning before I sat down with Colin, he sent me this note and he'd read the letter and he's a really open-minded guy. And he was just like, man, I'm with you on this whole Colin thing. And he had no idea I was about to go sit down with him. I'm with you on this whole Colin thing and I love what you're trying to do, but I mean, I just left the tarmac and he was one of my best friends and I'm standing next to his wife and a plane had just flown back from the Middle East and they unloaded that body with that coffin draped in the flag and he's like, I just, I can't help the rage I'm feeling. I just wanted you to know that, like, you know, and I showed that note to Colin and to see Colin react, not with, yeah, but it's not about that. Instead, he was like, wow, like, what can I do to continue this journey without hurting him? And that was his response, which was awesome. And that's not what you're gonna read in the paper though. You're gonna read, I won't stand for a flag that oppresses black people, black people of color. And that will be focused on because it's gonna get more shares, whether they're happy shares or mad shares, you know, that's what's gonna happen. I was with Colin last week at Nike and he is the most docile guy. Like, he doesn't even seem like he likes to spotlight that much to me. He just seems like a, right? And you know him as well as I do, to be completely honest. So we don't know him that well, right? Yeah, I don't really know him that well. I mean, you know, through that conversation and we stayed in contact for most of the next season while he was playing, but don't really know him that well. But I think to speak to that, you know, he hasn't done interviews, hasn't really engaged in conversations like this, which I would love to see him do. But if it's not, if he's not that type of guy, that's interesting. I mean, it's interesting to think about like Jordan and Tiger. And for maybe he has a little bit of that. Like, I don't wanna be this spokesman. But at the same time, to still do what he did, I think speaks more to a type of courage and you know, you can have your opinions about that all you want. But it's interesting to see that unfold. But I do wish that he would speak more so people could see what I saw. And also, Eric, we talked about this backstage. What's his last name? Eric Reed. Eric Reed. Who also took a knee with him. I mean, to listen to him speak was so interesting. Because the way he's so very passionate about waiting is such a young guy, only 26. And like Collin is out of a job, has a family to feed. But they stand behind what they did and they'll continue to fight just not on the football field. You're a Nike athlete, Josh. Does it surprise you that Nike's stock has gone up four points and 4% rather? And is now at an all-time high after the controversial Collin Copernica? I mean, I wish I had bought stock right after that. Next time. No, I'm not surprised. I mean, I feel like Nike took a stand before that in January of this year. They released the Nike sports hijab. And I'm surprised Trump didn't tweet about that. I mean, I know it seems like just a piece of fabric. But for me as an athlete, I fenced in a fabric that's really similar to this is like a Georgia, and it's doubled. And when I was competing, and it gets wet from sweat, I was always getting carded at competitions. I would get a yellow card for starting too late or starting too early. You get two yellow cards, a red card, similar to a soccer. You get a point against you. And in fencing, it's very subjective. The referee lets you know who gets the scores at the point. And imagine your referee's upset with you. He thinks that you're not paying attention or you're trying to delay the game. And it can just snowball really quickly. But when I tried the sports hijab, I realized that, one, for a really long time, I just could not hear. This fabric, when it gets wet, it's impossible to hear through. And for me, this sports hijab has changed and transformed my life in a way that I didn't imagine, even as a professional athlete. But also what it's done for our youth, what it's done for just women, Muslim women in general, how they look at being active and working out and leading healthy lifestyles. They no longer have the excuse of, I don't know what to wear. And get out there and be active. You have the sports hijab that the biggest company that ever was has created and to create a sports hijab, to create a hijab Barbie doll in the midst of all this craziness, right? In a society that has depicted Muslims for far too long in this dark, really gross way to draw the line in the sand and say, we're gonna choose diversity. We're gonna choose inclusiveness. And we don't care how it affects us financially. I think it's a really strong defining moment in our history. It's on brand. It's on brand for Nike, for who they are. I mean, before this whole campaign, you've got the exhibit with 15 pairs of Jordans in there. You know what I mean? Representing, showing that Nike's kind of been ahead of a lot of other brands, not just in sports and taking those chances, taking those risks, but they're calculated. They know who supports their brand, who likes their brand, and they're speaking to them. And they're not worried about the few people that are gonna burn their mall walkers. Or burn their houses down. I was like, oh, knucklehead. They're not. But it says, they're not marketing to them. Those people bought those shoes at Ross for 35 bucks. It's all good. I shop at Ross sometimes. It's fine, I'm just saying. Nike's not worried about that. We're winding down, but I don't wanna leave the stage without talking about the good works. I can say that because I'm white. Oh yeah, you're for sure. I don't wanna leave the stage without talking about the good works that you're doing through the organizations that you've founded. You talked a little bit about your center, Darren, but talk about the niche that the center for sports leadership and innovation filled and why you established it. So we felt, and this was, we founded in 2014. This was on the hills of the Ray Rice episode and Commissioner Goodell visited Austin to meet with Coach Strong, and I had a chance to sit in on that meeting. And the conversation kept coming back to how can we leverage college athletics? And you think about college football. I mean, this is in 46 states, the highest paid public employee is the head football coach of the Flagship University. You look at the amount of revenue that's generated. There's so much more that we can do aside from building more seats or getting new lockers. There's much more that we can do in terms of developing our student athletes. We felt that way in 2014. And so for me, I realized that the only sacred time in the life of a college student athlete is class time. That can't be touched by an athletic director or the new head coach. And so we decided to make this course, which is a course that most overwhelming majority of freshman athletes take. And we jump into implicit bias and vulnerability and empathy and really start with what we think the building blocks of leadership are. And then from there, we get into financial management and we pose questions like is that a pair of Jordans or is that a need or a want, right? You'd be surprised at where people fall on this. If you want or need a pair of Jordans, they're on sale at Ross. Yes. Not Jordans. Not Jordans. You know, interestingly enough, I tell people, if you have an issue with Nike, eight of the 10 big 12 schools wear Nike. 10 of the 14 SEC schools wear Nike. So I saw these old myths in Alabama fans with issues with the Kaepernick commercial. I said, well, this means that you should probably boycott Alabama football. Yeah, well, there's no black guys on the Alabama football team anyway. No, no, no, right? I mean, so if we're there, if that adamant about Nike and its position, then that means you should really stop watching college football all together. But what we've done is we've trained collegiate freshman athletes. We brought high school athletic directors and coaches to the University of Texas courses around decision making and crisis management. You know, we know that coaches are oftentimes cited as the most influential person in the lives of student athletes. And so we want to help support them in their growth and their leadership growth. So it's been a four year journey and we're excited about the future. Nate, you're involved with both merging vets and players and water boys. What are those long term? Yeah, merging vets and players. I co-founded that with Jay Glazer back in 2015. It'll be three years on December 7th, which is Pearl Harbor anniversary. And what we're doing is we're bringing together combat veterans and former professional athletes. And we're helping them through that transition. We're helping them find purpose again. You know, once the uniform comes off and it's been, it's an interesting journey. We're learning as we're going, but you know, we would never compare what military veterans do on the battlefield and what athletes do on the sporting field. But as we've talked about this unifier of sports, it's the same in the military. You know, we come from all over the country and the world sometimes and we sign on for the same reasons for the same thing, right? And we all get the same mission. Well, not the same reasons, I shouldn't say that. Sign on for various reasons, but we all have the same mission and we have to put the few things that make us different aside and work together and appreciate one another. And we don't always like each other, you know, but we fight together for a common goal. And it's very similar in sports as it is in the military. And both of those careers end very young for the most part, you know, you serve your country. You play a professional sport, you're in your 20s, 30s if you're lucky, and it's over. And so much of us identify with that uniform, whether it's camouflage or our team colors, and like that's, we can feel like that's who we are and not, you know, just what we did. You know, who you are is the person that that sacrifice so much to be great, to be elite, you know what I mean? And you did it for the man on your left and right and that team and to achieve this goal and it's a powerful thing. And then to find those things in your life that can even somewhat replicate that, it's very difficult, you know, and then the loss of camaraderie and all that stuff. So we bring these two groups together, they have such a mutual respect for one another, you know. And, you know, we meet up on a weekly basis and we train together and we fellowship and we have these fireside chats where people were free to open up about everything. They got going on their life, good, bad and different. And, you know, it's all about just building that community back up, that locker room. That's really what we do. And the water boys real quick is, we started by Chris Long, who's been very involved in activism from the Philadelphia Eagles currently. And he started this clean water initiative in East Africa called the Water Boys. So his goal was to bring together players in the locker room in the fan base and raise money for these clean water wells. And he reached out to me literally the day after I got cut from the Seahawks and said, hey man, it sounds like you've got some free time now. Well, did you like to be involved? And I asked if whatever I did, I could involve veterans. And he said, absolutely. So the initiative we came up with is called Conquering Killy. Mount Kilimanjaro happens to be in Tanzania. And so every year we bring former NFL players and combat vets that are, most of them are wounded. A lot of them are amputees. And we climb Mount Kilimanjaro together as a group and we raise money in the process for these clean water wells. And when we go out there every year, we visit the villages like the Maasai tribe and we see where these wells have been dug, what they do to the communities and we do dedication ceremonies at new wells and we meet the people in the bush literally, and find the places that have the greatest need. And then we go climb the mountain. And it's a really powerful experience for everybody. But every year that we do it, everyone's so looking forward to the climb, but it's the people over there and what they were a part of doing for those people that matters the most to everyone. They always come back and all the photos they're sharing, they're not on the mountain. Maybe won by the sign. They say, look, I did it. But it's with those Tanzanians, which are an amazing group of people. That's what we're doing. Thank you. Etdahaj, your nonprofit is Athletes for Impact. What are you trying to achieve with that composition? So I was really fortunate when I qualified for the Olympic team to find the best management team. I'm a Wasserman athlete and my agent, Lindsay Gagawa-Colas, she has always been a driving force in helping me find my voice in activism. And again, I know that I've said this already, but I feel like I don't have a choice that my community's lives in a way depend on it. Our children's lives depend, I don't have kids, but our children's lives depend on it. They are youth. I feel like they're looking to us for leadership. And in co-founding Athletes for Impact with John Carlos, who I'm sure you guys are all familiar with who won a silver medal, or sorry, bronze medal at the 68 games and that infamous poster with the black paraphrase with Tommy Smith and Peter Norman, it just felt right to me to work with athletes like Michael Bennett and Maya Moore and Brianna Stewart and Sue Byrd and just hopefully have a space where professional athletes can come and feel comfortable in learning about not just how to use your platform in moving the needle, but also how to effectively find ways to together use our voice. And hopefully be agents of change. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, please see Get in the Gang, which is open after the program. Please buy Ibtihaj's book, Proud, which will be on sale in the lobby. Proud of placement. Thank you. Proud of placement. And I want to thank Ibtihaj Muhammad, Nate Boyer, and Darren Govner. Darren Roberts, not only for being here tonight, but for all they are doing to promote positive change and bring us closer together. Thank you very much. Thank you.