One little act of kindness can go a long long
way Two little acts of kindness can brighten
anyone's day Three little acts of kindness can
make a beautiful sound Many acts of kindness
Hi, and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened,
the podcast that features folks from all walks
of life telling us stories from their childhood
and how those stories impacted them as an adult.
I'm your host, Jay Rehack, and like you, I've
had my share of childhood experiences that were
sometimes good and sometimes not so good. But
all of them, I'd like to think, have helped make
me who I am today. Tell Me What Happened is sponsored
by Sidelining Publishing, publishers of quality
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your laughter. Today I have as my guest, Timothy
Troy. Timothy is a filmmaker living and working
in Chicago. He works both the crew side for an
NBC television show. and he directs his own short
films as well. Tim is a husband and a father
of two young children. He's also a former student
of mine from Whitney Young, and it was great
to catch up with him. How are you doing, Timothy?
I'm good. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate
you taking the time. I know you're a very busy
man, and it's good to reconnect. So are you ready
to tell your story, Timothy? Sure thing. All
right. So my story is... is in theory, it's about
baseball. It's a little more than that, which
I think you'll get to when you ask me your question
at the end. But it starts when I'm 15 or 14 in
the summer between sophomore, junior year, high
school. A little background is that I had never
been athletic at all in all of my life. I never
tried out for sports. I never did anything even
remotely like that. And I never really showed
much of an interest in sports either. And One
day my mom comes up and she says, you know, I'm
going to take your brother up to a Cubs game.
Do you want to come with? And my brother was
a huge sports fan and he'd been into sports ever
since he started moving. Basically he was into
that thing in typical sibling fashion. He and
I are completely opposite. We go in different
directions on just about anything you can think
of. Well. You know, I could have stayed at home
and just watch movies or whatever, which is what
I did most of my time, but. For whatever reason
that day, I decided, you know what I'm going
to go with. And we got up to Wrigley. And like
I said, I'd never, never seen, I'd never been
in a baseball stadium. I'd never really had any
kind of experience with it before. And mom had
gotten tickets for the field boxes, like the
first rows. So when you come up into Wrigley,
instead of like going up through all those stairs
to the upper deck or something, we just walked
up one little flight of stairs. And the first
thing you see is the Ivy. and just this gorgeous,
gorgeous stadium. And I fell in love. It was,
it was like a light switch went on. It was like,
oh, this is just, this is just wonderful. It
was magic. It was like something out of a movie.
Like you could stage that scene just perfectly
and see the, I wish I had a camera on my face
to see what had dawned on me when that had happened.
Cause it's, that moment was truly magical. And
From that moment on, I was a Cubs fan. I'm still
a Cubs fan today, even though, you know, there's
some stuff with the rickets that we won't get
into. But I remain a Cubs fan to this day. I
still like baseball. It's still the sport that
is most close, near and dear to my heart. And
the thing is, this is like this is all the background
because what happened next was Tim Troy, who
had never been interested in sports at all, took
this one trip to Wrigley Field as inspiration.
And that year in high school, I decided I was
going to try out for the baseball team. Never
had picked up a baseball bat before other than,
you know, like gym class in school. Talked to
the coach and said, yeah, you can try out. There's,
you know, tryouts are in the spring. So the tryouts
were coming up in a few months. And he said,
you can certainly come try out. We've got no
problem with that. He said, you can even do the
conditioning in the months leading up to it with
the team. So, you know, do your weightlifting
and your training and you're running around and
get yourself in shape for it. I was like, this
is great. So I spent months with these guys that
had played baseball for years and years and years,
and they all were in much better shape than me.
You know, I was, I was a chubby kid. And so this
was also part of the time when I was like growing
taller. I was going to puberty. I weighed the
same basically in eighth grade all the way up
till high school. but I shot up like six inches
in a couple of years. So I got taller, I got
skinnier, and I got myself not in great shape,
but at least I got in a little bit of decent
shape as I was doing all this weightlifting and
physical training, which was something else that
I'd never done before. So it was a really neat
experience doing that. It was neat doing it with
the other guys. They were very welcoming. They
kind of looked at me sideways sometimes because
there's this nerdy guy that's... trying to do
weightlifting and trying to do baseball and trying
to learn a bunch of skills that he's never had
before. And so long story short, I go through
all the conditioning and we go through the tryouts
and I did not make the team. I completely failed.
There was no chance I was making that team because
there was, you know, I'm complaining, I'm competing
against people that have been doing this for
years and I just wasn't up to it. And it was
a bit of a disappointment, right? Like I had
built myself up to like, okay, well there's this
arc to this, right? Like, okay, so you go to
Wrigley and you enjoy this and it changes your
outlook on something. And so it motivates you
to do this thing. And then the classic story
is that, okay, you're gonna make the team and
then you're gonna play baseball and that's gonna
be a new part of your life. And I didn't. And
I remember being... disappointed with it. And
I talked to my mom a little bit about it in preparation
for this and she was like, yeah, you were, you
were kind of wrecked about it. You were, you
were not happy. But what did happen was instead
of being on the team, I don't remember if it
was my suggestion or it might've been coach Cassidy's
suggestion, but they said, well, why don't you
come be the manager, right? Why don't you keep
the books for us? You still get uniform. You
still get to come out with the team. You go to
all the games. You can still be a part of this
world, even if you're not. playing on the field
and I thought about that and I thought that you
know that actually kind of works for me because
it's it's analytical it's studying the game it's
being it suited my interests and my abilities
and I could still participate and so I said yeah
I'll do that and I ended up spending two years
doing that for the baseball team and it was that
was a really good experience for me too I really
enjoyed having that time as part of the team
and learning a different side of baseball that
way. And it got me more interested and more knowledgeable
about the game. So that's kind of my story. I
was kind of hoping you made the team, but glad
you got to be the manager. Glad the coach was
smart enough to offer you that job and you were
smart enough to take it. Yeah, that's great.
All right. I appreciate that. So can you tell
me, Timothy, how do you think that experience
has impacted? How have you carried that with
you as an adult? So, you know, I learned a lot
of things from that, I think, and a lot of stuff
you only learn in retrospect. One was just the
experience of actually trying to do something
physical and working out and, you know, like
physical conditioning. That's something that
I could carry forward and at least have a knowledge
of, you know, if I need to go work out now or
if I need to get myself back in shape or just
take care of your body. That was a neat thing
to learn, but on a more psychological sense.
I learned the way to make the best of a situation.
I think people don't talk about it much, but
I think you actually do need to fail at things
in life too. You need to not succeed at something
in order to learn how to pivot, how to make better
choices, or just how to make choices that are
more appropriate for you, I think is the right
way to say that. I think if you fail, you learn
how to make choices that are right for you when
the first choices might not have been. and you
learn how to deal with disappointment, right?
It's all of those things factored into this experience
for me, and I think I've taken them forward in
a lot of different ways. I love it. So let me
ask you one question I usually don't ask follow
-ups, but one other question. I think you told
me you have a couple of kids. How soon are you
going to take them to Wrigley Field, do you think?
You know, I've been thinking about that in preparation
for this interview, and I think Maybe next year
I could take Addie. She's my daughter, she's
three right now, and maybe she might sit still
for a game next year. She's a little young for
it now, but my one -year -old definitely, he
doesn't sit still for anything, so he's got a
little ways. But I think in the next couple of
years, I would do it. I need to start watching
some more baseball on TV. It's been tough since
Cubs went to the Marquee Network, and you can't
actually watch it without having the special
apps and everything. But maybe next year we'll...
we'll cough up the money for it and have some
covers on the TV for them to watch and get acclimated
that way too. Yeah, well Rickets makes money
on that, so you might want to think about that
one too. Yeah, I know. Maybe I'll just borrow
somebody's password or something. Well, thank
you for coming on the show, Timothy. I really
appreciated telling your story. You look like
you're doing well. I'm glad to know that everything's
worked out for you so far. Yeah. Just as an aside,
you're a former student of mine from what year
did you graduate? I graduated 2001. Holy smokes.
I can't believe that. 2001? Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Well, you look great. Thank you. And you look
a lot younger than that. And I would have said
10 years, but it's 20. OK. Thank you again, Timothy,
for coming on our show. We really do appreciate
it. I'm glad to be here. If anybody wants to
check out my stuff, you can find my films on
YouTube at YouTube slash crazy little monster.
I know I've seen some of your movies and I really,
really enjoy them. And what I really like about
them is that there's an arc that's easy, easy
enough to follow and they're relatively short
movies. Is that right? And what's your longest
movie? Longest movie I've made so far is called
Abby. It's nine and a half minutes. So I'm. trying
to work up to doing a feature. We've got a script
I'm kicking around with somebody so that that's
in the planning. It's the next step for me, but
until then, you just keep making shorts because
they're fun. We're doing actually a bunch of
short films that we're going to start releasing
on Halloween this year. Pretty much everything
I do is horror or sci -fi. We're going to start
a series of them that are about a minute long
each, maybe two minutes tops, and they're all
just going to be quick, fun little short horror
films. Love it. I got to tell you, my thesis
is that people's attention spans are getting
shorter and shorter. And so I think one minute,
two minute movies are the future, personally.
But that's what do I know. But thank you for
coming on the show. Thank you for having me.
Well, that's our show. I'd like to thank Timothy
again for spending a little time with us and
telling us his story. And I'd also like to thank
our sponsors, Sidelining Publishing and LapSaber
.com. And of course, I appreciate all of you,
our listeners. Thank you for tuning in. I'm gonna
sign off now with Susan Saldar's classic, One
Little Act of Kindness. So until next time, stay
safe out there and try not to hurt anybody. act
of kindness can go a long, long way. Two little
acts of kindness can brighten anyone's day. Three
little acts of kindness can make a beautiful
sound. Many acts of kindness help the world go
round. One little loving word can go a long,
long way Two little loving words can brighten
anyone's day Three little loving words can make
a beautiful sound Many loving words help the
world One little seed zone can go a long long
way Two little seed zone can brighten anyone's
day Three little seed zone can make a beautiful
sound Many seed zone help the world go around
Two little child's laughter can go a long, long
way Two little children's laughter can brighten
anyone's day Three little children's laughter
can make a beautiful sound Many children laughing
help the world go round And many see it so Help
the world go round Many loving words Help the
world go round And many acts of kindness Help
the world go round