King Randall, I
Appearances
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Born and raised Christian.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Grandmother was a preacher. Grandfather down in Florida, my dad's father preaching. I played the drums my whole life. My grandmother used to have church at home. So we used to have people come to the house, and my grandmother had me this little drum set, and I started playing the drums there. This was before my grandmother could afford to get us a church.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They love— Is it rubbing off on them? Yeah, so William and Baby King, which is my oldest, William is very different from Baby King. They like night and day. William does not like school. He's not fond of it. He's his own child. He does not get excited about things that Baby King gets excited about. We go to an amusement park or something, and William's kind of just sitting there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Uh, like the other day, went to this ice cream shop with nitrogen ice cream, where you can get like the dragon's breath and stuff, you know, to breathe a little smoke and stuff. He was like, I don't want to do that. He does not like the pool. He does not like the beach.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He does not like, he's super like, he doesn't deal, like, for example, Baby King, he'd come in here, shake his hand, you know, uh, introduce himself. William does not, he will not talk to you if he doesn't know you. Like he just, unless I tell him, say, son, introduce yourself and he'll say something, but he just like, Very standoffish. Yeah, very standoffish. They're night and day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I will say something different about them both. I've had to teach Baby King what I call that dog. I had to teach him aggression. I'm like, son, you have to learn how to turn aggression on and off. So sometimes during baseball practice, I would purposely frustrate him. so he could see how good he does when he's upset.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
When he hits that ball, when he's upset, I'm like, that's the furthest you ever hit a ball. See how you're using that aggression right now? He'll cry. I'm like, okay, now use that and hit the ball. Get mad at the ball and hit it. And he's like, oh, I didn't know I could hit the ball that far. I said, exactly. So make your angry face and hit the ball and turn it off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said, daddy could get angry right now. and I could turn it off. I said, you have to learn how to control that aggression. So he's learning about controlled aggression early. William hadn't had to teach aggression to him. When he go hit the ball, he's angry already. When he's boxing, bro is already angry about it. Like he's in there practicing with his brother. So he watches his brother often.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They get into it like, you know, normal siblings about sharing stuff or whatever like that. But for the most part, baby King is always leading. He's like, no, William, you need to brush your teeth right. You need to make sure you're getting the back of your teeth. You need to make sure you're doing this right. William, put your shoes on the right foot. Grant, William didn't always listen to him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He gets upset with him like, no, leave me alone, you know, whatever like that. But he's always leading him. I taught him about that. I'm like, listen, your brother looks up to you. He might want to listen all the time. He'll participate in the bad stuff you're doing, but he don't want to participate in the good things that you do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I started out playing the drums there, and I played the drums all the way up until I was about— 17 or 18, right when I went to the Marine Corps. That's when I stopped. But other than that, I spent my whole life at church. You still do it? Play the drums? Yeah. Nah, you know what? I've been wanting to get back into it. I've been considering buying a drum set.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So he does. Taking notes. Yeah, he watches the other kids at practice not go as hard as he does. So next year, Baby King will be playing up in baseball. He's going to this eight-year-old team next year. A team called about him because they've been watching his videos online, so he's going to play up next year. But that's only because the kids his age are not giving him any competition.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But he watches the kids his age, and it's not no fault to the kids, and not even necessarily to their parents. It's just that we all raise our kids differently. And so during the games, sometimes people will be like, oh, just... well, why he going so hard about it or whatever? I'm like, well, this is why my kids are great and your sons suck. Because we believe in what we're doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's important to believe in what you're doing. If we're going to do something, we're going to give it our best. We're not just doing anything just for fun. We're going to do anything. I don't care if we're making our bed. We're going to make our bed the best way we could possibly make our bed. We're going to brush our hair. We're going to brush our hair the best way we possibly can brush it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Do it all the best. I'm like, you want to be the best at it all. And if you are the best, find somebody else that's better and then go after them. So last year during baseball, he wasn't the best on the field yet or whatever last year because, like I said, we've been practicing. And we found we want the kid who was the best. And so when he came to the plate, I'm like, baby, can you get him out?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so he hit the ball. He caught it. He played second base. He caught the ball, threw him out, and he was so excited about it. I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. I don't care nothing about that. Like, we don't care about him being that good. We want to find the best, and we want to beat him. That's what we want to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, I can push back at that a little bit, actually. Stress, to me, is good. And not necessarily saying the stress you put on your body or something like that. Stress, worry, doubt, et cetera, it causes you to work a little bit more. Mm-hmm. When I'm worried about if I can't take care of the light bill this month, I might go do a little extra work to make sure that I can take care of that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've been missing it lately, apparently, because I find myself still doing it a little bit. But I played my whole life, man. And it's weird for me to go to church now. It's interesting. It's so weird for me to be at church. I literally spent every second at church behind the drum set. So it's so hard for me to actually just sit at church and pay attention because I'm used to listening for cues.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But why am I not thinking like that all the time? It's like we'll get comfortable and then we'll stop doing what's needed or whatever. We'll get comfortable and stop doing what we could be doing. So it's like I don't ever want to get comfortable. I'm like, okay. There's children like, for example, again, talking about my son. There's this kid that we interact with on social media.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
His social media is called Sense Diapers. His dad's been training him in baseball since he was literally almost a newborn. He's got the videos. This kid is five years old now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
and i kid you not this kid is sliding doing all types of crazy catches like he is world world's better than my son so when people see my son on the field and they're like oh he's fantastic i'm in my mind thinking about malik i'm like no malik is gonna destroy my son like he is great with it so we plan to have them practice together and stuff like that to make each other better or whatever but i'm always thinking like just like you said the enemy's always waiting to kill you
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And not just in regards to sports, just in life in general. There's somebody making the money that I want to be making. There's somebody more successful than I am.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He's developing. The stress is important. You need it. You need the worry. You need it because it causes you to want to work a little bit harder. And so even like working out in the mornings, I ain't going to lie to you, I hate working out in the mornings. It gets on my nerves. But I do it anyway because I need to put myself through something I can accomplish in the morning.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It makes me feel great. I did this thing I really didn't want to do, and I know my sons are watching me too. So even though I don't want to do it, I do it anyway because I know they're going to get up in the morning and look for me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The morning that I don't get up, like some mornings I may not do it or something like that, maybe every once in a while, I get upset at myself because my sons come and ask me, hey, why didn't you wake us up this morning to go work out? To me, I just told them that it's okay to not do something. I just told them it's okay to not do what you're supposed to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, I do. I do. I critique myself, and it's important, but I don't mind it because I'm proud of the results in the end. The results is what make it all worth it, and that's what makes me happy. After I see the results, after I see that I've gotten a little bigger in my life, Or my suits are getting a little tight. I got to buy new suits or whatever like that. I'm getting training better.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm doing better in boxing. Yeah, it's annoying at the time. But once I finally see those results, I'm like, man, like now I want to do it some more. But all that success you're looking for is going to come through the dangerous, the treacherous going through the minefield. It's going to be the treacherous going through the crazy river just to get to the other side.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So as a man, I like being Batman to my kids. I like being Batman to those around me. Like, man, King's always doing all this great stuff. People think I do fantastic. I think I'd be doing more. I'm just like, I just left Nigeria back in August, and those kids are out working everybody I know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You know, their dreams are to come to America, but I'm just like, when I got there, it almost removed empathy for me, you know, for anything that, you know, people claim they're going through. I'm like, these kids don't even got sewage and running water, barely eat every day, and they are working circles. around us, so it made me want to come home and do even more.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We had to worship differently. We couldn't just sit there and just pay attention. We paid attention, but we worshiped in our own way. So I'm used to listening for cues. I'm watching the musicians, seeing what they're doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So when people are impressed with me, I'm not impressed with me at all. Like, I'm like, this is nothing. You know, I'm like, I could be doing a whole lot more. I could still be getting up a little bit earlier. Like, I still critique myself about that. Like, why am I getting up at 630? I could easily, I wake up at five o'clock in the morning and I just sit there and scroll on my phone.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Why don't I get my butt up and go on the computer and do something? You know, do something else other than sitting here scrolling on my phone. Like, you know, I could be making other things happen. So Elon, et cetera, all these billionaires, et cetera, we got the same 24 hours in a day, and it's all what we decide to do with it. And it's going to come with the pressure.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So if I'm comfortable and sitting around and nothing's happening, I feel like a failure because I'm just like, something needs to be happening. Something needs to be shaking right now. Something needs to be moving. I critique myself for not training my son as much sometimes. Like, I feel like we could train more. We only train like an hour a day sometimes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But a day we miss training, he ain't thinking about it. But me, I'm like, dang, like, it's another kid somewhere training right now and we missing it. Like, you know, it's interesting. So who picked baseball? Say it again? Who picked baseball and boxing?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He picked it? He picked baseball. He asked me. I had never played a... Listen, I had never caught a baseball in my life. I had never played... I played football my whole life. And I stopped football in high school because one of my friends got paralyzed on the field. I was very good. But, of course, I was running back. I'm short. But anyway, man, he asked to play baseball. I remember he was four.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And he was like, dude, I want to play baseball. Because he got this little tee for his birthday. And I was like... Sure, why not? So I signed him up for baseball and me, when we do something, we're going to be the best at it. So I had to learn how to coach him because I didn't know what I was doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Watching the number chorus they're calling out because I'm listening, watching the bass player because that's the guy I had to watch, you know, calling numbers out, calling hits, all that stuff. So I'm used to that. So every time I go to church, it's like super weird because I'm like staring at the musicians the whole time. So it was just interesting, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I had to go watch videos because at first when I was just rolling them balls, I'm thinking he's catching the ball right and stuff like that. We're doing everything wrong. So I'm watching all the videos, I'm doing it. So we've traveled to different places to get some coaching from other coaches. They'll coach him, and I'm coaching myself watching them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm watching them coach him, so that way, okay, that's what we can do when we get home. So I'll go, you know, train with these coaches, you know, in different cities or whatever like that. We'll train with them. And I'm subconsciously watching what they're coaching so I can go back and coach at home. Or I'll watch what the boxing coach is doing, and I can do it at home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So now we don't necessarily need y'all all the time. We can do this at home. So it's very important. The training is very important for me, but he picked baseball. And so I told him if we're going to do something, we're going to be the best at it. Or boxing. He's had times where he said he wanted to quit, no doubt, because he asked me to play, but he didn't want to do the work at first.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He's just like, oh, we got to go practice, you know, whatever like that. Now he wants to practice at six because he understands that he's good now. He likes being good. So now he likes to practice. But before, when he was like four and five, he like, I don't want to play baseball anymore. I want to play something else because he thought it was easier.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I let him try another little sport out, but we went and practiced a lot with that. And he like, dang, I thought this was going to be easy. Nah, ain't none of it easy. Even gymnastics. I got him doing pull-ups in the house, you know, like, cause he has to pull up on the bar and stuff. Like all of it is hard work.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I don't care what sport you choose, whether it's school, whether it's reading a book, et cetera, you have to put the work in to be the best. Because if you want people out here beating you because he hates to lose, I'm like, well, if you hate to lose, you got to be the best. You got to practice. And the only thing that's going to keep you winning is practicing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so now, you know, as he's coming of age, he's understanding the practice now. So he'll get in there like at 630 in the morning. We got a tee and a net in the gym. I made it for him. And while I'm in there lifting, he got the tee and he's hitting off before school every morning. And before he goes to school, he's in there hitting off the tee in the morning times. Yeah. Yeah, so I love it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But he picked baseball, man. So I never played at all. So I just take him to the games, let him watch the other players. He loves Shoei. That's his favorite guy. He loves Shoei, but we go to the Braves games, et cetera. He loves it. So I just try to hone whatever he asks for. He asked to do that, so we're going to hone it. Wow.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I mentioned it to a couple of people, and they were like, you aren't aware. Really? Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
For one, through God. And then for two, through the work. At first, when I first began, it was a lot of, oh, you're too young. How are you going to teach boys how to be men, et cetera, et cetera. I was 19. So people had stuff to say. But once I started doing the work, it's like, There's nothing you can say because I'm doing everything that I said I was going to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's very weird for me to be at church now, but I love it. I love it. Do you take your kids to church? Absolutely. Yeah, they go to church. So their grandfather on their mom's side, he's a pastor in Cuthbert, Georgia, and they love to go see him preach. And he'll bring them on the pulpit because they want to sit by him before he's about to preach. So his name, Pastor Vaughn, and they love him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said I was going to open the school. I said I was going to start an after-school program. I said it was going to all be free. I said I was never going to charge. I said it was going to take care of kids. We're going to make sure they got haircuts. We're going to make sure they got uniforms. We're going to make sure they got clothes, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, underwear, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said I was going to do it. And people didn't believe it at first. People were like, where are you going to get the funding? Where are you going to get the capital, et cetera? I don't know where I'm going to get it from, but we're going to do it. And I said it over and over again. And as I've done it, people started getting quiet.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And as I'm working, I've really asked people, name somebody else that's doing the type of work that we're doing for free. You can name the boys and girls clubs, et cetera, et cetera. They're not doing the type of work that we're doing, not in mindset changing. Most other programs are aimed at giving children something to do. I'm not aiming for that. We're aiming at trying to change their minds.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I could put 30,000 basketball courts in the city of Albany and they're going to kill each other and fight each other on the basketball courts because there has been no mindset changing. So our goal is to actually fix and train the minds of the child. When we say let us make man, making a man ain't about teaching them how to fix cars or painting the house or whatever like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Sure, that's great stuff to know. But for us, making that man is all in. entail in their character. I always say we make habits with them. We make them do things over and over again. Just like when we were in Marine Corps boot camp, I always say habits build character and character makes the man. Routines build habits. And so we make routines. which forms a habit, which forms their character.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So that's how we, you know, make that man, you know, teaching them to hygiene, clipping their fingernails, making sure they smell decent, asking them why they didn't, you know, have this today or why they didn't, you know, son, why you smell funny? I ain't got no deodorant at home. Okay, cool. We'll send you home with a whole package of soap, deodorant, underwear, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I had kids, you know, have holes in their underwear, holes in their socks. What's going on? My mom ain't been able to buy me such and such. Okay, cool. We'll take care of that for you. People don't know we help moms take care of light bills, et cetera. But it's incentives for that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If you make sure your son is coming after school on time, if you're making sure he's doing his work, if you're making sure he's studying, if we see you trying your best and doing good with your son and making sure you're raising him, we will incentivize that. And I'll say, hey, mom, we're going to take care of your rent for the month. easy work.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We do that through our donors that help us take care of that. But it's important for morale too, because moms need to see that somebody believes in them. Mom needs to see that somebody sees them trying and it helps them with raising their sons because today she may not be as angry when she gets off of work, you know, and actually wants to come watch a movie with you. You know, it's all this little
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Tiny things matter. We don't post that. We don't say those things. We don't readily post whose funeral we helped take care of. One of my students' brother passed away in a cold murder. We paid for his funeral or whatever, but we didn't share that. We talked to the family about it, but it took her to share that online on her own because she was just like, this is what this program means to us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like, this program is for families. Like, yeah, we help boys, but we've helped so many families. I mean, I could go on and on. But that's how we combat that. And to a point now, I've had so much negativity said about me. I mean, it just rolls off my back. I'm used to people having something to say. Even now, we record everything we do with my sons. We record our whole lives.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I love him, too. He's a great man. But my sons love their grandfather, their maternal grandfather. They love him to death. So yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, they listen to him preach often. Every Sunday on Saturdays, they're like, Dad, can we go to Magani's house so we can go to church with them? They ask every Saturday to go to church. They ask, they beg to make sure they're going.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Me and my mom, we have it out sometime, and she's upset with herself because she didn't take as many pictures growing up. So we have a few photos and things like that, but we don't have many pictures of anything. I don't have any photos from playing football, no videos or anything. I played football my whole life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
My mom's just like, I'm so mad because my grandmother used to force her to take pictures all the time. So she thought she was doing me a favor by not forcing me to take pictures all the time and things like that. And she didn't realize what was happening. So we have footage of my sons from when they were like one, two years old. We record every single thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The guys posted online the other day when we were out at evaluations, you know, I got cameras taking pictures of my son or video. And they're like, imagine having some egotistical guy out here taking pictures, you know, and y'all out here trying to play baseball. I'm just like, so when you go to the MLB game and they got cameras out, you can't watch it then because they're recording it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm just like, it's the same thing. But people just want something to say. But I'm just like, we post this stuff for my son's brand because this is going to help him as he gets older. You know, people are watching him already, you know, watching his content, et cetera. So, yeah. We're building on that early. And plus, we just record their content anyway.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So when they get older, we just got all this stuff we could watch. We could sit down and watch old family movies, whatever, just from conversations in the car. I mean, we have everything. Sometimes my videographer will send me stuff I don't even remember he recorded. He'll send me old videos of me holding them when they were babies.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He's like, hey, man, I was just going through the vault looking at some old stuff or old videos of us in the after-school program back when I was like 20, reading the Bible to the kids or something. He'll send me that. I'm just like, man, this is crazy. I don't even remember this day, but he's sending me this content, and it's important. But yeah, that's how we combat it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We just keep doing more work, and we let God do the rest. Eventually, people just have to be quiet because, I mean, what more can you say?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Really?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So are they like special gummy bears?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I love gummy bears.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, I got some in my bag right now. I love gummy bears. Nice. So this is going to be a hit for me. So if they're good, I'm definitely just going to order some. Yeah. Yeah. I am a gummy bear fan, man. Cool. Cool. Well, let's get into your story. So where did you grow up? I grew up in Albany, Georgia, born and raised. Born July 1999. So technically a 90s baby. I almost made it to 2000.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But July of 99, I was born in Albany, Georgia. My mom had me when she was, I think, like 18 and a half. And my-
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I love the city of Albany. I think the city of Albany is what you make it. It's important to mention also the population. Well, now it's only about 66,000 people that live in Albany. When you hear about the high crime rate, it's off of the ratio of people there. So it's not like somebody's dying every single day or anything like that. But there is murder pretty often, I would say.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They get mad if she can't come pick them up or something like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We do have a lot of murder happening, stabbings, a lot of domestic issues. And I tell people I attribute that to it being impoverished because you got to think. Because people always talk about all the kids that are in Albany and people just constantly having children, but also the domestic issues. issues. I'm like, guys, let's be honest here with ourselves.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If people are broke and don't have any money and there are no jobs, there aren't any many jobs in Albany. If people are broke and don't have any jobs, what all they have to do all day? Argue and have sex. That's it. So that's what's happening in Albany.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You constantly got a lot of children, you know, being had in Albany, but also a lot of domestic, you know, issues because it's woman, most of the time it's the Always some woman stabbed the guy or the guy shot the woman or it's just some domestic stuff. It's always domestic disputes. It's never like a stray bullet. It's always domestic stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We get some gang-related stuff here and there, but it's mostly girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend. These guys arguing about something. It's always domestic stuff. And I attribute that to, again, being impoverished, even mentioning how people raise their children in the city of Albany.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If somebody like, for example, me, I look at some of the things that I get mad at and I don't get mad at based off of what I'm able to afford. For example, like my sons sometimes want to draw on their shoes. I don't have a problem with that. Have fun. I don't care. Draw on your shoes, whatever. They want to make little, I see it as them being creative.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Now, specific shoes, I don't let them draw on, but other shoes, I'm like, have fun at it. But then I can also understand why one mom would want to spank her child for riding on his shoe. Because for one, she's maybe, to be frank, she's taking out a little of her frustration on them. Being for real. She's taking a little frustration on him. But also, dude, I paid $40 for those shoes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I barely had that $40. And you're drawing on your shoes like, oh, my God. And she's ready to kill him, you know, like about that. And it's just so much happening around her. You know, she's doing it by herself. Dad's nowhere around. Vice versa with maybe a couple of guys that's raising their sons by themselves. or raising their kids by themselves. I know this one guy, he got like nine kids, bro.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Just got too many kids, but he raising them all. Moms are nowhere to be found. He's frustrated all the time. The moms make him upset. He goes to jail. He calls me, Mr. King, you know, it's one of my students' dad. His mom, he calls me, Mr. King, can you help me? You know, I went to jail. One kid's mom, you know, made me upset and I did such and such or whatever like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You know, he's barely making it and I'm just like... guys, like, this is why this is happening. People need jobs here. And so this is why I started getting into the politics of the city of Albany. Because I, at first, People know me. People hear me saying this now. But back when I was younger, I would say, man, bump politics. I don't care about politics.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We just need to do for ourselves, do stuff for our community, and everything will be fine. Bump the politicians or whatever like that. But as I got older, I started realizing, no, some of the stuff that they're passing at the mayor and the city councilmen and the commissioners, they're passing stuff that's directly affecting these kids.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And not only passing stuff, but not doing stuff to actually affect people having money here. People need money. How did you get involved in politics? I started in Albany maybe in this last year trying to figure out politics in my hometown because I'm seeing stuff not happening in my hometown that should be happening, stuff that seems common sense.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so I'm just like, okay, let me just start going to these meetings. You know, all the meetings are open for the public to come to. Nobody's there. The mayor is in their meeting. They're having meetings about all this different stuff that's happening in the city. 67,000 people live there and nobody's there. The last mayoral election, only 7,000 people voted for the mayor.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, man. My son's very good at baseball. He's six years old, but dude is the best six-year-old baseball player you'll ever see. But we spend a lot of time practicing. My sons are also homeschooled, too. They're homeschooled. I have a private teacher for them also. My mom takes turns homeschooling. You know, teaching them different things. So they're very intelligent. And he also boxes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And we have 67,000 people there. And I'm just like, how exactly are we expecting the city of Albany to change and we don't know what's going on? What are some of the things you see that's affecting the community? Well, for starters, you know, mentioning the lack of jobs. There are no jobs there. And on top of that, they're not attracting people to want to come to the city of Albany.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I will mention that our city sucks at marketing and just in general from, and I'm a big fan of the school system, but the school system does not do a good job at marketing. The police department does not do a good job at marketing. fire department, the city of Albany, et cetera, they do not do a good job at marketing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The reason I say that's important is because everything you hear and see about Albany is always negative. If you go type Albany, Georgia in on Google, it's always negative. It is important that people in the city know that these people are actually doing their jobs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I told them this before, our police department is doing a fantastic job, but all you ever see online about people talking about them is just negative stuff. But these people actually are solving murders, they're actually taking care of things, they're making things happen for the citizens, they have these new equipment, et cetera, they're really doing good.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I had to go take a private class to learn about our police department. I'm like, why aren't you guys posting this stuff? People should know that you guys are doing your job, that you are trying to make things happen. Or our school system.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Our school system is doing a phenomenal job, and I have to almost apologize for the things that I was saying about them previously, because I didn't know what was happening. Not because I wouldn't go in to look, but also because they wouldn't say anything about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Our school system has health clinics, dental and vision clinics, et cetera, for the students to go to for free because the parents in Albany cannot afford the insurance for those kids. They've gotten the grants to make sure. The clinics are at school. You never hear anybody today give props to the public school system. No, and I'm going to do that because they are doing, they are trying.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've had them tell us stories about kids who didn't even know, this kid didn't even know what a toothbrush was going to the dentist. Like, these are real stories. And so I'm listening to them tell us, I'm like, why aren't y'all talking about this? So I offered with my team to do a small documentary on the school system and the things that they've changed in the city, especially since COVID.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They also have this program called Level Up. The Level Up program is where they have parents sign up for the program. They'll go pay for these parents to go to school to get their forklift license, nursing license, bulldozer, whatever. They'll pay for them to go to school to get these licenses and they'll say, oh, well, I don't have any care for my child.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They'll go get your kid from school and pay for the daycare and everything for your child while you're in school getting your license to go get whatever degree you're trying to get or go get whatever certification to get a job. So this in turn turns into these parents not being able to parent their children because
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They don't have to work three and four jobs anymore, and they don't have to keep sending the kid to the auntie's house and sending it to whoever's house to be raised by God knows what, when they can raise their own children now because now they have a livable wage job. This is impactful. I'm just like, why aren't you guys saying anything about this? Where's the marketing team?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's important that people know because all people hear is the negativity surrounding the city of Albany, and it's important that people know that the commission I'm on now just joined the Historic Preservation Commission. It's important that people know about the history of Albany and why these buildings are important and what happened here and things like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He does gymnastics, my oldest son. My younger son does gymnastics also. He's just not old enough to participate, but he's already training in baseball. And so they'll see our videos. I also post the videos where they're crying and upset also because I'm trying to show the part of fatherhood that's just not the sweet stuff. For example, my son was about to get ready to spar for the first time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We wish people would get involved with the Historic Preservation Commission, etc. I'm like, okay, well, you guys should probably make a Facebook page and explain what's going on. Make some TikToks, make videos, etc. Me being the youngest person on the five different boards I just joined is going to help the city out a whole lot because they've been looking.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They're like, hey, how can we market like you're marketing? Listen, let me help take care of those things for you. So we're going to show these different stories that the Doherty County school system has helped with these parents and their kids and the free dental and vision.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I also didn't know that our school system has a hydroponics garden where they are growing all of the green vegetables for the entire school system. They are feeding these children. Don't kid me. fresh vegetables from a garden that the students manage. Wow. And I'm just like, why aren't you guys showing this stuff online?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because all people do is talk trash about our school system in Albany, Georgia, including myself at one point. And I didn't know all these things were happening. I didn't know that they were answering the questions that people asked at the school board meetings. I went to the school and they're answering the questions. They're in there saying, hey, no, they're like, oh, the kids can't read here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But what they're saying is, look, COVID stopped us. These kids couldn't come to school. But as COVID has left or whatever like that, they're showing the trajectory going up from the statistics. I'm like, these people are trying. These people are trying to do their jobs. Granted, everything ain't perfect, but this is something that needs to be shown. Why aren't you guys showing it?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've even spoken to the city about it. They're paying this company in our hometown. I won't call them out, but it sucks. I was at the city commission meeting. They're paying this one video company six figures over six months for marketing for the city of Albany. I go on their city of Albany web pages.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The couple videos that they've done maybe got one like, if any, or some got no likes, no views, et cetera. I'm like, so... They're older, so they don't understand how social media and marketing works. So I'm like, have y'all asked them for any deliverables? Asked them how many people have seen this stuff? Y'all paying them six figures?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And this is maybe our third time doing it, and they've only done like maybe two or three commercials for like the hospital or something like that. Why are y'all paying them all this? My team don't even make that much money, and we're pushing out more content than y'all ever have. Y'all releasing one or two videos every couple months, and y'all paying them six figures?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So why haven't y'all asked them for any metrics? How many people in the city of Albany have seen these things? You know, the regular person in Albany doesn't even know who the mayor is. They don't know what ward they live in. They don't know their commissioner. Not saying it's completely the citizens' fault, but I think it's the mayor's fault. I think it's the city commissioner's fault.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Why aren't you in people's faces? Because people still thought that our mayor from two mayors ago was still the mayor the other day. They had no clue that we had a new mayor. And I'm just like, why aren't you guys trying to show people who you are? I talked to our city commission about this because I think that you guys maybe are just doing stuff that y'all don't care for the public to know about.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's what I think. I think you don't want people involved, so you can just keep passing little stupid stuff up here that's not causing the city to advance. You're just giving contracts to your little contracting companies that you know and passing little stuff for people that you know and your homeboys and your family and your affiliates, and people don't know what's going on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I've been at every meeting, so I can just keep jotting down notes. Is that happening? Yeah, it's happening. So I've been at every meeting and I've joined five different boards. I am on the Historic Preservation Commission now. I'm on the Planning Commission now. I'm on the Southwest Georgia Housing Task Force. I'm on the Albany Police Department Civilian Review Board.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I know all things happening with the police department. And mind you, every board I'm on, I'm the youngest person there. Everybody else there is extremely older, but mainly because they don't even get applicants for these boards and people don't know these boards exist. So I'm telling people, These boards are actually making decisions too. The Historic Preservation Commission is so important.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He'd been boxing since he was four. He was practicing. They're teaching him everything, all the punch numbers, et cetera. So he'd been doing that since he was about four years old. And so this is the first time to spar. He's going to spar this 10-year-old kid. And he'd never been hit in the face before, never been punched, never had any competition in front of him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They make decisions that the mayor can't make. We make decisions to say, hey, you cannot do this certain thing in this historic district. You cannot do anything over there because you're going to mess with the historic... preservation of this building or you can't do this thing to your house because you're going to mess up the historic district. It's important.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The planning commission is important because everything that comes through us is what people want to rezone something for. Do I want to open a liquor store over on this side of town or if I want to open up a new bar over here or whatever, we have to approve of those things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But that's important because we can think about then, what's the demographic on that side of town that you're trying to open that liquor store on? I don't think that side of town needs a liquor store. We don't need another liquor store on that side of town. It's already high crime over there. We're going to give them more liquor over there? That don't even make any sense. You know, whatever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So they're trying to monetize, you know, people that's coming into town, trying to open business, they're monetizing the debauchery in our hometown. They're monetizing that people are drunks in Albany. They're monetizing that people are obese and overweight in Albany. So they're opening tons of restaurants online.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
on the worst sides of town because they know people can't afford to go buy healthy food. So they've got Popeyes and all this stuff that's causing people to die. I went and talked to the coroner not too long ago. I said, Mr. Coroner, why are people dying? He said, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes. He said, I'm picking people up every day for it. He said, because of the food.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
People don't want to get up and exercise because they're scared to walk in the neighborhoods, et cetera. He said, this is why people are dying every day. Nobody knows that. And I'm just like, this is stuff that needs to be talked about. And so this is why I'm even having your platform. When we share these videos and stuff, I'm going to share it to our city.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because people need to know that our school system is trying their hardest. They are doing their job there. Granted, some things could be better with maybe disciplining the kids in certain ways, et cetera. But that's free health, dental, vision. Y'all giving kids glasses, et cetera. Y'all trying to make a way for these kids to just even live. You know, for free.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Making sure their parents got forklift licenses, et cetera. They graduating kids with truck drivers simulating all this. I mean, it's crazy what they're doing. And nobody knows about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So we got home, I put his gear on at the house in the garage. I got on my knees and I put my gloves on and I told him to put his hands up. And I told him to remember everything that Coach Dino had taught him during practice. So I hit him in the head, not hard, but I hit him in the head. And he was like, dad, you're punching too fast. He just starts crying. He's just crying.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You mentioned there's not a big job market. I wish I had my phone with me, but I mean, it's gas station jobs, McDonald's, these $10, $12-hour jobs for the most part. And if you're like me, or maybe just a regular person who probably needs a lot more money than that, you either have to drive an hour away,
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
to go to another city that does pay a livable wage job and then come back home or whatever like that, or eventually just have to move to there, which is why our population is declining. Over the past 10 years, our population dropped 10,000 people because people are leaving, because there's no growth happening in the city. But there's no factory jobs. We got factories.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Have you ever tried the combos, Little Crackers? Those are exclusively made in Albany, Georgia. They are made nowhere else. M&M Mars makes combos in Albany, Georgia. They have a secret little recipe thing and everything. I love combos, but they're all over the country, but they're exclusively made in Albany, Georgia. Why isn't that a thing? People eat combos all the time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I go and they're sold out. Why aren't y'all talking about that? But these are like the little small jobs we have. Factories have left. We used to have Bob's Candy. They left. We do have a Marine base in Albany, the logistics base. It's probably one of the most important bases for the Marine Corps. But if, lo and behold, they ever decide to move the command somewhere else,
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We'd be effed, to be frank. We're one factory away from Albany becoming, like, some real bad town. We do have Procter & Gamble, like, they make tissue and things like that and, you know, laundry detergent and stuff like that. So we do have a couple factory jobs, but most of those factories have people that work there that come from other cities to come work because they won't live in Albany.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So, I mean— What would you bring, then? I would think about, so this is long-term what I would think. I would think about trying to bring car manufacturing or something like that to Albany. The reason I would do that is because we have so much open land in Albany, so much space for factories, warehouses, whatever. Even closed factories, we got some just abandoned.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'm like, put your hands back up. You know, focus. I'm teary-eyed just thinking about it. But I'm like, put your hands back up, son. You know, and he put his hands. I'm like, remember what you were taught, son. And so he started remembering the different moving out the way and throwing punches. I'm like, this is why you were taught for this whole year. You know, this is what you were learning.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
just sitting there or whatever like that. But I would do that because for one, we could bring a livable wage job to some of these people that are in Albany. But also these jobs require you to work a long time. They require you to work at least nine to 12 hours.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
These kids out here on the street that ain't got no job and y'all could do the training on site, you give they butt a job, they working nine, 12 hours making livable wage, but also they ain't got time to go do nothing stupid outside. You working them to the bone and now they sleepy and ready to go home and maybe eat some food And that's it. They're not getting into any trouble because they sleepy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They tired. Have you thought about how you would incentivize an auto manufacturer to move there? Only way I could do that is selling the city of Albany. And at this point, if a manufacturer were to look at the city of Albany online, they're like, absolutely not. This is where relationships come in. This is why I'm grateful for my traveling through the country.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
talking about the extra boys and building relationships before I started working in the city of Albany like I am now. I have so many different relationships now. Right now I'm in contact with a professor from Yale and we're working on this private project that he and I are working on to bring to the city of Albany because they're like, Albany is the perfect pilot project.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But they would have never known that Albany was a great place for this project. I can't talk about it for this project unless if it weren't for me going to talk to them about it. And I'm like, dude, Albany has so much potential. I call Albany Potential Incorporated. We have so many empty spaces, so many downtowns, beautiful, no businesses at all. It's like all these empty buildings down there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So much history, so much rich history in Albany. From Dr. King coming to Albany during the Civil Rights Movement to all these other different things that happened in Albany. Like, they don't preserve a lot of things. The house that Dr. King used to stay in in Albany is currently boarded up. I'm like, why isn't that like some landmark or something that y'all add to like some tour people do?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We have Radium Springs in Albany. It's a natural spring place. in Albany that has this fresh water that comes out of it or whatever like that. It's really cool. But I'm like, why don't you guys do boat tours or something down here? My brain is turning, but I'm just like, why aren't y'all monetizing the true good history and the good life city? Ray Charles is from there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We got a Ray Charles Plaza, but that's it. We don't really do anything for Ray Charles. You got a couple NFL players from Albany or whatever. Grant, they won't come back or do anything or whatever like that. But we got a lot of things that have happened good from the city of Albany. But why aren't we pushing those things? Why aren't we showing people how great the city of Albany can be?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We have a lot of great mom and pop restaurants who make great food. But why aren't we showcasing them on TikTok and through the city of Albany website or through the city of Albany social media pages or whatever? I've made this stuff mentioned, but again, these people are older and they don't understand. Right. We didn't even have an app.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
This is to put into action. action now. And so then he started getting confident. He started getting aggressive. Like he started punching back and moving out the way and, you know, dodging and weaving. So we get to sparring the next day and he got a couple great licks off the 10-year-old. He's a good 10-year-old boxer.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You know, like most cities got an app you could download, you know, to talk to your commissioners or, you know, report stuff or whatever like that. We still got to dial 311 to call about a pothole.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
This is going to be a long-winded little part. When I was younger, when I was a kid, I told you my grandmother has been very spiritual my whole life. She's been preaching, having Bible studies, prayer lines, et cetera. She's big. She's huge into God. I mean, she does it. When I was about three years old, I'll never forget. We were riding in her car.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
She had this old green Lexus she had when I was like three. And I remember the car seats at the time were these little things you had to pull over your head, and I had to learn how to strap myself in. It was this little circle inside my car seat I was to play with all the time. I just remember little things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I remember we were riding on this street called, I think it was Johnny W. Williams Road, and we turned to South Madison. She stood on South Madison Street. And we got to the stop sign. I told my grandma, I said, grandma, I said, you know how it is like when something's about to happen, like you feel like something in your stomach like that. And she was like, yeah, I know what you mean.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I told her that I was here to finish what Dr. Martin Luther King started. And I told her like as I got older that, I don't know if we, like, maybe watched a Dr. King video at preschool that day or something like that. I don't remember anything from that day but that conversation. I remember it vividly. I'll never forget it. But as I got older, my grandmama would always tell me that often.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'm like, grandma, like, can you stop saying that? Like, because she would, like, tell, like, people at the church what I said and stuff like that. Because, like, as a testimony, I'm like, grandma, can you stop saying that? Like, I'm like, I was a kid. I don't... Like, whatever. Like, I was maybe watching the Dr. King video or something. I'm like, I'm not trying to do that. I want to cook.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like, because my biological father was a great cook. He would cook at, like, different restaurants. He, you know, wasn't like a professional chef or anything, but he would, like, cook. So I wanted to cook because that's what my real dad did. I just wanted to be like my real dad. I didn't spend a whole lot of time with him. My stepdad raised me, but...
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Anytime I interacted with my father, I just wanted to do things with him. And my mom, thank God for her, she purposely fostered our relationship to the point where I never hated him, even if he wasn't around. And so my mom would literally go buy me Christmas gifts, go bring it to my dad, pick me up, and then bring me to my father as if he gave me the gift. Like, my mom is—that's something special.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Not saying he was like really fully boxing him, but to get a couple licks off of him, like some really good licks, I posted the videos and he was so happy that he did it. He was like, that was easier than I thought. He was like, I didn't know I could do that. And so I posted those videos and people just like, oh, this is too much. He just needs to have fun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I loved my dad. I still love my dad. Even if he ain't, like, just— there all the time. My biological father, I love him. I'll call him. We'll talk maybe every couple months. He's been sick lately. I just visited him in the hospital. He had an enlarged heart or something, but I love my real dad. So I started wanting to cook because of that. And so I joined a culinary team at school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We had a culinary team in high school in his culinary class with Chef Sly. He's gonna watch this. He's a big fan of yours too. But Chef Sly, he taught me everything I know about cooking. And I started with him and I started cooking things at home. I started baking different things. I would sell like different things to bake at home. I would sell to the community.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I made like cupcakes and everything. I was really good at it. And then I also did this program called Move Home and Ready, where you could take college classes in high school. So I took the college classes at the culinary school that we had in Albany, at Albany Technical College. So I was there. every day. I was cramming classes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I went to high school in the morning times, and then I would leave there at about 12 o'clock. My grandma had bought me a car when I was younger, but I eventually started driving it, and I would drive to the college and go take those classes. They would allow me to leave school to go take the college classes. And I took those classes and people don't realize culinary classes are long.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
These are six to eight hour long classes because you got to think, things have to bake, things have to cook. It's not a quick class. Then we also did catering events. So I would sometimes come home at like one or two o'clock in the morning at like 15, 16, because I'm out cooking. And my grandmother would just make sure I was okay, make sure I had everything I needed, make sure I ate food.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'll tell a little story about her later. But, yeah, she would make sure I had everything I needed. My grandmother, if I opened my phone up, I got prayers every single day. She's sending me these long scriptures I read every morning. I don't text back all the time. She knows I read them. She'll send me these videos, motivational videos. But that's what she used to do when I was in high school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Same thing. She would send me prayers, make sure I'm okay, call, make sure I'm good. And I graduated college before I graduated high school. I walked across the college stage first because they had spring graduation. What? Yeah, and then I graduated from high school right after that. Yep. Wow. Yep. Were you always a straight and narrow, motivated kid?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
For the most part, until I got to eighth and ninth grade. I tell everybody, you have to go through your first heartbreak. When I was in eighth grade, this girl I was dating in eighth grade, I had planned my whole life out with her after I started dating her. And when we were about to get to high school, she broke up with me this summer when we were about to go to high school. And I was confused.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And oh, you're not letting them have fun and fun, fun. It's everything. Everybody says just say fun, fun. I'm like, but what if this is fun to him? He enjoys baseball. He enjoys practicing. Does he enjoy every practice? No. Does he always want to practice? No. But I teach them also that I ask them a question. I'm saying, son, when do we work? He always say when we don't feel like it. Exactly.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I didn't know what she broke up with me for. She was just like, well, I just want to go explore. At that time, I didn't know what that really meant. I'm like, what you mean you want to go explore? She was just like, I just, you know, I don't want us to just, you know, worry about each other. Mind you, we done named our kids and everything. I'm like, want to go live my whole life with you type deal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
She was all I thought about, you know, like that was my first like girlfriend, girlfriend. So I was my whole ninth grade year. She would like going to talk to these other guys. And I'm like seeing this stuff. I'm just like. What? So my whole ninth grade year, I chased her. I just chased her. I would just try to figure out what I could do to get her back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I would get mad at the guy she was talking to and things like that. I'd try to meet her at a locker and leave her letters and stuff like that. And I'm just this lover boy kid. I'm just trying to get my girlfriend back. I spent my whole ninth grade year doing that. I lost all my grades. I was so upset. I lost all confidence in myself.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
On top of that, I was just trying to find myself in the ninth grade. I was trying to dress like everybody else because when I was in middle school, I'll tell this story too. I was in middle school and I'll get back into the first question in a bit. But I was in middle school and my... My sixth grade year, I wore a suit to picture day. I love suits. I wore a suit to picture day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I always did in elementary school too. I wore a suit to every picture day. I wore a suit to picture day in middle school in sixth grade. I got to school and everybody picked on me the entire day from front. Like, top to bottom, because I had on a suit. And, oh, they picked on me the whole day. Like, I mean, just picked on me. I took my jacket off, like, to just try and alleviate some of it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like, they picked on me from, like, my shoes, everything. I had a cool, I had a decent suit on. It was a pretty nice suit. And, oh, they picked on me the whole day. I never want to wear a suit again. Ever. Like I just never doing it again. So every picture day after that, I just wore regular clothes, you know, like everybody else did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And people would pick on me still because I didn't wear like the different name brands that they were wearing. Like I would wear Beverly Hills Polo Club. That's what I wanted to wear. My mom wouldn't like poor or anything, so she could afford to do things. She drove trucks sometime. My stepdad worked at a Marine base. So, you know, it ain't like I need it for anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I wanted to wear Beverly Hills Polo Club. So everybody picked on me for that for a long time. So then I had my mom buy me some of the merchandise that they were wearing. I get to school. Everybody's like, well, about time you finally buy some, you know, this stuff. They still talking about me. So I get to ninth grade. I'll never forget. There's one of the cheerleaders. I still remember her.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'll never forget. I always thought I was maybe ugly or something like that because nobody ever wanted to talk to me. She was a senior cheerleader, and she told me I looked sexy one day. And I was like, you talking to me? And she was like, yeah, you look good. I was just like, thanks. From that day forward, I got all my confidence back. Never forget it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
She probably doesn't even remember that right now. But I'll never forget. They say many remember all their compliments because we don't get many. But I got all my confidence back. I started back wearing suits. I wore a suit to school every single day from 11th and 12th grade year. Every single day. Every single day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You wore a suit? A suit. And if I didn't have a suit on, I had on some type of nice sweater with a tie on, like if it was too cold or something. And I had a briefcase. I never had a binder. I had a briefcase. All my schoolwork was in my briefcase every single day. I cut my hair off. I had a box, but I cut my hair so I had a low haircut. And at that time, I was like the school mascot at the time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's when we work. But then we'll go to the baseball field. And we out there with the other kids, and he'll notice that he's better than everybody else. He enjoys that. He is now proud. I teach my children not about happiness, but about being proud of themselves. Because being happy to me is where the devil resides.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
My principal would allow me to go speak at different schools. They were so impressed just how I carried myself. My principal was like, hey, can you go speak at this elementary school on behalf of Westover and things like that? So he'd always announce me over the intercom like, hey, we're going to have King Round to go speak at the elementary school. Let's congratulate him for a job well done.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I would do that, be going to do my college classes. It was great. So I found myself. So... I left high school. I graduated high school, and I got married to my son's mom. And we got married immediately out of high school. I went to the Marine Corps right after that. I originally wasn't going to do that, but I found myself not having anything to do. I just didn't feel accomplished in life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And my best friends at the time— You didn't feel accomplished graduating college before you graduated high school? I didn't feel accomplished. I was working at Chick-fil-A. I was working on trying to find a good cooking job, but I just didn't— Nothing was hitting for me. It just wasn't what I wanted. So my best friends, all my best friends went to the Marines, every last one of them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
All of them went at the same time. And so they write me letters, I'm writing them letters, but I'm just like, let me go see what they're doing. So I'm on YouTube looking at boot camp. I'm just like...
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
can do that like why not you know like I ain't doing nothing else so I went to the recruiting office talked to the recruiter and uh off I went to the Marines I got married off I went to the Marines um I met so many brothers there that we are still you know super close to this day um I was a reserve so I was able to be stationed back back home um a 3051 supply uh but anyway I got back home
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
after combat training and things like that, I get back home and my grandmother, while I was in boot camp, was sending me those letters reminding me of what I told you previously about me finishing what Dr. King started. So I took a second to sit down. I said, okay, let me just figure out What exactly that's supposed to mean?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I did research on Dr. King for like a month straight, every single day. I had deleted all social media off my phone. I had no social media at the time, anything. I was just studying, studying, studying. I'm like, what exactly did Dr. King... I'm not understanding what's happening. So I'm studying. I'm listening to speeches. I'm reading books. I'm going through stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm trying to figure out what exactly... did Dr. King not finish? I don't get it. Like, I'm not understanding this. And I don't tell this story often because people think it's weird, but I always tell the story privately, but I want to share this with you. So I'll never forget. I was studying him. I'm listening to speeches. I started listening to Malcolm X and I'm listening to Malcolm.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm just like, this sounds like 2020, like, well, 2019, 2020. Like, this is crazy. It sounds like now. He's basically advocating for us, doing for ourselves and opening up schools and opening up banks and opening up stores. And I'm like, why aren't we doing that? You know? So anyway, I went to the Dr. King Memorial in Atlanta because I'm like, well, maybe I'll find something here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because being happy is hanging out with your friends and going to do little stupid stuff. It's fleeting. But when I'm proud of myself, when I do something that I could accomplish, and I accomplish a goal, I'm like, okay, he's like, I want to hit a home run this year. This kid's six years old? He's six. He's six.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I went there, I'm looking at all his old cufflinks and they got old shirts and stuff and old letters he wrote. And I'm just, and they're looking around, just nothing's, it's not, nothing's hitting. I'm just like, I don't understand. Like, I really didn't understand. Like, why would I say that? Cause I remember saying it. I can't lie and say I didn't, I remember saying it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'm like, I don't understand. Like, I don't get it. I'm going through the museum still. And I get to this room in there. And my ex-wife at the time, she was with me. And I'll never forget, I get to this room where the carriage carried the casket that brought him through Atlanta, you know, when he was in the casket.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And in this room, just like this one, it has on all over the walls, newspaper articles from when he was killed, all the headlines from Dr. King. I was walking through there and I was looking at the headlines and I'll never forget, there was this newspaper article from the Pittsburgh Courier, April 20th, 1968. It said, will a new King emerge?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And at that moment, I realized that Dr. King didn't train any replacements. And that's where I had the idea that we need to work with young people. And before I ever decide to figure out what it is that Dr. King was trying to finish, as I'm still figuring it out now, I'm in a city that Dr. King failed in for one, and my name is King.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If you look at all of my social media handles, they all say New Immersion King. And I reached out to the Pittsburgh Courier because they're actually currently trying to find that original newspaper for me because I'm going to put it up on my wall. But that meant something to me. And so that's when I started working with kids. I originally started taking them on field trips. Now, hold on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yep. I told her that and she never let me forget it. I told her that I think I was about three years old. Yep. So I've known for a while what I was here to do and living in Albany, Dr. King mentioned Albany and the failures that he made in the city of Albany. And till this day, he mentioned the mindset of the people of Albany and still the same to this day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I mentioned on a video yesterday, I hadn't released yet, But as I've been maneuvering through the city as of late, I've been going to different volunteer workshops. I've been going to different smaller things in the city to show my face.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The reason I've been doing that is because ever since I've been maneuvering, I used to not go out to the grocery stores unless it was early in the morning or never go out to eat because people would see me. But I've watched people in Albany almost look at me like they don't believe in anything else, but they believe in me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And it's been so special to see, like, just going to the grocery store and people just like, King, like, it's so good to see you. Like, I love everything that's happening. You inspire me to be a better father, you know, to my kids. Or, you know, mom's just like, I really want my son to join your program. Or kids who are even recognizing me, like, that's Mr. King Randall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like, he'd be on Instagram, like, helping the kids. Like, it's... I try my hardest. I've been all over the world. I've spoken to the biggest celebrities, whatever. And I never want people to feel like that I've gotten too big for our small hometown, ever. I still go volunteer at the smallest places. I still go to all the mom and pop restaurants that I've always frequented since I was younger.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I still give $100 to every waiter that I run into in Albany, every last one. Even if they did good or bad service, because I don't know why they gave me bad service. They may be having a bad day. Their mom could have died, anything, you know, and I do that. And so people, you know, remember me for a small stuff like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've never, and speaking of the waiter thing, I was going to get my, I got a pet snake. My kids wanted a pet snake. I was going to get him a gerbil to eat or whatever. And the lady that was working in there, she said, you look familiar. I'm just like, you know, of course, I mean, most people, you know, ring me as King Randall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
She was like, you're that guy that gave me $100 two years ago when I was waiting at the Fire Grill, which is one of our mom's pot restaurants. She was like, that meant so much to me. She didn't even know my name, but she remembered my face. I have no clue. I did not remember who she was. I don't remember giving her the $100, but I know I did it because I do that for every waiter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And even if I don't got it, I won't go out to eat unless I got $100 to get a waiter. Because I remember when I used to be with my ex-wife, we trying to get pennies up in the car to go just have us a little ice cream date. Like just, we don't even have money, like just go get some ice cream. We getting $50 trying to figure some stuff out. So I remember all that stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Or now I give to local businesses now. I do a scholarship now for kids in Albany because they can't afford to go to school and stuff. So I do my own scholarship just for kids in the city of Albany. The only condition is they have to remain in the city of Albany. You have to put back into our city because that's what I believe in. But I give to local businesses.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've given to some of those mom and pop shops or whatever that have...
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
fed me you know for so many times so most times people try to you know around Albany they want to give me discounts on things like my tailor um before I got here um the guy who tailored these pants before um he did he used hem and tape and so when I was about to put them on the hem and tape came off and it uh I didn't have a hem on my pants anymore and this was like one of the only suits that I could fit until my new suits come in because I've been working out and so um
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I had this new shirt that came in. I was like, I need it tailored. Like, I got to go tomorrow. Like, I need it tailored in a couple hours. She's like, I got you. But he tried to give me a discount. I'm like, no. I text him. I said, listen to me. I was like, don't ever give me a discount ever because I'm just like, I want you to have all your coins.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If you're going to charge somebody else, you know, that's not me. charged me the same thing, and I still tipped them. I told them to make sure you add where they could tip you on your little Square account, and I tipped them too. The guy who washes my cars, or whatever, he's a great guy, or whatever like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I tip him every single time he washes my vehicles, and I tip him nicely, and he's just always grateful for it. I do small things for so many people I never just share, but I really love my city and people believe in me like no end. People believe in me more than I've seen them believe in themselves. And that's a charge I got.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So it's like now I'm like, okay, let me do what I can to help fix my own city. Even this older lady, we're about to help her fix her house in a historic district. She called me when I got on Historic Preservation Commission, and she was like, I've been trying to get somebody to come help fix my house for the longest. She's like 80-something. I go to this lady's house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's the worst house I've ever seen in my life. And she doesn't even have pipes under the ground. The water she runs goes straight to the ground outside. The house is so unlevel. Like, it's walking like this. She's cooking, and her food is like this. Wow. It's insane. And then she can't even get in her tub because she's had a hip replacement.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So she's having to sponge bathe because she cannot actually get in her tub. And I get to this lady's house, and I'm like, how long you been living? The house is sitting on some two-by-fours. It's sitting on some wood, and the wood's going to rot. I'm like, this house could fall in at any time. You know, and so I called my contractor friend. I'm like, listen, can we get this fixed up in any way?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He like, yeah, we got to start with it. Because at first he called me just about the bathroom just so she could have a walk-in shower. I'm like, sure, why not? We get there. I'm just like, the contractor was like, dude, we can't do nothing until we like, first of all, get some plumbing in here and also level this house out. So, you know, he gave us a quote for that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And, you know, I was able to, you know, share that on social media. Like, but when I get there, this lady's like, Mr. King, like, It's so good to see. I see you on the TV sometimes, like on the news, like doing the things with the kids. And she was like, I didn't know you were so young. You the commissioner on the historic president? I'm like, yeah. She's like, I didn't expect you to be so young.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But these people believe, you know, in me. And it's heavy sometimes. It is. It's a little pressure, you know, here and there. But I don't mind it. Bruce Wayne got a lot of pressure, you know, to keep the city fixed. Everybody don't like Bruce Wayne either, you know. But my son loves the Batman and we love the Joker. And so we always, you know, use that. But
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I have like a call, and there's this old Baptist song, you know, when I grew up in the Baptist church. You may not know it, but it's an old devotional song called A Charge to Keep. It's a charge to keep that I have and a God to glorify and to serve this present age. Like that's the song that we sung all the time growing up, and I never understood it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But now it's like I have a charge to keep in this present age, you know, to fulfill for God.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So going after the younger generation, I'm going to mention what I started out doing. When I first... Started working in the city of Albany. I originally started working with older men, like actual men, not kids. But then— Like what age?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Just men. I just invited men to come to these different barbershop events I would have. At age what, 19? Yeah, I was 19. Yeah, I was 19. And so I started out working with these men.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It started about three, four. My son knows a lot of my, I call my quotables. He'll tell people my quotables too. Like for example, like we don't try, we do. I always tell him, like, no, we're not going to try anything. We're going to do it. So he tries his hardest to do everything and also, like, do things like make him keep his word. For example, I don't allow him to change his mind often.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's why I stopped working with them. So originally, I was working at the barbershops, and I'm telling them, look, we could do all these different things to try and help fix the city of Albany. But for one, because there's this kid who's telling us what we could be doing with the city of Albany.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I stopped working with the men because they stopped coming to the events that I was doing, trying to encourage us to go do things. I took these kids on a field trip to the Center for Civil and Human Rights and African American History Museum in Atlanta. To hear these kids asking these questions, to hear them not wanting to be in their condition, that's where I knew I had to work with kids.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And immediately after that, I started working with them. I started doing oil change workshops. I started doing brake repair workshops, teaching them how to work on cars, et cetera. And these workshops were a hit. But I was still working, driving a forklift at the time. And... I'll never forget. My job told me that I fell asleep at work. I was working a graveyard shift.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They told me I fell asleep at work, and everybody was trying to call me over the intercom, et cetera, and I wouldn't answer. I don't remember falling asleep, but they said I fell asleep, so they let me go. I asked my wife at the time, I say, can I do a summer camp at the house? She was like, yeah, you can do a summer camp at the house. I was like, okay, cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And mind you, Baby King wasn't even one yet. My son was a couple months old, so... I posted this flyer online, and I said, I'm going to be offering to teach kids how to grow their own food. And I learned how this growing up, by the way. So I'm teaching them how to grow their own food. I'm teaching them how to work on cars. I'm teaching them how to work on houses. We're going to do math.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We're going to read, et cetera. I found a couple of tables. I turned my dining room into a... classroom. And I got this little small dry erase board from Staples for like $24. And that's where I started teaching. They brought their kids to me every single day. I was still 19. I had 20 parents bring their kids to me every single day. 20 parents right off the get-go. Right off the get-go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'll never... What's the literacy rate in Albany? If you wouldn't have asked me, I could have been able to tell you. I will say that... Our kids that came to work with me, maybe 17 out of the 20 of them could not read on grade level. And I had maybe like five of them who couldn't read at all. And imagine these kids were 11, starting out at 11. 11 to 17 was the age group.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I mean, I had a kid who couldn't read CatDog. And I'm like, son, how exactly are you in the sixth grade and you can't read at all? Who exactly passed you through school? Not being able to read. That's where I got the idea at the time. I said, well, I'm going to open up a school one day. So I don't know when I'm going to do it, but I'm going to open up a school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If he said something, I'm like, well, you got to do it. No, that's what you said you were going to do. So you have to do it now, you know, because you're going to be a man one day and your word is your bond. So you have to keep your word. So that's what you said. So he'll remember, like, ah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I don't know where to get the money from, but we're going to open up a school. But that's when I started truly working with kids after I discovered that kids don't want to be in their condition. They just want somewhere in an atmosphere where it's cool to do the right thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Facebook. I just posted the flyer online. People, yeah, I think when school's out, we have a lot of poor parents and stuff. They can't afford these summer camps. They can't afford to send their kids out. So the kids are just stuck at home. So it was a summer camp. Yeah, it was a summer camp. So the kids were stuck at home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So the moment somebody's online saying, hey, you can bring your kids over here, they don't really care at that point. They just want their kids somewhere where they think something constructive is going on while they're at school. I mean, while they're at work or going to school, whatever they're doing. They just don't want their kids just at home. So that's where we got the 20 parents from.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, I was a skilled tradesman. So my brother came to live with me when he was about 12 or 13. He was losing himself at the time. He's in military school now in Marion, Alabama at a military institute, or Marion Military Institute. With him, he and I would go around and fix people's cars. I learned how to do that off of YouTube.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I had previous experience working on cars, but obviously, you know, working on different cars, you have different things. So when people would say, hey, I need my car fixed, I ask them, you know, what exactly needs to be done. I need my starter to change. Send me the year, make, and model. I got a 2009 Chevy Malibu. Cool. YouTube. YouTube, how to change starter on a Chevy Malibu.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I basically determine what I feel like the labor cost it, and I tell them, I'm like, hey, this is how much I'll charge for that. We'll go and do it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
that's how i got a light bill paid then i learned how to cut hair while i was in the marines uh while i was in the barracks at uh uh camp uh what was that camp johnson i think i was at camp johnson but um i learned how to cut hair in the barracks because the base barbers were trash and everybody got tired of haircuts being janky so i was like look how about y'all just let me practice on y'all head i'll watch a couple youtube videos and i went and bought some little cheap clippers from walmart and everybody would just come like i don't care if you practice on my head to be frank because
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It looks like they practicing, so why not? So I eventually got good at it. I got really good at cutting hair. And so that's what I started doing in the city of Albany too. So whenever I went fixing somebody's car, I would do house calls. I didn't care what time it was. I would have to go out at 12 o'clock at night to go cut somebody's hair. And I would do that because
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So he'll think about things before he say it now, you know, and that's important because you're teaching them to think through things before you just say it. And so now he's thinking about what he feels like. He was like, Never mind, you know, he'll think about the things he says versus just blurting something out or just saying anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I didn't have a regular job, so I had to go put up somebody's door or go put in a window frame or go change a ceiling fan or go paint somebody's wall because that's how I made money. That's how I funded our field trips to take the kids different places. When I wanted to take the kids somewhere, I would find something to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I mentioned to Wyatt earlier the way me and my brother made our first thousand dollars. Granted, it was cheap at the time, but we made our first thousand dollars. We were at Home Depot and this lady, while we were in there, we were actually looking for some paint for someone else's, the inside of somebody's house. They wanted a room painted. So we were looking for the color paint they wanted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And this lady came up to us and she said, hey, do y'all paint? We're like, yeah, we paint like that. And she's like, well, do y'all paint houses? I'm like, yeah, we paint it. yes, ma'am, we paint houses. She was like, she's like, I mean like the outside, like y'all paint the outside and stuff. I'm just, I looked at him, he looked at me. We had never painted outside our house before.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I was like, yes, ma'am, we paint houses. We paint houses. You just come get you a coat. She's like, yeah, come by my house. This is the address. And this is my phone number. I said, okay, cool. We hadn't painted a house a day in our life. But we went out there because I wanted to make sure the house wasn't too big. It wasn't nothing crazy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It was actually a nice, small, perfect home that we could paint. It was perfectly square, not no crooks and crevices. It was perfect. She wanted to paint it a completely different color. So we said, okay, cool. We charged $1,000 for it. That's because we didn't have no experience.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So we sat on YouTube for like three hours watching videos of people painting houses from all the equipment we needed, et cetera. We went and rented all the equipment. So we had her give us a deposit. Our deposit went to all the equipment, basically. We didn't know how much equipment cost it. So we went and rented a paint sprayer from Bob White Rents in Albany. They got to rent all this stuff out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So we rented a paint sprayer, et cetera. We painted our house in maybe like a week. And that's how we made our first house. $1,000. And from then on, we started pressure washing people's driveways because we had to pressure wash the house first. And so I had to learn how to operate a pressure washer. So then I started, hey, we can pressure wash the drive. We can pressure wash the house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I just made it work. Me and my brother would just hop in my grandma's truck and we would figure it out. That's what we did. My grandma would allow us to borrow her truck to go put stuff in the back. And we figured it out. So I never got a regular job. I just wanted it. And that's what I believe in. Wow.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so that's very important to instill a lot of these little character traits now. So when they get older, they won't miss it. Like he knows, like I said, a lot of my quotables. He'll tell people my quotables and say, well, my dad says, you know, X, Y, Z. And this is why we do X, Y, Z. This is why we practice. I always ask the question every time we go practice on the baseball field.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yep, absolutely.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yep, I did whatever I could because I didn't want, for one, my son was a baby baby. And I never did like my wife working or anything like that. She had to go get a job. and I didn't like that. Like, it just messed with my psyche. You know, I was at home with a kid, you know? So, like, it kind of just messed with me a little bit. And that was for a very short amount of time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I literally picked up my business fast. Like, I started posting on Facebook about me fixing cars or whatever, and people started booking me to come do their different things. So she eventually was able to leave that job after, like, a little while so she could get back home. And I was out with my brother. We were, again, you know, just... doing whatever we could to make some money.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, it was 20 kids. So when I say 20, they all had parents. So it was 20 kids. But yeah, it was pretty fast. I probably had that post up maybe about two weeks, and we had everybody signed up in that two weeks, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Everything that you've seen happen for the Ex-Boys program outright, I've never thought would happen as fast as it has. Did you have a curriculum lined up or were you just winging it? I winged it for the most part. I had like an idea. I had like a layout. Okay, I'm going to teach this today. And on Tuesday, I'm going to teach this. And Wednesday, I'm going to teach that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And we grew squash and cucumbers and all that stuff, you know, during that time or whatever. I just did what I thought was best for that time, you know, during that day. Of course, I matured a lot. I've learned about, you know, everything. I didn't have an LLC done. I didn't know nothing about any of that stuff. I'm just helping some kids.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, it was strictly volunteers. Like, I just did what I could, you know, with the kids. And... What age group? What spread?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It is, but I attribute the discipline that I was able to give them to the Marine Corps. I believe if I never went to the Marines, I never, the program wouldn't be as successful as it is. People have asked me, like, how am I able, like, I used to have, I had 40 kids at one point, and it was just me. And people are like, how do you control them? Like, how are you able to get them?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said, you got to think, we got like three drill instructors and like 90 kids. Like, you know, but I remembered what they did to control us. And so I did the same thing with them. So when we go out, they're just like, man, they're so mannerable. And they saying, yes, sir, no, sir. They're giving the proper greeting of the day, et cetera. Like, how are they doing this?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm just like, I just attribute it to what I learned in the Marine Corps. I just taught them that. I don't allow a lot of mistakes when they mess up. They get in trouble for it. High knees, mountain climbers, push-ups, et cetera. That's how we did it. And they respected me, for one, because I was younger. A lot of them didn't know I was 19 at first. I didn't tell them until around the end of camp.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They was like, Mr. King, you're 19? Your mentor and kids are only two years younger than you. 17 years old. You know, one of them turned 18 while he was there. But they respected me so much because they saw I had my own house. I had my own car. I was raising my son. I had a wife. You know, like they saw all of that. So they obviously thought I was older.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You see anybody else out here, son? No, sir. Why? Because they don't want to put that work in. That's what he'll say. They don't want to put in the work. At age six? At age six. He will tell you that. They don't want to put in the work that. And so, again, he'll go out there, you know, to the field when everybody's there. We just had evaluations the other day. He destroyed evaluations or whatever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But then it became inspiration to them because, man, I could be young and helping people and doing okay for myself. Is that uncommon in Albany? Yeah. It is. It's uncommon. Yep. It is uncommon. Yeah. How fast did it spread? X for Boys program?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Fast. After that summer camp, we became the most popular program in the city.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
To this day, we're still the most popular program in Albany. Where'd you come up with the name? The X for Boys? X equals unknown. And so we're trying to give these boys the unknown variable. What are some of the success stories out of there? You know what? I was hoping you got here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I probably have, out of maybe a couple hundred kids that I've worked with, I probably only have like four success stories, true success stories. You only have four? Absolutely. This is why I dig into the failures of the program. For the past six years, I've worked with kids ages 11 to 17.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'll dig into the success stories in a second, but I have to talk about it while I talk about their success. I worked with kids ages 11 to 17, more teenagers than not. But... During my time working in the program, I had this rule. I was like, I'll never kick a kid out of the program. We're going to do what we can.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Even if they don't want to be here, we're going to try and make them do it and different things like that. I'll never turn a kid down, et cetera. So during that time, I had many kids that I was working with that just didn't want to be there. They were constantly unruly. They didn't want to be there, messing up the experience for other kids, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And at the time, I didn't realize, you know, that that was actually affecting, you know, teaching because I spent so much time disciplining versus teaching. I didn't realize I was I was wasting a lot of time of those kids who actually wanted to be there because they got to get in trouble, too, because they acting up. They can't go somewhere because they acting up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They can't get the teaching because they acting up. So I spent years doing that, thinking that I was doing the right thing, like by just teaching. trying to make them do it and trying to discipline them as much as possible, etc. I'll never forget when I realized it all. I had a student named Bryston. I had started allowing some younger kids to come in just because.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I was still having the older kids come in too, but I had some younger kids start coming in also. And I'll never forget, Bryston's a great kid, honor roll student, whatever. And he told his mom, he said, mom, I love the program. I love Mr. King, but I don't know if I can stay that long because some other kids so bad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I thought about it for a second, and I realized that I got a whole lot of kids in that room who want to be there. And I've spent half of this class period fussing at kids who didn't want to be here, who were unruly, who have said they don't want to be here, and I should just send them home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
From that point on, every kid who didn't want to be there, I told their mom they didn't have to come back. Because I have children here that we are— Messing the experience up. We're ruining the experience for those children who could actually be changed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And to me, you know, he'll still critique himself. I teach him about accountability also. For example, like, he'll hit off the tee, right? And, um... I don't think it's a good hit. And then he'll say, that was a thumbs down because I hit the top of the T a little bit. So let's try that one again.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Then I realized it hit me again that I don't have that many success stories because all these children, they have had to get punched in the face by life for them to call me and say, Mr. King, I appreciate you. Mm-hmm. But they have already made mistakes. They have already had a child too early. They already, you know, have went to jail.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've had kids call me from jail and say, Mr. King, like I hadn't talked to you in two years. Mr. King, I appreciate everything you're trying to teach me. I realize it now. Life had to hit them in the face first.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah. So impact and success. Thank you for mentioning that because I can start using that because that's important. So when I mention the success stories, I have about four students who embody everything that I've taught in the past six years. The reason that they embody it is because I had students that I allowed to be blessed in the program if they had older brothers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So if they were younger, the only way they could come into the program is they had an older brother that was there. Those kids started out maybe seven, eight years old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Those children now literally live by the rules of the extra boys because they started almost as a baby in the program, watching me tell them to get a proper green today, watching me tell them to keep their hygiene up and make sure they're bathing, et cetera, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So now these kids are like 13, 14 years old and their teachers are calling like, hey, I just want to tell you, I appreciate, you know, This student, because he said he's been in the Essence of Voice program, and this is why he says, yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, and comes in every morning and tells me good morning and, you know, does his work and tries to make sure he's doing the right thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I taught him about critiquing himself because I shouldn't always have to be here to tell you what you did wrong. You should critique yourself. You know right from wrong. So I put these videos up and people are just like, oh, well, what about fun?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And it's four of them. I got one of them painted on the mural outside of our building. His name is Bryson Pitts. And he is the number one example of our program, Bryson Pitts. He's a fantastic kid. He's playing trombone at his middle school. He's about to go to high school soon. But he is fantastic. He does everything correctly. He keeps everybody in line, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I can't say the same all the way for his brother. or whatever, or even Ken Darius. He's one of my other success stories. Great kid. Can't say the same for his brother either or whatever, because again, I started with them for so late. And I can say that about him because I call their brothers and tell them the same thing. I'm like, you know, you could be doing a whole lot better.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I taught you so much. So why aren't you doing, you know, what I taught you? But, you know, again, that's life, you know, but they're brothers. Fantastic. So those are some success stories that I could talk about. But that's why we've shifted our age range now to seven to nine. So we begin again in March next month.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
No, ages seven through nine. That's it. That's it. That's it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yep, we have switched it now because I believe that those children now, well, children now are losing themselves a lot sooner. I've had third graders smoking. Like, this is what's happening now. And being in the city of Albany, these kids are learning so much from other children, just from what's happening in their homes, even from molestation, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's a huge issue that I've run into that a couple times working with kids, the molestation and family violence. It's a huge issue. And... These children are losing themselves a lot sooner. And I believe that, again, so many kids are hearing moms say, make sure you do the right thing. And everybody's saying, be good. And the teachers are saying, be good. But everybody's punishing you for it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm being good and everybody's picking on me. I'm being good and everybody's don't want to be my friend. I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to do my work and everybody's being mean. They need an atmosphere where it is good. cool to do the right thing. And so they need somewhere they can come where they get praised for great grades.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They need somewhere they can come and be praised for having, you know, intellectual conversation. They need to come somewhere where they can be praised for, you know, making sure they keep their hygiene up, et cetera. Like kids will pick on you for like, because all the other kids don't know how to iron their clothes, they'll pick on you for looking nice.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like it's again, you know, so we want to give them an opportunity in an environment where it's cool to do the right thing. And if a child does not want to be in our program, they don't have to be there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, but I tell them, I'm like, I teach them to earn everything. Are you a perfectionist? No, I'm not. And I wish I was, but I wish I was a perfectionist. My chef told me back in school, he said, man, he said, King, you would be fantastic. He said, you're good, but you'd be fantastic if you learn how to finish. Because I'm just not, I just, like, I'm just not a perfectionist.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'm trying to get there because I want to make sure that my sons see that we're going to finish everything that we do. So it's like my sons are... making me be better too. I critique myself often, you know, with them, um, being, you know, just so young and they're remembering everything. They're watching everything you do. I'm watching him with my mannerisms and stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Not everything has to be a grand slam. Absolutely. But, you know, if we're going to swing the bat, we're going to swing it hard. So definitely. But yeah, I appreciate you even saying that because I could I could definitely use that from now on. Absolutely. I mean, what's the response from the parents? Response from parents is always great.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Granted, I ain't got the best reviews from all the parents because, again, I discipline a different way and I hold kids accountable. um so i've had parents accuse me of lying on their kids like i'll tell them hey your son did such and such no my child didn't he didn't do that you're just lying on my son etc etc i'm just like That's fine, ma'am. I don't see what reason I have to lie on your child.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I'm like, what does it benefit me? But whatever. But for the most part, parents adore the program. Again, we've done so much for parents. We've done workshops for parents themselves. Parenting workshops, I had people come in, help them prepare their credit, different things like that. I just try to help parents as much as possible because they have to go home to these parents.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I could be giving them teaching all day, then they go home and go right back into the stupid stuff. We try to incentivize parents also teaching the same discipline at home. We try to make sure we incentivize them, making sure they're doing the right thing at home too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because even though we have them for quite a bit of time, we want to make sure those kids are doing the same thing at home because we hate to have to keep reteaching the same thing because you're allowing them to go back into who they used to be. But response from parents is always great. We've had a lot of videos with parents giving testimonials and different things like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I'm definitely happy about the parents who truly support our program.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You would think not, but they are. I haven't had any parents that got mad at me for telling them they should do better with their children, because I will tell them. I'm like, listen. I remember one time this parent came to me about her son's attitude. She was like, oh, he always turning his nose up at me, and he doing this and that, et cetera, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But while she was saying that, I'm looking at her face, and she's doing the exact same mannerisms that he does. I said, as soon as she finished, I said, hey, mom, I said, listen to me. I said, you were just talking to me about him, and you were doing everything that he does. He gets that from you. You should stop doing that stuff, and maybe he'd stop it because he's only watching you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So it's like, I have to be almost perfect to make sure that my sons, you know, are following in the right footsteps. Um, so that's important to me. So even teaching them to earn everything, like for Christmas, he got the shoes, the toys, et cetera. Ask my son, when can he play with that stuff? When you give me something, you have to do something to wear those shoes. So my son, for example, uh,
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And she didn't even recognize it until I told her. And she was like, I didn't even realize that because I am doing the same movements. I am turning my face up. I'm like, exactly. He does that here, and he does that at home. But he's doing it because you do it. And so it caused her to critique herself and caused her to stop.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I will. Like what? You know me, I mentioned mindset earlier. And like I said before, I mean, yeah, the kids, you know, we've done firearms training. We've done all types of different training, welding, et cetera. So yeah, they've learned how to do a lot of different things I think are beneficial for their lives.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But at the same time, I'm bigger on fixing their mindsets and the character that they have. Because I could have a kid, he could do all that stuff on the list. He could go change the oil for you, he could paint a house, he could do firearms training, etc. But he could still be a terrible person. And it's important for me to make sure we're creating better people. And that's what I believe in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So, yeah, definitely, you know, we are big on teaching the trades, just showing them that there are different ways to make money, no doubt. But we want to fix on that character. That's the bigger thing in Let Us Make Man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The lack of true male presence is probably one of the bigger issues. In order to be a man, you have to see a man. That's it. And people will try to say, oh, well, my mom raised me by herself, and I was a good man. I say, if your mom raised you by herself and you became a good man, it's because you was on a football team. You had a gym coat somewhere. You had male presence in your life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Your mom wasn't the sole person raising you completely. You never ran into any other men that had any impact on you. No, absolutely not. And moms will be honest about that. But I'm like, just do not sit here and tell me that your mom never put you on the football team, never let you play basketball. You never had a male teacher anywhere. You never had no male presence at all.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And you became a great person. I believe you have to have that balance. Any single moms that have raised good men is because they put them around good men too. Yeah, they might have done it by themselves, but they also put them on football teams. A lot of single moms will make sure their kids are in sports.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They will make sure their kids have some type of male around them, good moms anyway, to make sure that they become something successful. Because most moms who refuse to put men around their sons usually end up some gangbanger, et cetera. I guarantee it, and I've seen it. And I can say this because I've worked with children for so long. I can guarantee that that's what's happening every time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I get up every morning at 6.30 and go work out in the gym every single morning. They'll hear the music. For the first couple of times I started doing it, they would be like, dad, what you doing in the morning? I'm like, daddy's working out in the gym, you know, early in the morning. And so they were like, well, can you wake us up so we can come watch? I'm like, why not? Okay.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And again, some parents, because they don't want to parent. They don't want to be a parent. They're just having sex and having kids and don't want to parent. Some people try to use us as a second parent so they don't have to do nothing. Granted, I try to do what I can with their sons, but it's hard because I need your assistance, Mom. I really need your help with him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You can't just throw him off to me because the program's free. You can't just throw him off to me, but coming now in March, we will have Rules for Parents. And as much as I don't want to, we will kick some children out of the program because of their parents and because I want the parents to be accountable also. And I have to be a little cutthroat like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
As much as I may love that child and as much as I may have built a relationship, if that mom does not assist us with her child in a meaningful way, we will let them go from the program.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Let's get into the realness. We got a lot of moms also that have fathers that do want to be dads, but they are so vindictive and bitter with the dad that they'd rather their son fail than have the father in a child's life. Are you serious? I'm dead serious. I am dead serious. I've had conversations with moms where they tell me, I'm like, where the daddy at? I'll make contact with the dad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Dad say, you know, I live in North Carolina or I live in this city, but she never wanted me. They'd have moved on, got kids of their own with their new wife or whatever like that. She never want me to see him. I'm like, mama, send that boy to go stay with his daddy. He don't need the Ace of Boys program. He needs his dad. Send him with his father.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
What are you doing besides sitting up here complaining about you doing it by yourself?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's like moms have this new thing now where they proud, it's like they have to say, I'm doing it all by myself and I'm trying and I love my child and putting them on Facebook and pretending you was a parent at graduation and they turned out to be some terrible person because you was too proud to keep their father in their life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I've run into that so many times with moms who didn't just want, just send the child to stay with his father. You don't need him. You don't need to be trying to raise him by yourself. Send him with his dad because he needs his actual father. He don't need somebody trying to get to play father. He needs his real father.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But because they are so bitter and the court system, which I hate, you know, benefits mothers more than fathers who want to be dads. It hurts kids. It hurts children. They send these kids to stay with moms. I'll never forget, it's a few cases where moms will be on drugs and they'll give it to the mom before they give it to the father.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I got out, I get up in the morning, I go wake them up. I'm like, hey, daddy's going to go work out. And they'll get up, they go put their clothes on, they go brush their teeth. And then they'll come outside and come in the gym and watch me work out. I turned the garage into a training gym. And so then after a while, he started saying, Daddy, can we do the workouts too? Why not?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I watch these court cases and I have said before that custody court needs to be a jury. I have said that over and over again. It does not need to be a judge because it's based off of how this judge feels today. What if they don't like you today or what if they mad or whatever? It needs to be a jury. I believe a jury of our peers needs to decide where custody goes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We need to be able to prove why I'm a fit parent, you know, for my child. I have said, if we having a custody battle, let's talk to a jury about it. It does not need to be one judge or I'm trying to prove to this judge while I'm a good dad, et cetera. I don't understand why that isn't a jury trial.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And that's something I want to fight for because I've, I ran into that issue, you know, in divorce at one point or whatever like that. Like the lawyer was telling her to keep the kids away from me. And so because she didn't have any knowledge, she thought she was doing the right thing because that's what the lawyer told her to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And she told the lawyer, she was telling me after it was over, she was like, well, I told him he was a good dad and everything. I didn't understand what he was telling me to keep the kids for, but I was doing it because that's what he told me to do. I said, don't you ever in your life let somebody tell you to keep your kids away from the dad. Like she said, that's what the lawyer was telling her.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I was like, well, why wouldn't he be looking out for the best interest of the kids? Because I had already offered, you know, multiple different things. You know, when I got a divorce, you know, for her to be okay, I left the house, left her the car, et cetera. Like every, I just, you know, I just wanted out, you know, at that time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I just wanted to make sure I had proper custody with the children because I wanted to make sure I'm raising my sons. And he was telling her to try to get full custody, et cetera, et cetera. And so, of course, we ended up working it out privately or whatever like that. And we eventually worked out our own custody agreement or whatever like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I'm just like, man, imagine if I wasn't able to afford a lawyer. Imagine if I wasn't able to afford these different incentives for her, et cetera, like that. The regular guy get railroaded and can't see his kids for no reason. No matter what happens in a marriage, etc., etc., if both parents are fit, both parents should be able to see their kids at an equal amount of time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It shouldn't be, oh, well, you can't see them because this is what the judge decided. Like, that's insane. You know, so it's a little delicate line to walk. So who are these kids, who do they look up to then?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If they have any, they look up to whoever's close to them, around them, whether that be mom or grandma, you know how that turns out. Or they look up to their football coach. They look up to the basketball coach, you know, as much as they can. They don't have that. They're looking up to the rappers. They're looking up to the game members.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The game members come around with the cool cars and the nice chains, whatever, like, hey, how you get that? And so they get them into their lifestyle. Now they want to be gangbangers because they think this is the life to live or whatever. Well, this is how I'm going to make money. This is how I'm going to take care of my family.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You know, so I have them doing things with their, you know, push-ups and pull-ups or whatever like that. And so my son is, you know, very, pretty strong now. And he went viral on Instagram during, he was learning how to swim. And they were talking about his physique. He got like a six pack and he looked like he's been to prison, man. He's six, you know?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I got to sell drugs or whatever like that to make some things happen. I'm like, bro, do you see me selling drugs? I'm like, because I had a red Corvette I just sold a little while ago. The reason I bought the car originally was because I wanted the kids to see that you could just – be a giver and be a great person and be a great father and get what you want still or whatever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so I showed them that and the kids were like, Mr. King got a cool car. You know, like it was, it was cool for them to see. Like it was interesting to just witness them like have a, it's like their mindset shifted when they saw me with the car. And granted, I'm still the same person. I'm still the same Mr. King. I'm still the one who feeds you all the time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But when I got the car, it's like, so I can make it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Mm-hmm.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
By trusting God, which is we do Bible study all the time, by trusting God and giving. I tell them, you're going to receive by giving as much as possible. Because that's what I do. I give as much as I can. I never stop giving. I give every single day. But that's how I keep receiving. So I keep telling people, I'm like, how are you so blessed? Because I give. I give as much as I can.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I never stop giving. I just help random people. I sometimes have to stop myself. I'll help anybody who needs it. And that's important to me. But yeah, that's how I figure out what the kids love. They look up to people. They look up to possessions. Unfortunately, that was for the older kids.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Now, the younger kids that I'm about to start working with, they're not really interested in possessions at the moment because they're just living life. They're just alive. They're not like, oh, I need to have a cool car to look cool or whatever. They're just elementary school young kids. But teenagers, all they care about is the scat packs and the cool cars and this and that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's all they care about. Literally, that's all they talk about coming into I seen his cat pack yesterday, y'all. It was cool. It was purple. They come in there talking about that or some NBA young boy or some beef. They got some rappers they saw on YouTube or some streamers or whatever like that. That's all they talk about, the teenagers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But the young kids, they just be talking about toys or talking about playing. They're young in the mind. So it's like I don't need a cool car to impress them. I don't need none of that. They're not even trying to be impressed. They just want a cool environment to be in. And so as I hone that, and I'm never talking about cars and never talking about the cool stuff, they're not interested in it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like my sons, they don't, I mean, they've seen cool cars and whatever like that, but they know every day they just wake up, put some t-shirts and some gym shorts on, and they out the door. Like, that's me. I wear a t-shirt and some jogging pants every single day or some shorts in the summertime. blank t-shirt, nothing on it. I got cool shoes. I wear them every blue moon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And that's only for the kids to see the cool shoes because they like them. So I'm like, okay, let me get some cool shoes so they can see that Mr. King got on some cool shoes today, you know, so they can understand that Mr. King's not rapping and I got the cool shoes like the rappers got, you know, like, so that's why I would do that stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so people were talking about his physique and they're like, how does he get like that? I'm like, bro, just likes to work out. He likes to do pushups. He can do more pushups than I can, you know? So it's really cool to watch it, but kids mimic what they see, but it's fun to him. He enjoys it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But I don't have to do that anymore because like the kids are younger now. So it's like, I could be me and I can show them like, you know, this is a cool way to live life. And that's what I believe in now. How are you funded this? You don't take any government funding. I refuse. I won't apply for any grants. I won't do anything that's tied to government. I won't do it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Our donor base is completely private donors from social media, et cetera. We have been exclusively funded from the inception from private donors. And I am wholly grateful for everybody that has watched us, that has shared videos. I tell people all the time, they're like, well, I may not be able to give. give a share, give a retweet. This is just like giving.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because again, everything that we've done has been funded exclusively from donors. Every single thing. We have an Amazon wishlist. When Elon Musk shared my video, maybe like a couple months ago,
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
we had an amazon wish list they went and bought every single thing off the wish list we got all type we got like 20 different tables and a whole bunch of chairs and we got uh tools equipment we needed etc they bought every single thing off the list camera equipment everything we needed, pencils, calculators, tape measures, markers, stuff for the toddler classroom, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They bought everything off the list. So again, this is why we share everything we do. This is why we always got a camera with us, et cetera, because we want people to see where their money's going. I wholly believe in not being one of those nonprofits that you never know what's happening after. When we were renovating our school building, I posted receipts for the toilets.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I posted everything that people could see because it made people want to give. And the wish list is different, too, because it's not like they're giving money. They're giving an item. So that encourages people to want to give, too. So we have an Amazon wish list, and we have just people that can regularly donate.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
This is the school that I opened outside of our after-school program. We originally opened in 2022. We were completely boarding, completely free. We fed them every day, obviously. It was very, very particular what we did with our students at that time. Every day I ran it almost just like a Marine Corps boot camp. You had to get up at a certain time of the day. You had to make sure.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so like when we go out of town or we go to Chuck E. Cheese or whatever like that, he just has to do something for it. So he has fun all the time. He always will tell you what I say. We don't have fun for free. We earn it. He always will tell you that. What age does that start? What age do you start making him earn it? as soon as they understand right from wrong. And that's early.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They lived here. Yeah, they lived there. We had to make sure they were brushing their teeth. They had to make sure they ironed their clothes. I had kids who didn't even know how to put on a belt. We had to teach them how to put on a belt. We had to teach them how to brush their hair, et cetera, like teach them how to bathe.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I had to show them, like teach them, like this is what you do when you get in the shower. What age group?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
possessed this was uh all sixth graders they were all age 11 at that time they were all age 11. and so it was a beautiful thing when we first started um i i miscalculated how much funding we were going to need to keep that operation going i did my best to fundraise and we kept it open even with us being in the red i kept it open but then the summer um after our school opened
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We had a summer camp going with more kids, and we came to the building to play basketball. We had a big school building we purchased. We came to play basketball. I remember I opened the door, and I looked in, and it was stuff everywhere. And I'm like, what in the world? Somebody broke into school? Because we hadn't been there. It was the summertime, so we hadn't been in there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It was stuff everywhere. I come in there. It was doors ripped off the hinges. It was our uniforms were ripped up. Our school... Shield on the wall was ripped up. I mean, it was sinks torn out the walls. Doors were beaten, ripped in half. I mean, they took a couple things. But all the glass in the building was destroyed. They pulled all the wires out of the power box. So it was no power in there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I mean, the destruction that was... I was... So, of course, you know, I obviously pulled my weapon out immediately because I'm just like, what the world? Like, this is crazy. So, I pulled my weapon out and, you know, I had my videographer was recording. Like, it was insane. Pulled my weapon out and we caught two people in there at the time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And, you know, I held them at gunpoint, called the police. You know, they got there extremely fast. They took them to jail. And they were just trying to figure out, like, what was the reasoning, you know, behind this incident. Like, why? And at the time, we couldn't get insurance on the building because the building was old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And we didn't have the funding to get certain things fixed that they wanted fixed before they insured us. So we looking at... a million, $2 million worth of damage on top of the stuff that we already had to fix, you know, in general that we were working on by project. And so right now the building's boarded up. We ended up having to turn the after-school building into school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But we eventually closed, we shut down the school portion last year. We shut it down last year because we just weren't able to keep it up as far as funding. But
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Um, this last year, um, as I was, you know, having an after school program, um, after Elon shared our video, uh, we did have a donor reach out to us and basically just ask what all did we need, um, to take care of for our after school program and the school. And so I just told him everything. I was just like, this is what all, you know, we would need to really thrive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said, we need vans to go pick the kids up. I said, I never had vans. So we never been able to go offer pickups for kids. Cause that was a big problem we had. The kids weren't able to be picked up. I don't have any staff. I said, every time I have to go somewhere, the program had to shut down. Like I have to, everything has to close. We can't do nothing. Everything's closed until I get back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Even my younger son, William is three right now, but he also understands right from wrong. So when he wants to watch TV or play a little video game or something like that, okay, son, you have to learn how to read better because he wants a Nintendo Switch like his brother. And so he tries, he plays it with him sometimes, but he wants his own. I said, okay, cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like I don't have any staff. I don't have any, you know, back of the house staff at all, anything. So they were just like, look, so they called me back and was like, look, we're going to give you this small amount of funding, small to them, a small amount of funding to take care of everything for the entire year of 2025.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So we just hired an operations manager to operate the program while I'm not there and three new staff members. They told us to get 25 kids. They've already signed up. They bought us two vans and made sure they were completely fixed. And they renovated the inside of our school building to make it more school friendly.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And they're currently being renovated right now while we're sitting here, actually. So they basically told us, look, You deliver on this year. If you deliver this year, this will determine whether I'll continue funding y'all more in the coming years. But show me what you could do this year. Give me the data. Show me what you're doing with these children. Don't just talk about it. Show me numbers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Show me what you could do. And then this will determine whether we're able to continue funding the program and reopening the school and rebuilding the whole school, you know, in the coming years. Wow. Yeah, so social media. Social media. 25 kids you have? Yep. We just signed up 25 kids. They start in March. And they live there? No. This is for after school. Oh, this is the after school one.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It's an after school program. Yep. Man, you got a lot of stuff going on. Yes. A lot of stuff. I just started head coaching my son's t-ball team now. So that's going to be fun this year. What's your daily routine? I mean. Sure. I love to go into that. I wake up at about, I wake up, my eyes open about five, but I don't get out of bed, which I should though. But I get up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
My trainer gets to the house. He comes to train me. It's a 19-year-old kid. Well, he just turned 20, actually, but he's a bodybuilder. He trains me every morning at 6.30. I get up, wake my sons up. They go put their clothes on. Baby King goes in there, does a little baseball. I lift about 8 o'clock, go take a shower, take them to their teacher at about 9 o'clock. They're in school from 9 to 3.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
During the day, Depends on, um, which commission I'm on. Um, I may have to go to a historic preservation commission meeting, may have a county commission meeting, may have a city commission meeting. Um, depends on, you know, what's happening, may have a task force meeting. I'm on a YMCA board of directors, may have a meeting. Those meetings are in the afternoon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But anyway, um, I go to whatever meeting I have to go to. I go check our PO box. I go, uh, deposit checks that, you know, donors may, uh, send. I send over the addresses to those donors to my assistant so she could send thank you letters to those donors. Um, And after that, I may go get me some food.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And right now, I've been going to check on the building right now every day as they're working on it. I pick my sons up at about 3 o'clock. We go do some training, whatever it is that we're doing, whether it be gymnastics, boxing, or baseball. We go do some training with them for maybe an hour or two. I get home. Make sure they got some food. Remember, I told you I support everybody around me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You need to learn how to read this book by your birthday, which is May, and I'll get you the Nintendo Switch. So he's working at school, like trying to learn how to read better. Because he really wants to learn because he has trouble playing the game because he can't read everything that's on the screen or like, you know, play now, continue, whatever. He's not understanding everything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
There's this new guy in our hometown who's been cooking and he cooks really well. So I've been having him come cook for us sometime during the day when I don't have time to get food. I have him come cook for me and my sons just to support his business. And it also gets him content, too, so he can share for people to continue learning. So he'll come cook for me during the week.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And after that, I'll get the kids in the tub maybe about 7 o'clock. The reason I do that is because we were big WWE fans. So we watch wrestling on Mondays and Fridays. So if it's a Monday or a Friday, they get them in the tub about 7. Wrestling starts at 8 o'clock, and we'll watch wrestling until it's time to go to sleep. And they got their own rooms, and they go to bed. And, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
repeat, just depending on what I got to do for the next day. And then I'll go over my calendar or whatever just to see what I got to do. So some days are busy, some days are not. But yeah, for this past couple of days, it's been extra busy. So yeah, that's kind of what a daily schedule looks like. And then right now I'm about to coach the T-ball team.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So that's about to turn into getting practices together for them. And on weekends, we do a lot of practice with my sons. I take weekends to dedicate to my children. So we'll go to the baseball field and we'll get it in. You know, we were just out there just getting it in, doing IQ, learning about the bases, what to do, your different assignments, et cetera, boxing. Wow. They enjoy it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Is your middle son boxing too? He just started, yep, just started. He's about to turn four. But he was already practicing, watching his brother. So when he was practicing, the coach was just like, well, I'm going to just go ahead and get started with him because he's already watching the punch numbers, and he would go practice on the little –
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
mannequin thing so he would just be over there just doing his own little thing over there and um so he just started with him too i'm gonna get them in jiu-jitsu soon um only things my kids don't have a choice in is doing self-defense and um uh yeah any any self-defense they don't have a choice um everything every other thing they have a choice with sports whatever they can they can choose but self-defense they have no choice you will box you will do jiu-jitsu yep
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So it's a foundation called the Mega Impact Foundation. They sent me an email originally and just asked me to do a little video because their students had saw me online. They just sent me a video, I mean, excuse me, an email and asked me to send a video over via Zoom so I could interact with their students. Something in me I'll never forget was just like, go, ask them, can you come?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So he's working now to read better because he really wants that game. So I'm just making him earn it all. I mean, I think that's important because if you just give them things, I believe it's important for me to create hardship for my sons. they're not going to want for anything. I do well. They do pretty good.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I'm like, ain't no way. I'm like, absolutely not. I never wanted to come. Like, I never just wanted to go to Africa or anything like that. Like, not saying I wouldn't go, but I just never was like, I'm going to go to Africa or something like that. But something was just like, go. And, you know, my conscience was like, absolutely not. Like, no. Anyway, I sent him an email.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I was like, is it possible for me to come? So they thought that maybe they didn't reach the right person because there's no way this guy wants to come to Nigeria. So they wanted to set up a Zoom call. So they set up a Zoom call with them and the leaders of the organization. And they were surprised it was actually me. They was like, we thought this was going to be fake.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So you want to come to Nigeria? But they needed me there in three days. So... I was just like, look, this is what I'm going to do. I said, if I'm meant to come to Nigeria, everything will go right in these next three days. My videographer didn't have a passport, and we need to give him a passport overnight. And it's possible to do that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You just have to go to where one of the overnight passport places is. Only appointment they have is Buffalo, New York. We flew to Buffalo, New York to get him his passport. Mind you, everything has to go right. We cannot miss a flight, cannot be delayed. Everything has to be done on time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
While he was getting his passport, when he was in Buffalo, we had to get overnight visas to even go over there. Because we had to get visas to even go get into Nigeria. So we had to get visas. Got those approved. I forgot. We had to do some other stuff. I can't remember just off the top of my head. But everything went right. And I was hoping something messed up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I said, please, God, something needs to mess up because I really am scared to go. Like, I was. That's my first time really being afraid of something because I didn't know what to expect. I'm like, why am I going to Nigeria, God? Like, why? Or whatever. So... He got his passport squared away. Flight was ready to go. The only thing that happened was our flight was delayed by like nine hours.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We was just sitting at the airport. Other than that, we flew to Nigeria. Everything happened right. We was able to get straight through customs, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
and uh the stuff that i saw in nigeria it changed my life man it changed my life we were there 10 days um i did they wanted i let the whole little uh summer boot camp they had there um the kids were so excited to see me um because you know to me i'm to them i'm famous or whatever like that so i got there and they were just ecstatic asking a whole lot of questions and they were so articulate so well read and um just the questions that they were asked it's like wouldn't
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like adults here wouldn't ask those questions. Like they were really well thought out questions that they were asking me in regard to the sessions I was teaching. And I posted those sessions online for people to see on Instagram or Facebook. But I posted all those different sessions and just teaching them about character and, you know, just proper greetings and how to shake hands.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Some of those issues they were having, you know, there, like how to shake hands and look at people in the eye, you know, talking to people, you know, in a stern voice, you know. Confidence. Confidence. Yeah, confidence, making their presence known. And so I taught them a lot of that stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They're not going to grow up in the hood like with me, like I did or whatever like that. So I have to create hardship for them. So I do that through sports. I do that through making them earn things. I do that through saying no. I say no often. I say no for sport. And I say that because no is a character building word. You're not going to always get what you want.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And, you know, as I've left, they were sharing how the kids were, you know, still are trying to do what I taught them. So I'm supposed to be going back in May. But I told them I would come once a year to come see them and, you know, just interact with them and do the little boot camp thing they had going on. But, man, we rode through Benin, Nigeria.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We weren't supposed to go through there originally. We were supposed to take a flight from Asaba straight to Lagos, Nigeria. But the flight, our flight from Delta got delayed. So we ended up having to drive two and a half hours through Benin, Nigeria to get to Lagos. Benin, Nigeria was probably the poorest thing I have ever seen in my life. I felt like I was in a movie or something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I didn't believe it. But the one thing that was weird was I had every bar while I was there on my phone. I had service the entire time. Didn't understand how. So I was sitting in my family video and pictures, and it was scary. And to the point where I'm like, the roads were so bad. I'm like, are we going to make it all the way there? They was like, yeah, we're going to be fine. It was crazy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I had kids that were younger than my son, like my middle son, out selling stuff on the side of the road. Wow. Like actually selling, like trying to sell stuff to get money on the side of the road. Wow. It was crazy. And I'm like, well, they're selling things, you know, to get some money, you know, to go get food and stuff like that. And I'm like, okay, well, they're parents.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Their parents are probably working. They probably won't see their parents maybe but seven days at a time. I said, so they don't see their parents like every seven days? Like, yeah. So they just by themselves? Like they just sleep by themselves? Yeah. They take baths? They may, you know, try to bathe wherever they can. They may or may not eat.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They may see their parents, you know, in a week because they got to go work to make money, to make really pennies. And I'm like, are you serious? I couldn't even imagine my three-year-old selling something to make. It was insane to me. Riding through there, I mean, it was crazy. I don't know how to explain it. I got videos, but I could only just talk about it. It was insane.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
It made me so grateful. When I got home, it took a minute for me to even just register that I was back because I was just grateful to just go get some water from the fridge. We had to organize to eat while we were there. You could just go grab a snack. Or go just go get an apple or eat a banana. We had to organize to eat. It had to be a thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We had to make sure everybody was squared away, et cetera. And of course, there's not a lot to eat there either. You have to kind of eat the same things over and over again. So it was a little harsh, man. It was a little harsh there. The beds were so hard. Um, like, and we were at a nicer, you know, hotel for them. I mean, I feel like I was sleeping on a metal box.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So I don't care what sad face you want. I don't care if it's just something simple. Dad, can I get a bag of chips? No. Like, no. For what? What you need a bag of chips for? Nope. No. So I say no often. And I used to cry and get upset, but now it's just like, okay, that's it. No, whatever. You know, like that. Or, Dad, can I get something to drink?
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Like it was bad, you know, like my back was killing me the whole time I was there, but I was just grateful to see those kids, man. They made me so happy. And we were racing, had a little barbecue the last day. Um, we were racing and, and having a good time playing soccer with them. I got all this on video. It was the most beautiful experience I ever had.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
just interacting with them but the you think you'll be back yeah I'm gonna go back I'm gonna go back once a year it'll be better this time I'll go with a team and stuff like that this time it was just me and my videographer last time which was not the smartest thing but God told me to go so I had to go but this time when we go we're definitely gonna have like a full team you know and stuff you know just for protection and things like that you know just to make sure things go okay but it was definitely an experience and I'm actually excited to go back not because of the experience but because of seeing those kids
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
People have asked me that so many times. I don't mind giving advice. I don't mind giving people inspiration. But my job and my goal and my duty is to fix the city of Albany. I never want to stray away. I have been offered to come other places. I've been offered money to open the program somewhere else and to move. I won't do it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
The city of Albany is my charge, and I believe I'm responsible for fixing it. And so while I believe that I'm responsible for fixing it, I'm going to do my hardest to make sure I do that. That's what I believe in. People believe in me in the city of Albany. People have hope in me. People see me in They think I'm the hope. And I believe in Jesus.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so I guess God's working through me to help fix our city. That's what I plan on doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
We have different pillars in our organization. Accountability. courage, commitment, consistency. We have, I think, three more. But those are the main ones. And I think all of those are what makes a man. Being able to be consistent, being able to be accountable, having courage. All those things are important. And really just being able to... have endurance.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
They try to trick me sometimes when they ask for something to drink. They really want a Juicy Juice. I got the little Juicy Juice drink. So they're like, Dad, can I get something to drink? I'm like, yeah. And they'll go in there and go get some juice. They're like, you didn't specify which drink you were talking about. I'm like, you know I meant get some water, son. Don't play with me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Pain is going to be a gift, and I have to explain it all the time. You know, it's a gift for pain. Pain is what teaches you. You learn with pain. We say pain is weakness leaving the body. You know, so that's important to me. And if we teach, I teach the kids, you know, that When you're going through things, you're just being built.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And so it's almost like always looking at the glass half full as a man. We cannot afford to be sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves or not wanting to go through something. No. What you're looking for is through that pain, through the stress, through the worry, and through the doubt. You have to get through it in order to be proud of yourself in the end. And continuously setting goals.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
That's important. I think not setting goals and just wanting to be stable. And I will say maybe... Everybody don't have a big chart. Everybody don't have big visions and things like that. Some people do want to just live the American dream, have their kids, have a wife, barbecue on the weekends, go on vacation once a year. Some people do want to live that life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
But for those men who are aspiring to do a whole lot more, There's going to be trial. There's going to be tribulation. And I promise you, a lot of those people that you believe in and you have seen their successes, they had more failures than you can count behind closed doors. They've been through a lot behind closed doors.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I have been through a ton behind closed doors, especially just having this organization from personal life issues, bad decisions I've made, et cetera. I've had to learn on my own just what I'm doing now. Yeah. And really being able to be teachable, too, and being able to look at the glass half full because you have to learn that stress and pain is a gift. I promise it's going to build you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
And I look for it. I look for the pain. I look for the stress because I understand on the other side of that is the gift that I was looking for, the goal that I was looking for. So I know when I come up with a new vision, I already know, here we go. It's about to be some hell. I got to pay to get through there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
So now I'm just like, you can go get some water. And they're like, never mind. I don't want to drink anymore. That's what I thought. But go drink some water anyway. So it's a lot of different things that I do with them. And it's very particular because it's building those little small character traits, even with training practice for baseball or boxing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Because God has to teach you, you know, in that time, we be thinking we'd be ready for something. God knows we're not ready. So he going to put you through the trial and tribulation to get there. We can't just put the meat in the oven. You have to season it. You got to beat it. You know, so you got to tenderize it. You got to season it. You got to get rough with it, you know, et cetera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Same with a pizza. You can't just throw the dough in the oven. You have to make the dough. You got to knead the dough. You got to beat the dough. You got to toss it up in the air. You got to turn it all types of great. You got to put it through the fire. You got to put all this stuff on top of it. And then you finally get a nice pizza.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
You know, so it's very important to realize you just got to go through it. People think you don't got to go through it, man. You're living the wrong life. But as a man, that's what I believe in. You got to go through the pain.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yeah, I would love to.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I would love to come back, and maybe when my son's a bit, maybe like seven, probably, or eight, he's done a few interviews before, but I think when he gets a little bit more competent to be able to give an interview, I would love for you to sit with both of us and... and talk to us because he's going to give some gems. He's very intelligent. That would be amazing. I'd love to do it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Yes, sir. Thank you so much.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
I appreciate it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
If the coach tells the B to practice at 4 o'clock, I'm like, son, what time are we going to practice? 3? He's like, we have to get there an hour before everybody else does so we can get some extra warm-ups in and get some extra practice. He knows this already. He'll tell his mom the same thing. His mom take him to practice.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He's like, Coach said we got to be there at four, but we need to get there at three so I can get out there and hit off the tee a little bit and I can get some ground balls in before practice actually starts. So he's already warmed up when everybody gets out there. But he knows, he internalized it already. So he doesn't understand it all the way, but...
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
He's internalized that now, so when he gets older, the work ethic is going to be crazy, you know, because work ethic is in his system now. I hadn't given him fun. People try to wait until they're like 10 and 11 to just get on them. I'm like, no, you need to get on them as soon, as early as possible. At one year old, nothing's cute anymore for me. I start disciplining at one.
Shawn Ryan Show
#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
After that, nothing is cute. Everything you do wrong is not cute anymore. I don't do the, oh, he threw something. Ha, ha, ha. No. I'm going to say, no, you don't do that. Or he hit me today. No, you don't hit daddy. I discipline early. Nothing's cute anymore. After one year old, start raising your child. That's what I believe in. Damn.