Episode 41 Isaac Jean Paul - Paralympian - Track & Field

okay [Applause] [Music] welcome to sports save my life my name is clayton freck and i'm the ceo and founder of angel city sports we know the power of sport to change and in some cases save lives we hear these compelling stories every day and we created the show to share them with the world enjoy the show and remember to like follow share and comment all right so welcome to sports day of my life today i am thrilled to interview 28 year old paralympian isaac jean-paul did i say that right yes sir yes sir i said it well too all right beautiful isaac grew up in evanston illinois has a visual impairment called juvenile retinoces retinosis retin skis he mostly played basketball against sighted athletes growing up it came to track a little later in life than most uh after not making his college basketball team at lewis university amazingly he was a five-time all-american for lewis university in high jump from 2014 to 2016 including a national championship at the 2015 ncaa d2 indoors graduate in 2016 with a degree in soch and from a sports accomplishment it's been a pretty amazing journey over the last few years 2017 gold medalist world at the world championships and high jump and a bronze medalist and long jump fast forward to 2019 world championships again isaac wins a silver and high jump and then in the tokyo 2020 paralympic games he brings home a bronze in the long jump he's one of the nicest athletes i know he has a huge heart and is always there in the stands supporting and encouraging his fellow athletes and you know what i love about isaac is he brings a lot of flair and style to the track he's got his signature tie-dye cut-off shirt you know showing his uh his midriff gets the crowd going with his claps and uh just all-around amazing guy great mentor to to my son ezra isaac welcome to the show hey man thank you so much that was probably the best introduction i've ever had so i appreciate that that's dope that's dope i try man i try to hype it up uh even though i got your uh your diagnosis wrong that was a hard word i thought i had it and i was like oh once i looked at him like i don't have this man try saying that five times when you're like three years old and you're trying to tell people i have joe now written like what exactly so um all right easy question for you i know because it's in your heart but um you know what comes to mind when you hear the title of our show sports saved my life man a lot of things man um for myself sports is more than just going out and doing physical activity you know i'm saying it's like uh it's a way of living you know what i'm saying um if applied the right way if you you know apply what athletics is and what it means to you is really conducive to how you can live your life and the struggles you may face in life as well so yeah when i think of your title i just think of life because that's you know what it's all about yeah yeah where do you think you would be without sport that is a great question because um it was interesting um you had mentioned um in the introduction about my basketball career and in the midst of not making my high school basketball team it wasn't college oh it was high school it was high school yeah got it so up until that point my entire life was basketball i wanted to be a nba player you know all that stuff you know dunk on lebron james all that good stuff yeah and um i was getting cut and i didn't know why and i was just like man if i can't make my high school team how the heck am i going to make it to the nba so at that point i thought you know what am i going to do without sports you know i was saying so you already faced that question back in high school exactly exactly back in high school and i had no clue and it was by the grace of god that one day i decided to skip class and me and my friends were at one of my friend's house and we were just chilling watching sports science and devin hester was on the tv and just out of pure competitiveness i was saying i'm faster than devin hester you know i'm saying and i still think that so devin hester if you're watching i'm faster than you dog and so i'm like i can beat devin hester my friends looked at me and was like you're not fast you can jump high we see you dunk all the time but you're not fast devin hester's like world class i was like you know what get in your car and so i rediscovered sports through a bet and i was just like i didn't know what i was going to do without sports and as i grew up older i start to realize my purpose within sports and outside of sports so now i have a better understanding when sports is over for me i want to be an advocate for everyone in the world you know what i'm saying so yeah um damn but sports helped me find what i want to do that's a great story i want to dig more into that one um give me one sentence that describes who you are uh truth um i am the truth man like um my heart is just for other people and i want the best for everyone and it's not i don't ever i live through this mantra and it's called my mantra is guide for the next generation run for the next generation jump for the next generation and live for the next generation because like at the end of the day we have to continue this cycle of like whatever we give to the world and i feel like the truth is what i'm trying to give and that's what we have to get to the next generation and all of that man you stole one of my questions already which is what's your life uh what's your life philosophy you already dropped your life philosophy that's like that's like at the end of the show oh my gosh all right this is going better than i even imagined isaac so uh all right so let's start you know day one you know you're you're born in illinois you know like what's going on with your family structure siblings parents uh you know what's life like in those early days and when do your parents get the diagnosis that you have a visual impairment right okay wow it's taking it way back so around i mean i think i was probably one and a half when i was walking and running around i was stealing candy canes off of like christmas trees and whatnot and i would run into coffee tables and walls and they would be like right in front of me and my parents would look at me and be like why is he running into this and so that prompt my parents to take me to the eye doctors to get checked out um so from there at the age of two around my second birthday i was diagnosed with juvenile retinoschisis the greatest advice my doctors gave my parents were to allow me to navigate the world through my disability don't like try to helicopter parent him don't try to you know protect him from everything let him navigate my dad is probably the most uh protective of me um he still babies me till this day and always constantly telling me you know i because he's haitian um i i have a haitian background my father's from haiti so sapp i say to all my haitians out there and um he's he just worries you know what i'm saying because him coming from a country um where didn't have a lot of opportunities and coming to the states he had an idea of this image of how you know his children should be i think i'm the first person in his life that he he's met with a disability and so with that being said it was hard for him and still is to kind of accept the fact that i do have a disability so my dad is the protective one my mom protective she loves her baby but she allows me to you know be myself and explore things so through this time like growing up my parents even though they were like protective they allow me to experiment with different things allow me to be a kid with a disability and not overly protected protecting me from the world that makes i hope that answers your question okay so so you gave me a lot in that that last uh statement about your the differences between your mom and your dad and it's actually kind of funny because i feel like your parental roles are flipped yeah in some ways right you often see the moms are the ones you know chasing after kids and not letting them fall and picking them up and over over mothering them to some extent and sometimes the dads you know kind of let the kids do their thing so you kind of had the the reverse uh and you think it's so your dad was haitian as your mom haitian or no no my mom is uh american so do you think that your dad's over protected where does that come from for him do you think i i just think um just not really and i mean it's kind of like he's not overprotective with my sister you know what i'm saying it's it's just me yeah and i'm the baby of the family i'm the youngest of six so um he's very protective so protective over me probably because i'm the youngest and also i have a i can't see things that other people could see yeah so like i'm at a disadvantage he feels as if you know what i'm saying so it's just and it's it's alarming you know what i'm saying it's it's scary and i guess he he grew up in a way you know um where he had to protect himself and he's been through certain things growing up uh that he probably feels as if that i will face those same challenges and if i do face those same challenges like how am i going to overcome them when i can't really see as much as he can so i kind of understand his worrisome uh his worries but it's just like yeah trust me so so tell me i want to hear more about that so did he grow up in haiti then yeah so he grew up he moved to america around 15. okay 13. yeah and did he you know did he was he did he grew up near violence or what what do you think kind of formed that perspective for him so that that perspective comes from a lot of different things you know growing up in haiti he grew up in the countryside you know he didn't grow up in the city port-au-prince he grew up in the village and i'm not too familiar with his time in haiti he still goes back to this day so he loves his country um but i can only speak on like his experience in america and um when my dad was born in 1955 and when he moved in to america he came here probably in the early 70s so him being an immigrant um not documented um also being black you know at that time and still to this day um he faced certain things where he knew that if he brought a son into this world that he would face the same thing so knowing these things that are out there um and how tough they are already my son with a disability is gonna even have a tougher time facing these things and you know what i'm saying yeah so how did he get to the u.s what was his journey like so my uncle actually is an interesting story my great uncle which is his uncle um moved to the u.s and he would he moved to evanston he actually we have a street name after like we have john paul boulevard no way yeah pierre john paul my uh great uncle he passed away got wrestled so but he was the pioneer for a lot of haitians to come to uh uh evanston uh so he did a lot for the haitian movement um around that time and that that was my dad's you know path to america got it so he didn't have he had an easier trip to get to the us than maybe other haitians i wouldn't say easy but he got here was he did he have to take a boat or did he did he fly and got a visa and did the i'm not i'm not too sure i know when he first when he had he got his citizenship when i was nine years old so he's been he had been undocumented that whole time um up until i was like nine i was actually there with him getting his uh visa and green card and everything so that was quite the experience did you i mean you're so young at nine did you understand the gravity at that moment hell no i know we were studying the constitution at the same time and i was wondering like what is my dad doing you know what i'm saying like why is he studying as hard as me and i was just like now looking back i'm like wow and it's it's kind of crazy um because i'm not like i grew up more on my like my mom and dad still married till this day been like 40 plus years um but when my dad first got here there was some sense of shame um about his country that he had um i don't know what it was but he never really brought us around his side of the family a lot i i don't know why and so with that being said i stayed on my mom's side a lot and that was like the americanized part you know i'm saying and i would get teased for being haitian you know i'm saying back in the day like it was bad being from a different country or having yeah you know awareness of what other parts you're about so i growing up i didn't want to be associated with haiti but are you getting teased by like your mom's side of the family that's black well they're just not black haitian exactly yeah it was like they would tease me i had a big i was the youngest so i was getting the punishment from everyone like had the big head i was funny looking skinny and then on top of that i was haitian you just throw that on top of there so it was easy to make fun of me and so you really weren't very haitian you were born here like exactly but it was i don't know what it was it was just like people were just teasing me i didn't get it i was young and i was just like all right i don't like it yeah i guess being haitian is a bad thing i don't want to be associated with now growing up um learning more about my my roots and where i come from gives me a better understanding for who i am and now i have a more of appreciation for my haitian side than my american side because now i see the world differently because i have a sense of like my history you know what i'm saying yeah so so i carry i carry my haitian flag everywhere i go um man it's just it's a it's powerful when you really find where you're from um james baldwin once said no from whence you came if you know from whence you came there's absolutely no limitations to where you can go and i believe that wholeheartedly because i know where my power comes from now mm-hmm so yeah sorry i know that was long with you i talk a lot dog yeah it's all good it's all good so so be before we keep marching through your childhood i'm still i just want to ask one more question about your dad because i think you know when you look at where you know society is right now in the united states grappling with racism and me too and all this stuff um you know your your dad arriving right as a young black man from haiti uh you know in the 70s does he ever tell you stories of just dealing with racism himself at that young age in those teen years or his young adult years um and you know like what's what was his sort of experience coming to america in the early 70s man so his experience man is it's the typical i mean i'm gonna be as candid and i'm transparent so i love this you gotta be truth man you can't you can't hide it now exactly exactly see yeah so my dad coming to the states it was it was tough you know i'm saying like it was already tough being black at that time living in the states so imagine being an immigrant so he had to do what he had to do my dad is probably the strongest man i've ever met like these like fortitude you know what i'm saying like everything about him fortitude um my dad seen a lot growing up he's seen you know killings he sold drugs he had to do what he had to do to really support his family and mind you i had four prior to me and my my biological like my closest sister um who was four years apart he had four other children you know i'm saying so he had to he had to work he had to support his family and he did what he had to do um and then when he had us like everything slowed down when he met my mom everything slowed down it was just like this was the woman he needed to be with his entire life and uh so with that being said growing up in haiti i'm not too fond of those stories back then i just know his story coming to the states and what he had to do to pretty much survive yeah and um he was a smooth guy i mean he still is a smooth guy you understand very sharp dapper dude and um i think both of us um i watch uh his transformation as a man you know what i'm saying just watching him and uh seeing who he is today is it's a proud moment because my dad in 2010 uh was in the big earthquake that happened in haiti so um that was like my senior year of high school and i was uh it was my last semester and i didn't even hear from my dad because he was in the midst of the earthquake so when he came back and he told me like stories of what he saw he saw dead children he had to bury like bury people unburied people you know i'm saying he had to take people out of like broken down homes and then this past time when the president of haiti was killed he was out there again i was like he always goes out there at the most ridiculous moments and i'm just like you must have the luck of the irish or something because this is crazy so he was out there when the president was uh assassinated and he was telling me stories of his travel going to the airport because from the village you have to go through you know different parts of the uh the area to get to the city which is where the airport is and through there it was just like hell like dead bodies on the ground uh just like you had to like duck underneath the seats you know getting to the airport because you just had to watch out of bullets flying from wherever because it was just a riot going on in the country due to the assassination of the president so my dad four or two man and he's still he's thinking about going back this summer i'm like nah you gotta chill man you gotta chill ching yeah that's that's crazy thank you for for sharing that so why was your mom so chill like what was her how did she take the the news originally and then like what how did she kind of come up with that way to raise you man if you thought my dad was strong my mom is probably the strongest human being i've ever encountered and um my whole family my mom's side of the family we're just chill people understanding people uh like she just understood what she was dealt with um her first child my first sister um before me and my uh my oldest sister uh she had a miscarriage you know what i'm saying so like going through that like seeing your child you know at one point and then knowing that you're about to have a baby girl and then you know that right there going through that that's devastating but you still have the courage to continue to try to have more children so like imagine the mental fortitude and strength to deal with knowing that you lost a child and you're still trying to have more so that right there just tells you a lot about my mom in a nutshell but when she found out that i had a disability she just took what the doctor said and was just like you know what let's do it and she she rolled with it and um i'm pretty sure my mom it was was scared at first because you know i'm her baby boy you know i'm her baby so she don't want nothing to happen to me but she there's a level of trust you have to have and you have to trust that you did a good job and your child is going to be okay because you raised them right i'd like to take a quick break to show you how you can get involved as a volunteer with angel city sports are you interested in supporting angel city sports we're seeking volunteers to help organize clinics and events as well as support our athlete outreach efforts marketing and media and even fundraising and development all skill sets and backgrounds are welcome in support of our mission to provide free adaptive sport opportunities for children adults and veterans with physical disabilities or visual impairments for our younger athletes we welcome you to join the angel city youth leadership council middle and high school age students are eligible to join the youth leadership council where you will learn about the disabled community by working side by side with our athletes and acquire important skills such as teamwork leadership philanthropy and event management to sign up for our volunteer newsletter and stay up to date on all upcoming opportunities visit angelcitysports.org [Music] all right so you're diagnosed early uh which i think is a is a blessing right at least they had they had some understanding of what you're what you're dealing with describe what uh what the dis how the disability affects you what are you able to see uh because i've rolled around with you a lot and like it's sort of sometimes i forget that you're visually impaired at all um but like what what are you able to see yeah so it is it's great that you ask that because i'm still learning my vision um mind you i i don't want to say so it's like a double-edged sword with the advice that the doctors gave my parents they made it so normal uh that i was like everybody else where i didn't acknowledge i had a disability for a long time it wasn't until 2017 literally four years ago that i really acknowledged i had a disability so up until that point i thought it was like everybody else you know what i'm saying and because so the diagnosis wasn't something that you told people about did you not rem like did you not even really know it you just thought it was it was like i knew i had i was like okay i have juvenile retinol excuses whatever that means yeah i would have to go see like eye doctors regularly like more but that was so normal to me because i was doing it ever since i could remember so i just thought everybody was doing it even though i saw like my eye doctor's appointment consists of like old people sitting next to me and i'm like the youngest one there so like i had the acuity of like i guess now looking back of older people's vision you know i'm saying so at that time it just didn't because i was so good at sports at a young age and i played sports and i didn't see anybody else like me i just thought it was like everybody else just had different ways of doing things when it came to like schooling or yeah only school you know i'm saying everything else was the same thing as you know what how you would do things if that yeah because you're because you're a good athlete able to mainstream in sport playing against able-bodied kids so you're not you're not in any special programs for visually impaired you're just doing your thing yeah so what are you able to see um like is it peripheral is it light like what's what's the what's the actual so now um my vision is like my left eye is my strongest eye but it's tunnel vision i have no periphery on my my left eye okay um it's the strongest during the daytime and in light like my left eye needs the best lighting to be efficient my right eye is my weakest eye but it has the most peripheral now when it gets dark the strengths change my left eye becomes blind in the dark and my right eye becomes the strongest and i see everything through my right eye yeah um when it comes to how far i can see i have no idea of what my depth perception is i know it's not too good because sometimes i miss things um but for some reason i can catch um well i used to be able to catch a lot of like like basketballs or footballs of some kind or whatever um but i can't see small print i can't see too far away and it's it's just weird because i i managed you know what i'm saying and in school coming up like what were you what were the accommodations that you needed so i went to a public school at first um accommodations was pretty tough and my mom had to really put her foot on the guys to really have these people understand what they were dealing with and everything um a lot of times they would think that i would be acting out um and it was a behavioral thing or attention thing but in reality i just couldn't see things um the accommodations once they figured out that okay he has an iep and we have to follow these certain things right uh accommodations that i received were like in large textbooks i was able to go on mobility courses during classes when i would like in middle school um at the time where we start wanting to venture off and do our own thing so i took mobility courses i had binoculars so i can see the chalkboard um that's cool yeah it was it was it was cool at first because you get all these tools i had this big thing called a cctv and it's like there's this big computer monitor and a tray underneath and you put your homework underneath it and it magnifies your homework and it was like everybody in the school wanted to mess with my cctv and i'm like all right this is weird it was cool at first but once kids started to like give me the wrong attention i was just like i don't even want this stuff i just want to be like yo yeah yeah uh so coming up your sport is basketball yeah right and did the disability ever affect your ability to perform on court nah not not not at all like that was in athletics in general was the only place where i felt normal you know i'm saying where my disability didn't matter i mean there were there was this one time in high school freshman year it was probably like five seconds left in the game it was our ball side out and i was the point guard and i did i forgot my sports goggles i couldn't find them anywhere and at that time i hated wearing my sports goggles because they weren't cool i wanted to look cool so that was gave you a little extra vision yeah yeah yeah my sports guide was prescription and um i hate wearing them because you know the ladies didn't like me so i was like f these goggles and um the ball is five seconds left the ball is ball out ball passes to me goes straight off my forehead and i'm looking where'd the ball go where'd the ball goes you all said and it's already on the other side of the court the other team scores they win the game oh i'm just like only if i have my goggles so that was the only time my vision played a role in my sports my athletic career other than that that's where i felt like i got this and before we get to the switch to track um did being such a good athlete through you know whatever grade school junior high did that give you a swagger and a confidence uh at school and on the playground in the community or did you struggle with any self-confidence issues in those early years man it gave me the world of confidence you know as far as sports um didn't really transition into school because that was the one place where i felt like i didn't fit in and um but like i was a really shy kid you know i'm saying like it took me a while to open up to people and once i opened up it was just like oh he's the most confident person i know but at first pretty shy pretty timid and then once i warm up to you i'm good and when it came to athletics i always had the confidence that's interesting that it didn't translate to school and you know or to the school work right that side of it um at some point does school get better for you yes yes so when i so the part where school it was senior year and that's when i first started track i didn't know how good i was until one day my coach brought me into the office and he had a list of schools and it was a range of big ten schools d3 schools a variety of schools i'm like what's this the schools i saw was the same schools i would want to go to for basketball you know i'm saying i was a big ohio state fan i wanted to go there so bad you know what i'm saying and so he he says these are the schools that's interested in track i was like right what he was like but you know what you won't be able to go to these schools because your grade point average is too low and your act scores was too low i barely showed up to class my senior year that's how like i would say uncomfortable i was in school you know what i'm saying like you weren't you weren't doing you weren't out hanging doing bad things in you know in the neighborhood you were just um you were avoiding school because it made you uncomfortable exactly i well like it's funny because you would consider me the class clown you know what i'm saying like the deans love me you go back to my high school they'll probably say how funny i was you know or how annoying i was you could not say oh he was a menace you know what i'm saying um so that was like my reputation in a nutshell but it was just so uncomfortable going to class because it was just like i had this anxiety that i didn't even know about until i got much older what this was all about yeah um so when i got into college i was able to access more resources things were more like individualized the responsibility was on me not my teachers to make sure i was accommodated there was resources like the um department of disability of students or something bas i forgot the acronym and they helped me out tremendously with giving me extra time on my exams so shout out to harper hawks harper college one of the best colleges i went to was the junior college i went to started off at and from there like i excelled in school by um the influence of my coach renee zellner she was heavily on me with just helping me out on my papers just really being my mom away from home you know helping me understand my disability within the sport of how i was able to do the things i did and then um of course i had great mentors when i uh went to harper as well that helped me in my education and and really paving the way of what direction i wanted to go as far as um getting my degrees are you saying harbor is that the one in l.a uh harper harper yes sir harper college and where is that in illinois or where was that uh that's in illinois yes sir okay well that's really interesting that that the school is this sort of grind for you it's this sort of struggle until college um and you got the support there so let let's talk let's go let's backtrack a little bit about that transition from uh basketball to track so at some point you don't make the basketball team yes is that 10th grade 11th grade when is that so it was everest so i made it my uh freshman year and then i didn't make a team after that um it was kind of crazy because that summer going into my sophomore year i did summer camp with the high school team and i made every summer camp team and played well and um when i got cut my sophomore year i was kind of confused like oh shoot like i get i wasn't even in the honorable mentions they put me with the scrubs i was like i'm looking around like damn i'm really like out here and um but i took it as okay i gotta get better so every time i got cut i always ask the coach like yo what can i work on to get better so that was my mentality grind and um what did they say like did the coaches even understand that you had a visual impairment they they definitely did and that was part of the reason why i didn't make the teams my so why when i transitioned into track um in that same conversation of when my coach gave me the list of schools he told me the reason why you didn't make the basketball teams is because you had this disability and you were a liability to the school and i was just like dang so at that point it was bittersweet you know i'm saying so they admitted hold on a second this is this really sucks so they admit that you you didn't get cut because of your athletic ability or lack thereof you got cut because you were a legal liability yeah and part of i i don't want to put all the blame on them because part of the reason was i didn't like wearing my sports goggles it was unbeknownst to me that was the reason why i was getting cut because i wouldn't wear it if they were to tell me where your goggles oh at war but you know after having conversations with my mom because she knew too and it was just like all right i didn't know all of this was going on but at the end of the day it was just like if i wasn't getting cut i would have never found track uh 100 that's exactly where my brain was going it was like what would you have become if you played high school basketball all the way through right at some point maybe you don't make a team and now i don't know do you find track so right all right so you're you're you don't make the team in 10th grade you work at it you try again for the 11th grade and you just don't mix that team didn't make that time that team either and i almost dunked on somebody that tryout too and the coaches looked at me and they were like all in shock and i was just like i missed the dunk though but okay and then do you do you keep grinding and then you try out for 12th grade team yes yes i did try out for the 12th grade team i think i went to the first tryout and then i was just like at that point i was just like already seeing what the cards were it was apparent of who already was on the team and who they were going to put on the team and i was not included so after probably the first or second day of tryouts i just stopped and i didn't know what i was gonna do after that how okay you're breaking my heart right now how heartbroken were you that at that moment to make man you i i couldn't even put it in words because if you were there to realize how hard i worked to just play basketball i put every there wasn't a time i wasn't in a gym you had to give you had to do you had i don't know what you had to do to get me out the gym i was doing everything i was a gym rat um man those those days are just playing basketball every day is just man i was cold i ain't gonna lie to you i'm just thinking about it right now and i can't find the words because you got me in nostalgia right now so excuse me as i said it's so good no yeah man it's it's it's like when you i i feel like i got to see this firsthand going to tokyo but like when you when you when you feel destined to achieve a dream a goal and then it literally just goes away and you don't get it yeah it's like and you're young you're young yeah it's like bro it's it's hard to even explain because you don't understand what's happening when you're that young yeah you just think you're not good right and it has nothing to do with you you know i'm saying like yep um it's it's it's not you it's never always sometimes it's the system around you that fails you that doesn't support you um but at the end of the day you have to you have to keep going and that's what i did you know i'm saying like i knew i didn't i couldn't play basketball for uh uh anymore my eyes were going to the nba uh was slim but i had to find something else and that was my even when i was younger my my phrase when i was a kid and i think there's an art while when i was in high school keep on keeping on you know i'm saying like there's no there's no stopping and just being feeling sad for yourself you know if i was to do that then i wouldn't be talking to you today even even even after you got kept from the third high school team there wasn't a part of you that was like i'm done was there a part of you that was ready to quit sport no no um i just didn't know what's i knew i there was an alternative route other than high school basketball i could have done i did aau basketball traveling so i was like all right high school season is this much my senior year for aau basketball i'm gonna do my thing and bull stuff was going on that time too and i had to quit that um they were it was it was ridiculous it was like god was telling me this is this is not where you're this is not where you're headed um so he had to really allow me to see the picture and i saw the writing on the wall and i was just like all right well i gotta figure something out and then it was just by the grace of god that my friend bet me and i was still competitive you don't say it like my my competitiveness never died because once my friend said i wasn't fast i was like i'm gonna show you how fast i am when when did that bet happen and senior year yes senior year senior year uh it was february i remember like it was yesterday um and the nfl season concluded and i'm skipping class like usual and where my my friend's house was right across the street from school so i don't condone stay in school kids please you're still kind of a baby in the track world uh right because a lot of these kids start in junior high and come up through high school and um so you're at a little bit of an experience disadvantage but obviously your athleticism is you know taking you over the top how do you find paralympic sports so my coach from college at harper harper college she told me about the paralympics way back and i ignored her because i was like i can go to the olympics and i thought the paralympics was the special olympics i wasn't educated on it at the time of being introduced to it so i ignored the whole thing fast forward to 2016 for some reason i said oh i have a visual disability i'm trying to get into the paralympics as well and i jump this height do you know like how can i get involved she ends up saying oh wow my boyfriend um is part of the paralympics his name is roderick townsend look him up and this was at the time of coming into the year of broderick townsend phenomenon he just broke the world record in the high jump yeah 2015. he was on a roll 2016 you know what happened so i'm like all right cool um it was too late for me in 2016. i'm sorry hello yeah your sound is there we lost your video there you go yeah um it was too late for me in 2016 to get classified yeah so i had to wait for 2017 to get classified and then that's how i got involved roderick townsend introduced me to markeith price who just called me which is ironic um and he pretty much held my hand through the process of wait how the paralympics work and how to get involved as a visually impaired person well uh that's a great story and it just shows like it does oftentimes take like that seed needs to be planted and it doesn't always sprout right away yeah sometimes it takes sort of multiple attempts to get someone to start thinking about the paralympic side but um i'll just i just want to share a quick story which i thought was it was i think it was one of the first times i really kind of met you i think it was trials in 2017 at ucla and um and i remember you they put your event at night and the sun had gone down and and we all thought it was the funniest thing that that they put the blind guy who can barely see when there's light he's gonna now high jump in the dark out at ucla and you you took it in stride and you didn't let it sweat you at all but uh i thought that was really that was really sweet obviously you made the team you went on to world championships to be a world champion that year yes sir yes sir that was a fun time man all right so i mentioned some of your sport accomplishments in track and world championships 17 19 and then the tokyo games uh talk to me a little bit about the run up to tokyo how hard was that what were your struggles where were you i think you were in chula but you tell me where where were you what were your you know kind of challenges with the postponement and then the lockdown and you know i know there was just a lot of drama for all of us leading up to tokyo um you know how was that for you man let's just say covet has done its work on on everything man it's it's crazy how kobe impacted us in such large magnitude and it impacted me tremendously in that moment and uh leading up to tokyo um prior to tokyo a lot was going on you know training at the center was probably the most difficult thing because we had limited access to what we needed to um pretty much you know survive as an athlete like recovery stuff and i was going through achilles issues uh writing issues and whatnot and so it was really tough in that aspect so i had to kind of venture out to find different ways to you know heal my body and whatnot um but nothing compares to the mental stress that was going on leading up to it um just trying to prepare for it trying to figure out if you can even have coaches there is there going to be spectators like you just didn't know you didn't know if it was even going to go on you know um and especially competing at the paralympics knowing that the olympics was before us it wasn't guaranteed like if the olympics went bad we weren't going to have a paralympic game so i think you're absolutely right i i i stressed during the whole olympic cycle i was looking at the coveted numbers and like i think you're right if the olympics if they had some crazy outbreak they weren't going to have the paralympics like that right so we were at risk the whole way through the whole way through like it was just so many uncertainties yeah and then just trying to stay focused knowing that nothing's guaranteed and you're still working hard you know what i'm saying like and you didn't know what you were working for you know i'm saying or when it was going to come so it was just it was difficult those two years you know i'm saying for a year and a half i don't even know how long it was um so that was just hard in itself um for me um specifically uh i had to do like i had to adapt to two totally different events like i'm familiar with the long jump but traditionally i'm a high jumper like that's my love i can high jump anywhere you know i'm saying blindfolded no pun intended yeah uh but now i have to pretty much transform into this long jumper and now sprinter also i have to adapt to a whole new coach because i had to switch coaches in in that in that process uh so there was just like all right how am i going to make this work but i think why why did you because i at some point you have to make a decision but you added long jump and 100. why'd you do that what was the rationale there oh well i wanted a challenge you know i'm saying i knew that the high jump was out for my particular classification and i was just like you know what let me challenge myself i can easily just high jump and try to make my way onto the olympic team and just focus on high jump but i saw it as an opportunity to highlight my talent and i wanted to be faster than jason smith like i remember in 2018 i made this video about jason smith i was like everybody talking about jason smith but they haven't met ijp ijp yet i'm about to be the fastest visually impaired person so um i was just like you know what i'm gonna do this and um i got a good coach tony campbell yep perfect coach for me and um we took on the challenge and we did the best we can we took took home a fourth place finish my first year sprinting and was able to come out with a bronze medal in the in the long jump so so just to help unders everyone understand so the way the paralympics work especially for sports like track and swimming the track is worse because they have a lot more classifications just every four years they re-evaluate which events different athletes with different disabilities are eligible to do and so isaac what you're saying i think is the high jump wasn't an event that was offered at the paralympics for your classification which meant you then had to sort of shift to be a long jumper and a sprinter is that did i break that down right yes sir absolutely okay great yeah and then another example like in my son ezra's classification there's only four events offered at the paralympic games uh and so you have to kind of you have to make these decisions in your career um and it's changing right which it makes it a little trickier is it's not guaranteed that those same events are going to be the same in paris and la right so you kind of have to you got to be nimble i guess right you got to be adaptable um okay give me the give me the um so i think you made the right decision by the way um i know you i know you want to make the olympic team uh in high jump which is an amazing goal but uh i think you made the right decision for for certainly this run what was the feeling in your heart as you won that bronze man it was man can i actually break down that whole like event of the long jump and what happened man it was nuts let me tell you what happened so prior to the long jump a lot of stuff was going on you know um just organizationally um so i was put in a place where i just didn't know what was gonna happen when i was gonna step on this runway um in fact like as soon as i took off my warm-ups it felt like the space jam monsters the monstars took my powers and like my legs were noodles and i'm like oh shoot what's going on you know i'm saying so um my first jump safety jump and it was like a six meters jump and i'm like six meters i'm not sure they got that correct you know what i'm saying so i'm like oh man i'm jumping six meters this can't be true so for those to give things in perspective six meters is like a 20-foot jump normally i jump 24 to 25 feet which is 750 to 760. you know what i'm saying meters by 7.5 meters 7.6 meters um so to jump nearly a meter shorter it was alarming to me i didn't know what's going on from there my second jump i jump off the wrong leg and i'm trying to figure out what's going on my coach isn't there so i'm i have a coach that i'm not too familiar with but we're making it work so shout out to coach shannon utley out there in texas she's a wonderful woman she's like my saving grace while in tokyo as well as clayton um so i'm in this competition and i have no idea of where my mark is or why i'm running the way i'm running and it comes down to my lap we're in finals and i'm positioned in fourth place so i'm like oh shoot man like how am i in fourth place i should be winning this thing right now i was i came in the longest jumper the furthest jump in the world how am i in fourth place like okay so you come in you're ranked we're first in the world yes i'm ranked first oh and i'm sitting in fourth and we're down to the last three jumps and um okay so so it you make after the first three jumps the top eight advance to the finals is the same is that how it works yes sir okay so you make the you're in fourth place you make the finals you've got three more jumps to see if you can get on that podium yes sir so now my mind is racing and i'm like i gotta relax and what was the most frustrating part in the midst of jumping bad communication between the coaches and the athletes were by far the most difficult thing the officials wanted you to run put your mask on then go go to your coach they're telling your coach to keep her mask on and like it was just so much i almost got kicked out because i kept forgetting to put my mask on so now i'm trying to balance a poor jumping um i'm frustrated in that the ladies trying to kick me out i can't come i can't converse with my coach i'm like all right isaac you got to relax so that was my moment where i was like i got to talk to god like this is the only person the only being that can help me relax and i told god i was like this can't be true you got to help me like what do i need to do to get this right show me that you're real so it comes down to my last jump and right before my last jump i asked the coach that was watching me i was like out of nowhere i don't know why i asked her this i asked her where's my tenth step um where is it landy because usually at my tenths or tenth step my tenth step with my left i should be on the board and when she looked at the film she said you're way in front of the board move back two feet at that point i looked at her i'm like you want me to move back two feet on my last jump and i'm in fourth place i don't know if i trust you but for some reason this trust said if the word trust just came up in my head trust and i was just like you know what isaac get out of your own way use this opportunity to finally trust someone prior to this moment i was going through a lot of things in my professional career in regards to track trying to navigate certain things and dealing with certain people um i lost a sense of trust in people um some people would tell me man you look so good and i wouldn't believe it because i just didn't i didn't trust that so when she said that i just didn't trust that she was right and god was like trust get out of your own way allow someone else to help you and so i move back two feet they say isaac john paul you're up i'm up i'm on that one right and i'm i take three breaths and i say god show me that you're real and i was just like i closed my eyes i leaned back and i took off down the runway and on my third step on my w while i was running i was like oh wow i'm moving like this is it i wish i was back this far this whole time so i'm running and i'm like oh i'm moving i'm moving and the board is fastly approaching and i jump and i knew that i had a clean jump i didn't know how far it was but i jumped and i was just like i stretched out and i landed and i i got out the pit and i looked i was like it i don't think that's it they let they they say the meters over the intercom isaac john paul moves up to third place by two centimeters i looked at the coach and i couldn't help but laugh you know said i just laughed and i was so nervous but at the same time i didn't have nerves because the person that jumped after me was in third pla or now in fourth place and he had to match me yeah or better me and i was like i'm not gonna look but i still look and so he's running and i have my hands over my eyes i'm like this but i'm peeking and i still can't see you know what i'm saying and i saw for some reason my vision turned into 2020 and i saw his foot hit that foul board and i yelled and sprinted i picked up one of the cameramen and shook him i was like oh my god i i took third place and it was by far the craziest like roller coaster of emotions because what happens after that i was excited happy and i was looking for this anger because i knew i jumped like trash you know i didn't jump like myself yeah but in the midst of that i couldn't couldn't find that anger all i could do was smile and laugh and embrace my competitors because like a lot of things hit me in that moment you know um coming out of a panda or not out of the pandemic all these competitors came from a different country and we came here to do something that we love to do despite the odds you know i'm saying and we did it to our best ability and that was a moment to share with each one of those people out there on that long jump so i couldn't even get mad even though i was going through my own personal drama man that is incredible story i gotta ask a question did you talk to shannon about that foot placement on the final jump did she just think you were gonna bring a lot more energy and speed on that final approach man we just she said two feet back i said all right balls no i know but afterwards did you ask her about it did you talk to her about it we i don't think we did i don't think we did we just that's so fascinating i mean yeah it was crazy man it was a wild wild ride well and i i missed out on the part i even i was so frustrated throughout that competition in the midst of that competition i threw my goggles in the stance like four four rolls out up in like the uh the nosebleeds and somehow my goggles came back down to me out of nowhere like some guy was like hey this is your athlete's goggles right before my last jump and my coach gave me my goggles i put them on and it was just like that must be a message in itself like so after what after your first or second jump you threw up into the state after the first jump of finals i threw my goggles into the stands you're crazy why would you do that man that's like that's that's bro it was it was so frustrating because i was jumping off the wrong foot and i just didn't know what was going on like practices prior to my competition i was on fire and then for some reason now i just don't know what's going on so i was so frustrated i was just like f these goggles i'm done throw them in the stand and they can they kick you out of an event for bad sportsmanship like that seems risky they i i didn't care at that point i was like kick me out i'd rather get kicked out it gives me an excuse to say oh well i got kicked out i didn't have i couldn't compete you're all saying disqualification looks better than fifth place you know or fourth place you know what i'm saying oh man man oh gosh yes sir well i'm very proud i'm very proud of uh how you handled that and i think you'll you'll be a much tougher competitor going forward after that because you had a little bit of everything mixed into that one yeah that's brutal and i and i trust that that fourth place isn't going to sit well with you either so i think you'll still it makes you'll make some good moves on that one hey i'm breaking the world record this season man trust and believe that world record is breaking let's do that let's do that i love that before i move into the final uh section which i call my soul searching section um where where do you see your career ending do you want to go through la like how much longer do you think you're going to compete i always told myself i want to hit that 20-year mark um just like being part of something for 20 years uh not paralympics just saying sports you know what i'm saying so from or not 20 years 10 years wait yeah 20 years would be well that would be i'm terrible at math as you can see yeah 2028 is when i'm gonna wrap it up but i always was fascinated with that close to 20-year mark i think that's like a good number to finish on you know what i'm saying so 2028 god willingly you know i'm saying if my bones are still moving the right way and my joints are still loose you know i'll still be jumping or running or whatever the case may be all right you heard it here we'll see we'll see in l.a all right soul searching a first is a fun question a fun or interesting fact that i don't know about you let's see fine um let's see what don't you know i mean i have a big mouth you know what i'm saying i tell everybody everything um interesting fact oh well you probably don't know this this is my third year as head track sprint coach at san diego state adaptive sports that's cool um i didn't know if you knew that i knew you knew i was coaching but i didn't know if you know how long i was coaching so that's an interesting fact so shout out aztecs let's go aztecs yes sir let's go um what over the years have you learned about self acceptance man that's a great question um it takes time you know i'm saying um accepting yourself takes a lot of time you you find throughout living you find different things about yourself as you experience different things and how you handle your experiences and for me um i like to think that um what would i what was about to say i'm sorry um that's just the biggest thing it's just being able to experience things one thing at a time and growing from those experience experiences is the biggest thing yeah yeah okay what is your disability taught you to accept people for who they are you know what i'm saying um yeah lex gillettes has a phrase there um i think it goes no sight when you have a vision um i really i can't see facial expressions i can't see body language i can't see a lot of things that people pick up when they feel as if a person feels a type of way so therefore you know i have to move a certain way i have to move with integrity i have to move with respect i have to move with kindness because i can't see what other people see a lot of people use their vision as sometimes and this is you probably not you may not be aware but when you have a good enough acuity of vision you kind of take it for granted yeah i mean you pick up on things you probably use your vision to manipulate certain situations like take it for example if i'm aware that you're disturbed or if you're bothered i can switch my energies to probably convince you to be on my side and not feel the way that you feel right does that make sense yeah yeah um for me i don't see it as a i see it as a way that you just naturally go and be kind with people and you be nice with people and stuff like that so it's like my vision taught me to accept people for who they are be patient with people because people are patient with me they accept my uh disability except me for who i am sometimes um but it's just like i have to pay that forward yeah yeah i love that what uh what stresses you out um miss being misunderstood um a lot of times my passion could be misunderstood uh for a variety of things you know uh living in this society is so hard being yourself and a lot of people want to move in a way where they want to be accepted by the the what we see as normal or what's normalized and we don't fully have the opportunity to acknowledge who we are and when we do acknowledge who we are we kind of get shunned or you know ridiculed for liking certain things like for example and you you could probably attest to this too um stereotypes um if you're african-american or black or something and you listen to a certain style of music you can be ridiculed by your peers be like wait why are you listening to country music you you don't listen you post a list in a rap you're supposed to do this like why can't i like something without suppose being uh supposed to like something you don't say for sure for sure yeah that makes makes perfect sense uh what is the single accomplishment you're most proud of in your life so far um [Music] my single well having a child you know i'm saying preparing for fatherhood um my girlfriend is a a wonderful woman she does a lot of great things so i'm proud for her accepting my child you know i'm saying deeming me worthy to bear my children so you know that that's a proud accomplishment because you know parenting is important you know and you um being a young parent uh you you have to really really it's very important that you install certain values in your child to ensure that they have a chance in this world and i think being having that responsibility and that duty you know now obligation like i'm proud of that and i accept that challenge yeah yep that's great uh final question on this section who is the most important mentor in your life mentor i said not to sound cocky or conceited but i would have to say myself when i say this i i say this with all due respect with every influential person that walked into my life at the same time i have to have um there was i have to have some sense of responsibility that i sit there and i listen to them and i take their lessons um and their teachings and i apply them to my actual life so when i mentor i i see it as like you the onus is on you and for you to be the example for the next generation is also important so the energy that i bring to you know working as the coach at san diego state and seeing how you know i i i tell a story about one of my athletes and this is why i say i i like myself as a mentor because one of my athletes when i first started working with her she has cerebral palsy her name is michelle cross and um at the time yeah she she used to be this small quiet like when i remember the first time she competed we went to long beach and she gets in this really small pose and i at that point i saw that she lacked confidence um i i knew that she had some type of insecurity regarding her disability as we all do try to be in a room where everybody else looked the same you're the only one that looks different um and i saw that in her and once i saw that i i made it an obligation that it's not about what we do on this track on the day of competition the biggest thing that she's going to get out of me being in her life is confidence and instilling confidence in her in ways where she can apply it apply it into her actual life you know and now to this day this girl she got all the confidence in the world she walked on the track you gonna notice michelle you know what i'm saying like and she doesn't have a world record she doesn't have anything that you would think that would give you confidence right she knows that anytime she gets on the track she's gonna give it her all and that's all that matters and she now defines what it means to be elite she defines what it means to have a gold medal and that's all i can ask for yeah that's beautiful that's a great way to end it uh all right before we wrap this up i'm giving you the microphone any final words of wisdom any shout outs whatever and then uh let us let us know where to follow you follow your for sure first and foremost i want to shout out to all my respective schools that i've stepped foot in from warren township high school all the way to san diego state university i've been so lucky and blessed to encounter such wonderful people so if i was to give a shout out to everyone we'll be here for months um so my heart goes out to everybody and they know who they are you know who you are you know i'm saying um but a little word of wisdom um just be you and accept who you are how god put you on this earth know that you everybody is god's child and um just really move with the right intentions and always remember guide for the next generation run for the next generation jump for the next generation and always live for the next generation you can follow me on both of my pages i write books too um my instagram is i am that's iam underscore ijp1 i think that's my instagram i have so many instagrams now i can check it yeah um and then my other instagram is the author isaac gene paul and that's where you can find all my books um everything actually yeah you're i ijp underscore i am one yes sir that's that's my instagram ijp underscore i am one yep cool but i appreciate you so much for allowing me to share your platform and yeah give me your time man i'm excited [Music] you