It’s really important to celebrate the people who had your back. It’s important to name them because we’re all sort of potential heroes in somebody’s journey, you know. And it’s important to remember those folks who were heroes in our journey so we can go and emulate them and be like that for others.

And one of those people for whom my journey of, of transformation would never have been possible is this guy that I call Father Young.

I met him at my first university, a place I went to before I transferred to Brown called Loyola Marymount University. And I went to LMU really only to be an athlete. 

And throughout the course of my freshmen year at LMU the soccer coach made us go around to the different academic departments and listen to their presentations, so we’d think about what we’d major in.
And I’ll be real with y’all, I would go to these things, and I would listen in the back of the room, and in one ear, out the other. You know, I was there to major in soccer. And then one day I went to the English department. And the chair of the department, a Jesuit priest, Shakespeare scholar named Father Young was up there talking about literature and learning like his head was on fire, you know. 

Nothing was more important to this guy than the idea that education can be a tool of personal transformation. And then he shared his own journey of transformation. He talked about his alcoholic father. He talked about his struggles in traditional school. And I was sitting there being like, that’s me, you know. Maybe if he did it, maybe I could do it too. 

And so, I went up to him when he was done and I’m like hey, Father Young, man, you inspired me. You know, I’m a lot like you, you know. And maybe I could be an English major here at LMU and then I backed off right away. I was like well, no, no, no, no, you know, I had a hard time in school, you know, I’m dyslexic, forget it, forget I even said that. And he looked right at me, and he said, ‘Son, you’re that as an excuse.’

Nobody had ever said that to me before and the guy was right, you know. I forgot what it meant to aspire to something bigger than what I was told I could be, and he called me out. And he said, ‘You know, some of my best students are students like you. They’re untraditional, they’re creative, they’re resilient.’ And then he told me all about accommodations. He told me I could get books on tape, time extensions on exams, and he said, ‘You can do this.’

So, I walked out of that guy’s office, and I was on cloud nine, right. You know, that day I went to the other side of campus, I walked into the dean of academic enrollment, and I said, ‘Hey man, I’m a study me some English literature here at LMU.’ Right? [laughs] It’s game time, you know, let’s do this.

And that guy, well, he pulled out my file. [laughs] We all know the file, right? The guy flipped through it and then he laughed at me. He said, ‘English literature? You can’t read. You can’t spell. You shouldn’t even be in college.’ He said to me. 

So I went back to Father Young, out of respect to him, and I said, ‘Hey man, don’t worry the piece of paper I asked you to sign. I ain’t, I ain’t going to be an English major here at LMU.’

And he said, ‘Why? You were so excited about it.’ And I told him, I said, ‘Well, that guy over there, he told me I couldn’t do it because of my learning problems.’ And when I said that Father Young got real quiet. And then he finally looked at me and he said, ‘Well, son, I guess you’re going to have to prove that bastard wrong.’ [laughs] 

And the next day I enrolled in four English literature classes and the next day I enrolled in the Office of Disability Support Services and advocated, for the first time in my life, my right to be accommodated on campus. And that guy who told me I shouldn’t be in college, well, let’s just say that he has a autographed copy of my books on his desk right now. [laughs] Prove them wrong, you know.

I’ll be real, I’m proud that I proved that guy wrong. That was fuel to believe in myself, you know. But I’m more proud that I proved Father Young, I’m more proud I proved my mom, I’m more proud I proved Mr. R, I’m proud I proved those folks who believed in me, I’m more proud that I proved them right.

For more information about learning disabilities, please visit LDOnLine.org. This video was made possible by a partnership between the National Education Association and WETA.