0:04

This is Raul Lopez , and you're listening to . How Do

0:06

you Save Success in Spanglish ? The

0:09

path to success isn't easy For

0:11

minorities and people of color . Many attempt this

0:13

journey with little to no guidance . Join

0:15

me as I sit down with individuals who share their

0:17

stories of perseverance so that together

0:20

, we can learn how to save success in Spanglish

0:22

. What's

0:38

good , mi gente ? Welcome back . It's your boy , Raul . Thank

0:40

you for joining me here on how to Say Success in Spanglish . Today I have a very special

0:42

guest , Brittany Simpson . Brittany , how's it going

0:44

?

0:45

Good , how are you ?

0:46

Good , good , good . Brittany

0:48

holds a place dear to my heart

0:51

because she coaches my daughter in soccer

0:53

, but she also has an amazing story

0:55

. So just to kind of give a little intro on Brittany , brittany

0:58

Simpson was born and raised in Sunrise

1:00

, florida . She's been playing soccer

1:02

since the age of three and also attended

1:05

an academic and athletic high school where she

1:07

played varsity all four years . As

1:09

well as being part of various honor societies

1:11

, she committed to the Yale's D1

1:13

soccer program after her sophomore year . During

1:16

college , she played on the Yale's women's soccer team

1:18

for all four years while majoring in chemistry A

1:21

captain her senior year . She continued to play after

1:23

graduating in England for over two years . She

1:25

also played on the

1:28

youth national teams and finally with

1:30

the Jamaican national first team qualifying

1:33

for the 2019 Women's World Cup . Currently

1:35

, she coaches girls 2013 youth soccer

1:37

, which includes my daughter , as well as

1:40

the United

1:42

Women's Soccer Team as well . Women's

1:47

United the United Women's Soccer Team as well . When not doing soccer , she's just a senior

1:49

scientist at Pfizer . So how's it going , brittany ?

1:52

Not too bad . Thanks for having me Very , very excited

1:54

.

1:54

Yeah , thank you so much for taking the time . I mean from

1:57

the moment we this is my

1:59

first year doing this level

2:01

of soccer with my daughter . She's fairly

2:03

new to soccer . She's only been playing for a couple of years and

2:06

when we found out you had a coach , I was like , oh my God

2:08

, this is such an amazing person . I'm glad

2:11

that my daughter has this person as a role model , so

2:13

thank you for helping her out with everything .

2:16

Oh , of course she's lovely . I

2:18

love that team so much . They're always super excited

2:20

to show up for practices games . They

2:25

super excited to show up for practices games . They , they want more practices .

2:27

Things like that , I just love to see , especially at a young age . So I'm excited . Well , I guess , to start

2:29

off , you know , tell me a little about yourself . You know who is

2:31

?

2:31

uh , brittany simpson sure

2:34

, yeah , thanks so much for the great intro as well

2:36

. That was great , um . But yeah

2:38

, just like you heard , um , I'm born and raised in sunrise

2:40

, florida . Um lived there for a

2:42

majority of my life . I

2:44

have one older brother , so

2:46

we both played soccer from starting at age

2:48

three . I actually played on a boys

2:50

team until I turned around 10 or 11 . Then

2:53

I switched over to a girls team . I

2:55

always like to joke around and say that I was born on

2:57

a soccer field because my dad also

2:59

played soccer as well as professionally

3:02

. So my parents , thankfully

3:04

and I'm very blessed to say

3:07

that , like , I played every sport just to try out

3:09

see what I was good at . Um , but

3:11

you know , secretly , we always knew it was going to probably be soccer

3:13

. But my , if I wasn't

3:15

, you know , at school or at

3:17

my own games , I was at my brother's games , um , and

3:19

if we didn't have either of those , I'm at the field , uh

3:22

, practicing with my brother and my dad . So , um

3:25

, soccer was definitely a big , you know

3:27

, part of my life , especially being Jamaican

3:29

as well . A lot of my cousins , my uncles , all

3:31

of them played soccer as well , so it's all around

3:33

that . But the other side of me , like you

3:36

heard , I'm a scientist at Pfizer , so

3:38

my mom was very big on academics . So

3:40

they're like okay , you can play soccer , that's great , but

3:42

you know you also have to excel in the in

3:44

the classroom . So growing

3:46

up I was at a

3:48

private Catholic school my entire life through

3:51

college and I did

3:53

very hard , rigorous academics

3:55

as well , as you know , sports . So majored

3:58

in chemistry came straight from freshman

4:00

year of college . Within high school

4:02

I knew I wanted to do chemistry from , I

4:05

think , sophomore year I had

4:07

a really really great chemistry teacher . She

4:09

was very energetic , she just made

4:11

chemistry really really fun . So that kind of

4:13

sparked my idea of , okay , I'm

4:16

pretty good at this , maybe this could have gone to work out what

4:18

kind of you know , profession I can get out

4:20

of this . So that kind of got me thinking

4:22

going into college of like , okay , what kind of specific

4:24

kind of chemistry I want to do and how do

4:26

I get to where I want to be ? So

4:29

did that through college . After

4:32

my sophomore year of

4:34

high school actually , I committed to

4:36

Yale for soccer . It

4:38

was seems kind of early and it is early

4:40

Making that decision

4:43

definitely came from , you know , my older brother

4:45

who played soccer at Penn State and

4:47

my parents were , you know , huge , huge help

4:49

with that . I was looking at different

4:51

schools . You know different levels of soccer , but I

4:54

also knew I wanted to do

4:56

really well in academics . So why

4:58

not do that in an IB ? You know , do

5:00

D1 while also doing that ? Not the easiest

5:03

task to do , but let's see

5:05

if I could try . You know , um , and that

5:07

was my parents biggest thing . They're like , always aim

5:09

high and you know see where you land from there

5:11

. Um , they always wanted the best for us so

5:13

they sacrificed a lot for us to go

5:15

um , do what we needed to do . So

5:18

I committed there um

5:20

, ended up playing all four years , captained

5:22

my last year at Yale which was amazing

5:25

, love that team Um

5:27

, and majored in chemistry . So with

5:29

that I actually had an internship

5:31

at Pfizer Um and

5:34

that kind of directed me of okay , I know I

5:36

want to do pharmaceuticals , how do I get there

5:38

? You know what things that I need to

5:40

do . Then I took that internship , learned

5:43

a lot , came back to school , learned a lot about

5:45

research and you know things I can kind

5:47

of excel in and better my own skills . And

5:50

after that I knew I wanted to do post-school

5:52

like work , graduate work , whether it's PhD

5:54

, master's , et cetera , et cetera . So

5:57

I have that one side of , you

5:59

know , being so driven in chemistry and wanted

6:01

to be the best at that , but I also really

6:03

soccer , you know . So I'm gonna continue

6:05

. Both people always ask me , like

6:07

you know , that's hard , how do you do that

6:09

, especially at an ivy , and chemistry alone

6:12

is like the craziest thing and it is

6:14

. I take that . But you know , like

6:16

I said , when I was in middle school , I was

6:18

always doing two things I was always doing school and

6:20

I was always doing sports , um , and

6:22

I did that through high school and did that through college . So , even

6:25

though , yes , the level intensifies , it's

6:27

still . It was still kind of the same thing for me . I

6:30

always knew that , like , this is just my life . I

6:32

thought this was normal . You know . I didn't

6:34

compare it to anything else , this is just what I knew

6:36

. I was very structured . You know

6:38

, I had this 10 minutes to eat my dinner and then

6:40

I had to do my homework and then I had practice . Or you

6:43

to eat my dinner , and then I had to do my homework and then I had

6:45

practice , or you know things like that . It just seemed very normal to me and

6:47

, like I said , I think that started from young age

6:49

with my parents just being like okay , if this is what you want

6:51

to do , let's do it Well , like let's , you

6:54

know , put you in the best spot , work very , very

6:56

hard to get you to you know where you want

6:58

to be . So did all of that

7:00

played while I was getting my

7:02

master's over in England Again , kind

7:04

of crazy , how did I think about

7:06

it . And then , like

7:09

you mentioned , I played on youth teams , youth

7:11

national teams , played with the Jamaican team

7:13

and ended up

7:15

getting a job at Pfizer and hard to

7:17

turn that down . So , of course

7:19

, moved back over and now I'm

7:21

a scientist there , but still have the love

7:24

for soccer , of course . So , even though I'm not playing

7:26

professionally anymore

7:28

, I wanted to be involved as much

7:30

as possible . So , you know , teaching your

7:32

daughter and the rest of the girls on the team is the

7:35

most fun thing for me , honestly

7:38

, and teaching the college

7:40

girls when they come back out of college during the summer . Again

7:42

, you know , different , different kind of level , different

7:44

kind of spot for me , whether being , you

7:47

know , a player versus a coach now , uh

7:49

, but definitely very , very fulfilling . So

7:51

very , very happy about that nice .

7:53

It's a lot to be

7:55

like to accomplish and it's I can't imagine

7:57

that drill . I mean , when I was growing up as a kid , my

7:59

dad was very strict for college . College was

8:01

everything . The only

8:03

reason he let me play sports . Uh well

8:05

, he was a soccer guy too . So but I

8:07

won't go into like why I stopped playing

8:10

soccer . You

8:13

know , um , I sat on the bench a lot because I was

8:15

a big chubby guy , so so

8:18

it drew me away from soccer . I didn't , I didn't like playing soccer

8:20

because nobody ever let me play . So , um

8:22

, eventually you know , when I get to high school , you know

8:24

we're playing sports and my dad's like you

8:27

know everything I had to do was for college , so

8:29

I'm going to play football because that's going to help

8:31

me , could help me for college and stuff like that . So

8:33

that balance was that something you learned

8:35

early on because your parents were guiding you

8:38

on all that stuff ? Or in like , did they say you

8:40

could only play soccer after you finish your homework

8:42

? You know you could only or did . Did you have

8:44

limits on that from your parents ?

8:47

You know , I don't think we had

8:49

particular limits . I'm like

8:51

you know you have to do this before this or

8:53

you know you have this time to do this . I think

8:55

it's because I always joke

8:57

that my mom was very heavy on academics and

8:59

my dad was heavy on soccer , so I

9:02

just had one full percent on the other

9:04

, 100% on the other . But

9:06

it we had this very

9:09

structured schedule and a sense of

9:11

like you know , I have this 30 minute

9:13

block . This is the only time I have to do my homework

9:15

. It's gonna get done in this 30 minute block , so

9:18

I just don't have the time to do any other

9:20

things . And it's interesting because

9:22

it's nothing I never , you

9:24

know it's not like oh , you got to go do

9:26

your homework . Like I was always excited to do my homework

9:29

, like I just wanted to go and do it , you know

9:31

, and it was like okay

9:33

, I can do this . I know I have practice

9:35

later , so I don't need to , you know

9:37

, sacrifice this because I want to do something else

9:40

, like I could just get it done and then move on

9:42

to the next thing . And I

9:44

, like I said , I don't think that was brought

9:46

on more so from my parents . I want to say that's more

9:49

so from my older brother . He was , I

9:51

mean , he is one of the best role models

9:53

I have in my life

9:55

. We're four years apart but

9:57

we're best friends . Like that's my

9:59

number one best friend , and he

10:02

was very , very good at keeping things

10:04

in order and , you

10:06

know , placing where his academics and where

10:08

his sports will be . So I just kind

10:10

of followed his lead of like okay , he's doing his

10:12

homework , this time I'm gonna do it with him and

10:14

then we can go outside and play some soccer before our practices

10:16

. So I think a lot of that

10:19

just kind of came from following what my brother did . He

10:21

seemed to go well for him , so I was like okay , I'll do what

10:23

he's doing and see how that goes .

10:26

So you said you went to an athletic

10:28

academic school . Is that like a

10:31

special type of school or something you had

10:33

to apply to , or does it just happen to be the

10:35

school you went to was really athletic .

10:38

Yeah , it was . So I went to St Thomas Aquinas

10:41

in Fort Lauderdale , florida , and

10:43

it's very heavy on well , technically , it's

10:45

very heavy on like football for guys

10:48

, but it's just very , very

10:50

good at sports in general . So it's

10:52

an application process . There's

10:54

no scholarships when it comes to sports , necessarily

10:56

, but there's a lot of academic scholarships . So

10:58

if you test well going in

11:01

versus you know your grades from middle school

11:03

and things like that , then you can get in

11:05

and excel through that . But St

11:07

Thomas is a very interesting place . I

11:10

love it with all my heart . It's a Catholic

11:12

private school as well , so that

11:15

also kind of helped those because I

11:17

got introduced to so many . You know different

11:19

kinds of people . You

11:21

know a lot of the kids that came out of there , especially

11:24

, like I said , for football . They now play in the NFL

11:26

. Or you know a lot of my teammates

11:28

that I played club soccer with , also once my high school

11:30

. So it was like I see them play high school soccer

11:32

with them , but I also play club soccer with them . So

11:35

you know the team was very good . I think we won , we

11:38

won , we won States all

11:41

four years of my high school , I

11:43

believe and then one national championship

11:45

somewhere in the middle , I think , sophomore , junior year

11:48

. So then you know , I still got competitive soccer

11:50

through that , while you know Spanish

11:52

Honor Society , national Honor Society , those kinds

11:54

of things , because I needed to be in the AP class

11:57

in order to get into an Ivy school , you know

11:59

. So it was just a very I was very blessed

12:01

to be in that space , to be able to do all of those

12:03

things again at the same time .

12:06

Yeah , so you said

12:08

you committed to Yale

12:10

in your sophomore year , and does that

12:13

mean that there was a certain set of requirements

12:15

that you needed to maintain to continue

12:18

and go to Yale , or what

12:20

?

12:20

was that like Yep , yeah , so for you to

12:22

be able to commit to colleges

12:25

that early , it's like a verbal

12:27

commitment of just like , okay , we both agree that

12:29

you know when it's time which is , I think , senior

12:31

year you do your signing day where

12:33

you know I'm committed to you and you're committed

12:35

to me , kind of thing . But , like you said , there

12:37

is requirements , so you still have to get your grades

12:40

. You got to keep your grades up . You got to test

12:42

. Well , I took the ACTs at that

12:44

time , so you had a certain score , you had the bank , all

12:47

that stuff . Still , it's like a conditional

12:49

offer in some senses . I

12:51

couldn't get a C , you

12:54

know things like that . It was just like this

12:56

yes , we're committed to each other , but you still got to

12:58

kind of get yourself together , make

13:00

sure everything's on track . You can't get in

13:02

trouble while you know all those kinds of things

13:04

. So it that kind of stuff

13:07

didn't scare me , especially committing so

13:09

early , because it was like I'm gonna get in trouble with my

13:11

parents if I , you know

13:13

, get a c or like whatever , you're the least

13:15

of my worries . I was like this

13:17

is fine , it's like , don't worry about

13:19

it . Um , so , yeah

13:21

, it's . It's crazy because I feel

13:23

like it gets earlier and earlier for people to commit , but

13:25

again , it's a verbal commitment , so things can

13:28

change , Coaches can change . You know people

13:30

that you talk to might not be there when you're actually going there

13:32

. There's a lot of ifs and buts when

13:34

it comes to committing that early , but you

13:37

know , I was , I was very I

13:39

would say I was pretty easy with picking the school that

13:41

I wanted to go to , because I had very

13:43

specific things I wanted . I wanted a good school

13:45

for academics . I wanted a good school for soccer

13:48

. I knew I didn't want to stay

13:50

in Florida , more so because I can always come home and

13:52

see my family , and that was about it

13:54

. Like that was honestly , pretty

13:56

much it . So it was just , you

13:58

know , picking that and getting the best offer

14:00

I could was , you know , help out my parents

14:03

as best as I can .

14:05

You know , that's all I wanted to do , and

14:07

so what impact did

14:09

like club soccer versus high

14:12

school sports , like help

14:14

in getting you in front of

14:16

someone from Yale .

14:18

Yeah , so I will say that

14:20

, when it comes to committing for

14:23

soccer wise , that came more so from club soccer

14:25

than high school . Of course , high school soccer

14:27

was so great like I said , we won state champs and

14:29

things like that but I was seen

14:31

throughout for club um , I was

14:33

on a very interesting club team where

14:36

it was just us as the um , the team

14:38

for the entire club . So , um , I

14:40

was on this team called Magic Jacks , uh

14:42

, when I was younger , and it was run

14:45

by this man called Dan Borslow

14:47

, one of the best people I've

14:49

met in my entire life , and he

14:52

basically built this

14:54

team of just excellent players

14:56

from all across the world . Honestly

14:58

, like we had a couple of players that lived in California that

15:00

played with us . We played with this

15:03

woman that's her . Her name's Bunny . She's one

15:06

of the best players on the Jamaica national team

15:08

. She played on my club team with us . She

15:10

came from Jamaica and came and played . We had two players

15:12

from Sweden . So it was

15:14

just this hodgepodge of a team of just amazing

15:16

players , but it helped

15:19

in a sense of I was seen all

15:21

over the world when it comes to , you know , college

15:23

coaches , national team coaches , because

15:25

we just played in every tournament there was

15:27

possible , honestly , and you

15:30

know , of course , when you're winning tournaments , you're winning games

15:32

, you're going to be pulling a lot of you know trainers

15:34

and things like coaches and stuff like that to come

15:36

see you . So that helped me

15:38

a lot when it came to just being seen in the soccer

15:41

world . But for

15:43

academics wise , like I mentioned before , being

15:45

in a place where you know very strict private

15:47

school , you're able to do AP

15:49

classes . You're able to . I did a

15:52

couple like I did high school classes when

15:54

I was in middle school because my brother was going there

15:56

so

16:00

I could go there in the morning with him and then go back to my middle school

16:02

after . So I was doing my algebra and calculus class while I was in middle school

16:04

beforehand and stuff like that . So it was just like

16:06

chaotic , a little bit

16:08

chaotic , but you know , again

16:10

, I did those things like I

16:12

always wanted to do those things . So I was like I

16:15

want to be , you know , at the best school . I

16:17

know I have to work being a minority

16:19

, like a black woman , I know I have to work two times

16:21

as hard just to be seen , whether

16:23

it's an academic , sports or whatever it has to be

16:26

. So putting myself in those

16:28

quote unquote difficult situations

16:30

was okay with me , because I was

16:32

like , okay , if this is going to help me in the future

16:34

, I'll do it Like I'll

16:36

work hard . That's not . That's not going to

16:38

turn me away .

16:40

So what was kind of like your ultimate motivator

16:42

? Was it the hopes of becoming ?

17:00

no-transcript

17:05

. It ultimately comes down to like , if I

17:07

had those , you know , as a young girl you

17:09

always want to be the best . You want to be a professional soccer

17:12

player . You know , I looked up to Abby Wombat and like

17:14

I was like I want to play with her , um

17:16

, and things like that . So it's

17:18

interesting , Cause I I personally

17:21

don't think those were like my driving

17:23

force . I honestly think I just always wanted to make

17:25

my parents proud , because they always

17:27

say that you know , you're really good at

17:29

this . Like if you just kind of focus on this , you'll be

17:31

great . So I'm like you know what ? You're right , Let

17:33

me focus on this and prove

17:36

to them that like , yes , I can do this . I

17:39

said my mom

17:42

was very high in academic . She's like , if

17:44

chemistry is going to be your thing , like what do you want to do

17:46

? Like where do you want to go ? And I was like , okay , well , Pfizer

17:49

is the number one pharmaceutical company in the world . Can

17:51

I work there ? And she's like if you put

17:53

your mind and heart into it , you

17:55

definitely can . So

18:08

my dad on the other side , he's like you have to put your a hundred percent effort . And I was like you know what , if that's

18:10

, that's what you think I can do . I want to get there . I want to work as hard as I can to get there . Um , so , like

18:12

I said , I think it's just a base of making both of my parents proud as much

18:14

as possible . Um , honestly

18:17

, what's my driving force is , like I

18:19

said , I have goals and ideas of what I want

18:21

to do , but as long as , like , I should prove

18:23

to them , okay , I'm working so hard . Maybe

18:25

I don't get there , that's just life , but I'm

18:27

gonna try as hard as I can , just

18:29

to prove to them like , yeah , I can do it , You're

18:32

right . Like , thank you for trusting

18:34

me , Thank you for , you know , believing

18:36

in that I could . So , yeah , Nice

18:38

.

18:38

And when you finally here

18:50

you go , we got yeah , yeah , you're in no

18:53

, um , yeah , you still have to do

18:55

regular application process .

18:56

So I did early decision , um

18:59

, so you basically do the

19:01

yeah , yeah , really early decision obviously

19:03

. So when you're a senior you could apply

19:06

on like early , early action , early

19:08

early action I think it's called

19:10

um and then you're able to get , if

19:13

you know you're likely to get in

19:15

, you get a likely letter , um , this also

19:17

could probably be different , you know , for different colleges

19:19

. This is just ivs in general . Um , so

19:21

in , like October , I think I

19:24

got a likely letter of just saying you know you're likely

19:26

to get in , you're like you're a high prospect , etc . Etc . Um

19:28

, and then decision

19:30

time I think is in January

19:32

or February , something like that , when you get your

19:35

acceptance letter and stuff . But it's

19:37

the same thing , same application process as everybody

19:39

else still got to take the ACT , still got to do

19:41

all that good stuff , because with

19:43

Ivy's they don't give sports scholarship necessarily

19:46

, so a lot of that had

19:48

to come from . Like , those scholarships that I got all

19:50

came from academic . Yes , yes , I

19:52

was likely to get in because I was committing

19:54

for soccer , so that you knew , you know that's where I was

19:56

going , but I still had

19:58

to , you know , pay for the school . I

20:00

still had to get in and things like that . And you

20:03

know as much as I love my parents , I got to help them

20:05

out too , you know . So again

20:08

, that comes with the . You know I want to focus

20:10

on academics , and if this is the thing I want to do

20:12

, let's see . You know the best way to

20:14

put myself in the best spot to get there .

20:15

So yeah , and

20:24

um when , when you ? Um . Sorry , I'm blanking out for a second , but when , when you

20:26

finally got in , you know what I mean . What was that like ? Did

20:28

you um colleges ? I don't know what

20:30

your school demographic was like in

20:32

Florida but I know , for me my demographics were

20:34

black and Latino driven and

20:36

then I got to college and I was

20:38

like there's nobody here that's like

20:40

me .

20:41

We woke up like 5% of the school

20:43

.

20:45

What was it like for you when you went to Yale and did soccer kind of help

20:47

build something for you that made it

20:49

feel more like at home for you ? Yeah , that's interesting . So like at home

20:52

for you yeah , that's interesting

20:54

.

20:54

So , like I mentioned before , I went to

20:56

a Catholic private school growing up um

20:58

from all the way up until college . So

21:01

I was very much in more of like

21:03

a white space growing up . Whether you

21:05

know outside of um anything

21:07

else , it was mainly just school was like . I

21:09

was the only black woman in

21:12

my middle school until , I think , sixth grade

21:14

and you

21:16

know , obviously when you're a child you don't see those things

21:18

, you don't notice it as much . But when

21:20

I got to high school it was a little bit

21:22

more diverse , especially with

21:25

it being like application process and things like that , but

21:28

still it was still heavy on

21:31

white . So going

21:34

into college , especially

21:37

with Ivy's , there's bits and pieces that

21:39

are kind of the same . I think demographic-wise

21:41

, my college and my high school are pretty similar , but

21:44

me being able to be especially

21:46

in sports and being on teams

21:49

and being on different societies

21:51

in college . On

21:55

teams and being on different societies in college , I was just immersed with so many different

21:57

kinds of people and very , very interesting people . When it comes to just the way

21:59

they grew up is very different than mine , not

22:01

necessarily in a good or bad way , just very

22:03

different experiences and I'm very

22:05

big on learning from people's experiences because

22:07

I feel like that could drive you to being

22:10

a different kind of person or , you know , just

22:12

trying something new and completely . I

22:14

met people start from

22:17

freshman year of college . I met

22:20

someone that had done like an internship

22:22

and did surgery on like a little baby and I'm

22:24

like , where did you do that ? And he's like , oh , I did it

22:26

in Turkey . And I was like I don't even know where Turkey is

22:28

, like what's going on . So

22:31

I was like I always say like Yale

22:33

was such an amazing experience because it just

22:35

put me in such a space where I

22:37

had so many different kinds of people from all over

22:39

the world and I talked to everybody

22:42

to understand it . So I think the

22:44

biggest thing that well one I had

22:46

a high school teammate and

22:48

, honestly , childhood best friend that

22:51

came to Yale with me so

22:53

she played soccer with me as well . So

22:55

that definitely helped kind of ground me of just

22:57

like I'm just a little girl from Florida , like

22:59

sunrise Florida , like this is , you know , I'm still

23:01

just me . So that definitely helped a lot

23:04

. But also I think I put

23:06

a lot of emphasis of just focusing

23:08

on , you know , the things that I can control . So I knew I wanted to

23:10

do chemistry . I knew I wanted to do chemistry , I knew I wanted to

23:12

do well in soccer . So I just focused

23:14

on those two things . And any like extracurricular

23:16

stuff I was , you

23:23

know , in a painting class , I was on the dance team , etc . Etc . Those are just for

23:25

fun , but as long as I kind of focus and , you know , have my goal from the start

23:27

and just try to get there towards the end , that kind

23:29

of helped just , you know , bring me back to life of like

23:31

, this is a dream , but I see

23:34

what I could do , you know , while being in

23:36

there .

23:36

So I mean the transition from high school to

23:38

college . From just about everyone is

23:40

like oh my God , this is a lot harder than

23:42

I thought . Yeah , and to balance

23:45

that and sports on top of all

23:47

that , while you're used to the difficulty

23:50

, challenges and you seem to have always challenged

23:52

yourself extra , like I know . I wanted

23:54

to do chemistry in college as well and

23:56

I went to a very poor school . We

23:58

didn't have AP chemistry at

24:00

all , but I did take two levels

24:02

of chemistry because we did have like block scheduling

24:05

so I could take extra classes . So

24:07

it was like my junior year and I'm

24:09

in chem two and my teacher

24:12

walks by and nobody's in class and she's

24:14

like what are you doing here ? I'm like

24:16

waiting for you to take my

24:18

class . She's like you're not a senior . I'm like , no , I'm a

24:20

junior , and so the next two weeks I was

24:22

showing her photoshop because there was nothing for me to

24:24

do in my chemistry class . But we didn't have . Like

24:26

you know , when I got to college I just got

24:28

railroad by chemistry , you know . So the challenge is a little

24:31

bit too much for you , you know , did you feel more

24:33

overwhelmed ? And how do we balance that

24:35

for yourself ?

24:36

um , honestly , I , I , I didn't

24:39

feel that overwhelmed , more so because , like

24:41

I mentioned before I , we were , as

24:43

kids , very structured , in a sense

24:45

of like every time there was something

24:47

that we were doing , um , like there

24:49

was always a purpose . So I I didn't

24:51

mention this before , but I also danced for

24:54

like 18 years of my life . So

24:56

not only was I doing school and soccer , I was also dancing

24:59

. So it was like

25:01

get up early in the morning , go to my class

25:03

at high school , come back , um

25:05

, go to middle school , middle school soccer

25:07

practice , go to club or club

25:10

soccer , go to dance or no

25:12

, go to dance and then go to club soccer . Come home , homework

25:14

, food , go to sleep , like that was the day

25:16

. Basically more

25:18

things than hours in the day , honestly . So going

25:21

into college was just a bit of

25:23

the same right . It was morning practice

25:25

, run the class

25:27

, run to lab , go back

25:29

to practice , homework , study , essay , study

25:31

, essay , whatever it is , sleep , repeat

25:34

the next day . So , yes , it

25:36

intensified 100% in

25:39

terms of like level of difficulty , but

25:42

it was still kind of the same movement

25:44

. I guess . To me at least

25:46

, yale

25:51

was one of those places where it always

25:53

felt like everybody was there to help each other out

25:55

, which I really , really appreciated . I

25:57

didn't feel that at other places that I went to

25:59

go visit before I committed . So that

26:01

was a big thing for me . You know , like I want

26:04

us all to succeed , that's everything

26:06

I got from . So if I needed help with something

26:08

, it was very , very easy to approach the professors

26:10

or approach the TA or something like that

26:12

was very , very easy to approach the

26:14

professors or approach the TA or something like that . So

26:19

if you know , I was falling behind because I was writing my , my lab

26:21

report on the bus back from a game . They are really understanding with that Cause they knew

26:23

we're , you know , we're college athletes . Sometimes

26:26

it's just impossible to you know , make

26:28

a class or make a lab because I have a game or practice

26:30

or something like that , definitely

26:32

challenging .

26:38

But again , I don't think it changed too too much for me because I was . I've been doing it for

26:40

way too long . I mean when I took chemistry . I know it's a lot of classes for one

26:43

class in chemistry You're doing like your three

26:45

hour classes . You're doing three hours of lab , you're

26:47

doing two hours of pre-lab and then you

26:49

know , all this extra stuff . It's like 10 hours

26:51

a week and you're just all day . Yeah , that's

26:54

just the one class you know . So , yeah , I can imagine

26:57

. So all I'm picturing is you have , like

26:59

you know , in harry potter , with little time

27:01

, turner like going back in time and getting all

27:03

your classes .

27:04

Yeah , basically because , like I said , I had the lab

27:06

as well , which is five hours . It's or four

27:09

hours depending on how the lab goes

27:11

, but it's usually all afternoon . So

27:13

it was like that . I had to hop on the bus to

27:15

go to the field to practice right after . Or

27:17

, like I said , we have games on the weekend , so I

27:19

have a lab report that's due on Monday

27:21

. I'm writing my lab report on the drive to

27:23

the field , play my game . On the ride back

27:26

. People can go out and do whatever

27:28

they want , but I'm sitting there in the library finishing

27:30

my lab report . But again , like

27:33

stuff like that , I was like this is this seems

27:35

right , this is what I had to do before

27:37

. So it all adds up for me . And

27:39

, like I said , I had the goal in mind of I want

27:41

to be a chemist , like I want to do that

27:44

, but I also , you know , want to

27:46

be possibly a professional soccer player

27:48

. So these are my main focus . Everything else , you

27:50

know , can be for fun or I enjoy

27:52

it . I will be try to fit the time in to

27:55

do it . I did a painting class , I

27:57

did drawing to kind of ease

27:59

the struggle with other things , but

28:01

again , like I always was , just like

28:03

you know . These are the things I want to do . If

28:05

this is a sacrifice I have to make right now , because it is

28:07

, then you know I'm going to benefit later on

28:09

, so yeah , it's a it's a great

28:11

mindset to have .

28:14

It's a it's a great mindset to have and it's a difficult

28:16

it's

28:19

a .

28:19

It's a great mindset to have with a difficult thing to keep on track . You know what I mean

28:21

. Yeah , Definitely had help along the way from family , friends

28:23

, Like it's . It's a hard thing to kind

28:25

of keep consistent with .

28:26

No , and I think the consistency

28:29

is the key . I mean , I

28:37

think that's something I tell Eva , my daughter , all the time . When it comes to soccer is like , yeah , don't expect yourself to get from here to here in one day

28:39

. It's little incremental increases , you just got to keep doing it . You just

28:41

got to keep doing it . You know , yeah , I keep doing it .

28:42

Yeah , so well yeah , and that's what I tell the

28:45

kids too . It's when , especially when we do technical

28:47

sessions , I'm like it might seem tedious

28:49

because we're doing , you know , touches , this touches this entire

28:51

week . But trust me , from what

28:53

you guys were doing last week to what we're going to

28:55

be doing next week , it's going to pay off a lot . You

28:58

might not see it right now because it's small games

29:00

you know , each hour , each day , but

29:03

when you think about it in a full scheme of things , you're like , oh

29:05

, it was worth it , like I'll do that again , honestly

29:07

, because it feels so much better in the end . So

29:09

gotta keep that mindset as much

29:11

as you can , as hard as it can be and so

29:14

then you ended up becoming uh captain

29:16

of your team your

29:18

senior year .

29:18

How was that ?

29:20

that was amazing , um . I

29:22

, like I said , I was blessed to have such great teammates

29:25

that I'm best friends with till um this

29:27

day . But it was interesting because

29:29

I had a lot of struggles

29:31

through college when it came to injuries as well

29:33

. So my oh

29:35

gosh , my sophomore year I broke my

29:37

dislocated and broke my ankle in

29:39

our first game of the season , so I was out for the

29:41

season , unfortunately , um . So that

29:44

was super , super tough . My parents

29:46

were there . They saw the whole thing . My

29:48

brother was watching the game online . He saw

29:50

the whole thing . It was the best um . And

29:53

then , right before the summer , before

29:55

my senior year , I

29:57

tore my Achilles . So , again out for

29:59

the season . So it came for it came

30:01

to me to be a captain that

30:03

isn't on the field for

30:06

, you know , a whole team of girls , which

30:08

was a difficult thing , of course

30:10

, from a perspective of , like I want to play pro , want

30:12

to do this , like this should be my year , this should

30:14

be like the best year that I can get . Um

30:16

. But also I'm now the captain like

30:18

how am I going to captain a team when I'm

30:20

not even on the field ? Um , so , looking

30:23

back early , even when I was in the moment

30:25

, to be honest , I kind of sat myself down and

30:27

I was like , okay , this is the state of the situation

30:30

, like I'm not going gonna stitch my Achilles

30:32

back together , like how am I gonna make this ? You

30:34

know , make the most of this ? Um , and it

30:36

I'm honestly , I go back

30:38

and forth , but it is a thankful moment

30:40

of like , yes , that happened

30:42

, but I learned so , so much from just

30:44

being , you know , a leader off the field . Um

30:47

, I had to learn how to be captain coach

30:49

, like I had to learn how to be that middle

30:51

bridge between the players and the coaches and try

30:53

to delegate certain things and , you

30:55

know , hear their problems , bring it to the coach and try to

30:57

find a compromise . Um , so all

31:00

of those lessons . You know

31:02

, as unfortunate as an injury is

31:04

and I know a lot of people , that happens to a lot of people

31:06

unfortunately um , like

31:09

I have to see the good in it because it's like I'm going

31:11

to . You know I can't cry every

31:13

day , like I can't . You know it's going to bring me down

31:15

if I think about it the other way . So I'm like , okay

31:17

, how can I make this , you

31:19

know , benefit from this as much as possible

31:21

? So you know I had to go . I did

31:23

a lot of leadership classes . I did , you know , a lot

31:25

of different things to see as best as I can

31:27

how can I lead this team ? It was

31:29

a different thing but , like I said , I'm grateful for

31:31

it and it was one of my favorite seasons

31:34

just because I had the

31:36

best class . That helped you know

31:38

, they were kind of captains All

31:40

seven of them were captains for me . We

31:43

kind of had we captained the team together

31:45

, which was a really , really different experience than

31:47

we've had the past three years . So

31:49

things like that . You know , I try to

31:51

see at least the benefit out of those , those kinds of things

31:53

, because , you know , wasn't our best

31:56

season but it's still pretty good season and

31:59

I couldn't have done that without any of the people

32:01

that helped me out as well , as you know

32:03

my coach and try to figure out you know how

32:05

I can still , you know , be involved

32:07

as much as possible .

32:09

And so then you ended up going

32:11

to get your master's . And

32:14

you were also playing soccer at the same

32:16

time , so this was all in . England

32:18

.

32:19

Yeah . So you know the persistent

32:21

person that I am . I was like

32:23

I'm not going to go out on an injury . Like

32:25

that can't happen . So , of

32:28

course , you know , throughout that year I was

32:30

doing physical therapy . They told

32:32

me I usually Achilles is like

32:34

an eight to you know , eight

32:36

months to a year recovery . I was like

32:38

I'm going to be seven months . I think

32:40

I'm going to work as hard as I can . Um

32:42

. So throughout that whole season I was

32:44

just working , working , working . I played with the team in the spring

32:47

, um , I think my recovery process

32:49

was like the six to seven mark , um

32:51

, seven , six to seven month mark and

32:54

played with the team during the spring . It was

32:56

definitely hard , you know , trying to get

32:58

back into the aggression and all those kinds

33:00

of things , but I use that to

33:02

be like okay , I capable of

33:05

coming back from such a bad injury to

33:07

play again . So did that

33:09

, played with the Jamaican team a bit

33:11

, um , and then I ended up saying

33:13

, okay , I might want to do my master's and

33:15

my PhD in chemistry . Where's

33:17

the best place where I could do that as well as

33:19

so play ? Um , I

33:22

have . So my dad is from England uh

33:24

, he was from . He's from Crodon

33:26

, england , so south , like out London

33:28

area , so I have family over there

33:30

. So I was like this is perfect . They speak

33:33

English , like this is amazing . Um

33:35

, and , like I said , we're a big fan soccer

33:38

family , so we're Chelsea fans and I was like London's

33:40

perfect , like let me go , let me go over

33:42

there and um , go see a couple Premier

33:44

League games and all those kinds of stuff . So went

33:46

over there . I actually went a little bit north though . I went University

33:49

of Nottingham , um , I did my master's

33:51

of research . So , strictly , lab work , you

33:53

know your typical nine to five , basically what I do

33:55

now , typical nine to

33:57

five kind of thing in lab . But

33:59

I was like , okay , how can I play as

34:01

well while I'm here ? So played with the

34:04

school team and also trained

34:06

with Bristol City , trained with Leicester , played

34:08

against Austin Villa and things like

34:10

that for the women's side . So did

34:13

all of those kinds of things , just because I was like

34:15

I'm not gonna let an injury take me out , because

34:17

my goal was to be a professional soccer player

34:19

, like I want to , I want to make it , I want

34:21

to um work as hard as I can to get there

34:24

. So I I did .

34:25

I think I really , really wanted to , just

34:28

walk up to the like to a club

34:30

and say , hey , I'm interested , or like , how does it ?

34:32

no , yeah , so is there a link in for soccer

34:35

, like what's going on honestly , kind of being

34:37

in the soccer world is an interesting thing because

34:39

it seems so big but it actually

34:41

is kind of small in some ways because everybody

34:43

just knows each other . Um , and it just so happened

34:46

that the one of the

34:48

assistant coach or uh , I

34:50

believe it was upenn university of pennsy of Pennsylvania

34:52

, who I played against before and she seen me

34:54

play she happened to be one of the coaches

34:57

for a London team over in England and

34:59

she was like ah , she was like oh , you're coming

35:01

, like this is this is the team you can come play

35:03

with us , or things like that . And

35:06

then the coach that was at

35:08

the time she didn't end up being my coach , but before

35:10

the so the school that I went to that I was playing with their

35:12

team , she's currently , uh

35:15

, the national coach for Northern

35:17

Ireland . She was the assistant coach for Chelsea

35:19

women's team , uh , so she also

35:21

had a lot of connections . So she was like , yeah , send

35:23

me a highlight tape . I sent her that . I have like

35:25

a soccer resume , um , I sent

35:27

her that and she was like , oh , yeah , come , come play

35:29

, like you can come play with us , um

35:31

, and a couple tryouts here and there and

35:34

stuff like that . So a lot of connections

35:36

in some ways . But , like I said , it's the

35:39

soccer world is . Everybody knows each other , um

35:41

, so reach out to my coach , my coach reached out

35:43

to somebody else and then all of a sudden I'm like on a team

35:45

doing something else , uh , but

35:47

yeah , so .

35:48

So what is one of the things that pops up a lot

35:51

in here ? Networking , networking is really important . Yeah , yeah , it's one of the things

35:53

that pops up a lot in here Networking . Networking is really important

35:55

yeah it's huge , it really really is , and

35:57

you kind of yada yada'd your

35:59

Jamaican team . What was

36:01

your experience with that ?

36:04

Yeah , the Jamaican team was amazing . So

36:08

I played when I was younger and I was

36:10

playing against them when I was on the US

36:12

national team . When I was younger , younger , and

36:14

I was playing against them when I was on the U ? S national team . Uh , when I was younger

36:16

. But as I got older I knew that you know my family's mainly

36:18

Jamaican , british , um , and

36:21

I want to play for Jamaica , cause I

36:23

feel like that just felt more meaningful

36:25

for me . Um , so when

36:28

I uh one of the coaches at the time

36:30

, he again a lot of connections , a lot

36:32

of little things at

36:35

the time . He again a lot of connections , a lot of little things . He was the head coach

36:37

of a team in Orlando and we played against his team so many times

36:39

we've beaten , we've lost . It's

36:42

just they were one of our rivals growing up

36:44

so he already knew who

36:46

I was as a player . So when

36:48

I mentioned , I think my father mentioned

36:50

to him that I wanted to change over and play

36:52

for the Jamaican team . He ended

36:54

up being the head coach for the Jamaican team like a year

36:56

or two after he called

36:59

me up while I was at college and stuff like

37:01

that . So I played with them for a couple

37:03

of qualifying games . I couldn't

37:05

go to the last one because , like I mentioned , I tore my

37:07

Achilles , so that last one I couldn't go to

37:09

and

37:15

that's also part of the reason why I worked so hard to get back

37:17

um into uh playing after my Achilles , cause that summer it was the world cup

37:20

Um . So I went to South Africa with the team , played with

37:22

them there . Um I

37:24

unfortunately couldn't play in the actual

37:26

world cup because of the Achilles . I wasn't

37:28

well um cleared to play . But

37:31

again , even doing the qualifying match , even

37:33

doing all of those things and training with the team , was

37:35

more than enough um experience

37:37

and meeting such lovely people . So very

37:39

, very grateful for that that's , that's awesome

37:42

.

37:42

Um , and so , going back to

37:44

grad school , you're doing your lab , you're doing

37:46

this stuff and then I guess you graduate

37:49

is do you decide to come back to

37:51

connecticut or ?

37:53

yeah , so that was around

37:55

when COVID started . So there was a lot of things

37:57

shutting down . I couldn't go in lab

38:00

anymore and I

38:02

was applying to PhD programs . But

38:05

I also reached back out to my old

38:08

lab head at Pfizer when I did the

38:10

internship and I was just wondering if there was any jobs

38:12

. I don't know , maybe something pops

38:15

up , cause I knew from that experience I wanted

38:17

to come , either come back to Pfizer or go into pharmaceuticals

38:19

in general . So he

38:21

mentioned there's a couple open positions . You know , if

38:23

you apply , just let me know . And

38:26

I applied for that and I also applied for PhD

38:28

programs . And even though I did

38:30

get into PhD programs , especially over in the

38:32

UK , and I was thinking about staying so I could

38:34

play a bit more , um , I

38:37

knew that I missed a lot of my family

38:39

, my mom , my brother , um

38:41

, and being closer to them met

38:43

a lot , especially during that such a hard time

38:45

for everybody . Um , so chose

38:48

to . I fortunately got the

38:50

job at Pfizer and just moved back over

38:52

um cold state of connecticut

38:54

, um , but you

38:57

know it was still part of home to me because

38:59

I went to school here , so I still knew the area

39:01

. I still had a lot of friends here . I still had , you know

39:03

, things that I knew that I could do around

39:05

here , um and again

39:08

a couple connections of getting me to ct

39:10

, rush to play and , um , coach

39:12

there and get to know the team . It still connected me to soccer even to play and coach there

39:14

and get to know the team . It still connected me to soccer , even though I chose

39:17

to not play professionally anymore . I

39:19

knew I wanted to do something . So

39:21

I was like , okay , if I work

39:23

at Pfizer , that's amazing . I

39:25

had my goal of being professional . I did that

39:27

. So now let's , maybe this is the

39:29

time for me to make my goal of being a

39:32

professional chemist to some extent . So

39:35

, you know , didn't want to lose the soccer side

39:38

. So you know , that's where the coaching comes in . But

39:40

this is , you know , I'm on the path of , you

39:42

know , getting to that other goal that I also set for myself

39:44

when I was younger . So that kind of , I

39:46

think , geared me to making that big

39:48

decision of coming back over .

39:50

Yeah , and when it comes to being

39:52

like a scientist and a chemist , you

39:54

know , I think it's

39:56

kind of a foggy world for most

39:59

people . They don't know like , yeah , how do you

40:01

become a scientist , how do you become like , what does

40:03

that mean ?

40:05

yeah , what does that mean no

40:08

, yeah , I am chemistry , I

40:10

love chemistry , I'm a big person that

40:12

does puzzles . I I like jigsaw

40:15

, like any kind of crossword

40:17

, something that you can solve

40:19

, basically . And chemistry is

40:21

an interesting thing where you're presented

40:24

, you know a structure that you have to figure out

40:26

how to make . You know a lot of these

40:28

things are very , very new

40:30

and you know first in class is what we call

40:32

it . So it was one

40:34

of those things where , like this is something I can be very

40:36

creative and it's very

40:38

difficult . It's not for everybody . You

40:41

definitely have to have the mentality of being very persistent

40:43

because 99%

40:45

of the time your reactions

40:47

don't work and that's a very

40:49

stressful , very hard thing to kind of just like ingest

40:52

every day . But when

40:54

you think about the big picture of like okay , if this

40:56

thing actually works and , you

40:58

know , goes through the clinicals and becomes a drug

41:00

in a couple of years , that's amazing , like that's

41:02

going to affect a lot of people . So , again

41:05

, that you know end goal , that outcome is

41:07

what I usually gets me out through

41:09

the day . Honestly , that's

41:11

my day to day . But thinking about

41:13

, you know , becoming a chemist , being coming a scientist

41:16

you know scientists is a very broad thing

41:18

, cause you could be a scientist and like a lot of different things

41:20

, um , but being a chemist in general

41:22

it's . You know , like I mentioned

41:24

, it is difficult , but I

41:26

always think it's very fun Cause , like I

41:28

mentioned , I'm a puzzle person . I like to solve problems

41:30

, I like to , you know , try to talk and figure

41:33

it out as best as I can . And

41:36

, like I said , my

41:38

chemistry teacher in high

41:41

school is what brought me here . She made

41:43

chemistry so so fun . She connected it

41:45

to our daily thing . She said

41:47

you know , you like cooking , it's basically cooking

41:50

to some extent . So

41:52

, thinking about how joyous she was

41:55

, I was like , okay , maybe I can actually do that

41:57

. So , having that from there moving

41:59

into college , doing it all four years , trying

42:01

to get connections there and now doing it Pfizer

42:03

, it's like it's , it's amazing . I

42:05

love my job . I kind of make

42:08

my own schedule to some extent , where you

42:10

know I still have to watch my games and Premier

42:12

League and all that good stuff , champions League . So

42:15

you know I plan my meetings

42:17

and I'm in lab the most part . So I am

42:19

on my feet , I work with my hands . You

42:21

know , your typical if people think

42:23

about like chemistry , you're in your lab coat

42:26

, you have your goggles , you have your gloves , all

42:28

of those kinds of things . But it is a great community

42:30

and great , great people

42:32

that I work with , so very happy to be there .

42:35

And is it still something you're

42:37

thinking about for PhD ?

42:40

I am . It still trickles in the back of my mind , but

42:44

it's interesting because I have this battle

42:46

between , you know , staying where

42:48

I am and kind of just learning through experience versus

42:50

a PhD . I think there's

42:52

very big benefits to both through

42:57

experience versus a PhD . I think there's very big benefits to both . But

42:59

currently I've been learning so much over the past three , four years that I've

43:01

been with the company Just , you know , being

43:03

moved to different projects , working on different things and working

43:05

with different people where , like you don't get that

43:07

as often with a PhD , where you're very highly

43:10

focused on one thing . So

43:12

I've been enjoying this so

43:15

far . I always say that , like you

43:17

know , I'm probably at the point where I might not go back

43:19

, but again , like I always

43:21

thrive to be the best that I can be , so

43:23

if I , you know , next year

43:26

, in a couple months , I feel like it's

43:28

probably the best thing for me , that

43:30

can kind of move me up a little bit faster or get

43:32

to where I want to be , then I'll go for it

43:34

. But currently I'm very happy of , you

43:37

know , learning from all just inaction

43:39

on the job kind of thing . So it's

43:41

been nice .

43:42

Nice , I mean um . Like

43:46

you said , people think scientists they don't really

43:48

have an idea . So it's nice to kind of get kind

43:52

of idea of what the hell the scientists do

43:54

.

43:54

Yeah , it's very much like

43:56

you expect of like a little beaker

43:59

. You know , sometimes you have a little color change

44:01

. You're basically mixing

44:03

together to try to make something else . Yeah

44:06

, it's , trust me , it's very , very complicated

44:09

, but on a grand scheme of things , it's

44:11

it's . It's very simple .

44:13

And you ? You started working

44:15

during COVID .

44:16

You said Yep , so

44:18

right in 2020

44:20

, I believe , is when ? When did I graduate

44:23

, oh goodness ? So I started

44:25

working at like middle to end of 2020

44:27

. So right in the midst of

44:30

COVID , basically . So that was a very

44:32

challenging , challenging time because

44:34

, as I mentioned , I'm in lab for the

44:36

most part , so I'm in person , I go

44:38

in office all the time . So

44:40

it was a lot of restrictions when it comes to how many people

44:42

who's qualified to be

44:44

onsite . So we're not risking anything

44:46

six feet apart , which

44:48

is also difficult because I work right next

44:50

to somebody . Like our lab hoods

44:52

are right next to each other , but I had to be

44:55

moved on the other side . There's a

44:57

lot of there's a lot of safety reasons why

44:59

? Because I can't be in lab by myself

45:01

. Just in case something happens , someone has to be there , but

45:04

six feet apart . There was a lot . It

45:07

was . It was very , very difficult and

45:10

very stressful time for many reasons

45:13

, but I mean it's already a very restrictive

45:15

job .

45:17

Like you , have very set rules that

45:19

I need to do this a certain way , and

45:21

any additional variables just complicate

45:24

things .

45:24

Complicates it completely Exactly

45:27

. So it was stress already

45:29

packed on more stress that I was

45:31

there already . So it was definitely

45:34

, um , an interesting time . Thankfully we're in

45:36

a lot better time now , um , but

45:38

yeah , like I I'm . It's interesting

45:41

because I also can compare it to when I was an intern , where

45:43

there was , you know , bustling of people all

45:45

over the place . It was very lively , you

45:48

know . We had events , we had interviews

45:50

, we had a bunch of stuff going on , whereas when I started

45:52

actually on the job , it was silent

45:54

. There was like six people in my

45:56

little area . So

45:58

, yeah , it was definitely an interesting situation

46:01

, but , again , grateful to be

46:03

able to start and have an impact

46:05

on that whole pandemic

46:07

.

46:07

So yeah , what kind of things were you working

46:10

on ? Was it even

46:12

co-related , or was there other things that

46:14

you were working ?

46:15

Yeah , so I didn't work on like

46:18

because at that point , so

46:20

a lot of the times it's kind of hard to explain but

46:22

the drug process is very long . So

46:24

it usually takes like five to 10 years

46:26

for anything to come out . So for Pfizer

46:29

to be able to get that out super , super quickly was

46:31

a lot like it was very , very hard to do

46:33

. A lot of people had to be involved . So

46:36

I was involved to like some extent

46:38

when it came to more like the analytical side of things

46:40

, but like it was

46:42

already moving through the process where I am . So

46:44

the things that I usually work on

46:46

, like what I'm working on now , is very early stage

46:49

. So we make very

46:51

small amounts of compounds

46:53

and things like that to be tested and

46:56

like on rats and things like that . So

46:58

it's very more so small scale and

47:00

then when things come back , data comes back very

47:02

good . Then it can go larger scale and

47:04

it goes into the clinic , et cetera , et cetera . So there's

47:06

a lot of different places in hand . So

47:09

that's why I said there's a lot of people involved , um

47:11

, but I'm more on like

47:13

the early stage of trying to discover stuff . So

47:16

it's a bit harder because , like

47:18

I said , a lot of the times it's new space , um

47:20

, and you're kind of , you know , piecing things together

47:23

to make it make sense , um . But

47:25

yeah , it was interesting

47:27

because the people around me , since

47:29

they were working there before , were highly involved

47:31

with it , so I was just watching them and

47:34

seeing what's going on and seeing how

47:36

the process goes .

47:36

But yeah , Nice

47:39

, and so now you're doing that and you're also

47:41

coaching . You know

47:43

what impact has coaching had

47:45

on your life on

47:52

your life .

47:52

Oh , coaching has been amazing . That guy I at first , when I first started

47:54

coaching , I was coaching . Well , to be honest , I was first starting coaching in

47:56

Florida , um , with like a U11 team of the old club team that I

47:58

used to play for and I was

48:00

just in and out . I was more doing training . Um

48:03

, because me , growing up training with

48:05

my dad , my dad was my coach for when I was younger

48:07

, until I moved to the girls team

48:09

and he trained my brother

48:11

and I throughout our entire life . Basically

48:13

so , being

48:16

a coach at first I was like , okay

48:18

, let me just do training and kind of get to know the girls

48:20

and see how the club team is , etc . Etc

48:22

. And then , you know , someone

48:24

reached out and was like why don't you coach the team

48:26

? Like I feel like you'd be really good at this

48:28

? Um , it was like , okay , I'll

48:31

try it out . I did older girls

48:33

just because , again , you know , I just came out of

48:35

playing professionally , I can get them to give some advice

48:37

to that aspect . But what

48:39

drew me to be more so a coach for

48:41

like the younger girls was I

48:43

was so , so excited to go to practice when

48:46

I was younger . I loved going to practice Of

48:53

to go to practice . When I was younger I loved going to practice . Of course you get to hang out with

48:55

your friends and things like that . But just learning something new , trying , you know , new skills at practice

48:57

Um , I was a defender , so I was like maybe I could score today . Things like that that you know

48:59

you don't usually do . Um , I just

49:01

I was like , okay , my brother taught me this , how can

49:03

I bring this into my game ? Things like that

49:05

. I I wanted to be able

49:07

to provide that excitement for girls

49:09

that when I was that young , like that

49:11

age , so doing it , like

49:13

with your daughter and the team that I have now

49:15

, it's been so , so rewarding and super

49:17

fun . Because my biggest thing as a coach

49:20

is , you know , skill can always be taught

49:22

. You can learn that . You're going to learn that throughout

49:24

your entire soccer career , basically . But

49:26

you know the love for the game is

49:28

a very hard thing to achieve . So

49:31

you know I'm going to be a hard coach . I'm going to make

49:33

sure you know they're learning and they're I'm teaching them things

49:35

, but I also want them to

49:37

love it . I want them to enjoy practice

49:40

and the games . It's not necessarily

49:42

about winning and losing Everybody loves winning . But as

49:44

long as they understand the game , as long as they

49:47

, you know , think they played well that day and they

49:49

know why , like things went wrong , etc

49:51

, etc . That's gonna go a long way

49:53

and especially when they get older , that's gonna play a big

49:55

part in their soccer career . So that's

49:57

been one of my favorite things , just to see how

49:59

the development goes yeah , no , and it's

50:01

been great .

50:02

I mean from a parent's

50:04

side of point of view , like when

50:06

it's funny because I had eva come there

50:09

. She had only been playing like a year

50:11

of soccer at that point when she tried out

50:13

for you guys like a little over a year , um

50:15

, and I kind of did it because some of the

50:18

other girls were doing it and they were like oh

50:20

yeah , and I'm like , and I just kept telling

50:22

her you might not make it . So just

50:24

accept that you might not make it , but I think

50:26

it'd be good to practice going to trials yeah

50:28

, it's like a new learning experience . She's so nervous . Yeah

50:30

, she's like okay and she just went

50:32

and just played and you know

50:34

, then we got the letter in and I was like

50:37

Anita , I don't think

50:39

we can buy a car right now because we're gonna

50:41

have to pay soccer , you know we're gonna have to hold

50:43

off a bit on buying a new car . We

50:45

got a new bill that we're gonna do and

50:47

, yeah , we've been with you for like half

50:50

a year a little over half a year and

50:53

the progress has been tremendous , like

50:55

even when we go back to rec you know , the

50:57

town soccer the , the

50:59

other coaches who have seen here like oh my god

51:01

, she went from barely able to move

51:04

forward to like just control stuff

51:06

and I'm just like , yeah , and I still think she has stuff

51:08

to improve on . So it's just

51:10

amazing . So

51:13

you know , you know I I really appreciate

51:15

all the work you put into it and I see

51:17

firsthand experience . You know how

51:19

much she's grown from it , and like

51:22

even just her head swivel , just like being on the field where she

51:24

can know , Ooh , I got to come .

51:25

Yeah , look at her . No

51:30

, I appreciate that .

51:32

So , yeah , usually around you know , near the end

51:34

, when we start talking , you know , I always like to come back

51:37

and ask you know , if you could go back and

51:39

talk to a younger version of yourself . What's something you'd

51:41

tell yourself ? What advice would you give yourself ?

51:44

Oh , I would say such a good question . I

51:46

think you know as persistent

51:49

, as , like I claim to be , or

51:52

I hope to be , I think

51:54

still like , I would love

51:56

to tell myself to keep going and keep pushing

51:58

. There is going to be a difficult

52:00

path , like I went through a lot

52:02

of stuff . I lost my father

52:04

in the midst of college time

52:06

. There's , there's just a lot

52:09

of things that are going to happen , but you have

52:11

to keep going . Um , there's always

52:13

, you know , the light at the end of the tunnel , kind

52:15

of thing . Um , and like you

52:18

know , life is going to be hard and most of the time

52:20

, as much as you can plan , it's

52:22

probably not going to go the way you think it's going to go

52:24

, um , but it's going to go the

52:26

way it's supposed to . So it , you know it's , it's

52:29

hard , but you got to keep pushing . You just got

52:31

to keep going . I told myself that today

52:33

. I want to tell myself that before

52:35

and , you know , hopefully in the future , keep telling myself

52:37

that .

52:37

So yeah , awesome , yeah , and

52:39

I love the way you said it . It's not going to go the way you

52:41

expect , but it's going to go the way it's supposed

52:43

to Me , and my wife kind of do

52:45

that all the time , like you know , if it's meant to

52:47

me , it's meant to be . Let's just yeah leave

52:50

it in god's hand and keep moving forward . You know so exactly

52:52

um , and so , ultimately , you

52:55

know , you know how do you say success

52:57

in spanglish oh

52:59

, that's a good one too .

53:01

Um , no , yeah , I , that's such

53:03

a good question . I think it's just a

53:05

matter of , like I mentioned before

53:07

, success to me is just making

53:09

my parents proud , making my family proud and

53:12

, honestly , making myself proud , um

53:14

, thinking about how much I've gone through

53:16

and what I , my little self

53:19

, planned to be and I was able

53:21

to at least accomplish it . Not necessarily

53:24

in the way like you said , like not in the way that

53:26

I saw it , not nearly

53:28

the way I saw it . They think I was going to go , you know

53:30

, to Yale specifically . I didn't know I was going to go . You know , take Yale specifically

53:32

. I didn't know I was going to do Pfizer and all that stuff . But

53:34

you know , I'm making myself

53:36

proud and making my family proud , especially my

53:38

parents and my older brother . Like

53:41

that's that's success to me . Like I did

53:43

it , that's that's all I wanted to do and

53:45

hopefully I could get there . So

53:47

, yeah , nice

53:52

, and . I guess my last question is what

53:54

is your real opinion of Harvard ? So they're fine , I guess

53:56

no , no

53:59

, I have some friends that went to Harvard too . They're

54:01

, they're fine . But you know , bulldogs

54:03

is really like the way

54:05

to go .

54:06

I went to Boston University , so I have a lot of friends from

54:09

Harvard as well , so I always know oh , it's Harvard

54:11

Yale , it's Harvard Yale . They go okay

54:13

.

54:13

Yeah , it's funny because it's like , oh

54:15

, it's the rivalry . But personally

54:18

we always are fine , everyone's

54:20

friends , we're all good . But

54:22

no , it's all about Yale , it's all about the Bulldogs . I'm

54:25

through and through .

54:35

Yale through Yelly till I die . So blue and white only Awesome . Well , uh , Brittany , thank

54:37

you so much for taking the time and sharing your story . Uh , you know you , you've gone through so

54:39

much and you're a great motivation to

54:41

you , know the girls on your field , and so I really

54:43

appreciate you taking the

54:45

time to come out here and talk to me .

54:46

So , thank you so much . Oh my gosh , no , yeah , thank you for having

54:48

me . This was great . I love this Awesome . Yeah , well , thank you so much . Oh

54:50

my gosh , yeah , thank you for having me . This was great .

54:52

I love this , awesome . Yeah , well , thank you so much and obviously

54:54

, for everyone else listening

54:56

, thank you so much for tuning in , as always . I

54:59

hope you'll join me again next time

55:03

as we continue to learn how

55:11

to say success in Spanish

55:15

. Thank you .