Ex NFL Player and CEO San Diego Rescue Mission Donnie Dee discusses service as a tool for a good life on the Tools For A Good Life Summit. Truly inspirational Donnie Dee is literally saving lives. Helping get homeless people off of the streets and back into a good life. Careful if you listen…you will want to volunteer.
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Transcript: 0:00:07.1 Mischa Z: Welcome back everybody to the Tools For A Good Life Summit and right now, I would like to introduce to you, Donnie Dee, President and CEO of the San Diego Rescue Mission. Welcome, Donnie.
0:00:23.1 Donnie Dee: Well, welcome to you. Thanks for having me.
0:00:25.4 Mischa Z: Indeed, indeed. And then before we get started here, I'm gonna read your bio really quick, if that's okay.
0:00:30.7 Donnie Dee: Absolutely.
0:00:31.6 Mischa Z: Alright, fantastic. Donnie Dee joined the San Diego Rescue Mission as President/CEO, mid-July, 2017. Anniversary is coming up or you just hit it?
0:00:43.3 Donnie Dee: This week, yeah. Today, as a matter of fact.
0:00:46.1 Mischa Z: Oh, wow.
0:00:46.6 Donnie Dee: Yeah, four years ago today.
0:00:48.5 Mischa Z: Oh, fantastic. Growing up in Kansas City, sports have always been important to Dee. He played football and basketball for Oak Park High School and was a four-year letterman in football at the University of Tulsa, graduating from there in 1988 with a business management degree. He was then drafted by the Indianapolis Colts and played in the NFL for two and a half years for the Colts and Seahawks. And then quick, was that an injury or you just... Go ahead.
0:01:22.5 Donnie Dee: I did finish with an injury. I actually played for another team but just never really felt right, and so, yeah, I would say it was an injury that ended my career.
0:01:32.4 Mischa Z: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And was that a heavy moment?
0:01:37.5 Donnie Dee: It was. You dream your whole life about playing a sport like that, and so for it to come down and you did not have a lot of control over how it ends is a little disappointing and a heavy thing to process. You play football your whole life and then for some of us, it just comes to an abrupt ending. It takes a little while to get used to.
0:01:56.2 Mischa Z: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm guessing, and we can get into this in a minute, but your faith was not only tested but enriched and really helped you through that time?
0:02:06.9 Donnie Dee: 100%. I think you find out what's most important and what you really value. And look, at the end of the day, football's a game, it can't be the most important thing in your life, and it's a game and it's why they call it a game. And so I think I was able to make the transition.
0:02:23.4 Mischa Z: Yeah, what a great lesson too and I think what a great thing or analogy, or whatever that... For me, I just hear that and I'm like, "Yeah, how much stuff do I put attachment on where it's just money or it's just this or just that when really... " I think is the lesson there.
0:02:42.8 Donnie Dee: Well, yeah, and it's easy to do because what our priorities are end up being the things that we chase and we center our whole life around, but what happens if we have the wrong priorities? Well, then we have established a life that isn't very deep, doesn't have a lot of substance, and those things always... You end up finding that out as time goes on that, "Hey, maybe this isn't as big a deal I thought it was." And that was really my relation with football. I went to University of Tulsa and football was the most important thing in my life. And then I got hurt in college and realized that, "Look, this can give you a lot of opportunities but it can't be the most important thing in your life 'cause it's gonna let you down eventually."
0:03:26.0 Mischa Z: Yeah, and I'm thinking too, I bet from that part of the country you grew up in and just... That was probably your destiny to a certain extent. That's the lifestyle...
0:03:38.8 Donnie Dee: Well, yeah, I think sports is a really big deal in the Midwest. Football is an enormous thing in Oklahoma. But even for me personally, my father was a professional basketball player for the Indiana Pacers and he won an actual gold medal, which I think is one of the most difficult accomplishments in all of sports, is winning a gold medal in the 1968 Olympics playing basketball. And so, yeah, I would say it was very much my destiny. I wanted to be an athlete, I wanted to accomplish what my dad had accomplished, I wanted to make him proud. I never imagined not being an athlete and I put that pressure on myself.
0:04:14.6 Mischa Z: Yeah, I will say too, for anybody younger, back in the day... So when your father went to play basketball in the Olympics, that was amateurs. There was no Michael Jordan, no LeBron James showing up, that was strictly amateur class.
0:04:32.6 Donnie Dee: These are all college guys playing against other countries and they were the best in the world, they were the best in the world. It has changed and now we've got pros playing against pros in the Olympics.
0:04:42.9 Mischa Z: Yeah, I think that's cool. I think I'm even more excited now to have you on the summit because I think, to have your identity in sports that much or as a pro football player and to have those cracks start to happen in college and then perhaps ultimately in the NFL, that it's such a powerful testament to what we're offering. How do we make it through those rough parts of life when our identity is shattered a little bit? So anyway, yeah, let me finish up here and thank you for indulging those questions. So here we are. Dee began his career in 1990 with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Colorado. Dee went on to become COO or Chief Operating Officer of the FCA for five years before relaunching the Tom Landry Associates, a major donor program at FCA. Again, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Dee is married to his college sweetheart, Jackie, who was also a college athlete. They have two grown children, Johnny, who's now 28 and about to get married, right?
0:06:00.7 Donnie Dee: That's correct.
0:06:01.7 Mischa Z: Yeah, very exciting, congratulations. And Jennifer, 25, who both played college basketball at USD and UCI, respectively. If I'd quickly touched on a... And again, for any of the younger people, Tom Landry, he was the coach... He was the man in football for a few decades, perhaps.
0:06:23.0 Donnie Dee: Very successful coach, went to the playoffs 23 years in a row, still has, I think, that record, and Bill Belichick's about to break it or maybe he was about to break it before last year because I don't think he went to the... I don't think the Patriots went to the playoffs last year, but Tom Landry is a very successful coach. He wasn't our founder but he got involved very early on with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and really put us on the map. I think once he got involved and used FCA as his platform to share his thing, I think our ministry really exploded when I was with FCA, and I'm certainly thankful for his life and his leadership.
0:07:01.0 Mischa Z: Yeah, and you had a chance to interact a little bit with Tom Landry?
0:07:05.3 Donnie Dee: I did. We had an annual giving campaign that people would give $10,000 or more in a year in honor of Tom Landry and that was used for local field ministry to work with coaches and athletes at the local level.
0:07:22.2 Mischa Z: I wanted to touch really quick before we get to the question and the meat of the summit question, to you, is that... Clearly, it's evident to me through your history and what you do that your faith is very important to you and it's been a very powerful part of your life, yeah?
0:07:42.1 Donnie Dee: Yeah, it is and it has been, and I think it always will be. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, didn't grow up in the church, and so really just trying to figure out life by myself. I'm from a broken home, my father was an alcoholic, and so I think that, in many ways, I was gonna follow in his footsteps, not only athletically but also socially. I think I was destined to just be an alcoholic and to probably bounce around from relationship to relationship. And it wasn't until I got to college that I saw some other athletes that lived out their faith and that became inspirational for me and interesting to me that I asked questions. I think, in the end, I just began to embrace my faith and allow God to have a role in my life, and to have this daily relationship where I get a chance to strengthen my faith and try to be all that God has called me to be.
0:08:39.4 Mischa Z: It's beautiful. So your interest and that nurturing in your college years, that's what led you to, obviously, your work in things like the San Diego Rescue Mission, yes?
0:08:55.8 Donnie Dee: 100%. Yeah, I think faith and really beginning to understand the God of the Bible and really what the scripture teaches really compels you to wanna make a difference in the world and to wanna see other people not just as humans at different stages and different statuses in life but to begin to see them as God's creation and that whether you're homeless or whether you have billions that we're really all the same in terms of God's eyes and he calls upon us that have been given much to help those that maybe aren't as privileged or haven't been given as much, and I just think that's a great way to live your life. And I've seen so many that have gone before me that lived their lives that way and it really challenged me to embrace that.
0:09:38.9 Mischa Z: Yeah, fantastic. I think my relationship with source or a higher power, or God, as you say, has been more from a recovery lens, like a traditional 12-step, that was my entry point, but I'd love...
0:09:55.3 Donnie Dee: That's good.
0:09:56.1 Mischa Z: Yeah, yeah. I'm excited for your viewpoint. [laughter] And what I wanna touch on here too is service. So you are CEO and President of the San Diego Rescue Mission. So the San Diego Rescue Mission is feet on the street, helping people, yeah?
0:10:22.0 Donnie Dee: That's correct. Yeah, we have a large facility downtown. It's an old hospital. I have 366 beds, 60 of those beds are used for emergency shelter use overnight, women and children only, and they stay there one night at a time, two nights at a time. The other 300 beds are used for what I believe to be the number one solution for homelessness and that is rehabilitation. You understand that, you understand the power of a program, you understand the power of accountability and direction, and support 'cause you've obviously overcome some things in your own life. And we have people that come to us that, yes, circumstantially, they may be homeless but there's other things that are going on in their heart that have led them to this lifestyle of homelessness and we're trying to address what's going on in the heart so that they can overcome and really be free from this challenge of living on the streets. So they live with us for a year. We call them students. The first semester is wellness, the second semester is education, the third semester is job placement and housing. And we tell them on day one, "Give us a year, we'll get you off the streets permanently." And we do that through our rehabilitation program.
0:11:33.2 Mischa Z: It's beautiful. I love it. Well, good. I think we've laid the framework for service as a tool for a good life. So I have a question that I'm gonna ask you and I'm gonna lay the scenario and basically, if we think of life as a three-legged stool of relationships, finance, and...
0:11:57.9 Donnie Dee: Health.
0:12:00.0 Mischa Z: Health. Thank you. [chuckle]
0:12:00.3 Donnie Dee: Absolutely. I read the question.
0:12:01.9 Mischa Z: That's good. [laughter] I appreciate that, Donnie. Thank you. And then if we think of someone who was successful or is successful and two or three of the legs fall out from under them, so perhaps... So I'll speak for me. I went through divorce, another failed relationship after that, both my parents died in rapid succession, this was all 5 to 10 years ago, career upheaval. And up until that point, success had served me very well. And so pull myself up from my bootstraps, that mentality, that "Fix it. Work your way through it. Sort it out", that was no longer working. [laughter] I needed new tools. [laughter] And so by the grace of God, I got new tools. And so my question to you is, thinking of service to community as a tool, what are the exact next steps you would offer a person like me who is, perhaps, hitting that rough part of life? What are the exact next steps you would offer this person so they know they are headed in the new, right direction that they will have positive momentum towards getting their life back on track?
0:13:27.7 Donnie Dee: That's a big question, that's a heavy question, and I don't know that there's an easy answer to that. I can tell you what comes to mind for me and I can tell you what has worked for me. I think the exact next steps really have to do with how you view the world. I think everything starts internally first. I can't be for the world if I'm not first that in myself. I
