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The Athletic NBA Daily
NBA Referee, Undercover Cop, and Author: the varied life of Bob Delaney
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- [00:00]
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- [02:33]
Bob Delaney
How do I sound now? I sound okay? Did you ask Pop that question let's do it.
- [02:38]
David Aldridge
Welcome to the Athletic NBA show Monday.
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Bob Delaney
Through on the Athletic podcast network.
- [02:43]
Co-host
Okay, here we go. And it's another edition of Hoops adjacent on the athletic NBA show. David Aldridge, very lucky to be back in D.C. because I understand it's like snowing like crazy in Salt Lake City now, and I got out just in time after All Star Weekend. But I wanted to get right to our guest because I am so thrilled to have him. He's been on before and is always, always insightful and makes you think. And that's partly because of his life path and his career. One of, one of the best referees to ever do it in NBA history. Bob Delaney, now the author, he's written a million books, but this book, if you can see it, I don't know if you can see it. Heroes are human Lessons in resilience, courage and wisdom from the COVID front lines. Bob, thank you for joining us, man.
- [03:30]
Bob Delaney
David, always a pleasure and honor to be with you. And it's always great, you know, the longer you're off the floor, the better the referee you were.
- [03:39]
Co-host
Exactly, exactly. I'm sure. But Bob, you have spent, you know, so much time since you left, you know, active refereeing, and you still consult and do things with the referees. But, you know, the show's called Hoops Adjacent for a reason, because we like to talk about every. Everything and not just basketball all the time. And, and your, your book is just, it's fantastic. And, and I told you this before we started it, it really resonated with me because my mom was a pediatric emergency room nurse for 30 years in D.C. at Children's Hospital, which is like one of the most renowned, you know, pediatric hospitals in the world. And I know what that job did to her physically and emotionally. And, and, and she was working literally with life and death every day, like children coming in who were about to die unless something was done to save them. And I can't even imagine the trauma that, that put on her. But I think about what these Covid nurses and doctors and administrators, and that's one of the great things about the book, Bob, is that you look at the whole thing. It's a 360 degree view. The victims, the people who came in and got sick. You talk to all people at all of those touch points. And I, I wondered, given your background, not only with, with basketball, but I'm sure people know Bob was undercover for three years, infiltrated the mob, has worked with wounded warriors for the last three decades, worked with responders at 9, 11 when. When Covid hit, did you. Did you automatically know, oh, these people are going to be in for a world of hurt?
- [05:26]
Bob Delaney
Not immediately. David, you know, the comments that you just made, your mom and nurses do the work of angels. They truly do. And, you know, your mom working with children. One of the things that I always have come to learn that whether it's law enforcement, firefighters, military, healthcare community, when they're working with children, there's a different dynamic because many times they see their own children's faces with the children that they're working with. So it becomes another level of emotion that is being processed and yet still having to do their job in real time while they're feeling those emotions. So they become very good at compartmentalizing emotions in order to do their job. What struck me is as Covid started to take hold in our country, I was driving by hospitals and I would see signs out front, heroes work here. And I know that with the work I've been doing for the past four decades with those who serve, anyone that's given the title of hero doesn't like it. I was told I did heroic work and that I was a brave guy. And I felt so hypocritical being given awards back after surfacing from doing the undercover work because I was scared to death. It wasn't like I was this tough guy and nobody saw me walking around my house with my gun out, pushing shower curtains back at 2 o'clock in the morning because I was paranoid they were coming to get me. So I sensed that the folks that are being told they're heroes, with the amount of death that's taking place and what they were experiencing, I wanted to understand it more. And I also understood that they were at war with an invisible enemy.
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Co-host
Right.
- [07:18]
Bob Delaney
And so I paralleled the learning that I and the knowledge that I had from dealing with those who are at battle on foreign soils to what was taking place in our healthcare community.
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Co-host
It fascinates me that this is. This is so different. As you mentioned, when you're in a war zone situation, you basically know who the enemy is. You know what I mean? Like, you. Like there are some wars. Obviously, Vietnam was very different from the trench wars of World War I and World War II. But. But for the most part, you know, they have uniforms, they're fire. You know, they're firing at you, so you know that their enemy. But with. With something like Covid, I mean, there's nobody to shoot at, right? I mean, there's nobody to. To kind of to fight against. And I just wonder the, the toll that that took on, on health care providers. And again, up and down the, the chain of command from the nurses and the doctors to the, to their supervisors, who are human beings too, and to the people at, you know, who. And one of the more fascinating things is that one of the people you interviewed or people who had to deal with supplies like, we got to get these. We got to get this PPR to people they needed to survive. What do I do? I don't have enough. I got to get it. How do I get it? I got to. And I'm sure there are parallels between that and people at, at those command levels in the military.
- [08:45]
Bob Delaney
Yeah, you know, you hit so many points. There's so many great points. You know, there were so many levels to this that were taking place. And all we were asked to do was put on a mask and stay six feet apart and have a, you know, a happy hour in our driveways, and we thought we were sacrificing. And then to understand what the healthcare community was going through, they never had to be afraid of bringing cancer home, and now they had to be afraid that they were going to affect their families. And these are folks that are willing to do whatever it takes for the. Actually people they don't even know. Imagine what they would. How would they feel for the folks that they love? And so, you know, in conversations, they would explain to me that they also had to hold hands with people who were dying. They never had to do that before because usually family members were bedside or set up phone calls and Zooms and FaceTimes for final goodbyes. One nurse explained to me that she said, you know, people couldn't speak because they're so congested and so overwhelmed with the disease that they would write on a whiteboard, please don't let me die. And it just struck me, can you imagine being there, knowing that a person is feeling this inside? And how do you continue to do your job while trying to be a human being of being consoling? And so all of this kind of conflict that was going on inside and then not being able to see the enemy, like you said. That's why, David, in starting the book, I wanted to bring some kind of thought process to what they were experiencing. And my wife, Billy has run 25 marathons around the world. And it struck me that when she trains for a marathon, she knows what pace she wants to be at. She knows the beginning, middle, and the end. So I use that as the, as the parallel, because what our health care community, they were lined up to go on a long race. They didn't know how long it was and somebody just yelled out start. And they didn't know how long it was going to be. And so how can you do that? And yeah, and so, you know Dave Scheiber. Dave, a longtime writer, is co author on the book. He and I have co authored all the books that I've written and we wanted to bring analogies to understand what they were going through. So that's where a lot of times we'll come up with the sports analogies to bring that kind of home for folks to just try to imagine being in these positions. And the same thing like with the military or firefighters, law enforcement that I've worked with for years. I say that I. The uniform they wear makes them think they can leap tall buildings in a single bound. They, you know, they can handle anything. And I think scrubs and lab coats do the same for our healthcare community.
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Co-host
Absolutely. No, absolutely. And my mom used to talk about doctors sometimes and where the God complex.
- [11:54]
Bob Delaney
Came from and all that stuff. But I've heard those stories as well.
- [11:58]
Co-host
Oh sure, sure, sure. But I, I did you, you mentioned the, the sports analogy and I, and I'm really fascinated by it because you certainly worked in that world for a long time as well. And especially the notion, Bob, of peer to peer discussion and, and, and witness. Really. I mean, just because again, as you say so many times, you, if you don't know what it was like to be doing that thing, it's hard to speak on it authoritatively. You know, like. And so I always wonder about that, you know, in our business, in my business of covering basketball primarily, I, we fail as, as journalists to describe, to make people understand how hard it is to be a professional athlete. Like, it's really hard, you know, so, and I wonder if you saw parallels between the nurses and the, and the medical staffs that were able to communicate with one another in real time as this was starting in 2020 and, and being able to talk to one another and really kind of have that safety valve that release and maybe, you know, teams and players where the only people that really understand how hard it is to be an NBA player are other NBA players.
- [13:17]
Bob Delaney
Yeah, I, I believe wholeheartedly in peer to peer conversations. Those who go through a similar experience sharing with each other what is personal is universal. If, if you're feeling an emotion, I'm feeling it at some point too because there's no new emotions in this. When you work in the same environment, those emotions start showing up those Frustrations start showing up. So having someone that you can go to, that you feel safe with, that you trust to be able to have the conversation is extremely important. You know, I've told this story before, but for me, it was a guy by the name of Joe Pistone. Donnie Brasco. When I surfaced from doing the undercover work, I was dealing with a lot of issues. And Louis Free was the FBI agent who worked my case in Joe's over in New York. And when he put us together and I looked in Joe's eyes and I read his body language and I heard his words, I knew he got what I was going through. And so I, I used to refer to as peer to peer therapy, but I think we've over medicalized this conversation and we scare people away from it. David, this is a human condition. It's not a mental illness. It can lead to mental illness. And when I say over medicalized, I don't want anyone to misinterpret that. I'm saying we don't need the medical side of the house. We do. We have tremendous resources.
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Co-host
Right?
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Bob Delaney
But this has been around forever. Sophocles wrote two plays about the warrior not knowing how to act after coming home from battle. After the Civil War, it was referred to as soldier's heart. World War I, shell shock, World War II, battle fatigue, Vietnam, Korean wars, we refer to it as flashbacks. Today we refer to it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, ptsd. And to me, ptsd, probably one of the most loosely used terms in our society. Folks, we do not get PTSD if Starbucks gets our order wrong. But we throw this around as if it's like we're expo. We are exposed. I, I do work with the Harvard Global Mental Health Trauma Recovery Program. I, I was a student there in 2019 and then now I present at, at the course. Dr. Malika is the director and he tapped me to go in and speak about self care. And Dr. Velika has a very simple statement. He says trauma is inescapable in life. We are all susceptible. It's going on in Turkey, it's going on in the Ukraine. So I understood it was going to be going on in our healthcare community. I wrote an article in the Tampa Bay Times in August of 2020 predicting a wave of post traumatic stress in the healthcare community based on what I was seeing. And unfortunately, it's come true.
- [15:55]
Co-host
How do these folks find the beginnings of healing in the midst of their. Because they're reliving that trauma every day. It's new trauma. It's another patient. It's another kid, it's another grandmother, and it never stops. And they, they, they, their life's calling is to be there at that, in that place. So where did they start to heal?
- [16:21]
Bob Delaney
You know, one of the things I can't, I've learned is that our healthcare community is very good at taking care of us. They're not very good at taking care of themselves. And so why Covid shines the light on this subject? This is a conversation that needs to be had and should have been had decades ago. And our healthcare community really does not immerse. I'm starting to go now to nursing schools and having this conversation and having conversations with pre med programs to say these are things we have to provide the tools to be able to understand what they're experiencing. And all too often they're going in blind. And resilience is something that is a learned, you know, the same way we used to talk about leadership. Oh, he's a born leader or she's a born leader. No, you learn how to be a leader, you can be trained, you can become a better leader. The same thing I believe with resilience. And I break resilience down into three aspects. There has to be a confrontation to the reality. You have to confront what the issue is. But I changed that word to carefrontation because to me confrontation sounds very abrupt and negative. We confront because we care. And then the next part, the second part is a search for meaning. Understand what your mission is. And there's a level of while we all have our own religious beliefs, there's a spirituality to resilience. And the third part I refer to as fia fia. Flexible, innovative and adaptive. And David, what I just described, those who serve, whether it be military, law enforcement, firefighters, healthcare workers, all do that on a daily basis. Operationally, they're not afraid to confront anything. They know what their mission is. They're flexible, innovative and adaptive. They have plan A, B, C, D and E. So I've changed the term to operational stress when having this conversation. It's the stress that comes as a result of the profession that you have chosen.
- [18:20]
Co-host
One of the things that, that fascinated me most, Bob, in the book was one of the doctors who pointed out that you can have positive outcomes after suffering from PTS through ptsd. Right. And I'd never even thought about that. Wait, how do you, how do you have a positive outcome after going through that? And I was fascinated by that notion that it can help you grow in certain areas. And I just wondered, you know, what was your thought process in terms of, well, in terms of getting that information from the healthcare field, yeah.
- [19:00]
Bob Delaney
I often refer to PTSD as post traumatic stress development versus disorder. There's another term ptg, post traumatic growth. After going through, there's no testimony without a test in so many aspects of our lives. And so the same thing takes place here. And at times I think it's almost become a self fulfilling prophecy of people start to think, oh, I went through something difficult, there's got to be post traumatic stress as a result. Yet there's resilience and growth that comes from these kinds of things. That's the reason I refer to it as lessons in courage, wisdom and resilience. That's the reason for those words to be there. This took me a long time to understand. But courage is not absent of fear. Courage takes place despite the fear that you experience. And so having those conversations and giving the freedom to have permission to have the conversation, to say, I was scared to death when that was taking place. I've talked to pilots who have told me the same thing. You know, it was like, yeah, something happened in that cockpit and they were scared to death, but they did their job right and that's what they were trained to do. So it's getting beyond and understanding. You're a human being and that's the reason why it's such an important topic. Heroes are human. They're human beings. They have true emotions. They're ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
- [20:21]
Co-host
Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about one aspect of that and the nurse in Florida, Susie, I believe her name was, that kind of had to dive in and like everybody, you just do what needs to be done that particular day. But she talked about how she was, you know, a goalie in, in high school and a really good one on her soccer team. And I just wonder if some of those learned responses that athletes have, which is kind of like you said, it's okay to be afraid. You just have to kind of work through that fear. And that's what we call courage. It's just doing what you do normally, just under different, under different stresses. And I wonder if, if athletes in particular maybe can be more successful getting through those traumatic situations because of their training in their past life.
- [21:12]
Bob Delaney
I, I agree wholeheartedly. I, I think that those things that are learned on sports, fields of commitment, dedication, teamwork, trust, you gotta trust your teammate, right? That they're doing their job, you're doing your job. The amount of time and effort that's put in, how many times I always say to folks, never young folks Never admire Michael Jordan's abilities to play the game, or LeBron or Kobe or Shaq or Larry or Magic. Admire their work ethic. You know, you're seeing them on a Sunday afternoon, but how many hours did they spend to get to where they are? To me, you and I had such a great, great gift to be able to be in those gyms, in those arenas when there were no fans around. And you watch them go through.
- [22:06]
Co-host
That's right.
- [22:07]
Bob Delaney
It's not. It is not like just when they say shoot around, that's. That. That's really not. It is work, man. Are putting in work and it's night in and night out and day in and day in. And that's what's always amazing to me. And I think with Susie Dorner, who you refer to, that dedicates dedication and commitment that she learned on a sports field, she carried over and she does to this day. And what's really cool about she got to be the coin flip in the Super Bowl.
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Co-host
Yeah.
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Bob Delaney
When it was in Tampa a few years back. And just a special, special woman.
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Co-host
Yeah. You know, I always remember Bob, Larry, when Larry Bird was at Indy, when he was the, the coach there, and we were talking and I said, well, who, you know, how do you decide who gets to take the last shot at the end of a game? And he said, oh, it's Reggie Miller. And I said, why? Said, because he's earned it, because he worked, because his, because I see him every day taking 400, 500, 600 shots after practice is over and nobody else does it but him. And so that's why he gets to shoot at the end. If he doesn't want to shoot it, that's up to him. But he gets to choose.
- [23:20]
Bob Delaney
Right.
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Co-host
And, and I always remember that. And you, you know, whether it's Ray Allen, all the great players, they all are the hardest workers, all of them.
- [23:29]
Bob Delaney
Right.
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Co-host
You know, and I'm sure that that comes true in, in the medical field as well. And the people that are the most, I don't want to say indispensable, but the people that other people seem to lean on are those kinds of people like Susie.
- [23:46]
Bob Delaney
Susie Darner. Yeah. I saw it over and over in so many stories. I mean, David, one, one nurse, in talking about resilience and courage and wisdom, she explained to me that she was working 12 hour shifts and she was just immersed into the whole world of COVID and just was getting burnt out and she just wanted to get away and was going to go out on a boat on a lake Just to spend the day with her husband and forget about everything else. And they had a great day. And as they pulled in at the end of the day and they were going to dock, she went off to the front of the boat to tie it off, and she started crying uncontrollably. And what happened, David, on land was a small boat that had a tarp over it. And it was the same color of the body bags that she had been putting patients into. And she remembered every one of their names and saw every one of their faces. These are the flashbacks. These are the memories that are in their heads. It's etched. And for folks to understand, those of us who have lived through 9 11, we can tell you exactly where we were. Tommy Izzo just spoke the other day about. He remembered where he was when John Kennedy was killed. He remembered where he was on 9 11. And he will forever remember where he was when he got the news of what took place at Michigan State. And these are traumatic events that come into our lives, and unfortunately, we relive them at times when we go to sleep, that's where nightmares come from. We get into a relaxed state and the body is reacting. So for the healthcare community, they've been reliving these kinds of things. When they're in private moments, they remember all of those things. And while death is part of their world, not in the amount that they were experiencing and feeling helpless not to be able to find a solution.
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Co-host
Well, in the book, well, again, one of the healthcare workers mentions that they started to keep tabs on the patients that survived and the patients that were discharged.
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Bob Delaney
Right.
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Co-host
And even though the numbers were smaller, the fact that they had to celebrate victories, they had to celebrate wins in the midst of all the loss that they suffered.
- [26:03]
Bob Delaney
I love that you bring that up because as a society, we need to do it as well. That was such an important part. When I heard that from the health care worker. There's a nurse. We're celebrating the wins. We're staying on top of them, staying in touch with people. I'm seeing people that survived that I didn't know what happened to them. Then I saw them on another floor. We have to celebrate the wins. And one of the wins that came for us as a society, Simone Biles. When Simone Biles went through the twisties and we became educated as to what twisties meant. Yeah, we understood. This is a young woman who is going to be 12 to 15ft in the air, and she's not confident we were understanding. But think if two to three Olympics ago, she would have been vilified as being unpatriotic because she didn't tough it out or she didn't, you know, tighten her belt and just go forward. So we're moving the bar as a society. We're becoming more understanding. And to me, that's the small wins in the area of trauma.
- [27:11]
Co-host
I do worry. One thing I worry about, because it was prevalent throughout the book and understandably so, was that everybody, at every touch point, the doctors, the nurses, their supervisors, the people that suffered from COVID their families, all expressed anger, just incredible amounts of anger. Anger at people not wearing masks when they should be, and people who were. Who were trying to, you know, live in these conspiracy theories. Anger at. At. If you talk to the doc, you know, a doctor who didn't answer your question the way you liked her, every. And it's understandable. But that anger is so corrosive, Bob. And I just wonder how. How do we begin to address coming. I don't know if coming out of COVID is the right phrase, but it seems that maybe Covid's less prevalent in everyone's lives, but that anger's still there. And how do we kind of deal with that in a. In a good way to lead to good outcomes?
- [28:17]
Bob Delaney
Yeah, I just spoke to a doctor two days ago, and she was. She's a leading expert in the area of infectious disease in a particular state, and she was very helpful in this book, yet she has told me she cannot read it. She says she's tried a couple times, and she said, I just. I don't want to go back there. I don't want to go back there. And it's so understandable because those wounds are fresh, and not all wounds bleed. And invisible wounds may cut as deep as the wounds we do see. And while a scab. Scab will grow over a wound that we have on our body, with invisible wounds, emotional wounds, there's a scab that goes over it too. But it can be knocked off just the same as a real scab. And it brings you back. And those understanding triggers that bring us back to that is extremely important. That's one of the things that I have conversations with the healthcare community about now is understanding what those triggers are. Particular sounds, sights, smells will bring you back to the original experience.
- [29:24]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [29:25]
Bob Delaney
And while that is not about trying to eliminate post traumatic stress, it helps people interact with it. So I believe education awareness works. We've done it with hiv, aids, we've done it with drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. The more that we're understanding of what's taking place, the better we interact with it. And I learned this from Lieutenant Colonel Tim Karcher. He was hit in Iraq by an rpg, lost his legs. I was doing work with him down at Bamsea at the Brooks Medical center in San Antonio, and Tim said to me in a conversation within a group one day about post traumatic stress. He said, oh, post traumatic stress is like. It's like dieting. Some of us need to lose 5 to 10 pounds, some 10 to 20, and some of us are obese, and it changes on an hourly or daily basis. And I said, tim, what a great way to describe something that doesn't have a quantitative measure to it. I said, I'm going to use it in my presentations because I've been five to ten pounds overweight since I came out of the womb, and I've been 10 to 20, and I've been obese. But, David, at times it just meant buying bigger pants. It didn't mean that I went in the house and stopped living. So it's not about eliminating post traumatic stress. It's learning how to interact with it in a healthy way.
- [30:38]
Co-host
Yeah, that's fast. That's. That's great. You. You. I. In. In the book there, one of the. The. The gentleman that. That got covet. I. He wrote about having this buzzing that he couldn't understand for months, months, months afterwards. Nobody understood what it was. And then he finally realized that it was the beeping sound of the ventilator that he was on.
- [31:03]
Bob Delaney
Yes.
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Co-host
When he was unconscious.
- [31:05]
Bob Delaney
Yes.
- [31:05]
Co-host
And it had gotten through somehow, and he remembered it finally. And that's just. It's amazing what the. What the mind retains.
- [31:16]
Bob Delaney
Yes. Yeah. That was John Place. John Place was a victim of COVID and I heard his story on the Howard Stern show, and then I tracked him down, and John and his wife Michelle, were so willing to help us understand. And your point that the subconscious of him being unconscious and yet still hearing those things, and then he couldn't understand why was that sound bringing him, like, not pleasant thoughts or. And so he had to figure out. It's always interesting to me to find those kinds of things, because we all experience those when we have an experience. For me, it's the smell of burning flesh. As a young state trooper, I had a older couple that were in an automobile accident, and they were caught inside the car, and a car was on fire, and myself and the other trooper tried to get to. We couldn't get into the car, and you could hear them screaming, but it's the smell of those Burnt tires. That brings me back to that event. And I can still, when I say that, it still conjures up in my mind and the emotion and. And that you get that feeling in your throat of. Of you felt like you should have done more or you could have done more. And that continues to haunt me. And David, that's when I was 21 years old, and I'm 71 years old now.
- [32:40]
Co-host
Right.
- [32:41]
Bob Delaney
That's 50 years ago that that experience happened. But I still is so fresh in my mind.
- [32:49]
Co-host
I want to pivot just briefly, because I always wondered how referees kind of compartmentalize. Nobody that doesn't do this job understands the job at all. You know, we think we do, but we don't really. And, and it's amazing. I was walking into one of the events at All Star Weekend with this family, a young man and his kid that he was holding and his wife. And the man looks at me and he goes, hey, did you go to American University? And went, yeah. How did you know that? He said, oh, I ref one of your games last year. You were. You were at the game? And I was like, really? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah. And. And I just, you know, and he was. We were just talking about, you know, his job and stuff. And. And I. I've written about referees over the. Over the course of my career, but it's still not the same as being one, you know? And I wonder how. How do the guys. And when you talk to them, how do they kind of deal with that stress of being involved in very high stakes, highly emotional, and now increasingly highly bet upon games where the calls that they make can impact the game and they're just trying to get it right. Right?
- [34:07]
Bob Delaney
Yeah. So as a referee for 25 years in the league and then five years I was in management, vice president, referee, operations, director, officials, and now I'm with the Southeast Conference doing advising work. One of the things that we reinforce is the why and the how. Why did we get it right and how can we repeat it? So what I ask officials to do and have always, if, if, if the data is saying we're getting 92% correct when we're making a call, then I want them to go look at that 92%, because if we chase the 8%, we're going to lose a portion of that. Right. Reinforce the positive more often than not, as we all do in our society, when we get something wrong, we want to go to that first. Well, there's going to always be incorrect plays, but I tried to discipline them to say, go to the positive, reinforce what you're doing. Right. Why do we get it right? How do we repeat it? Then take a look at the plays you've missed. Why did we miss it? And how can we adjust to be able to try and get a piece of that 8%. We're not going to get to 100%. There's no perfection in this business. Replay has brought high technology, has brought an expectation by fans and media and players and coaches that they get it correct. How could they have missed that? How could that have not been called? So I think that compartmentalization during the course of a game is important as well. You know, when you kick a call, you know.
- [35:42]
Co-host
Sure.
- [35:42]
Bob Delaney
And what I found is early in my, on my career, I wanted to like try and prove I was right versus now in, you know, later in my career. I would just say I just kicked that clay. Like, yeah, when you tell a player or a coach that you just kicked it, they hit you on the rear end and say, get the next one. It's the end of it. It's when you bow your neck and try to prove that you're wrong. There are doctorates in the game of basketball along those sidelines. You cannot fool NBA coaches, right? No. So trying to con them or say, I know I got that right, they're.
- [36:16]
Co-host
Not going to believe that. No. Bob, I used to always say this. To this day, if a politician held a press conference and said, you know what, I screwed up the thing, the thing you're accusing me of, I did. I have no follow up question.
- [36:29]
Bob Delaney
Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly.
- [36:32]
Co-host
You've totally disarmed the whole situation. You know, and I wonder, you know, taking this back to, to your book, if, if people are now more willing in, in, in the midst of kind of assessing Covid and how we all responded and how the medical community did. Will they look at the positives? Will they look at the things that they did right under these incredibly stressful situations or will they, as humans tend to do, fixate on the things that went wrong?
- [37:03]
Bob Delaney
I think, I think in the long run we look at the, at the wins. You know, you triggered something in my mind as a result of this conversation. And so I'm going to go back to an Easter Sunday game many years ago. I'm working with the great you, Evans, who had just gotten into the hall of Fame, God rest his soul, and Leroy Richardson. And we're in Miami. They're playing the Knicks at the end of the game. This is before we have repay Alan Houston goes up, I wipe it out. It should have been good, and the Knicks would have won. And, you know, Van Gundy's yelling and screaming at me, we're going back. And, you know, I get to the locker room and I know I missed this call. And it's like, it's late in the season. It causes the Knicks not to have home court in the playoffs. And by fate, I happen to have their first playoff game, and it's on the road against Indiana. And so I walk into the arena and Spike Lee is all over me, sitting in courtside, yelling and screaming, we should be in New York because of you. And I said, hey, Spike, I've seen every one of your movies, and they ain't all hits either, brother. And so, you know, we make mistakes as human beings.
- [38:17]
Co-host
Sure, absolutely.
- [38:19]
Bob Delaney
Absolutely.
- [38:19]
Co-host
And. And I hope that, that, that as they assess that, they understand that they saved a lot of people's lives. You know, even in the midst of. Of coordinated disinformation, people got vaccines and they lived, and they're living because of it. And people that went into hospitals got saved by these healthcare professionals, and their families are. Are. Are able to spend time with them as a result of it. There was a lot that they did, right? Yes.
- [38:57]
Bob Delaney
And there's a fog of war. Right. So we hear about the fog of war on the battlefield. There was a fog of war with the invisible enemy, Covid, as well. Early stages. That was the reason that I wanted to spend time with those behind the lines, just like the generals, and those that are making decisions because they're getting information on one day, that the next day, it's old information. It is not relevant any longer. And so they had to constantly go through that. And, and there's a frustration level that exists there for decision makers because now they're the leaders and they're learning as they're going. And we all were frustrated with COVID Put the mask on. Not put the mask on. Do this, do that.
- [39:43]
Co-host
Right.
- [39:43]
Bob Delaney
Magnify that a hundred times by the people that are on the front line of COVID the healthcare community, they were as confused as. Well, not because they didn't know, because they were learning as it was taking place.
- [39:57]
Co-host
Yeah. And. And that the inability to kind of allow people to have new information, like.
- [40:05]
Bob Delaney
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:06]
Co-host
Understand that, like, we all benefit when you get more information.
- [40:11]
Bob Delaney
Exactly.
- [40:12]
Co-host
Always helpful.
- [40:13]
Bob Delaney
Exactly. And you're talking about brilliant human beings. I mean, it's like, you know, I tell people I get to go and do grand rounds now. Like, I was at Baylor, Scotland, White and at Moffitt Cancer Hospital. And here's a guy that I thought my middle name was, is he eligible? When my coach would say every week, is he still eligible? Can he play? And I'm there sharing his time with him and they're just brilliant. And to hear the work they do and how. I was with a doctor from Africa. He was nine years old when he started college. This guy is amazing. He is like off the charts brilliant and just an amazing guy. And I asked him, I said, how did you know you wanted to go into healthcare? He said, my father had chickens. And he said at our house. And when I was like seven years old, I said, I'll take care of the sick chickens. So he had an affinity to wanting to help. It's just an amazing story.
- [41:14]
Co-host
Yeah, well, I agree with you about one thing. I think people in that profession are doing God's work because it's, it's, it's unbelievably stressful. And they're the ones that are always there holding people's hands and, and you know, helping them transition, whether it's to health or to the next plane. And that's, they're both traumatic. Right.
- [41:37]
Bob Delaney
And David, this is where we are now. We need to honor, thank and support this, them because we were all about banging pots and clapping at 7:00 at night, every night during the height of COVID and honoring them. Well, where are we now? What are we doing now? You know, these folks are burnt out. Some are leaving the profession because they've had enough. That hurts all of us because we're losing expertise in the healthcare community with them leaving. So one of the things that we're doing is honor, thank and support and we're gifting the book to the healthcare community. I go and give a presentation down in down at Moffitt Hospital. BMW, Sarasota and Rittenhouse Publications sponsored the book. We have other organizations in conversation with teams. MBA Cares has helped us bring, bring the books. We don't want them buying it. We want to hand it and say thank you. You and honor, thank and support our healthcare community is, is our mantra.
- [42:40]
Co-host
Well, I really hope that people took that what you just said to heart because I'm sure everybody listening knows somebody in that profession, whether family or friends or. And you really should do that. You should take a second, a moment to just say thank you. Because what they have done the last three plus years is just astounding. And, and I hold them in the highest regard because as you know, Bobby, there's most people. When, when there's a big boom, most people run away, but there's a few people that run toward and they're the people that always run toward. And I say that I have no, I am not objective about this. I say that wholeheartedly. I'm not objective at all about this.
- [43:21]
Bob Delaney
But. Well, David, David.
- [43:23]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [43:23]
Bob Delaney
Think about this. Military goes to where trauma is.
- [43:28]
Co-host
Yeah.
- [43:28]
Bob Delaney
The healthcare community has trauma. Walk in the front door.
- [43:32]
Co-host
Right.
- [43:33]
Bob Delaney
Comes to them. Comes right to them.
- [43:35]
Co-host
That's right. That's right, Bob. It's a great book. Heroes are Human. Lessons in resilience, Courage and wisdom from the COVID front lines. Bob Delaney with Dave Scheiber. Just fantastic book, Bob. I thank you for sending it to me. And you always, in all your salutations end it was stay safe. So I say the same to you. Please stay safe out there. And thank you for, for helping educate all of us about who the real heroes are in our society.
- [44:04]
Bob Delaney
Thanks, David. It stays safe to you as well, to your audience, but also take care of you. Self care does not mean I have the card.
- [44:12]
Co-host
Thank you for enclosing the self help self help card. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to stick to that.
- [44:18]
Bob Delaney
Yes, it's not easy. Self care does not mean selfish. We need to take care of, of ourselves to be the best version of ourselves to make this world a better place.
- [44:26]
Co-host
Bob, thank you very much and all of y'all. Listen to us. Leave that five star review on Apple, on Spotify, Apple, Play, Google, wherever you get this fine American podcast. And as Marcus would say, if you can't leave a five star review, keep it to yourself. See you next time.
- [45:06]
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- [46:25]
Bob Delaney
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- [46:32]
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- [46:35]
Bob Delaney
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- [46:40]
Co-host
We love getting to talk to experts. We love having meaningful conversations just the two of us. And we also love hearing from you.
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David Aldridge
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- [46:48]
Bob Delaney
Being a place where you can laugh.
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Co-host
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- [46:55]
Bob Delaney
So in the spirit of that, we are relaunching our podcast.
- [46:58]
Co-host
We are excited to introduce Laugh Lines with Kim and Penn Holderness. The Laugh Lines podcast will be all about aging together better and also so being able to laugh about getting older. We hope you'll join us.
- [47:11]
Bob Delaney
Search Laugh Lines with Kim and Penn Holderness New episodes every Tuesday. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.
- [47:24]
Co-host
Com.