Basketball and Horses!

Jess and Cathy discuss showing up, doing your best, not matter how you feel!  How good connection is—in partnerships, doing things together whether it is just with your horse, or a whole basketball team—It is always a “We”, there is no “I” in Team.   Working together, giving something your all is how we show up!  Even when it is hard.    We appreciate you showing up and listening, please sign up, like, and share.  Just talking with you all this morning, makes us feel better and maybe it will you also!   

Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

jessica_1_04-06-2026_063645 1:38

Hello. Welcome to There you are. There you are. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. And we've invited Edith Ann on today as a guest. I have a head cold, so I sound like Edith Ann. If you don't know who that is, look her up. She was pretty funny. It was Ruth, who was it? Oh, Lily Tomlin. Lily Tomlin. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. She played Ruth and Ruth. Ruth had a No. Edith Ann. Edith. Edith Ann. Yeah. Edith Ann had a head cold all the time. All the time. And she would say, I got a dog named Buster. And, I worst buster with the Clorox, and then I could write on it with a magic marker. Yeah. So sorry, I have a head cold, but it's Monday and the show always goes on. Life always goes on. There you are. Here we are. And we're here and I feel good except I sound like Edith Ed. Yeah. I can deal with that. I was just thinking, how often do you sit down and talk with your partner or somebody for 30 minutes? Like in this day and age, you're, even if you're stuck in a car driving somewhere to actually have a conversation, which I think that's just really cool. You're looking at your phone or you're listening to a podcast, which is fine if you listen to ours, but, does that make sense? I know, and if you all know my wife Kathy. She's she loves to move. Even she's I heard this term and what, and she's, she finally will take a two week vacation when we go to The Bahamas. And I heard this term and I said, this fits her. Perfect. It's a, she's an active rester. Okay. Yeah. Where. She didn't know if she could go on this two week vacation. She always gone for, I was stressing, was about being gone for two weeks. I was like, oh my God, that's forever. Forever. Yeah. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. And can I be away from my work? Can I be away from the farm and my work and. Whatever. Yeah. I tell you when all made up in my mind Yeah. Because as soon as I was there for the second week, I was like, oh my God, this was awesome. Yeah. You can be an active rester. Yeah. And still keep moving and be busy. Yeah. Kathy does a lot of beach combing and she has this buoy art that she does there. You can get on her Facebook page and see. And it's beautiful and big c. Yeah, that's what I call her. Yeah. Is big C. If we think we can't be away from the farm. That is so crazy because we have the best, we do help in the whole entire world. Yeah. And we got, and we have the most beautiful people that, that are here, that take care of this place better than I do. Yeah. Better than you do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we, yeah, as, no, I got my head around it. It was good. So two years ago was the first year, which I had to really get my head around it. And then this year I was. All excited and my sister came and yeah. We'll be there for two weeks. Come, yeah. Whoever might be able to, we've invited to come over, can come, had some people come in and out. It was beautiful. It was great. Yeah. And they have four pickleball courts, so that was good for me. Yeah. Uhhuh. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so you're exactly right to sit down and talk. And for me to have Kathy pinned down for this half hour every Monday morning after workout. Yep. It's all good. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't go work out this morning, but the big C did. But I got a shower in. I'm I'm awake. But Jess, she, the reason she gets up is to eat and she doesn't eat. She, last night she didn't eat very much, and this morning she made her bowl of cereal and kind of sat and looked at it. So I know she's not feeling particularly well. But anyway, let's move on. How about the women's basketball? How about it? Oh my gosh. I was dying. I was, I watched the game. I was, went down the River Glen, which is a farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, or New Market, Tennessee. It's close to Knoxville. It's east of Knoxville. Yeah. A beautiful river called the. The Clinch? No, not the Clinch River. The Holston. The Holston River. Yeah. I was down there once for a show. I see this guy canoeing past me with a dog and I go, Hey, where are you going? You know what he said? New Orleans. Oh my Lord. Okay, so it's this beautiful setting in this valley. Yeah. Yeah. And you've been going down there since when? Oh my gosh. The mid nineties competing, almost when they first, opened it up and started doing events there. And then I've been the course cross country course designer there for. Several years. So I, a lot, and when we do, when I do my course design, I have a, i a range ahead of time to go early and change the course, set the course. This time I didn't really change the track of the course that much, but we moved a lot of jumps and made sure they were all up to height. Because the beauty of River Glen, no pun intended, is it is beautiful. They run a great competition there, but you can also go train after the competition between the times that the quote courses closed. In order to prepare it for the competition, you can go to school and practice and jump your horse into the water and over different types of fences. But as a result of that, the footing in front of the jumps and on the landing side of the jumps can get compromised, as I say, and it's hard to maintain that footing. I just moved the jumps a little bit to the right or to the left, or change the track a little so that so when the competition happened it's it's good footing. Good footing foot. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I was down in in, in new market at River Glen. You went down there early Friday morning. Friday morning, yep. Uhhuh. And so the women, the two women's in the final four playoff game was Friday night, right? Yeah. Oh man. Anyway, you gotta say, watching women's basketball is so cool because there is so much skill. Yeah. It's so beautiful. It's so much skill now. I was watching the guys play, they played Saturday, the four teams played Saturday. And and it's like watching NBA, it's it's just like these big guys that kind of clog up and the girls just have so much. I'm gonna study that a little more. I hear what you're saying. 'cause I've been to one NBA game in my life. And I was like that was easy. That was easy. They just, they maybe run some plays, but the, and so I hear what you're saying, but I haven't had a chance to really study that. Yeah we saw the Miami Heat play one time. That's right. That was fun. Yeah, it was fun. That was fun. It was kinda like a big show with a, yeah. Uhhuh. Now UK. Also for the women have a disc jockey up on top, right on the balcony. But that's what they had down there at the heat. Yeah. Where they're playing all this music and stuff like that. Anyway. On with it. You are watching the games, the girls games Friday night Yep. By yourself down there. Yeah. Stay up and watch. Yep. Watch the UCLA game. Yep. Yeah. But that South Carolina Connecticut game was the first game on Friday and South Carolina played so good. Yeah, it was, that was awesome. Yeah. And I, I love Dawn Staley, so I was hoping that, I was hoping that they would win yesterday. Yeah. I I've always said this and it's like their South Carolina beating Yukon was like their. That was their triumph. That was so fantastic that them coming back again and showing up again to take out UCLA. They just didn't have it. And then I'm looking up, 'cause I don't have a dog in the fight as to who wins. I just like to play watch, play good basketball. And, luckily it rained yesterday at River Glen, so yeah, he sent me a video yesterday morning and there's like little ponds and outside the camper. Yeah. I'm like, we're not gonna be moving a bunch of jumps today. And we were waiting for a bigger tractor and we didn't get the bigger tractor, so I was able to. Dot the I's and cross the T's and go out with the guys and just finish up some small stuff and lay out my show jumping course. And I had texted Jess and I said I'm probably gonna get back in time to watch the game with you 'cause I think I'm gonna be able to get outta here by 12 o'clock. So it was like a three and a half hour drive and that was like hooray. She's coming home. Yeah. She'll be able to take care of me 'cause I got a head cold. That's right. No. So we're watching the game. Yeah. And like she starts off for South Carolina now my friend Ann Flynn, she knows it all about basketball. She played basketball, Anderson County and she coached Anderson County and she's all like. Made the best team win. She's also a big Stanley fan, but made the best team win and UCLA just played so so good. They did, and I did, and I researched it. She researched it, folks, here's her research. Okay. What was her research? My research was. I was like, when was UCLA last at the final four? When did UCLA win the, the women's championships? They'd never won the women's championships, and I think they'd only been one or two times and. I think the last time they were there was 1978. I think. That's what I read. Really? So South Carolina has been there and been there, and one. And Dawn Staley has one and one. And so I'm like heck, I'm rooting for UCLA. This is awesome. They're doing so great. And they've developed their program and here they are, at playing for the national championship. And they had six seniors that all scored. And so it was their time. Those seniors had absolutely worked hard. Yeah. Yeah. And that coach was really good. Corey she's been there for 15 years, it wa it was good ball. It was good ball. Oh yeah, exactly. It, the the press conference a afterwards with the girls from South Carolina, they were sad. Oh yeah, for sure. They were sad, of course but they had a great season. Yeah, they did. They had a great season. Did, yeah. Yeah. And right, what Kathy said about beaten. Beaten Connecticut after Connecticut had not had a loss in 54 or 55. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that, I've just witnessed that a few times in. I can't think of examples right now, but you give it your all and you and it's not quite the top, but you got to almost the top and and then they just, whew, I can't do this again. Yeah. Yeah. That was like their championship game. That was their championship game. And I've seen it before. But the girl, the girls in the, in the press conference, South Carolina girls, they, they didn't really feel that. They felt like they, they were ready, but they were, I think they were playing with the different basketball. I think it was heavier. Yes. Yeah. It was just like, boom. It was just like. It wasn't hidden, wasn't hitting that right. Correctly. That's funny. But it was great having you home for that. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, I had some cereal yesterday morning. I fixed a big breakfast for the people down at the barn yesterday morning. But it's gotten into a fun tradition. Yeah. Sunday we used to just do like breakfast for the guys at, for holidays, Christmas or holidays and stuff. Yeah. Now the Sunday morning help after they finished barn chores Jess started fixing breakfast for 'em, and then Jess was gone. I'm like okay, yep. I'll fix y'all breakfast lawful. And then one morning I couldn't do it, and I texted him and said I couldn't because I was here, but I but not here. Yeah. And they said, oh, that's okay. Yeah. But it's all good. And so I had some cereal, didn't eat. Breakfast with them. I gave the leftovers to Jardi to eat later. Yeah. Any, anyway. And then I had a potato last night. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was so fun. So that's it. And then the men play tonight in the championship. Yep. We'll watch that. You're gonna, you, what more information do you need that, that the girls comparing the girls game to the boys to watch and that's the information I need. 'cause I haven't really studied, the men play uhhuh to. Contrast and compare. It even looks like a smaller court. It does. 'cause they're just so big. They're all so big. The men, yeah. They all look like, yeah. The girls that got the moves, the passes. It's just so quick. Yeah I use that analogy. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to make sure I define that. So what in training my horses and giving lessons. I have students which have, lazy horses and you, I want 'em to move a little quicker. I need you to walk and then truck and then canner, and then turn uhhuh and, just to simplify it, uhhuh. And so I used the comparison of, your horse is like a football player down set hook, and moving real slow until the play happens. Yeah. And I said, but I want your horse to be more like a basketball player where you're here, you're there, you're up and down and yeah, pass ball. Yeah. Quick. Yeah and more, and in response to the aids, if I can talk to the general public. That's what I'm talking about. The aides are your legs. Yeah. Your hands. Yeah. Asking the horse a question and have them respond. Quicker rather than slower. But now I'm gonna have to make sure, I want you, your horse to be like a women's basketball player. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the analogy I'm gonna go with now. Yeah. Yeah. Emma Partridge had two horses here. And one was like a Ferrari and the other one was like a tank. Yes. Moose was more like a tank. Moose and moose. And Max. Max, she was on, was a Ferrari when she was on course. Max is just real selt and sh Yeah, exactly like you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. Just like people, forces are all different. They are completely different. Uhhuh. Yeah. But you do need 'em to respond. Absolutely. That's what you're talking is the response. That's the response to your cues or ass. And the questions you ask. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what happened to South Carolina. They weren't as quick to the ball as they were on Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Because you gotta use that p go for the ball. And do you remember the time we, I played basketball too at, we now we consider ourselves athletes, right? They have the Bluegrass state games. Yeah. And it was early of time in our relationship and we signed up with somebody else to do the three on three. Yeah. And oh my God, that was a, gosh, we got our butts whipped. We got our butts whipped. We're like, we're standing there. Wait, where'd the ball go? How come we were like holding onto their jerseys afterwards because we couldn't hardly run it. Just half court. Three on three. Yeah, I know. Three on three. Forget that. We didn't ever sign up for that again. No, that's the last time. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. But so to go back to that, that we, our basketball, we haven't said this on the pod yet, is. This was the 50 year anniversary where my team at Sacred Heart, I, when I was a senior, we won the state basketball championship with Sacred Heart. So I'm gonna make it an official announcement on our podcast about that. Awesome. Yeah. And so two weeks ago during the Girls State Tournament here, three weeks ago we were invited to the half court. On the final game on Saturday night. Just the way that people that were Yeah. Out of their chairs getting popcorn. That's what it was like. Pretty much. Yeah. But anyway, we all got to get together after 50 years, which was cool. And so when I see these girls in these, like when I see the elation for UCLA, that they kept showing 'em on the court, and doing dances and climbing up, and it's. It cutting down the net that work together as a team, right? I, we all my little rie, we were sacred heart vares, all of my teammates used that victory in that work that we did together the rest of our life. That to know that it's never an i, it's a we and working together, yeah. Doing things in our lives to be successful. It's just really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Then when you say there's no, I that reminds me of the time when I was training with Karen and O'Connor and David O'Connor and I was at high Acre, I was in, in Middleburg The Plains was actually Jackie Mars' farm. And and Karen was coaching the young Rider team, and I just happened to be out hacking with them or doing a trot set, and I don't know, the kids were. Chatting away behind or something and she yells back at them. There's no I in team get on up here. Uhhuh be a part of it. Stop hanging in the back or whatever. I don't remember the circumstance, but I just remember her kind of getting sharp with them saying, there's no I in team. And it's true. You talk about, what I do for a living and what all these people, everybody's getting ready to come here to Kentucky for the Kentucky three day event. One of the five or six, five star competitions in the world happens right here in our backyard. And you talk about team people. There's the rider and there's the horse, but there's a plethora of grooms and owners and blacksmiths and vets and coaching and support staff. Chiropractors. I mean that all. Come together for the success of that the rider and the horse at that competition. Cool. Yeah. Let's talk more about that in a second. Okay. I wanna go back to our Sacred Heart team. Okay, good. Let's do that. Kim Brown, she was a sophomore or junior. Kim nf, she wrote this afterwards, she says, in this month of March Madness, I've been thinking less about the game itself and more about what a team really is. On March 15th, that Ruper our 1976 Sacred Heart Basketball Team, was recognized for the 50th anniversary of our state championship. Sacred Heart was an all girls Catholic high school in Louisville, Kentucky, and being back together again was a meaningful reminder. That what we built was bigger than basketball. A team is not just a group of people wearing the same uniform. A team is built on trust. On shared effort, on accountability, on learning how to work through challenges, disagreements, pressure, and personalities for something greater than yourself. Our head coach Bunny Doherty, now deceased, taught us lessons that stayed far beyond the court. One of the things she said was, you play like you practice. She understood the team. That teamwork is shaped in the everyday moments in the habits you build, the standards you keep, the way you encourage one another and the way you respond when things get hard. Our assistant coach, Susie Sigler Peters pictured in the red jacket was part of that foundation as well. Looking back, these early lessons stayed with me. When I started my company. I drew on them often. She got in the mattress business pretty big time. Over more than 35 years. I worked to build strong teams and many of the principles were the same. Were in the hard work, support one another, deal with it, overcome conflict, encourage people, stay committed to the mission, and understand that success is rarely accomplished alone. Amen. Great teams do not happen by accident. They are built intentionally and consistently, consistency, communication, trust, and willingness to keep moving forward together. The back of our T-shirt set it perfectly. Tradition, never graduates. 50 years later, I can see that the tradition was never just about winning a championship. It was about learning how to be part of something bigger than yourself and carrying those lessons into life. Wow, that's profound. Goosebumps. Goosebumps. My drop tears. Yeah. I cry a lot. Good job, Kim. I just said that out loud. Yeah. I'm very emotional. Yeah. You might not see it, but Uhhuh, I'm very, I have a very tender heart. Yeah. So you're talking about the teamwork of the horse. Yeah. And there's, y'all, there's this big competition, at the horse park the last weekend in April, called the Kentucky Three Day and it's a five star event. Yeah. And there's only five, five star events in the whole world, I think. Yeah. Appro. I could be one off. And it's bigger than the Olympics. The jumps are bigger. It's a bigger course. Yeah. Than in the Olympics. Yeah. So you're talking about each rider horse there. Has this whole entourage. Yeah. That's with them as a team. Yeah. Y'all. And it's not just like you have a pair of high top converse like we had in hospital. Yeah. Mine cost $22 and I thought that was a lot. There was no art support in 'em either. But anyway, the I remember getting my, I got free high tops when I whoa played basketball in Texas. In Texas, it was big. Yeah. Texas women's girls, women's basketball is huge in Texas. Anyway, we would've had to have a bake off at it Catholic school for that. Anyway so at this Kentucky three day, this is big time. Yeah. And it's not just being able to have a pair of tennis shoes. Like you got all these things, these horses with, if they have a bruised foot or if they this or that could happen to your horse. Yeah. And you gotta pull out Yeah. Yeah. And they do a trot up at the beginning to make sure the horse is sound. Oh, that means time to do te meds. That means that the horse is, in good shape, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, yeah, that's a, that's coming up. Big deal. And you competed in there 12 or 14 times or something? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. I've lost count. Yeah. She doesn't do that anymore. No, it was ous. It was scary watching her gallop around there. You didn't like it? I didn't like it. My mom didn't like it much either. Even though she uhhuh wanted me to do it. Your mom wouldn't have done it? No, I don't think so. Yeah. So that's gonna be fun. Yeah, that's gonna be fun. And you do some announcing some there, maybe? I do. Yeah, I have, I need to check in. I've, I have done the color commentary for the show jumping phase of the competition, and then on Cross Country Day. Since I'm a course designer and somewhat of a builder and. I go and help all the guys. Out on the course. There's a whole team of speaking, of team of builders that have built the jumps and maintain the jumps. And if when the horses jump them, if the, like I was just talking about footing earlier, if the footing gets bad, if it was, if it's a little wet, we'll go in and put some sand in. We'll fix the brush we'll put the flags up or fix flags that are marking the fences. I've signed on the last three years. To help as with all the builders as that crew. So we meet early Saturday morning and get assigned where we're gonna be and yeah. And our stations for the day. You take your little Kawasaki mule out there and have a big, have a few buckets of sand and like you got this radio. Yeah. Any helps needed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really fun. It is. And I have two friends coming in, one from New York, Melinda, and one from New Orleans, Hammond, Louisiana. And you talk about this, these connections that you make. At my first barn, I met Ann and Melinda and they were like four and five years older than I am. And we're still friends. 60, I guess it's 50 years later, right? We're still really good friends. And so that's, it's a fun weekend when they come up for the Kentucky three day. Yeah. People come from all over the world. Oh yeah. To watch it. Yeah. We have international competitors come over and. Yeah. Yeah. It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. And our birthdays. Your birthdays are on the 14th. Yeah. My birthday's coming up on the 14th. Yep. Day before tax day, I'll be 67 and I'm gonna, yeah. Day before tax day. Mom, what were you thinking? Gosh, I used to stress about that. Now. Now I don't because I have someone else do it for me. But it used to take away from your birthday stressing. Oh, are you kidding? Yeah. Yeah, it was awful. That was all when it's easier too, right? Exactly. Mine. Yours is on 29th. Yeah. Yeah. We're the two. We're the only two. April birthday in. We about this in the barn last time. Yeah. Anyway it's all good and yeah, like I said, I'm feeling better after talking to you all. Yeah. I know. Your voice has changed. Yeah. Is that cool or what? Yeah, this made me feel better uplifting. I think I've gotten well. Maybe I'll eat the rest of my cereal. I just threw it out. You'll have to pour some more. Yeah. It got it. Been too soggy to eat. Hey, I wanna remind you all to listen to the whole song after you listen to this. It's it's. It's Carla Gover, and she's a beautiful person and very talented singer songwriter. Yeah, she's awesome. And she teaches clogging too, which is fun. But she made our song for us. She's amazing. Love her love, love her. And please, like Cher, we gotta try to increase our algorithms like share send this to somebody and, have them do the same. Yeah. Yeah. You click the little checkbox so that you'll get updates when we do a new one. Oh, okay. Yeah. And that increases our Al Algorithms. Algorithms. Yeah. And tell us what you want us to talk about. Yeah, please comment. We got 67, almost 68 years of stuff to talk about. Just ask your questions and we'll talk about it. Be you. There's nobody else. There's nobody else like you. So be you. Be big. You peace and love and there you are. There you are. We love you. Thank you.