NFL Running Back Ricky Watters: How Adoption Shaped My Life

Join us for this interview with former NFL Running Back and Super Bowl Champion Ricky Watters. He is an adoptee, an adoptive dad, and author of a new children's book on adoption, A Gift Called Shane.

In this episode, we discuss: 

• How old were you when you learned you were adopted and how did you find out?
• When you discovered you were adopted, you mentioned in your NFL movie that it put a big chip on your shoulder. How has that chip served you well as an adoptive dad? 
• How has it been a detriment?
• Why did you decide to adopt?
• Why did you decide to adopt internationally?
• Did your experience with finding out late that you were adopted affect the way you discussed adoption with your son?
• Do you see any signs of a similar “chip” in your son that you had when you found out you were adopted? How do you help him navigate it for his own success?
• How did you prepare your biological son for the adoption of his brother? 
• How do you support your adopted son in his questions about identity, birth family, etc.?
• Are you in reunion with your biological family?
• How has your adoptive family handled your reunion with your birth family?
• How excited were you for fellow hometown boy Shady McCoy to get into the Eagles Hall of Fame?
• What was your experience with playing at Notre Dame? 

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am both the host of this show as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today, guys, we have a treat for you. We are going to be talking with NFL running back Ricky Watters about his adoption as an adoptee, but also about his adoption as an adoptive dad. Ricky Watters is an adoptee, an adoptive dad and a former NFL running back and Super Bowl champion who played for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks. He also won a national championship at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of a children's book about adoption titled A Gift Called Shane. Welcome Ricky to Creating a Family. We are so glad to have you here.

Unknown Speaker  0:50  
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me

Dawn Davenport  0:53  
today. We got something special for our audience. We'll realize that we have not done this before, and I am just as excited about having Tracy Whitney here. Tracy is a content creator at creating a family. She has been with us forever. Tracy, how long have you been with creating a family? I put you on the spot. Do

Unknown Speaker  1:12  
you remember I joined the staff in 2016

Dawn Davenport  1:15  
Well, close to forever. She is the voice behind all the articles, all the tip sheets. She is the heart behind our support groups. She is also a friend and somebody I have learned a lot from. She also happens, Ricky, to be your number one fan, and a huge Ricky waters fan fly, eagles fly. She actually was a little nervous, but you were the draw that got her here. She was like, Oh, I don't know, daughter, I'm a little scared. And I went, it is Ricky water. She went, Oh, you're right, it is. So this will be especially fun for me, because I get to talk with Ricky, and I get to talk with Ricky, with Tracy, so I am especially happy Ricky. I'm gonna Tracy and I are gonna share questions, but I'm gonna start, how old were you when you learned you were adopted? And how did you find out?

Speaker 1  2:12  
Well, yeah, that's a that's one for the ages, right there. I was about nine or 10 years old, and I know that because I was at the playground, which had this basketball court. It was only, like, three or four blocks from my home, but it was a place that there's some shady people might be there, you know, some sketchy people. So I had to prove to my to my parents, that I could go there by myself. So I know I was there by myself playing at the basketball court, and this guy comes up to me, yes, about my sister. My sister's name is Rhonda. She's six years older than me. Uh, guys liked her split it that way because she was very pretty. So for him to ask about her wasn't anything weird. I said, Oh no, here's somebody else. He's asking about my sister. He's probably gonna say, Oh, she's pretty. What's up, man, won't you help me?

Dawn Davenport  3:02  
Can you give me an end? Yeah, you know, yeah, that's, that's what used to

Speaker 1  3:05  
always happen. So I thought for sure that's what was taking place at this time. But instead of saying that, he goes, he goes, Yeah, yeah. Is that your sister? I said, Yeah. He goes, and that's not your sister. And I go, oh god. What angle is he playing? Now, you know, this is one I never heard for sure. So he goes, Ned, that's my sister. And I was like, Come on, man, you know, I've heard it all, but I haven't heard that one, you know? And then he goes, Look at me, and look at look at you. And who does she look more like? And I was like, wow. Because she's lighter skin, she's fair skin. She has what we call the good hair, so different hair than I had. And when he said that, I thought about that, it kind of came back some of the things that I have dealt with, where people would say to me, you know, if I was out with my mom, my mom had fair skin as well. Looked a lot like how my sister looks. So if I was with those two, they'd say, man, what happened to you? You know, that kind of stuff. They would joke me different things. So that kind of came up with, I said, You know what? Nah, I'm going to get my dad. My dad, Big Jim. My dad was a war veteran and a tough guy that no one in the area wanted to mess with. So I was like, Man, I get my dad. My dad's going to go down there. He's going to tell this guy off. He's going to tell him, don't play with my son like that and all that. But when I got there and I talked to my dad, and I said, Dad, he said, this, this, and that was all mad and everything. And he just, my dad took a big sigh, big breath, and he just like, I had never seen him like this. He was like, at a loss for words, like, he never had a loss for words. He doesn't even talk like that or act like that. So I was just like, whoa. And he said, just my mom was at work at the time. So he said, wait till your mom gets home. We'll talk about it. So I was just like, oh gosh, yeah. So now I'm walking. This is kind of like that Spike Lee, where in the movie where you're moving, but you're not walking. I felt like that. So I went outside. I was trying to I had few hours. Hours to myself and to just my feelings in my head and trying to grasp all this and figure out, what is she even going to tell me when she comes and when she came home? You know, I was finally happy she was home. You know, I could talk to her, but she started crying. She didn't obviously like the fact that this was coming up, and this was brought to her, and, you know, did I plot this on her lap? So she was she started saying things like, you know, wasn't I a good mom? And haven't we been great? And I said, Oh my God, yes, you know, I can't even argue about anything like that. I you know, I love my family. I love you guys. I said, but I do want to know the truth, and what is the truth? And she kind of told me real quickly, and it was something that After that day, I didn't really bring up anymore, because I see how it made her feel. And then you made my dad that it lost for worse, I you know, but if you fast forward past that, I had people who kind of reached out to me at times during my life, and even when I was in high school, I was in college, saying, you know, I'm your brother, I'm your this or that or or I'm related to you. And I'd ask my mom, and she would say, No, no, don't deal with those people. Those people, they're not related to you. You don't have to. So I wouldn't, you know, respond to them. I just kind of left it. But it was always something that was kind of a little sore spot for me.

Dawn Davenport  6:24  
So obviously, then the people who were saying they were related were related on your birth family side, yes,

Speaker 1  6:30  
were related on my birth family side. So they

Dawn Davenport  6:34  
knew you were adopted and that you were related to them,

Speaker 1  6:37  
yes. And then the crazy part was they were in my hometown the whole time. I even had some people who were my cousin or I found out now that I played with, that I played with in high school, that I played with in college, I played sure, even in the pros. So it was like, Wow, pretty amazing to find those things out, to find out kind of where I really came from.

Dawn Davenport  7:00  
You know, when we say to adoptive parents that your child should never remember being told they should just grow up knowing this is why you don't want a child to have I mean, that was traumatic for you. Oh so traumatic. And plus, you probably didn't get many answers because you just shut down the conversation because you could see that it was too hurtful for your parents. So you probably didn't have any answers and were left just with even more questions.

Unknown Speaker  7:25  
I would suspect Yes, without a doubt.

Dawn Davenport  7:28  
When were you able to start getting answers? Because at this point, all you knew was a word adopted. I assume you didn't have a clue as to really what that meant or how it came about. So you were nine with not much information. How did you start piecing it together? Because it sounds like your parents were not there to be a resource for you.

Speaker 1  7:47  
Well, actually, what happened with my wife helped me out with that, and I didn't find out, or really get some real answers until I was, like, 32 years old. It was after I had played in the NFL. You know, I was successful already. And the truth is, she asked me, my wife, she said, you know, how do you feel about me finding your your birth parents, if I could, you know, I kind of feel like that's something that you're missing. And I was like, but I'm successful already. Marie, doing well, uh, it's not something that I'm really interested in but as we went along a little more, you know, we talked about it again, and then she said, You know, I kind of did a little digging, and I think I might be able to find her. And so I said, Oh, if you actually could, you know, why not? It'd probably be a good thing for me. But I had no idea how good once she did it, and I actually did find her, talk to her, see that I had brothers that look like me. It's kind of like seeing where I come from. I got to understand that they do poetry. So the fact that I was a poet that loved doing poetry, it wasn't always a cool thing for me, but my mom did poetry even I had a uncle who taught poetry at the University of Pennsylvania. So it was, poetry is in my blood. So wow, it's it really, uh, helped me with that. Wish I could've got it earlier, because earlier I used to do poetry, and guys would be like, hey, no, you're a poet. Oh, and this and that, yeah. And it wasn't until I started doing rap songs, you know, all of a sudden it was cool. It was like, Oh, that's cool poetry. Now, yeah,

Dawn Davenport  9:21  
the acceptable form of poetry, right? Exactly. Let me pause here to remind everyone that you can send your questions to us if you would like for us to answer them on our podcast, weekend wisdom. It's a short form podcast where we answer your questions in about five maybe 10 minutes max. So please send us your question at info, at creating a family.com or the link in the show notes, we'll get them there as well. So don't forget send us your questions. And now back to the show.

Speaker 2  9:55  
Thank you for being with us today. I'm not just a huge Eagles fan, I'm a. So a huge Notre Dame fan. It's like in my blood, so exactly who you are. He was very excited about this interview. You mentioned in your NFL movie that when you discovered you were adopted, it put a big chip on your shoulder, and I'm wondering how that chip has served you well as an adoptive dad now that you're raising a young man,

Speaker 1  10:21  
yeah, well, in football and things like that, it really helped me, because it made me tough and all this and and my dad himself, my dad, like I said, he was a war veteran. He he taught me to take up for myself and, you know, stand up for myself and be tough and suck it up when things don't feel good, and, you know, get things done. So that was, that was all great. But when you become a dad, some of those things are not the best thing, you know. So you don't want to have a chip on your shoulder when you're dealing with your kids and all that. But then also when they would go to those things, and there have, they have a little chip where I see that chip starting to form with them. I was able to help them because I had been there before, and I know that it doesn't help you in all situations, even though it helps you a lot in life, to be tough, strong, everything. That's not what you always want to be. It's almost like you want to be flexible. You want to be soft when you want to or need to be. You just want to have a balance with it. And I was able to give them more of a balance and an understanding of, you know, who I am, who they are, and what you need to go on, because one day they're going to be dads too, right? And also they're going to be teammates, they're going to be friends, they're going to be classmates of other people, and they have to handle those people accordingly and with respect. So

Speaker 2  11:36  
different chips, maybe as they're growing and developing, but because you've got this chip, you can help them develop the sense to know when is the right time for this chip and when this chip is not serving you well, right? Exactly,

Dawn Davenport  11:51  
how did adoption influence the chip? I mean, you said it came because of your adoption. And help me understand the connection between adoption and you getting the the idea that I'm going to power through, I am going to show I'm going to prove to everybody who I am, and nobody's going to get one overall me, that type of thing. Yep,

Speaker 1  12:11  
definitely. Because I felt like I had to prove myself. I had to make sure that people understood that I was worthy. Did you feel less than at the point I felt less than what it did was it made me have to be the best at everything, even in school, because they put me in Catholic school, which was great. I didn't like it at first, because all my friends were in the public schools, and they were going to a different school. They were playing on different teams than me. It was like, man, you're, you're kind of a sellout, or whatever. It's kind of in the hood, you know, they they would say things like that to me, so it didn't feel good that I was at a different place. But I've come to learn that that was the best thing they did for me, was having me there because it drove me, because I wanted to prove myself at that school, that I was smart enough, and I would be in every spelling bee. I won spelling bees, mathies, science fair, projects. It don't matter what it was, I'm going for it. And I'm going full Blaze. If it's the prettiest girl, I want to get the prettiest girl. And everybody know I can get her. She likes me. She thinks I look good. You know, I don't have to be light skinned with the pretty hair. She knows, you know, I'm a cool guy or whatever. So everything was like that. And even in sports, you know, it's like I, I don't just want to be on the team. I want to be the best one on the team, or one of the best ones on the team, and I want people to to acknowledge that and acknowledge me, you know, for those things. So it always pushed me. I always wanted to, if I saw something that was kind of cool when someone else was doing, oh, I'ma learn it, and I'm figure this out, and I'm gonna try to be the best at it that I possibly could be. So those things, I think definitely were good for me, because when I look at it, I mean, I became Student Council President, I was class president, and I was the president of the school, you know, things like that, Honor Society, different things that I was able to attain. I know it was because of that, because I just was not going to be denied.

Dawn Davenport  14:06  
Did it function as a detriment to you? This, this having to always be the best, to be perfect. Is that a burden? Sometimes it

Speaker 1  14:14  
was definitely, at times, a burden. And it could be very tough. It could be a very tough. Cross the bear. I put it that way. When I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it in retrospect, you know, hindsight 2020, everything looks much better. But when I was going through it, it was very tough, and at times I would get confused and when to kind of back off, or when to just go in there and Bust the doors down, you know, and make it happen, and make these things happen. And it also caused me to want to ask questions, you know, want to make sure things are are exactly as I perceive them to be, because so many times I perceive them to be a certain way, and it got changed on me, or somehow was not even that at all. So even to. Understand what's important and why it's important and what I need to do in those circumstances to get the best outcome that I want for whatever situation I'm in.

Dawn Davenport  15:11  
And it was that because your adoption had been hidden from you, so what you thought was true, the foundation of what you believed to be true, was taken away, and therefore you questioned, yeah, yeah. And

Speaker 1  15:24  
it makes you start questioning everything. So you don't want to be that person either the question everything, because that will irritate people. I mean, you're asking your coach questions, you're asking your, you know, your teacher questions, you're asking people, and it's like you want to make sure of what it is that I'm supposed to be doing or how I should be following through with whatever's going on. And a lot of times they, especially coaches and people like that, they just, you know, you're a soldier, and just do what I said, and don't worry about why or what, what we're trying to figure out. But I became this intellectual who wants to know exactly why I'm doing this, what it's going to do for the team. And even I might even say something that I think could be a little bit better or help us, and that wasn't always taking that well from the coaches and stuff. I

Dawn Davenport  16:09  
was gonna ask how that went over. I'm just gonna Lou Holtz was not receptive to that. Oh, that's a shock. Let me interrupt this interview for just a moment to ask a favor of you. Will you please, please, please, rate and review this podcast. Whatever app you're listening to it on will have the ability for you to give us a star rating. And if you're feeling generous, it would be great if you would also write a review, also tell a friend that helps us as well. Thank you so much. And now I'll let you get back to the interview.

Speaker 2  16:46  
So you have two sons, one biological and one adopted. Do you see some of that starting to show up in your adopted son? And how? How do you kind of go after it in parenting, both from your own lived experiences, but also with honor and respect for his journey, because it's been so different from your journey. Yeah,

Speaker 1  17:09  
yeah. You know, we try to with everything we could as parents, you know, to help him to not have that chip and from day to day, you know, we taught him to be proud of being adopted and confident. And I think the best thing that we did was right away let him know. We let him know that he was adopted. We let him know that that's important. We let him know that he's special. We told him that we were meant to be he was meant to be a part of our family, and that it goes both ways. This is a two way street. It wasn't just what we did for him, but it was also he was given to us, you know, and it all came for a circle for us because of that.

Dawn Davenport  17:53  
Why did you decide to adopt you had a biological child? Yeah.

Speaker 1  17:57  
Well, there's something that I always wanted to do. I always wanted to pay it forward. Always thought of adopting a kid and doing what my parents did for me and how much they helped me. So I thought it was very, very important. And when I was started to date my wife and she felt the same way. She even expressed that she wouldn't mind adopting a child, and she understood that there are kids out here that need us, and that that would be obviously a very good thing for us, but a very good thing for me, and it was,

Dawn Davenport  18:27  
why did you choose you did choose international adoption. Was that something that y'all debated on where to adopt from, or what form of adoption, whether to do foster care or domestic infant or international Well,

Speaker 1  18:41  
we knew there were children here domestically that needed us, and so we felt that that was the best place to start. And we actually did. And we had a failed adoption that was very hard on my on my son, Ricky, because he had always talked about he wanted, uh, he wanted a brother. And it was just amazing that every every time we for Christmas, at the top of the list would be little brother. So he wanted to be the big brother. He wanted a little brother, not

Dawn Davenport  19:10  
little sister, just only a little brother. He wanted a little

Speaker 1  19:14  
brother. So it was unanimous that we all wanted to pay this forward. We all wanted to do this, and so I wanted to make sure that we could do that. But when that happened, it was, it was a tough situation for him, having a brother, and then it not going through. They found out who I was. We kind of got a little messy because of who I am and everything. So we still, you know, wasn't going to stop, because that happened, we had to take a little pause. But then we found out that other people were going internationally different things, and they had a positive experience with that. So we didn't want to not look at all our our options and possibilities. And once we opened up to that, that's when Shane kind of fell on our. Lap. I think what happened was his, his mother in Korea probably looked at our our file, and she felt like we would be the best people for him, because he's Nigerian and Korean. And I even found out I'm Nigerian, which is, which is amazing. I found out after I looked up, looked it up, and found that out. Oh,

Dawn Davenport  20:19  
what a coincidence. It

Speaker 1  20:20  
was amazing. It was amazing. And the fact that we had the money and the whereabout and everything to be able to go there and get him and bring him home, and it's just an amazing story, the fact that we were able to do that, and how we did it, and the fact that we just we went there and we got him, and it was such a great thing. And it's crazy that my dad, like my dad, he fought in the Korean War. And Shane is from South Korea, so it wasn't planned. But we were originally adopted from Ethiopia, and we always tell our son, you know, Shane, that he that we knew he was out there somewhere, and we just need to find him so that's the whole thing that we keep telling him, you know, we could have never imagined that Dr Shane would bring us so much joy, but he made our family complete. There's no doubt, you know, like I said, it goes both ways. It's like, of course, we, you know, we're there for him, and we gave him the love that his mother obviously wanted for him, and she knew that he wouldn't get there, you know, in Korea. And so it's just amazing being able to do that, and to go there, like I said, and to to see him, and to hold him, you know, he put me in a Baby Bjorn, you know, they had one of those. They put him in there with me, and he I had my chain on, and he loved my chain, so he was playing my chain and just that feeling and the acceptance, you know, of him, and it's a story to itself, you know, and that's why, I guess, it became this children's book,

Dawn Davenport  21:51  
yeah, yeah. I wanted to talk with you about your children's book. So tell us about a gift called Shane.

Speaker 1  21:58  
Yeah, a gift called Shane is a book that I it wasn't a book, it was just poetry, and I wrote it for my son, my oldest son, Ricky, at the time I wrote it, and I wrote it through his eyes, so it was how he saw the whole process. And I wanted him and Shane to have something that they could look at and whenever they wanted to, to kind of commemorate this time and this, this joyous occasion. But the fact that it has become a book is just amazing. And I think that has happened because anytime I would read it, or we'd say it, or, or someone would hear it, or or talk about my poetry. And they would see that, they would go, Oh, my God, this is awesome. Like, like, this is needed. Like, I should get this stuff out there. And I had no idea of how to get it out at the time, except for, like, I said rap music or something. But I'm not a rapper, so it's like, you know, I'm a football player. So how's that going to happen? But the greatest thing was when someone told me, they said, there are no books out there on this. Really, the books that they have are books that are like they're animals. So it's like the turtles with the ducks or whatever. And they kind of explain it that way. So it's nothing, especially a mixed marriage, like ours, different races and all the things that come into that, and how to do that in a positive manner that is on the level of a child. You know that a child can understand is a hard thing, but they thought that you somehow did it. And once we put the animation with it, once that happened, it just like took on the life of its own. And it's just so amazing. And I'm so excited about how it's been received. Everyone is just like, so excited about it, as excited as I am. So I'm, I mean, I just can't even say enough about it,

Dawn Davenport  23:47  
yeah, being an author is cool. Yeah,

Speaker 1  23:50  
it's really it's really cool, and people really like it, and they're like, oh, so poetic. And I'm like, Thank you, because that's what I want to be, you know, a poet as well, you know, but the fact that I could do that and put it on the terms that I was able to and to do it the way I did, so that anyone can look at this, and you don't even have to be somebody who's in these situations to understand this book, or to feel this book, or to feel the love of a family and a family coming together like We did, and all the dynamics of that family and how it made us so strong. We lost our first child, and, uh, then Ricky came. So we feel like it was still kind of a missing piece there, and Shane filled that piece right in. And he every, every day. I mean this guy, he when we wake up in the morning, he greets me with the hug. I greet him with the hug. That's how we do whenever we see each other, even if we seen each other that whole day, every time we see each other, he's putting his arms up when I'm walking by, he's going to give me a hug. Imma give him a hug. That's how close we are, and it's just so so. A super awesome feeling, because there, there are times when he opened up to us and said to us, I don't feel worthy, you know, being in his family, and I'm glad he said it, because that was something he was dealing with. He wasn't showing it. He didn't show it. So we wouldn't have known that that was really going on with him. So for him to expose that and to say that, and for us to be able to then start dealing with that and helping him that, and letting him know that, of course, you're supposed to be in this family. You made our family complete, and you are no different than my biological son. There's no different. I see no difference in them. I don't treat them differently. But what was even better than all of that, to me, is how good of a big brother Ricky was to him. Ricky, he took so much pride in being a big brother. He was like, more of a big a little big dad. Probably, I used to call him these I'm like, Oh, you're the little dad. I'm the big dad, and you're a little dad. Because he would just take him by the hand. It's okay, buddy, don't touch that. That'll burn you. You know that can hurt you. All these things, he would always be with them, and you don't want to do that over here, because that can hurt you even when Shane wasn't feeling good at night time or something, or something happened once he could walk and get out and move and go to another he would go to Ricky's room and sleep with him. So it was like he never came to us, hardly he went to Ricky more than he would come to us if he didn't feel good, which is just super, because Ricky has never closed the door on him. Now they're look 17 and 24 and he's still, you know he needs to come in there. He needs to talk to him. He knows the door is always open to you. You're always welcome. You're my brother. I love you. I will do anything for you. And it showed from day one, from day one to now, they're so close, and if they have something that's going on or somebody's not going to they can they talk it through themselves first. And if they can't talk it through, then they bring it to us. So, but it's great. It's great that they bring it to us, but it's also great that they can handle a lot of things themselves. Yeah, I can relate

Speaker 2  27:17  
to a lot of that. I have two adopted daughters, and then for biological children, and there are very unique relationships between the siblings that that same kind of nurture and care exists between them. You mentioned that one is 24 now, and one is 17, so Well, 17 is its own beast, I know. But when you were preparing Ricky for the adoption of a little brother. What were some of the things that you look back on now, and you say were really successful things that you did to help him get ready for being a big brother and welcoming a child to the family by adoption?

Speaker 1  27:56  
Yeah. Well, like I said, there was, there wasn't much I had to say for Ricky to get him ready, because he was ready. He just couldn't, especially after we had the failed adoption. So he was just kind of hurt and crushed by that. And so, of course, after that, once we said, oh, you know, there's another baby, whatever, we didn't want to get soaps up high or whatever. But once we found out that we were possibly going to look into this young person, then he was all for it. He was so excited and everything. We really didn't have to do anything, as far as that's concerned. But what was really important to me was us as parents to make sure from day one he knew where he came from, that he had pride in where he came from. He has a Nigerian flag in his room. He has a Korean flag in this room. He has Nigerian things, you know, he has, he loves Korean food, Korean everything, like we, we don't make it in any way, like we're trying to get him away from who he is, or away from where his roots are, and all that. It's all about that. And we even took him back, and that was the best thing. We took him back, and he was able to see the hospital where he was born, the people who cared for him. He even had a foster family for a little while. And when We took him back, his foster mother and sister were there. So he got to see them, got to talk to them. They cried and oh, they said, You're so handsome, and all these different things to him. And you could just see him growing with everything that has happened. He was growing, you know, many of his nurses, his social workers, I was trying to think of everybody who was there, you know, the staff was still there. It was just amazing and so many loving memories for him. You know, when we took that trip back, you just can see it did a lot for him, and I'm so glad that I wouldn't have known to do that if I didn't have the situation that I had where I didn't kind of get that closure or. Lee, I didn't get that feeling of, it's okay, you know that you're adopted. Nothing's wrong with that. There's nothing. There's no stigma. I never want him to feel like it's a secret. And I even told him, as I said, I hope I'm not going overboard the other way, because I would tell people, oh yeah, my younger son's adopted. And I was like, if you don't want me to say that so much I won't you know, but at the same time, I don't want you to ever feel that that's some secret that we're trying to keep, and we don't want people to know about it. And he has embraced it. At first, he didn't, because he, he's just one of those people in general. He doesn't want the spotlight all on him and everything. And he, he didn't even want to talk at first he he was like, it's really funny, because he used to watch Curious George, if you know that cartoon where he's going and all that, he would say that to us, we say something going on, and all that so but it's so cute how he's evolved. And even when we would take him to the playground or whatever, he wouldn't want to get down. He wouldn't want to go with the other kids. If a kid's talking to him right here, he'd just be looking straight, not even, you know, looking at the kid or anything. So he doesn't want that kind of thing. But as he's gotten older, I mean, now he makes speeches. He's a leader. He's in a leadership team for his school. He's one of the leaders in all of these situations now, and he's so well adjusted that we can't even believe it now, but I think it's a lot of that is because of how we formed this whole thing and how we structured it, how we dealt with it. I think that it really helped him, and he's was able to come out of his shell and be the guy who he is right now, and he now he likes it. And now the book's out. You know, we thought, God, if this book comes out, he's gonna probably hate it, so, but we wouldn't do it without asking him how he felt about it. And he was totally different about it. Thought it was great. And when it came out, he said all his friends were saying, man, it's so cool, how much your parents love you, that they did a book about you so cool, and how it looks like you and all that kind of stuff. So man, that is the best for me. It's already a success, just because of that, you know, because he has embraced it. He loves it. He really seems to be, like, really cool and who he is, and knowing who he is, and at times he's, of course, he's, he's going to still feel these little things when he's a he's a tennis player. Now, I call him a tennis star and all that, because he's a star in my book. But you know, even when he's playing tennis, at times, he says he'll hear that voice or something that kind of tells him you're not as good as your dad, or you're not going to be this, or you're not going to be that. But then he we work with him on that, and we help him through that, and we talk about it each time, and he's gotten more and more comfortable in that, in that space and being out there, and he didn't even want us to come watch him, you know, that kind of stuff. He didn't want his family to come, his his friends, cousins and everything to come and watch him. But now he's totally fine with that.

Speaker 2  32:52  
That's a great segue to the next question that I had for you, how support him when he does have those questions, or when he does have those kind of niggling feelings about maybe I'm not good enough, or I don't fit in here, how do you support him and learn the skills to cope with those feelings that he's got going on inside? Yeah,

Speaker 1  33:11  
when I talk to him, I mean, first of all, he he has little things, you know, like he has this, this bag that came with him. And there's little things in there, everything about where he little things he used to play with, things that he liked. And he loves this bag, which is awesome, even to this day, he loves the bag. He'll pull out certain things. So we'll talk about the bag, we'll talk about where he's from, or whatever. We'll talk about Nigerian people in general. You know, they're they're really intelligent people, right? They're really prideful people, strong. Same thing with Korean people. They're, they're the same, you know? And it's like, we watch all the Korean stuff, so he loves how the k pop and all the stuff that they do. So it's like, I think that that is very important, going back to the roots every time, you know, I don't want to just say, do it because dad says so, or do it, because this is how you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to act. You know, you can, you can say all those things. You can say all the right words and all that kind of stuff, but you always gotta go back to what is the issue? Where are you feeling that? Or whatever. But it's tough anyway. It's tough for my older son because of who I am and being in this family that is so dynamic. And my wife is an attorney. She's been she's so successful as well. And just the pressure already is there, yeah, it would be, yeah. And so I just talk about what is authentic to him, you know, and what is authentic to me, and we work around that, and it works out. It works out really good because he he'll open up. The best thing, all I'm really trying to do is get him to open up. That's all. What are your feelings? You know, what's going on right now? Did you have a good day in school? We talk every day. I used to drive him everywhere. Now he's driving himself, but I used to drive him, and I used to say that was the best time. Him that I would have with him is when I could just sit with him, it's just me and him, and I could say, man, how's your day go today? And you know, at first you get the the one that everybody gets here, fine,

Dawn Davenport  35:10  
yeah, you know

Speaker 1  35:13  
exactly. But then knowing the situation and understanding the situation, I would dig a little deeper and ask a few more questions, and all of a sudden the real thing comes up, right? So there's that where we're in the car, and I'm asking him to get things out of him, and then we would talk about any of those issues, and I would just, all I have to do nowadays is, is kind of just reinforce it. It's already there, so we just reinforce it. But then there's the other times where he comes to me and it's like I've learned not to jump on the first thing he says, or not to start talking right away. Because a lot of times he'll he'll say something that's not even really what he wants to talk about, that's not really what's bothering him, or whatever the situation is, he'll talk about something light or funny or something to happen, and then I laugh with him, and then now he'll say something else, and then all of a sudden, it's like the third thing normally that comes out is the thing he really is worried about or really afraid of or really wants to discuss with me. And so now I've learned to be very patient with him when he's talking to me, and I listen more than I talk. And then once he stops, then I know he's done, and then I can talk.

Dawn Davenport  36:27  
And then easier said than done, isn't it? That's so hard.

Speaker 1  36:32  
I saw you, I felt like I was like, Double Dutch. You know, it's like, ready to jump in at any point. Yeah, come

Dawn Davenport  36:38  
on. Let me get the game. You great analogy,

Speaker 1  36:43  
I swear I felt always felt like but then I'd like learn to just stay back, calm, relax, let him talk, let him say what he wants to say, let him get to even the point. And once he did that, and I started doing that, it really helped me with him, because now I can just say, I don't even have to say as much as like I would have had to say more if I jumped in right away. But now it's like he made his point. He's so well spoken and articulate with it too. So you know exactly he's not one of those people who you kind of are trying to figure out what he's saying and but what do you mean by that? And you have to keep asking these things. You know what he means, and you know what he's saying, and he's very articulate with it, and then I can just tell him, and I always start from a standpoint of what I went through, or, yeah, that helps. Dad was scared too. Dad used to be scared of the dark, you know, stuff like that. And he go, Oh, you were too, yeah, I was scared, you know this and that that's how I got through that, though, and this and that, and all of a sudden he's smiling, he's happy, he's gone, he's ready to go. It's all home with his day. That's the awesome part.

Dawn Davenport  37:52  
Let me pause here to thank the jockey being Family Foundation for their support of both this show as well as the nonprofit creating a family in general. We really couldn't do it without them, and part of their support allows us to bring you our free courses. These courses are really they focus on parenting, so they could be used if you're an adoptive parent or a foster parent or a kinship parent. If you're a foster parent and you need CE credit, you can get CE credit for these as well. There is a certificate of completion, so check it out at Bitly B I T, dot, l, y, slash, J B F support. That's Bitly slash, J B F support. And now I'll let you get back to Ricky. I want to switch now to talking going back, because I wanted to touch on Reunion, because you mentioned that we were 32 when you and your wife, or maybe your wife and you more

Unknown Speaker  38:47  
exactly. Yeah, dessert,

Dawn Davenport  38:49  
are you in reunion with your biological family? Now?

Speaker 1  38:55  
I'm not right now, because it, I mean, it just got messy, you know. I'm glad I found her. You know, I found her when I was retired, I found her. I was able to see where I come from, like I said, I was able to understand why I have some of these things that I have which are right, I now see as great. You know, it's great that I do poetry. It's great that I was, I'm so strong. She's She's real, she's a fireplug, you know? I mean, she's real tough and everything. My biological mom and I like that, yeah, but it was just they're in the same city, my adoptive parents and my biological family. So it was just like two families, you know? I don't, you know, I just got a little, little complicated. Yeah, a little complicated.

Dawn Davenport  39:37  
How did your adoptive family handle your decision to search, knowing that you were in contact with her,

Speaker 1  39:44  
my adoptive family. I mean, mostly my mom wasn't too excited about me. You know, finding my birth mother and family, my biological mother, she was really young at the time that she had me, and so her mom, who would be. My grandmom worked with my mom, who raised me, and so they kind of got together and made it happen. So I don't I'm glad, like I said, Did it happen? They put me with the right people, however, they figured it out. They pulled me the right people, and they they did really good by me. I think that when you look at my dad being the tough guy that he was, I needed that, and I needed him to taught me how to fight. He taught me how to do all these things, but he couldn't because he was a wounded war veteran. He stepped on a landmine, blew half his calf off, so he couldn't really run with me and do those things, but he got the kids in the neighborhood to do it, like, three or four years older than me. He did not care. But I'm glad he did it, because it made me always was trying to play catch up with these guys, you know, where I could show what I could do. You know, when you have a dad who had a Purple Heart, I mean, he had all these bronze stars and all these different things. It's kind of like he was

Dawn Davenport  41:01  
a tough guy. Yeah, yeah. So you gotta be tough. You gotta

Speaker 1  41:05  
be tough. But my mom had that other side that I needed too. She was the more nurturing one, the more like, Oh, it's okay, sweetie. You know, you didn't get it this time, you'll get it next time. You can be anything you want to be. You can do anything you want to do those type of things, the same things I tell my kids now, you can be anything you want to be. You can do anything. Sometime I feel bad about because I'm like, Oh God, but I don't want you doing that. You could get hurt. Because my older son, he's a daredevil, and he's like, you told me I could do anything. I said, Yeah, but you don't need to do everything.

Dawn Davenport  41:38  
Okay, now I'm going to turn it over to Tracy. I promised her an opportunity to geek out a little on our sports history. Take it away, Tracy,

Speaker 2  41:49  
so in true confessions, I first heard about you when you were playing for Bishop McDevitt. Yay. I lived in Mechanicsburg, yeah, to Messiah College, just across the river. And so that's how I heard about you. Wow. But I just was, you know, as an Eagles fan, go birds. Yeah. How excited, because I know shady McCoy went to Bishop Devin. Also so excited for you that he got inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame last month.

Speaker 1  42:20  
Oh, my God, so excited for him. Such a great guy, just having somebody like that who is so talented. When I met him, he was just like, star struck on me, you know, and he's looking at me and he's just like, Yes sir. Yes, sir. I'm like, you don't have to say sir. But seeing somebody like that, and somebody looked up to me like he did. Said he patterns game after me, all this kind of stuff, man. I mean, you cannot, there's not a better thing that you could tell me, but to see him do it himself, and to go on and play the way he played, and to go, I mean, the guy broke all my records at McDevitt, and he broke my records at Philadelphia. I told him, I said, You gotta stop breaking my records, man, stay up here. But the truth is, man, I am so proud of him, so happy that it was him who did it, and the fact that he has gone into that he deserves it. He deserves it so much. Just a great young man, human being, and we still talk from time to time. And he's like my little brother, you know. So I'm very, very excited about him. That's

Speaker 2  43:27  
awesome. And I do have to ask, was playing for Notre Dame, like a spiritual experience?

Speaker 1  43:34  
Oh, it's amazing, man, it was. It's like a little little protein, really. I mean, just everywhere you go, people know you because you play for Notre Dame. You're on TV every week. And people are very passionate when it comes to Notre Dame. They either hate them or they love them. You know, it's not, it's no little bit, you know, it's either you love them or you hate them. But most people, I know, and then I, of course, probably people would tell me they love them. So it but it was, it was a great, great experience for me. Some of my best friends and my closest friends are guys that I played with at Notre Dame. We're so close. We were a family. We cried, you know, bled, sweat, everything together. And it's just awesome to be on a team like that, especially a team that went 13 and Oh, with the crazy schedule we had, and all the the amazing teams that we were playing against Miami and Michigan and all the teams that are still great now, they were great back then, and we're playing Penn State. I mean, it was like every week we're playing somebody tough for us to start out in the beginning of the season. You know, where everyone thinks they have a chance in the beginning, but to actually go through it. And you know, a lot of things can happen. You can get injured. Anything can happen to, like, derail your season, for us to stay together like we did, for us to see it through like we did, and to go 13 and no, and to win the national championship, I mean, it's still one of the highlights of my life. Definitely, yes, I

Dawn Davenport  44:58  
agree. And. Sees as well. Well. Ricky, thank you so much for being with us today. The book is called a gift. Call Shane. We recommend it to people go out and get this book. It's a wonderful book, and we truly appreciate your time today. Ricky, thank you. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  45:17  
thank you. Thanks so much for having me.