Arshay Cooper

Enrolling, there are no busload of fans.

There are no million dollar contracts after college.

But what you will find is someone who will show up every single day.

to rip apart their hands and break their backs for the person who sits in front of you and the person who sits behind you and themselves.

Those are the kind of people I need in my life.

I grew up on the west side of Chicago in a city that had great sports like Chicago Bulls, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Bears.

And you grew up believing as you go to school every day and pledge allegiance to the flag or take the U.S.

Constitution test that this is your city, this is your country, that you belong here.

And you are an American citizen and you have a birthright to all of these things that people on the other side of the water who don't look like me who have maybe a little bit more than me have.

And then you get older, you join this elite sport and you start to see the difference in the world that happens.

Certain kids are allowed in stores that I'm not allowed to go into just because of the color of my skin or where I'm from.

There are certain boat clubs that I couldn't step foot in because I couldn't afford it.

When you say this is your city, and this is like a public park,

There's police that shows up in certain folks that you meet who don't look like your neighborhood right away when they make a call, but it's not available to you.

And so that's a little bit of what I was talking about, mainly focused on how I grew up and how I became more of me, becoming me as a young rower, athlete, author, etc.,

Yeah, it was a place where talent was everywhere.

You know, humor was everywhere, good people was everywhere, but access and opportunity was not.

What you see in Chicago is what happens when have-nots must have.

People join gangs to make money.

Through that, there was a lot of violence, fights over territory.