Murphy Austin Adams Schoenfeld, LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation, is proud to support Rob on the Road - Region Rising.

More information available at murphyaustin.com.

And now, Rob on the Road, exploring Northern California.

Hi there.

I'm Rob Stewart, and I'm thrilled that you are joining us for two California conversations- authors with deep roots in our region.

In just a few moments, Bill George and Victory in the Pool, the inside story on the making of some of Sacramento's Olympic medalists.

We begin with Richard Rodriguez, the famous author raised in Sacramento, whose first bestseller, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez is marking a milestone.

It's a collection of essays about his intellectual growth.

Richard Rodriguez also spent 18 years appearing on the PBS NewsHour, sharing his prized visual essays, winning a Peabody Award in 1997.

From his San Francisco home, Richard Rodriguez opens up about why he writes his next chapter in life, advice for students and life as he knew it in Sacramento.

I'm Rob and it's nice to meet you.

Hi, Rob.

Nice to meet you.

How's it going today?

Um, I was- You know, once you invited me on to this conversation, I've been thinking about Sacramento a great deal and the... the irony of... of growing older- which I am...

I am, definitely, uh, at the age of 78- is that, um, the past comes closer to you as you grow older.

You become very tiresome to almost all of your friends because you remember things and people who no longer exist in the same way.

So, you ask me how I am.

I...

I'm...

I'm interested in how Sacramento is.

I left Sacramento, I guess, uh, I was in... in graduate school when Sacramento, for some reason, was destroying the Alhambra Theatre.

Um, and my mother was puzzled, too, but she liked the... the fact there was a Safeway just down the block.

And so, she went to Safeway.

But to destroy that fantasy, that beautiful fantasy for the elaborate theater, that was really shocking to me.

And... and... and though- thus it goes.

Uh, Sacramento keeps changing, even as it draws nearer to me, so that one day, K Street is two ways.

Everything changes, but the past that is unchanging, keeps drawing closer and closer.

Which do you prefer?

Well, I loved the Sacramento I was- I lived in.

I loved, you know, going, um, to the state fair in... in late August and September.

I...

I was enchanted by the... the pavilion at the center of the fair, the agricultural pavilion and these displays of tomatoes and... and fruits from all over the... the state.

The way we identified Fresno was through its fruits, um, through its... through its produce.

That was enchanting to me.

I could not have written Hunger of Memory, my first book- - Yeah, now, just almost- It's been 40 years since it was published, about.

- That's right.

There is a new an... an... anniversary edition.

I could not have written that book when I was living it in Sacramento, going to... to grammar school, going to high school.

Um, but that's when the book happened.

The book is about my education.

It's about learning English.

It's about going to Sacred Heart School.

It's about having the nuns, Sisters of Mercy, remarkable women, my- as my teachers.

It was about going to Christian Brothers High School, a high school that doesn't exist anymore at... at 21st and Broadway.

Um, uh, and within all of that drama of those schools, I was living out the dramas that I would write about in Hunger of Memory, but it took me, what, 15, 20 years to write about them because I couldn't write about them when I was living them.

Yeah.

You're... you're writing about them from a place of- I like to say it, when I write, when I'm- I like to write about troubled times, but I like to write about them from a place of healing.

- Well- - It's not like you can write about 'em in the ditch, you have- you need to write about- - Well, I know.

I know.

These- I think writers are seeking a kind of healing, but... but also, you know, that there's a great deal of ambiguity about the past.

And as you resurrect- My realization that I was no longer, as a writer, my mother's son, but I was becoming a member of another society.

Do you know what I'm saying?

- I do.

I know what you're saying.

And I have a question about that because when you talk about writing as a member of another society, were you writing it as if you were a student of another society, therefore as if it is a report or an essay or something you would present, or is it truly written from your assimilation in America?

- It was... it was closer to the latter.

I was writing it to a reader I never expected to meet.

Uh, and in fact, it... it was that... that realization that I was not writing for my family, I was not writing for my best friends.

Uh, I didn't expect them ever to read this book.

Um, I wanted to read- to write Rob, this man in Sacramento who appears on a screen, this man who says he knows about me.

But he knows about me what I reveal to him.

- Mmhmm.

That's true.

But I also have to say that I...

I've been a student of your writing and of your work and... and watching as much as I can of you in interviews and last night, I watched an hour interview that you did a few years ago.

And I'm just fascinated by the way you... you share.

And if I could put it into words, I would say that somehow, when you speak and when you write, you have a very beautiful way of it coming from your soul.

And it seems off of the top of your head, and yet it is so deep.

- Yeah, well, you- But- I will accept your compliment, but you understand that I am not Richard Rodriguez that my parents would recognize or that my friends in... in... in Sacramento would recognize, if they are still alive.

I'm...

I'm- I am a...

I am a- what shall I say?

- uh, a creation on pa- on the paper of... of... of... of this other Richard Rodriguez, which you are- - Explain.

- Well, I think that it... it's like putting on makeup.

You... you just- You become something for the stranger that you don't have to be for the... for the intimate.

And I tell you things that I would not tell an intimate.

That's just the paradox of writing, that you can be free with intimate- with... with strangers.

I say in the book, I think, that there are some things you can only say to a stranger, um, because intimates would not let you... let you say that.

Uh, I tell students at the beginning of the school year, if they come to a new university, do not sit with your friends from your old high school.

Get away from them because they're going to be the ones that protest, "Why?

What are you doing?

What... what- Why are you wearing that?

What do you- Why are you using that voice, your visitor's voice?

We know the... we know the other you, the real you."

The phone rings in my house in Sacramento.

My mother answers the phone, and she puts on her "visitor's voice."

OK?

Uh, and I knew that that was not a voice she directed to me.

That was a stranger's voice.

And that is, I think, the... the therapy of writing, is that I can talk to strangers.

You are one of the most famous writers in America.

Um, your work has been studied, acclaimed, um, award-winning with many different awards and many different levels, and... and groundbreaking.

Um, at the top of the show, we went through all of that, but I want to ask you, of all of it, of all the things you've done, where are you right now?

What... what is brewing inside of you for your next chapter?

- I was...

I was going to write a book about beauty, human beauty, why beauty matters.

And then, about three and a half years ago, in the park across the street, I was assaulted and thrown to the ground by strangers.

The police made no arrests because they... they couldn't figure out, because there were no cameras, what exactly had happened.

I went into a coma that lasted five or six weeks.

- Richard!

- I had a wonderful...

I had a wonderful- The blessings came- it came at that moment.

I had a brain surgeon from UC who operated on my brain twice and told my partner that I would never get headaches, or I would never...

I would never have vertigo, I would never have confusion of a mental sort.

Um, he promised.

Uh, and then, my sister, who is a very devout Catholic, called the hospital and said, could a priest come and give me the last rites?

Well, it couldn't- A priest couldn't come because of COVID.

So, the woman said, "Well, there's a... there's a... a... a Jewish rabbi.

Could... could she come?

She's also a nurse here."

And my sister said, "Yes, yes, please ask her to come."

So that when my body was transferred down the hallway, I was unconscious, uh, but she was praying over me these Hebrew prayers of healing.

So, I was doubly lucky.

I had this great surgeon and I had my rabbi, uh, praying for me.

Uh, so then, when I emerge out of th... this, people asked what it was like.

Well, I don't know what it was like.

I don't get headaches.

I don't know what it's like.

So, at that point, I decided I can't write the book about beauty.

I want to write a book about growing old, um, about what it is like to be old and broken.

I'm very much interested in that- in... in... in those days when my body doesn't cooperate at my will.

- I feel like this topic of writing about age has been growing in you for quite a while.

- This is why I say, to start with, the... the... the process of growing old is, for me, to realize that Sacramento is coming closer and closer.

And suddenly- I used to have a... a Christian brother who was from Christian Brothers High School, um, who would send me- Uh, his name was Pat O'Brien.

He died recently.

He had left the order and married.

And... and, um, he would send me, over time, notice that one of my classmates had died.

And, really, they started dying quite early, in their fifties and sixties.

Um, and then, we used to tease each other.

And I said, "Pat, when you die, who's going to tell me that you've gone?"

And it... it became... it became a kind of joke between us.

In fact, my... my last letter to him became- was read at his funeral.

Um, and, um, the past keeps moving closer and closer.

I did not start writing Hunger of Memory until I was in my thirties, which I was well finished with Sacramento.

But that's when Sacramento came, when the Alhambra Theatre was torn down, when... when K Street was... was a... was a mall, ridiculous mall, when... when the things that I loved in Sacramento that gave the city so much, uh, surprise and mystery, the beauty of Sacred Heart Church, um, and there was a man named Anton Deardorff who was from Austria and he was a music director, and there was Mozart in Sacramento- Those things that I loved, um, disappeared.

- Is there anything else you might- you want to talk about, any burning desires?

I'm sorry that... that reading is now a more and more exotic activity.

- If someone were hearing you right now and they are connecting with your message on reading, and they say, "You know, I need to go do that, I need to become committed to reading," which is an education- It can be an education in every book, like travel.

- And it's not... it's not a deliberation in the sense a New Year's... a New Year's resolution.

It is a romance.

And once you have it, once you are in love with the text and... and the freedom it gives you, then it is yours.

But it... it doesn't happen that easily, and it takes- You need to be patient with it.

Um, and if you fall in love with it, it will fall in love with you.

- Can you help someone or give a recommendation as to how to begin that romance with reading?

Well, go to a library and read... read in a section.

There- At the... at the Clunie library, there was no section for Mexican Americans or- So, you- I saw this book by an African American, James Baldwin, and I reached it because it was not my life, and that's why I wanted to read it.

Um, find something to read that does not remind you of yourself, and then... and then discover yourself in that other book.

That's fascinating.

Thank you so much, Richard Rodriguez.

I am- I'm so touched to spend this time with you and, um, this... this world is a better place because of you.

- Thanks, Rob, very much.

♪♪ It is such a pleasure to have Bill George join us right here on Rob on the Road - Region Rising.

And Bill, we're so grateful for you being here.

Thank you.

- Well, thank you very much.

- I'd like to talk to you about your wonderful latest project, Victory in the Pool.

It is such a breath of fresh air and I'd love to talk to you about why you wanted to write about this... this... this phenomenal story about Sacramentans who are legends, Olympic gold medalists.

And... and just take it from there.

What sparked your interest on to- on writing this book?

Well, the Roman poet and biographer, Horace- I'm sure everyone's familiar with Horace- uh, he wrote... he wrote- he said- and he wrote books- He said, I have last- "I have created monuments more lasting than bronze."

And my idea was, really, I wanted a monument to this epic achievement in the history of Sacramento, not just athletic, but cultural as well.

The char... char- main character is Sherm Chavoor.

Here's a guy that rose from the docks of Oakland in really a hardscrabble existence, went in the Army, kind of ran a recreational swim program, came to Sacramento and went to the YMCA.

And there, his first students, if you will, his first athletes were kids reflective of Sacramento's diversity.

His first swim team had an African American, two Japanese Americans and a white kid on it.

That was his first team.

The two Japanese American boys had come from internment camps.

They could barely swim.

They had never been trained to be- swim.

And he trained them up, as they say these days.

And, uh, one of them, Tak Iseri, who's a... Tak Iseri, who's a big character in the book, became his first champion, an AAU champion, and rose to be captain of a University of California swim team.

This is in the wake of World War Two, brutal war between Japan and America, of course, and to see his perseverance and his strength.

The great thing is he is with us today, and we're going to do an event with him where he meets with, um, Debbie Meyer and Jeff Float, two of the- Sherm's great Olympic swimmers, for the first time ever.

So, I'm just super excited about that.

When I did the book, I was hoping, somehow, that that could happen because, oddly, they had never met him before.

Chavoor had never introduced them.

And actually, I don't think they even knew about him.

He hardly ever mentioned their names, if ever.

So, now, we're going to see the... the kid, Tak Iseri, upon whom the ultimate Olympic champions of Sacramento were built.

If he hadn't been there, would Chavoor have been a great coach?

I don't know.

This guy, like I said, was a champion and he and the other kids quickly elevated Sacramento to preeminence in Northern California and nationally.

And then, from there on, Sherm built his great teams.

I love the explanation that you just discussed, because if that were just the one success story, it still would have been huge... - Yes, it would've been.

- ...but what it also connected to.

And I love the fact that in your book, which is so well-written, um, it... it really shows what we can be when we let each other be, when we are all included.

And... and that's what happened in the water.

- Yes.

- In Sacramento... - Well, Sherm Chavoor was a very- - ...regardless of race, background, anything.

- Absolutely.

And... and really, the genius of him- and there's several parts of him that are genius.

And I never use that word, by the way.

I am very wary of using the word genius.

But he saw things in people that no one else ever saw.

He didn't care where you came from.

He didn't care if you could swim.

He would literally throw kids in the pool and they'd splash around a little bit and within a few minutes, he saw the ones that he called "guts."

"I want kids that have guts."

And time again, Tak Iseri will tell you that.

Mike Burton, his great Olympic distance swimmer, probably the greatest distance swimmer in the history of swimming, will tell you that.

Burton was this kid on a bike, got run over by a truck.

His- He was in 14 hours of surgery.

He's 13 years old and he almost loses his leg.

They have to rebuild, basically, his spine and leg.

And he had to quit other sports.

He gets- turns to swimming and Chavoor hears about him.

He gets invited to kind of a tryout, although I wouldn't call it a tryout.

Sherm just kind of looked at you and said, "Get in the pool.

Let me see what you can do."

He said that to Mike Burton.

He said that to Debbie Meyer when she came, "Let me see what you can do."

He jumps in and within minutes, he says, "Come back Monday for practice.

You've got what it takes."

It's shocking.

I mean, it really- it's like preternatural ability to see this.

And he does it time and time again.

Saw it with Mark Spitz and Debbie Meyer, Mike Burton and Jeff Float.

And, um, it's incredible.

In all of your research, is it- And I...

I have so much to talk about, when... when it comes to Sherm.

I also want to ask you, though, is it common to have this many superstars come from one area in the pool?

- I think not.

[Laughs] No, it's not common.

- I agree.

- I would argue that it's unique.

Arden Hills' great rival is the Santa Clara swim club.

And that's where the great Don Schollander, Donna de Varona, these famous names of the mid and early sixties came from.

The difference was that those kids were more or less recruited.

Dan Schollander came from Portland.

So, in the case of Chavoor, no, these were all local kids.

And the great swim coach at Indiana, Doc Counsilman, said, "No one else has done this.

This is all Chavoor.

He developed these kids.

He trained them."

Now, Sherm said- would tell you, "Well, you have to have the talent in the pool."

There's no doubt about that.

You know, you can't... you can't teach people to hit 400.

You can't teach them to throw touchdown passes.

You can't teach them to be Olympic swimmers.

But somehow, through some magic, this occurred and it was so rare, uh, that I don't think it's ever been replicated anywhere else.

I- certainly not aware of it in... in almost any sport.

That's fascinating.

And it is such a testament to seeing people, um, for who they are, to looking inside of a human being and not, um, not judging anything by a cover, as we never should anyway.

But he did that ahead of time.

- And I think he had a real affinity for the underdog in people.

Uh, like I said, uh, Burton had been- - This has been called the ultimate underdog story.

- Yeah.

Well, and Burton had been, like I said, injured very badly.

I think a lot of coaches would have just gone- He was limping.

They said, "What do I do with a limping swimmer?

I mean, he can't even hardly walk.

How can he swim?"

And people would say that, originally.

And there were some rather wealthy kids at Arden Hills.

It's in a very nice area.

And Burton made it a point to show them that he could do it.

And he said that, uh, many times.

"I wanted to show them that I was as good as them, that even though my father, who's a truck driver, didn't have much money and my mother-" struggled- they struggled financially.

He wanted to show them that he could do it.

When Debbie Meyer arrived here, she came from Ohio.

Her father was transferred- she was only 12 years old- to Campbell's Soup.

So, that's- Thank Campbell's Soup for bring us an.. an- a major Olympian.

Um, she showed up and again, Chavoor says, "Well, show-" you know, and she had swum a little bit, not much.

And she was a really good athlete in other sports.

And Chavoor said, "Well, let me see you- what you can do."

In the pool she went, and she did OK.

But within the first three or four laps, you know, she's exhausted and these kids are doing hundreds of laps a day.

And so, she's like, she gets out and she tells her mom, "I want to quit.

I can't do this.

This is crazy."

And she goes home, or I think they were living in a hotel at the time, waiting for their dad to come out.

And her mother says, "Look, I don't care if you quit, but you're going to do something.

You're not going to sit in front of the TV set and watch Gilligan's Island all day.

You're going to go swim or play tennis or something."

Well, Debbie went back and then, because the other kids were so competitive and so fast, it was literally sink or swim.

And she decided, "I'm going to do it."

And she was, at the time, very small, a little bit pudgy.

But, boy, the fire in the belly rose up and there she was going.

And within a few years, she's a world class swimmer.

What a story.

And... and I love that... that all of these- so many of these people that we're talking about are thriving today.

- Yes, they are.

- What would you say about what you found while you were writing this book and... and... and your research and... and it dwelling inside of you that connected the most to the message that you want to share today?

Um, just, I guess what I learned was perseverance.

Uh, don't take no for an answer.

If you watch Chavoor's life, I mean, he basically created himself.

He came, as I said, off of the Oakland docks.

He wasn't going to let anybody tell him he couldn't do things.

He wasn't any- let- going to let anybody tell him, "You can't have Jewish swimmers.

You can't have Black swimmers."

No, he quit two jobs because of that.

And finally, he built his own club.

I called the chapter "A Vision Of His Own," and that was it.

- I want to ask you about Debbie Meyer and... and Mike Burton and... and Jeff Float.

Who- What all are they saying about this book?

- Oh, they love it.

Debbie... Debbie Meyer loves it.

Mike Burton told me- and this almost makes me cry.

He said "When I read the book, I felt like I was standing there again on that Olympic launching pad.

I was standing there again in Mexico City."

And his story about- Again, here is the greatest distance swimmer probably in history.

Two gold medals in the 1500 meters back-to-back '68 and '72.

Just incredible.

And again, this is an era where there's no money in swimming.

There is no- You can't make- You can't even wear sponsor clothing or anything like that.

So, he did it on his own, really, with Chavoor and was determined to win those... those gold medals.

But to me, that was the most gratifying.

And Debbie... Debbie loves it and she's- I think she's turn... turned into my PR agent.

She is just calling people and spreading the word everywhere.

And as people know her, what an amazing person she is, what a giving person she is, um, it's... it's incredible.

So, I'm very, very thankful for that... for that reaction.

- You have put it out there for anyone to pick up and take hold of hope.

- Thank you.

- That's so important.

I really think it's so important.

Um, you'd- You've done that so well that the- even the people you write about feel that they were there again.

So, kudos to you for doing something that truly helps not just this region rise, but people.

Oh, thank you.

I hope that- That's a great result, if that happens.

Thank you so much, Rob.

- Thank you.

♪♪ Thanks for joining us.

You can watch when you want at robontheroad.org.

Murphy Austin Adams Schoenfeld, LLP, focusing on business law and commercial litigation, is proud to support Rob on the Road - Region Rising.

More information available at murphyaustin.com.