Sooo Stignatious!

David Lombardi is a journalist writing for the popular internet sports publication The Athletic. David covers the 49ers and other Bay Area sports. David speaks on his favorite stories to have covered, the recent success of the 49ers, The Athletic succeeding as a subscription based sports media outlet when news subscriptions have begun to decline, and even talks a bit about his love of food and his favorite spots to eat in the Bay Area!

Austin Aaron is a former football player at Cal that quit football because of the mental stresses it was putting on his life. Austin opens up about that tough time on his life and how he transitioned into modeling and acting. Austin quickly found his competitive, athletic mindset helped him approach acting and land a recurring role on the hit Netflix show "13 Reasons Why".

Hakeem Valles is a professional football player turned real estate investor. Hakeem made the most out of his time in the NFL by leveraging his position as an NFL player to learn everything he could about real estate. Listen to Hakeem talk about doubling down in your passions and making the most out of life.

Kate Scott has the first woman to do a numerous amount of thing within the sports broadcasting industry, but that was never the intention. Kate has always had an innocent love of sports and that passion just happened to take her many places no woman had gone before. Though being a female role model is a welcomed consequence, Kate approaches everyday just wanting to be the best at what she does.

If you are student athlete at Cal and you want to further your professional development Bobby Thompson is the man to talk to! Bobby has a wealth of knowledge and helps run all the student athlete lead clubs on campus. Bobby has learned to persevere through trial and error, failures and successes. I love talking to Bobby and I hope you guys love it too!

Julie Cottineau has known she has wanted to work in branding and marketing since she was a little girl. It is no surprise that her drive has risen her to the top of the discipline. Julie’s journey in marketing has taken her out of the country, to becoming the VP of Brand for Virgin (overseeing branding strategies for their new North American ventures), to creating her own branding school, and authoring a book in the subject! Tune in to the episode to hear it all from Julie herself!

Ken Montgomery has had no run-of-the-mill life. Ken grew up in Bay Area and found his way to Tulane for a year of college before the price sent him back to the Bay Area. After some junior college and work experience, Ken enrolled at UC Berkeley. Once again, Ken dropped out (in good standing) to enter the workforce. Ken found a love of Public Relations and after a few PR jobs ended up as the VP of Global Brand and Engagement for Persistent Systems, a 10,000 person company headquartered in India. Recently, Ken decided to go back and finish his degree and has just graduated from UC Berkeley 25 years after initial enrollment. I hope you all enjoy Ken's stignatious attitude as much as I do!

Isaac Serwanga was a 3 sport athlete at Princeton University that was well ingrained in both athletics and the campus communities. However, upon graduation, Isaac did not know what he wanted to do professionally. With help from a friend he got a job with Princeton admissions and did a bunch of networking. He realized the value of networking and made it his prerogative to create a networking curriculum, manifesting itself in Isaac's book How to Network in College. Since then Isaac has founded his own company called Inform and Inspire where he is hired as a keynote speaker at events or in corporate settings to talk to employees. 

On today's show I have a friend I grew up with, from elementary school through high school. His name is Michael Pratt and he is one of the more impressive people I know. In addition to just being admitted to the undergraduate business degree here at Cal, Mike has been producing and selling hip hop beats since middle school. Michael has a drive to succeed his way and strives to become the best in the cross section of his two passions: music and business. I am excited to share a bit more about myself on this episode as well. I hope you all enjoy Michael's story as much as I do! Stay Stignatious!

Erik Robertson is a former Cal offensive lineman that played for Jeff Tedford in Cal's 2000's glory days. While in college he was a "Berkeley guy", meaning he had interests that laid outside of football and Berkeley was a place he could nourish those interests. Erik loves football, and after a 5 year professional stint, he took a Public Relations job for 2K until realizing he missed the physical aspect and camaraderie of football. With help of a former teammate, Francis Blay-Miezah, Erik began the journey of firefighting and is still doing it and loving it. Additionally, he and Blay-Miezah, along with one other former teammate, formed a band and get together to make music in their time off. On top of that, Erik breeds dogs with his fiancee and mentors kids that want to play offensive line.

Mark Brilliant is an Associate Professor of American Studies and History at UC Berkeley. Prior to being at Berkeley, Brilliant was a swimmer at Brown University. After researching K-12 education in his undergraduate studies, he taught for the organization Teach for America in its early stages in New York City. Later, Brilliant went on to get a PhD in History from Stanford University.Today, Professor Brilliant gives some of the most captivating lectures at Cal, currently researching and writing a book about the rise and origin of Silicon Valley as the nations leading technology hub.

Yogi Roth is a former college football player turned renaissance man. Yogi knew he wanted to work within sport, and after a brief stint in coaching decided to find his own avenues, and he hasn't looked back. Yogi has a podcast, multiple books, broadcasts for PAC-12 networks, makes documentaries, and travels the world all to uncover the humanity in sport. Yogi embodies what it means to be Stignatious.

This episode is an interview with my good friend, Jacob Kaplan. As soon as I met him, I knew he was one of the funniest people I'd ever met. I grew up going to summer camp with Jacob and as the years went on, we became closer and closer, so close that we decided to pull a prank on the whole camp and convince them that a word we had made up was real. You guessed it, that word was Stignatious. Since our camp days Jacob has been up to a lot. He attends Columbia University as a history major. In extra curricular time, Jacob is in an improv club and writes comedy pieces for students to perform. He has spent the last two years interning at Saturday Night Live and this summer interning at Late Night with Seth Meyers. Through all of this, Jacob aspires to be a comedy writer, and I for one am convinced he can do it.Stay Stignatious, leave a review/rating, and subscribe.

Welcome to Episode 1 of Sooo Stignatious!, the podcast where the name is made up, but the people are real. In this episode I talk to my former teammate Patrick Laird. Pat walked on at Cal and then earned a scholarship right before his breakout season in 2017. Amongst other things, Pat has a passion for reading and used his newfound platform to do good. He created the Patrick Laird Summer Reading Challenge as a way to inspire elementary school children to read over the summer and combat summer learning loss. Together, Patrick and I go into the origins of the challenge, his mentality as a walk-on, his lesser known passion for music, and what he has been up to since his last snap as a Golden Bear.I encourage you to subscribe and leave a rating. As always, stay Stignatious!