Ohh my goodness,
welcome back to the show on June 26th.
Something pretty epic is happening.
the Champions of change celebrity
basketball game will be played
at Climate Pledge Arena.
The event is the brainchild of
former Seahawks Doug Baldwin,
Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril.
The game will feature a Seattle
sports stars with celebrity coaches
Marshawn Lynch, Gary Payton.
The event will raise funds
for five area charities,
and I sat down with Doug to find
out how this idea got started.
I mean, it's been years in the making
several conversations just about how do we
come together and do different things that
we had already been doing individually,
but then coming together to expand that to
scale that we've got great partners that
we work with in the Community already,
and so they were already in
the conversation as well.
Let's do something,
put something together and just
happen all the pieces fell together.
That's awesome.
I mean, we have a platform.
You use it, but the people
behind it to lift the platform
up is really important.
And you're to be supporting
5 very worthy organizations.
How did you choose them?
Their organizations that are you
know they're not highly touted.
They're not in the spotlight a lot.
They're not getting a lot of recognition,
but they're doing a lot of great work, right?
And they have a lot of data behind the
impact that they have in the community,
and so I guess the thesis for this five
benefiting partners was that we wanted to
focus on families and children, right?
I think just from our perspective,
we know the impact that.
Investment in the pouring of love into
us as children had on us as we became
adults and now that we have children,
right right so it's very impactful for
us to make sure that we're focusing
on that component of of of service.
And so these organizations just fell
into that bucket bucket perfectly.
This all comes down to an epic
basketball game June 26th,
as I've just learned it's
at Climate pledge Arena.
Tell me about how it goes,
what it's like.
It's a celebrity basketball
game, but I think.
You're dealing with highly
competitive individuals, right?
So it's gonna be a lot of fun.
I'll say that we're bringing
the entire community out, right?
It's not just the Seahawks,
but we're, you know,
we're we're ******* the the the Mariners,
the cracking the Sounders,
the storm who else we got
the the old sonics wow.
Yeah, so yeah sorry,
not the old sonics former Sonics.
Now we have a great roster that
we're building and it's just a
lot of it's a lot of folks who
just enjoy serving the community.
And, you know,
are willing to have some fun in the process.
Bring some spotlight to obviously
to the event,
but also to these organizations.
So let's talk about the coaches
to Gary Payton Marshawn Lynch.
What do we expect when they coach?
Obviously you all know Marshawn
is he's incredibly entertaining.
But he's also incredibly competitive,
right? Right? And he's,
he's he's a little bit older,
so his body's a little banged up so
he's not gonna be on. He's the coach.
That's why he's the coach.
He's gonna be on the court with us.
And then obviously we all know what
Gary brings to the game.
He's a. Fiery and competitive,
but can have a lot of fun,
so I expect a lot of trash
talking to be going on back.
I mean, it's already started
with Marshawn, but that's OK.
It's yeah. It's nonstop with Marshawn.
But I do think when it gets down
to crunch time in the game like
that's when you know the mindset of
a strategic coach comes out and I'm
very interested to see what happens.
Interesting all, right?
So you've retired from the
Seahawks and the NFL in 2019,
but you're not just laying around,
you're doing a lot of work for the community.
And on top of champions of change.
Why is this so important to you that you
again used your platform for advocacy?
And I don't wanna offend anybody when
I say this. When I respond this way,
but it's like, why not, right?
And I think it is more unique to the three
of us are just entertainers athletes in
general because you have a platform right?
And the expectation is like when you know
too much is given much is expected, right?
And I want to make sure that
the work that I'm doing,
the effort that I'm doing post career.
You know I want to have fun.
I want to enjoy what I'm doing.
But I also want to make sure that I'm
serving right this Community, this region.
In general, has really served us.
Yeah, as young men when we came
into the NFL treated us very well,
obviously supported us in that process.
We wanna be able to provide that back,
you know,
and we come from environments,
cultures, communities that have taught
us that you know our families raised
us up that way and so this is just
a natural progression for myself.
For might be for Cliff and this is
what we've been doing.
So in order to, you know,
to scale that to.
To expand that,
we joined forces
and talking about the
community, if I asked you.
What makes the community healthy?
Would you say love?
Yeah. And I mean, let's break it
down to something even smaller.
You talk about a family, right?
Yeah, what makes a family healthy?
You're not always gonna have the rainbows
and butterflies in the family, right?
You're not always gonna get along.
Not everything's not gonna be
smooth all the time, right?
But if you have that consistent foundation
of love of knowing that you know,
yes, you're my family, we may fight.
We may argue we, but I still love you.
I still see you as a human being on this
planet trying to survive and thrive.
And if I treat you as such.
There's a lot of things that
can come out of that.
You know you.
There's a lot of progress and impact
innovation that can come out of that.
And so yeah, if we can expand that and have a
larger foundation of that in the community.
It's amazing what we can do,
but I also know we're combating, you know,
the chaos and the distractions of the world.
And so you don't ever
expect it to be perfect.
But that's also part of it,
right?
You can never know the true depths
of joy unless you understand
the true depths of suffering.
He is 1 awesome human being right
now during this interview with Doug.
I may have alluded to the idea.
Actually, no, I didn't allude
to the idea. My producer.
I sent her a text message saying I
had mad game on the basketball court,
which is not exactly true.
She told Doug that. Anyway,
I ended up going on the court with him.
Check it out, oht
Now you start OK, alright?
Dave Darrin simulator.
Don't worry, I've said worse,
nowhere I'm getting.
What happened to that confidence?
What happens to that confidence?
I use backward.
You don't have to do backward.
I didn't call it.
I didn't call it alright,
you didn't call it.
Mean I am much better than this.
Usually I just want you all to know.
Typically I'm actually you
should see me at the YMCA. OK,
no, no, you actually should look, hey,
my pal Doug said I did pass the ball.
Well, OK, so that's half
the battle right there.
Well, the Champions of change
celebrity basketball game
which I will not be a part of,
but I will probably attend is June
26th at Climate Pledge Arena Arena.
And you can go to championsofchange.org
to find out more who's on the team and
get tickets and all that fun stuff.
So there you have it.