During my senior year of high school, I had got on the speech team. And I really liked traveling and doing competitive speech. And so while they didn't have that at Amarillo College, they did have it at WT, which is where I was going to go. So I got an email and they were like, we just want you to come and go to this orientation and, so I can remember in the summer, going to this orientation and walking in, and I'm like, this is not where I want to be. These kids are strange. They're weird. They're not what I'm used to. So they could feel that. They could feel that I felt out of place. And I can remember the assistant director of forensics, Shannon LaBove, pulling me to the side and she said, just come back tomorrow, okay? If you come back tomorrow, I promise it’s going to get better.

And so I went back the next day and really got to start to actually see what competitive collegiate forensics looks like. And I'm like, okay. And we became a family. These, these misfits is what I like to refer to us as. We were, could not be more different. And by the end of that first traveling term, that first year, we were a family. You know? We cried together, we encouraged each other. We woke up at six a.m. at speech tournaments and had to deny ourselves caffeine together. You know?

One of my friends, Tommy Oliver, who passed away, he, we, like - okay, so growing up, I grew up in the church. And if you know anything about black church, it’s very strict and very, you're going to hell if you do this and going to hell if you do that. And I had always been taught that homosexuality was a sin. And I can remember, being paired with someone who everybody kind of knew was gay, but he would not come out and say that. And so, still having these thoughts in my head about how do I, how do I do this? This is what I've been taught, and now this is my partner. And so, but again, we spent so much time together that I was able to look past that and see who he was. And he ended up being like one of my brothers, you know, like, it was amazing.

And so this particular night, we were all in Tommy's room. Like everybody was laying across the bed. Everybody's just relaxing. It's about eleven o’clock at night. We were supposed to be in the bed by nine. And our coach is standing at the door. And we're playing a game, and somebody said, okay, Tommy, I'm just going to ask you because everybody keeps saying, everybody keeps asking. So I'm just going to ask you, are you gay? And the coach knocks at the door because he knew, because Tommy had confided in him, and he didn't feel like Tommy was ready.

And so the question was asked and he knocked at the door and everybody's like, no! And so he opened the door and Tommy looked at him and he said, it's time. And he turned to us and he said, yes, I am. And everybody's like, we knew it, we knew it. We still love you. We still love you. You know? But that was a huge, huge, huge time.