Show Transcript

0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Have you ever had that situation in life where you thought you knew where you were going because, well, you had a goal in mind and you were excited to get there. And yet, somewhere along the way, life started veering you off in a different direction. You didn't even realize it until you ended up where you did. And quite honestly, where you ended up was even greater than what you had originally thought.

0:00:26 - (Kevin Lowe): When I met Dre Baldwin and I heard his story, I couldn't help but think of this, because Dre, he was a basketball player. Matter of fact, he spent nine years playing pro ball. And yet, where is he today? He's a full time entrepreneur, author of 33 books, he's given four TEDx presentations, his YouTube channel has over 142,000 subscribers, and his daily podcast has been downloaded over 6.5 million times.

0:01:02 - (Kevin Lowe): Dre Baldwin is a man who knows how to work on your game, and he has built his brand around a mission to give as much game as possible to as many people as possible. So if you're ready to work on your game in business, sports, and life, if so, then today's episode is for you. Welcome to episode 258. What's up, my friend? And welcome to grit Gracelet inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery, only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

0:01:51 - (Kevin Lowe): And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you. Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be before you get your game on with Dre Baldwin, I am excited to tell you that if you are somebody finally ready to find out your life's purpose so that you can create the life of your dreams, well, let's do it. Let's discover your life's purpose.

0:02:30 - (Kevin Lowe): I want you to text the word discover to 55 four. Again, text the word discover to 5544, where I can get you more information into how I can help you to once and for all discover your purpose.

0:02:51 - (Dre Baldwin): Well, I was always into sports, so I kind of knew about every sport, at least especially, like the four major sports, football, baseball, basketball, and I guess a little bit hockey. But I always was into sports, period. Any kind of sport. So basketball was always around. But I didn't get around to actually focusing on basketball until many years into my life when I was in my almost mid teens, so it was always around.

0:03:16 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, awesome. Now, what about basketball ended up. I mean, you said you didn't really start it till 14. What was it about basketball that you liked better than the other ones?

0:03:27 - (Dre Baldwin): Well, I had tried a bunch of other sports. I had dabbled a little bit, went to my parents, put me in, like, a little tennis camp. So I played tennis a little bit. Then there was football, which I never seriously played. I never got the equipment, so I never really played football. And then baseball, I played for a couple of years, but I wasn't really that good at it. My ceiling was probably just be a mediocre, maybe high school level player. So basketball was around because an environment that I come from. Everybody can play basketball because you need no equipment. You can just show up and you only need one ball and a bunch of people can participate. So I always knew about basketball, and all my peers eventually dabbled in basketball on some level.

0:04:06 - (Dre Baldwin): So when I saw that baseball probably wasn't going to be my thing, and I'd already done a little bit of football, and I knew I probably wasn't going to get to play that seriously, the natural progression was basketball because that's where everybody was at. So I knew I could get in the game because everybody was playing basketball. So that's how I ended up just wandering over to the basketball court, and I ended up staying there.

0:04:28 - (Dre Baldwin): It's not like I went in there and I immediately was good. I wasn't good at all. But good thing about basketball, Kevin, is that you can improve and practice by yourself. You don't need equipment. I mean, you need a ball, but other than that, you can practice basketball by yourself as opposed to those other sports that I mentioned. At some point you need another person to kind of help you out or at least teach you stuff. With basketball, you could kind of watch other people and pick things up, which is how I basically learned the game. I just picked things up by looking at other people and then just doing random stuff by myself. That's pretty much how I developed my skill. It.

0:05:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, that's awesome. You know what? I never even thought of it in that aspect. But you are so true in the fact of it is the one sport that you could actually really practice by yourself. And that's pretty powerful, right?

0:05:14 - (Dre Baldwin): I'm trying to think as I'm thinking about other sports. I mean, you could kind of practice tennis a little bit, but nobody's hitting the ball back to you, so you can practice hitting it, but you can practice against the wall.

0:05:24 - (Kevin Lowe): Exactly.

0:05:25 - (Dre Baldwin): Basketball, you can pretty much practice the most important aspects of the game on your own.

0:05:31 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Now, where did you grow up?

0:05:34 - (Dre Baldwin): Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

0:05:36 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, awesome. Now, what was life kind of growing up for you? What was your family dynamic and stuff? Did you have family members also into sports, basketball, anything like that?

0:05:46 - (Dre Baldwin): Both parents at home? I have one sister and my mother is not really a sports person. My dad was into sports as a fan, as a spectator, but he wasn't really a player. And probably if we were to pick a sport that he was probably most into, it would probably be baseball. And my dad's not even that tall, so I'm 6ft four inches tall. My dad's only like five eight. So basketball was never his thing. I mean, he liked it as a fan, as I said, and he liked football as a fan. But if he had to pick a sport, it'd probably be baseball for him. So when I played youth baseball, he was involved. He would coach and stuff like that. But baseball wasn't really my angle. And as far as your other question, as far as my immediate family, no, my sister's not an athlete. And as I just told you, my parents are not athletes. I have a lot of cousins, and some of them would dabble into sports here and there, but it's not like I had any older family member who was already established in sports who took me under their wing. So if you're asking from that angle, the answer is no, there was not anybody like that.

0:06:44 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Okay, cool. So you were just the one and the only, the sports guy who's tall and ready to dunk a ball. I love it.

0:06:54 - (Dre Baldwin): It took me a couple of years.

0:06:55 - (Kevin Lowe): To dunk the ball, but, yeah, absolutely. Now. So you said you were 14 when you started playing. So was that like middle school, high school type age?

0:07:05 - (Dre Baldwin): Just about the start of high school, yeah.

0:07:07 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, perfect. So did you play for your high school team?

0:07:11 - (Dre Baldwin): One year, so I only played my last year. My senior year was the year I finally made the team. Because coming from where I come from in Philadelphia at that time, Kevin, a lot of schools, they were basically shoestring funded, so we didn't have a lot of people. Depending on where you come from. You go to high school, there's a freshman team, there's a jv team team, and then there's the varsity team. So in our school, there was no freshmen or jv teams. There was just the varsity team, just one team. So everybody tried out for that one team. And if you made it, you played and if you didn't make, you didn't play. So it wasn't until my senior year that I made that team, and so that's what I played in high school.

0:07:44 - (Kevin Lowe): So you didn't play for the team till your senior year of high school. So after high school, then, did you still have intentions of pursuing basketball?

0:07:55 - (Dre Baldwin): Oh, absolutely, because at that point, I'd barely been playing and I'd already tried a bunch of other sports. So I figured by probably about halfway through, maybe age 16 or so, Kevin, that basketball is going to be, if I'm going to play a sport, it's going to be basketball. So that was pretty much a decision that I made. And because I'd only start playing at 14, I hadn't really hit my stride as a player yet. And I told you I only played one year, high school, and even that year, I didn't play that much. I sat on the, which I tell people I had the best seat in the house right there on the front row on the bench watching the game. So I hadn't really achieved anything, but I could still feel myself getting better. I could see in my mind's eye that I was improving, even though I didn't have any tangible proof that I was improving, because I hadn't really accomplished anything in the game up to that point.

0:08:40 - (Dre Baldwin): But I knew that if I kept playing, I will probably keep getting better. Whereas most kids by that age, let's figure graduating high school 18 years of age, most kids, if they get introduced, let's say my son introduced him to basketball, and he's old enough to walk. By the time you're 18, we pretty much got a good feel of your development curve, but me, I don't been playing for three or four years, so my development curve was just starting.

0:09:02 - (Dre Baldwin): And again, I probably couldn't have explained this back then, but that's why it made sense for me to keep trying to play, because I could still feel that I was improving and getting better. And just by making the team, even though I didn't play, Kevin gave me a little bit of a confidence boost, because at least I had shown some type of measurable outcome through all this time that I had put into basketball over the last four years, at least I made the roster.

0:09:22 - (Kevin Lowe): That was absolutely. No, that's amazing. So when you graduated high school and you went to college, what happened then, as far as your basketball?

0:09:34 - (Dre Baldwin): Well, I. I knew I was going to college one way or another. I was going just on the strength of. I went to a pretty good high school and I was a good enough student. I wasn't amazing, but I was a good enough student. So I knew I was going to go to college, period, even if I hadn't been playing sports. So I just figured whatever school I went to, I would just try to walk on to the basketball team. So anyone who doesn't know what that means, that means you are not invited, you were not called in, but you literally just walk in to whenever the sports team starts to have their practices and you try to fight your way onto the roster.

0:10:02 - (Dre Baldwin): And I went to a pretty small school, which is now division three college called Penn State Abington, and I was able to do that. I basically walked on and made the team. And funny thing is, Penn State Abington is such a small school, especially at that time, that when I got there, I told you I was developing in basketball. I was the most talented player on that campus soon as I got there, even though there were other players there who have been playing since they were kids. But again, there's very small pond. So, yes, I was the most talented player there, but that's in the big picture of the basketball world, Kevin. It's not really that impressive, to be honest, because the other players there, these guys were not ambitious about basketball. They were playing because I happen to be at school here and they happen to have a basketball team that I'm good enough to be on.

0:10:44 - (Dre Baldwin): It's not like they were looking for basketball, then college. They were looking for college, then basketball, if that makes sense. So for me, I was the most talented player there, and that helped build up my confidence even more once I got to Penn State Abington, and I played that year, immediately was on the team. I was a starter most of my freshman year, and again, I didn't set the world on fire, but I had some pretty good games, I had some good successes, but I'm still very early in my learning curve as far as basketball goes at this point. So this was all just building up my confidence that, okay, I can actually do this because I was continually just getting these little pieces of success that was making me feel more confident that if I kept going, I was going to keep getting better, which at that point was still happening.

0:11:24 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, that's awesome. Now, what was kind of, like, your mindset at this point? Were you thinking to yourself that this could turn into something more going pro, or were you just thinking this would just something you did for fun?

0:11:39 - (Dre Baldwin): I decided when I was 16 I was going to try to go pro. So I already had that in my mind, even though I didn't really know what was the path to actually do that. How would I get on somebody's radar? I didn't know how any of that worked. I just had it in my mind that if I want to try to do something with my life, if I had to put things in a hierarchy, what's the number one thing was, it was make it as a basketball player and play pro. Now, again, there are, worldwide, you got about 4000 jobs for an american born male to play professional basketball. 4000 sounds like a lot. That's not a lot. There are 8 billion people on the planet. Half of them are males. And a lot of us play basketball. That's not a lot of jobs.

0:12:19 - (Dre Baldwin): And I didn't know what it would take or what I would need to do to get one of those jobs. And I didn't even know that number until later. But I did have that in my mind. If I could do anything, the one thing, my number one choice was that, and listen, there are a hundred thousand men who had that same. Again, this is. It's not really that groundbreaking. And I was thinking this. Every college basketball player, male, all thinks they're going to the NBA. Or if I can't go to the NBA, I'll least play overseas. You hear it every day from every player. So I wasn't the only person with this.

0:12:51 - (Kevin Lowe): So did you end up, did you go all four years to college?

0:12:56 - (Dre Baldwin): Yes, I did. Graduated from Penn State with a degree in business, and I transferred after my freshman year to Penn State Altoona, which was a step up, actually, because at the time, Penn State Abington, you were only allowed to play two years of sports at the time. Now, you can play four years if you go there now. But back then, it was only two years. And Penn State Altoona was actually a full fledged, you can play four years of sports at the division three level. So it was actually, I got recruited to go there because I randomly got approached by the coach at Penn State Altoona while at mean summer after my freshman year. So he happened to be on campus doing some other business, saw me in the cafeteria, approached me and started talking to me, and he didn't even know who I was. He said, you just look like the kind of player that I knew I needed. And then he found out later that I was actually good, and that's how I got recruited. So that was just random luck. But that random up only happened, Kevin, because I was showing up to the campus every day to use the gym facilities and practice, and none of my teammates were doing kind of that discipline of showing up every day, do the work, lets you up. And that's what they say. No. Opportunity and preparation meet. You get lucky. So that's how I ended up getting recruited to Penn State altoona, and I finished out my college career at the campus.

0:14:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, that's awesome. Now, what happened after college with your basketball?

0:14:12 - (Dre Baldwin): Well, initially, nothing happened. So I get out of college, and it was the same situation as high school, pretty much. Kevin, even though I had played in college, again, going from high school to college is a big jump, but going from college to the pros is an even bigger jump. And they say about 3% of high school players play college ball, and 1% of college players play pro ball. So it's a very narrow strainer, metaphorically speaking. So getting out of college again, I played at the division three level. Most pro athletes come out of the division one level.

0:14:43 - (Dre Baldwin): So division three players are not even thinking about playing pro, let alone do they actually achieve the outcome of playing pro. So, getting out of school, nobody was checking for me to play pro. It's not like I had a bunch of offers on the table to go play basketball. And usually that's pretty much the premise of what college is for, right? You go to college, you prepare yourself for your quote, unquote, real life, and hopefully you have some job offers when you get out of school. That's the point of going there for four years.

0:15:06 - (Dre Baldwin): So I got out of school, and my thing was basketball. I had no job offers, so I guess college had failed me in a tongue in cheek type of way. So I get out of college, nobody's calling me to play basketball. I just get a regular job. I go work at foot locker as an assistant, and I use my degree for that. So I guess I can say it benefited me in that way. And I got a job as an assistant manager, worked there for six months, left there, started working at a gym called Bally Total Fitness, which is, they're now out of business, but not because of me, because I sold a lot of memberships. In the summer of 2005, I graduated college in four. So by the summer of 2005, one year removed from graduation, Kevin, what I did was attend this event called an exposure camp. Are you familiar with those? Ever heard of them?

0:15:49 - (Kevin Lowe): I'm not, no.

0:15:50 - (Dre Baldwin): Okay. So an exposure camp is. You have heard of a job fair?

0:15:53 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes.

0:15:54 - (Dre Baldwin): Right. Okay. So exposure camp is like a job fair, but for athletes. And what you do there is instead of showing up in a suit and tie and handing out your resume, you show up with your sneakers and shorts and you and a bunch of other people who also think they're good enough to play pro, but they're currently not. You all basically play against each other over the course of a couple of days, and you're basically trying to showcase your skill set for an audience of owners, agents, managers, coaches, basically decision makers from the basketball business world. And they are looking for talent.

0:16:22 - (Dre Baldwin): So this is a destination type of event that everybody in the basketball world knows about these, and you circle them on your calendar, because if you want to get a job, this kind of thing you have to do. So I went to one of these events in the summer of 2005. It was a two day event, and the event was in Orlando, Florida. Now, I'm from Philadelphia, so me and a couple of college teammates rented a vehicle in Philadelphia, and we drove from Philly to Orlando. So those who don't know the geography, that's about a 17 hours drive.

0:16:48 - (Dre Baldwin): And we hopped out the car. 09:00 a.m. Saturday morning, which happened to be the start time of the camp. And I tell people at age 23, I can do that. Couldn't do it now, but I can do it then. Yeah. So I hopped out the car, Orlando, and there's only two days, Saturday and Sunday, and I played pretty well over those two days, case. And then we got right back in the car and went right back to Philadelphia. I had to be back at work on Monday morning. I had negotiated with my boss to get two days off just so I can three days off because we had to leave on Friday, so I negotiated to get three days off. And anybody who's ever worked in retail knows it's impossible to get three consecutive days off, especially on the weekend. So I had to negotiate to get those days off, but played pretty well at that event.

0:17:25 - (Dre Baldwin): And then I had to be back at work on Monday morning. So that was the genesis of it. What I did from there to actually get into pro ball is I took the scouting report and the footage from that exposure camp, and now I had some collateral. So now I started googling and cold calling basketball agents. So anybody who knows the entertainment world, this could be actors, authors, and also athletes, is that usually the agents are calling you. They call the talent because they want to represent you, because if they help you get a contract and make some money, then they get a percentage of that money, so they see you as an opportunity for themselves.

0:17:59 - (Dre Baldwin): And I didn't have any agents calling me, so I had to call them. So I was kind of doing the situation the exact opposite of how it normally happens. So I'm calling basketball agents and basically telling them, hey, here's who I am. Here's what I have, and I have some proof now. So people may be wondering, if you listen to the story, why don't you just do this last year when you graduated from college? Well, the thing is, I had nothing to show them. I didn't have any proof of my ability. And even what I had done in college, I was playing against division three players who are not pro prospects.

0:18:25 - (Dre Baldwin): Now, I had played against some pro guys and done well. So now I had some solid proof. So I start calling agents. I called about 60 basketball agents who I could find phone numbers for on Google. I got in touch with about 20. Of the 20 who I got in touch with, they all said, okay, let me see what you got. Show me what you have. So I sent them the link to my scouting report, which was a third party validated source saying that this guy, Dre Baldwin, he's pro level.

0:18:49 - (Dre Baldwin): Long story short, that's what the scouting report said. And the other thing I had was the footage. Now, this footage was not a link. Kevin. This footage was on this device called a VHS tape. You remember those?

0:19:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes, I do.

0:19:02 - (Dre Baldwin): So the VHS. So those of you who are under the age of 30 listening to this, ask your parents so you can google it. You find out what a VHS tape is. So the VHS tape, I had to make copies because I had a double decker VCR at home. Again, millennials. You all can google that, too. And I made copies of my VHS tape, the master tape. I made copies on my VCR. And I would mail those out to the agents who asked to see the footage.

0:19:26 - (Dre Baldwin): And of the 20 who I mailed the footage out to, one of them I was able to get back in touch with, and he said, okay, see what you have. I will work with you. I can help you. And he signed me to his agency, and he got me my first contract, which was, this is in late summer, 2005, and this was in countess, Lithuania. So that's how I got started playing professional basketball.

0:19:46 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow, that is some cool stuff. You know what? Right off the bat, even at this point in your story, it's quite evident that you are somebody who is kind of driven. Like, if you have this goal, you're going to make it happen. And I think that's pretty.

0:20:08 - (Dre Baldwin): Oh, thank you.

0:20:09 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So what happened? Did you go, like, NBA pro?

0:20:15 - (Dre Baldwin): No, this is overseas. So as far as the basketball world goes, the NBA is its own league in the United States. And they got a team or two in Canada every now and then. And then you have, every other country in the world has their own league. So just like America is a country or the USA is a country, France has a league in France. Spain has a league in Spain. Lithuania has a league in Lithuania. So overseas, I played basketball overseas because I say overseas. I played in a lot of different countries.

0:20:44 - (Dre Baldwin): So each year I was on a different team and in a different country. I never played in the same country twice. The exception was I was in Mexico, two different since, but never played for the same team twice, and for the most part, didn't play in the same country. Just, we just call it, and in the basketball world, we call it overseas, meaning you're playing somewhere other than the United States and an NBA. That's what it means.

0:21:04 - (Dre Baldwin): So that's how the rest of my career went for the next nine.

0:21:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. So I guess over that nine years, though, I mean, not only getting to play ball, but I mean, really got to experience a lot of the world.

0:21:16 - (Dre Baldwin): Yes. And places that I otherwise, had it not been for basketball, many of the places that I ended up, I never would have gone. I wouldn't have went there on vacation. Right. I only went there because it was basketball involved. So. Absolutely.

0:21:29 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. That's amazing. Now, just like, kind of last little question about that, how does it differ, or does it differ at all from NBA? Are there anything different about it?

0:21:42 - (Dre Baldwin): Hell, yeah. We can do a whole episode just on that. There's a lot of things different between NBA basketball and overseas basketball. Number one, the NBA is the biggest basketball league in the world, so they get the most attention. This is why when I'm out in the streets of Miami and somebody says, you're a basketball player. And I say, yeah. And they say, who do you play for? And they mostly default to, I must have played somewhere in the NBA, or they'll say, hey, am I supposed to know who you are? And I'm like, no, I played overseas. You wouldn't know me. I wasn't on tv. So in the NBA, they have the most fans, they have the most eyeballs, and most Americans don't know anything about overseas basketball. Even basketball fans, most of them don't watch overseas basketball. So if you're an american, it's a very niche thing to find someone who knows anything about overseas basketball.

0:22:27 - (Dre Baldwin): And usually if you do find someone, that means they either played or they're very close to someone who played or they're in the game in some way, they're a coach or an agent or something like that. So NBA also is the biggest market. So they got the most money. So the biggest contracts go to NBA players. Not that you can't make great money playing overseas, but the NBA has more money. It's just the bigger contract. So the stuff that you see players in the NBA getting players overseas don't get that much money as it in general, just because there's just not as much of a pie to go around.

0:22:56 - (Dre Baldwin): But as far as overseas basketball goes, another thing is that there's a very wide range of teams. So there are teams from, there are very high levels and there are lower levels, and there are many more levels than in the NBA. NBA basically has two levels. You have the Knicks and the Lakers. And what city are you in, Kevin?

0:23:13 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I'm down in Florida.

0:23:15 - (Dre Baldwin): Okay, so I'm in Florida as well. I'm in.

0:23:17 - (Kevin Lowe): Perfect. Yeah. So I'm in.

0:23:21 - (Dre Baldwin): So in the United States, you got the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks. And then you have the second level. In NBA is called the G League, which is the developmental league. It's kind of like the minor leagues for basketball, but there's only one level, whereas in baseball you have three levels and many others, basketball, there's just one level of minor league, and it's not even that many teams. I think it's maybe one team to every NBA team. And then you have the NBA. That's it. That's all that's happening in the United States. Whereas overseas, you can go to a country like, say a country like Spain, there are eight or nine levels of leagues.

0:23:56 - (Dre Baldwin): So there's a lot of players running around playing in Spain and Germany, similar thing. Not every country has that many. Like when I was in Lithuania, there's basically two levels, but in different countries, they all have different things, depending on the resources, what kind of teams there are, and things like that. So there are a lot of players who are playing overseas who, again, you wouldn't even know what was going on unless you know what's happening. If you don't know that world, somebody could play overseas for ten years and can be completely under the radar and not be known. So that's another difference.

0:24:27 - (Dre Baldwin): And then you have no lifestyle differences. And again, it depends. There's a very wide range. It depends on who you're playing for, depends on the budget of the teams. There's a lot of things that can be different, even between players playing overseas in the same country. Somebody could be playing for one team. I'll give you an example here that'll maybe help you. So the first job that I had, I was in countess, Lithuania. And as I said, lithuania only has two levels of leagues.

0:24:51 - (Dre Baldwin): Now. I was in the first level league, but my team was kind of like one of the lower teams in that league. And I had a guy I knew. He was coming out of a division one college. Now, he was a little bit older than me, so he had been playing overseas for a few years already, but he was playing for the big team in the same city that I was in. So I was on a small team in that city. He was on a big team in that city, even though our teams were in the same league now, he had his place that he was staying in, that the team provided, and the team provided a place for me.

0:25:18 - (Dre Baldwin): His team provided a place for him. His place was nicer than many of the places I've lived in in America at that point. And he had a car. He had, like, a state of the art washer and dryer. He had just a flat with a little island in the kitchen. It was really nice. His place that year, in 2005, was nicer than anywhere I'd ever lived in America, where he was living there overseas in Europe. The place I was staying in was kind of like, similar to, like, a college dorm and the places they had me in. So, again, it can be a very wide range, even between teams in the exact same league, because it depends on the budgets of the teams. There's no salary cap overseas. There's also no salary floor overseas, whereas in the NBA, you have both. There's a minimum salary, there's a maximum. So there's a lot of differences.

0:26:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Interesting. I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. Yeah. That's incredible. So my next question is, where did YouTube enter into this whole lifeline that we've been talking about here?

0:26:21 - (Dre Baldwin): Oh, about the same time. So that VHS tape, I knew that VHS tapes, you lose it, you drop it, you leave it in the sun, get it immersed in water, you lose the footage. So I knew I needed to safekeep that footage. So I took that VHS tape to an audiovisual store and asked them, is there a way that you can put this in a digital format? And they said, yeah, we can put it onto a data CD for you. Would that work? I said, yeah, that'll work. So they put it onto a data CD, and that footage I uploaded to this new website that says, put as much footage as you want for free. It was called YouTube.

0:26:52 - (Dre Baldwin): This is the same year, 2005. So this is where I planted the seeds for what became my brand online. But even though I didn't just immediately start building a brand and I didn't even pay attention to YouTube for, I just put it up there and left it alone, because at that time, nobody cares about putting content on the Internet again, we weren't even using the word content. So about six months later, maybe I went just to check on the website just to see if YouTube still existed. And there were comments on the video, Kevin, of people just saying, hey, who do you play for? How often do you practice?

0:27:23 - (Dre Baldwin): Can you make more videos about dribbling? Can you make