Coleman Ruiz

It's going to sound weird because there still is a lot of, you know, primal nature to combat sports.

But in the grand scheme of things, we were probably on the upper end of sophisticated, like wrestlers jump rope, they stretch, they do aerobics.

You know, I've been in a sauna since 1993.

You know, it's like not purposeful, not to cut weight in a garbage bag, but there is some level of...

some level of balancing out your training, you know, wrestlers like to swim and like during the season, because you're getting out of that hot room, like you end up accidentally doing some of these things, but there was no self-care.

Yep.

In 96, my sophomore year.

First of all, it's,

big in the macro, not just geographically big or footprint, square footage-wise, it's big.

The concept is big.

The superintendent of the school is a three-star admiral.

You hear about his career.

You're 19 years old, you meet.

So there's two incredibly important people in my life in those early years at the Naval Academy.

A guy named Doug Zembeck, who's dead now, who most people of my service time will know who he is.

When I was on my recruiting trip to the Naval Academy and I was in high school, this is complete accident.

Doug was a sophomore.

We call them youngsters at the Naval Academy.

He was a sophomore and we're the same weight class.

So coach matched us up because it was my recruiting visit.