John Stockton Reflects on His Legendary NBA Career and Life Beyond Basketball

I look at it as kind of a gift from God that I get a chance to play in the NBA against the best players ever and with some of the best players ever. I get a phone call from Rod Thorn with the NBA office and said, you've been selected to play in the Olympics. It's the Olympics. I've probably heard rumors of NBA guys getting to play it, but those things don't happen to guys like me. It just never does. I tell you, I don't know if there's been a better feeling in my life, certainly not in sports, than that ball going in the hoop and getting the opportunity to play in that great championship that everybody yearns for. The fact that I have a voice now because of that is all great. What would you say made you share your views about the COVID vaccines and COVID mandates? The only regret I have about that was that I didn't start talking earlier. He was one of the greatest point guards in NBA history. Then he took a fight. over COVID mandates all the way to the US Supreme Court. They were joined by John Stockton, NBA Hall of Famer, the league's all-time leader in assists and steals, and a member of the legendary 1992 Dream Team. In this conversation, we'll look back at the basketball career, from the coach who gave him his first chance for his two finals against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. We'll also hear why he became a vocal critic of COVID mandates and what he wants people to know about vaccine safety. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Esparza. John, welcome to Bay Area Innovators. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Great to have you here. I really appreciate your time. You're in Spokane right now, Where you live, I guess. I really want to start with how did you get interested in basketball, what was the first recollection when you were a little kid that you liked the sport and then you were going to get involved with it more? Well, I'm a little brother, first of all. My brother Steve's four years older than me, and he was a very good athlete. And the standard fare at our grade school, St. Aloysius, was you start in sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade, and you can play football, basketball, and baseball, and that's it. So my brother was very good at all those, and I went to every practice. I went to every game and played all three sports. But then basketball obviously worked out a little bit better, but I really loved football. You get to wear the helmet, you know, Be all tough and shoulder pads and stuff like that. But I guess I like to be in indoors. And then when did you get a sense that you're going to go much further in basketball than others? Was it high school or when did you start to stand out? Gosh, you know, my focus was pretty short term. I wanted to make the team in sixth grade. And, uh, I made that team and, and played a lot, played all the time and, and, uh, didn't seem like I was too bad at it. And so that kind of same coach coached us in seventh and eighth grade. Um, then I just wanted to make the ninth grade team at my high school and did that. The surprise probably came as a sophomore in high school when I made varsity. Now I made varsity because the football team played in the state championships. So some of the football guys that... Would have made the team. We're off playing football. It gave me a chance to try out with a new coach and knew everything. So I made the team as a sophomore. That was really my first moment of hope or succeeding before my time a little bit. And I really enjoyed it. And I enjoyed that team I played with. Now, let's talk about coaching a little bit. You mentioned that there were some coaches or maybe one specific coach that really gave you a chance. Can you share more about the coaches who made a difference? Boy, lifetime long, I've had tremendous coaches from start to finish. The guy that really started me out, Cary Pickett, was my grade school coach, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. And we were doing college-level practices, very intense, a lot of running. I mean, we were in great shape. We could run the mile in five minutes as 6th graders just because we ran every day after three-hour practices. We would run for another 20 minutes, just sprints all over the place, run around the gym, run around the school. So he taught me a sense of discipline and a way to get better. And therefore, obviously, we were successful, so it was fun. But boy, was it hard work. And it kind of progressed. I had a high school coach that took a chance on a sophomore. And that was me. I was very small. Um I wasn't what you, you know, people think when you're in the NBA at some point in time that you were always a great player. Wasn't the case. I was awfully little, tried my best, hustled a lot, but nothing special. And that coach took a chance on me, Coach Irwin. Um, yeah. I didn't have a lot of recruiting trips going into college, and my local... School of Gonzaga had some interest and kind of settled for that because I wanted to stay home more than anything else and it could not have been a better place for me. So one step after another I've come into great coaching and great places to grow and become a player. Yeah, I played water polo in college and also I was on the swim team and I do realize, you know, there was a coach, I was never very good, like at all, but I was on the team. But I can see how huge of a difference a coach makes in a sporting career because it's really the difference between making it and not making it. And one coach almost gave me a chance. I didn't take it as well as I should have, so I didn't go much further. But I can see the importance of that. Water polo is tough. I get great respect to be able to keep your head above water for a long time. It's a tough duty. Yes, yes. And the same way you were running a lot, we had to swim a lot. There was, you know, we had to do a lot of extra swimming. Now, your grandfather was at Gonzaga as well, right? And he was also a football player, actually. 1926, he won, he was in the winning NFL team. Can you tell us more about that? Have you met him, and what was he like? Well, he passed away when I was a young baby, so my parents used to tell me that, yeah, he knew me, and he liked me as a little kid. He thought I was a little tough guy, but I don't remember him. But yeah, he was an All-American at Gonzaga, back when Gonzaga had football. And he was a terrific player and played against the Red Granges of the world and a lot of Ernie Nevers, a lot of great historic names. And then, yeah, you're right, he played for the Frankfurt Yellow Jackets, which ultimately became the Philadelphia Eagles. And they won the world championship, and I think it was 1931, I think. And he threw the game-winning touchdown pass. So they beat the Chicago Bears six times that year and were undefeated. So pretty special kind of history for the family, but not many people know about it. So for our audience, in case whoever is not as familiar with basketball, so you were a point guard, probably one of the most famous point guards in the history of the game. And the point guard really is like the quarterback in football, right? It's the one who thinks how to architect the point of the game. And the traditional point guard would be more of passing the ball, where the modern ones maybe they will score as well. Can you tell us how did you get that intuition or that skill of passing the ball or creating the play as well as you were? Well, I didn't have much choice. I had to be the point guard. I was the smallest guy on every team, so nobody was having me try out to play the center position, but it also, I loved to have the ball in my hands. Even as a little kid, my brother was around, and I'd play him one-on-one, and I'd want to have the ball all the time, so it kind of lent itself. I had a guy in high school that was a few years older than me, Mike Kelly, who really was a clever passer. And I used to watch him and play with him whenever I had the chance. And I just kind of learned by watching clever ways to pass the ball. And it just opened my mind to what can happen if you can see cutters and understand timing and you see the angles of things. And that's what kind of gave me giggles. So it's a way to grow. You love doing it. You love... Trying to fool people with passes and that seemed to fit my personality. Were you in the zone? Like I think singers and sometimes artists, they talk about being in the zone where they're almost like being guided or what to do. Did you feel like that sometimes, like you're almost, you know, meditating when you're playing? Definitely. Sometimes you're out there playing and you know, there's no thought. You're not worried about the score. You're not worried about your sore fingers. You're not worried about anything. And all of a sudden things just start happening and it feels easy. And I wish you could bottle it and call it up anytime you wanted to, but it definitely happens where it's just everything. It's quiet. It's the game slow. Yeah. It's a pretty neat feeling. And then of course you were drafted by the Utah Jazz. You were there for 19 years. There's so many superlatives that we can go into there, but I heard that when the announcement was made, the jazz fans were silent. What was that like? They didn't know you, right? Well, to be honest, I'm not sure I heard it. It was a little bit of a surprise to be drafted that early. And so I think shock had kind of set in. It wouldn't have mattered what they did. I didn't hear anything after the Utah Jazz had selected John Stockton. But what everybody told me is they actually booed. And then a couple other people said, no, they didn't boo. They were saying, who? Who? It didn't matter to me. I was so excited that it happened and I knew I was going to get a chance to play in the NBA, which I didn't think was possible an hour and a half beforehand. Wow. And you missed, I think you missed 22 games in 19 years and 17 of those 19 years, you didn't miss any games. I think that's a record, I don't know, I didn't look it up, but can you talk about that, like you were looking forward to every game, were you ever thinking like, well, I don't feel good, I'm just going to wait out on this one? No, I looked at it as kind of a gift from God that I get a chance to play in the NBA against the best players ever and with some of the best players ever. And who would turn down that? I wanted to play every minute, too, every second. I didn't want to come out. It was such a privilege and honor to be able to do it. So I took that very seriously. Now, I had a lot of help. I had my buddy Steve DeLong from Gonzaga, who was a trainer there. He made sure I was in good shape every year coming back for the season. And I had great care bar trainers with the Jazz. And I had a special guy. His name is Dr. Craig Bueller. He's a chiropractor that I really credit with keeping me healthy for all 19 years. And so, sure, I had to play through some stuff. But mostly, I was balanced and played pain-free due to his efforts. When did you first meet Karl Malone? Was it when you went to the Jazz or was it earlier? Karl Malone and I met at the 1984 Olympic Trials. I mean two unlikely friends to be honest. I mean there's just there's just not much in common and we're sitting at this big lunch room with I think there's probably 60 guys in there and these open seats at an empty table and I plunked down in one seat he plunked down at the other and we just started talking and I mean, it was meant to be. It was a friendship instantly. We're very, very different guys. But it was an instant friendship. And, again, we don't see each other for, what, two years because he had another season to play in college and he gets drafted by the Jazz. And, I mean, I couldn't believe my ears. The guy that I met and was talking with at the Olympic Trials, we both eventually got cut. And I had a chance to play with him again. And we've had a special relationship since that time. Well, it's probably the most amazing 1-2 combination in the history of sports, I would think, that you and him had. Now, he would often pass the ball to you as well, so that you would pass it back to him. And I think I looked at his points. Of course, I don't know how many people know, but he's ranked third in overall points, and he was second until LeBron James took over. But if I multiply your assists by two, Or two and a half, or whatever. It almost makes up his points. So it's almost like that's how it comes up together. Carl, I think Carl's one of the, in my opinion, one of the top five best players of all time. I mean, it wasn't like we were on a team with unlimited bank accounts that could get players, you know, at a whim. And everything went through him. Teams were designed, designed their defenses to stop him. And he, every night, 30 points, 30 points, 30 points. He's also a great passer to your point. He's also a great defender and rebounder to your points. So I just think he's very special. I was lucky to play all but two years, all but one of my years with Carl. Now, the next chapter I want to talk to you about is the Olympic Games. So I grew up in Romania, which was communist. We knew how the Soviet Union, and not just the Soviet Union, but most of the Eastern European countries would send their best professional players, their best players they had to the Olympics, which they were not supposed to. The US wouldn't do that. And that, of course, changed in 1992, when I guess, you know, everyone is able to join the Olympics. And that's where the dream team, the so-called dream team, Olympic team was formed. Can you talk a little bit about how did you get on that team? Did you get a phone call? What was it like? Wow, that was quite a day too. My wife and I are sitting in our home in Spokane. I get a phone call from Rod Thorn with the NBA office and said, you've been selected to play in the Olympics. And, you know, I... I've probably heard rumors of NBA guys getting to play it, but those things don't happen to guys like me. It just never does. And so he calls and it was literally like it came out of the blue. And so. I said, wow, really? I go, I'm going to have to call my coach, and I'm going to have to call Mr. Miller, the owner of the Jazz. He said, no, no, we've checked with all those things. I said, no, no, I've got to call these people. So I didn't even say yes right away, which surprises me to this day. And so I called them. They knew about it. They said, heck, yeah, you need to do this. And so I called back as fast as I could. Yeah, I'm in. So it was quite a day, so exciting, and what an honor. I mean, I played on the best basketball team that's ever. Ever gotten on a basketball floor and I can explain why it's it's it was just a. Heavenly experience of basketball to play with that crew. So really a special time in my life. So there's this story, and I want to ask you if you can talk about that, where the first game in practice that the Dream Team played, I think it was against some college kids, they actually lost. And Chuck Daly on purpose kind of let everyone play the way they would play so they would lose. Can you tell us what happened there? Yeah. Well, we had practice. I remember the day. We had practice. We had hard practice. And these, again, these are the best of the best that you're playing against. So these were difficult practices. And then all of a sudden, these young kids come walking in. Now, they're not just young kids. These guys, you'd recognize every name. Most of them are in the Hall of Fame as well. But they were young kids at the time. They come in, and they're hungry as a wolf. So they come in and we're getting ready to play. We are playing. I'd say they probably did give us. I don't remember. The score just felt like they put it on us. The next day, we played again, and it was a different story, as you might guess. But it was a great lesson to say, hey, listen, you can't bring your laurels in here and just say, hey, we're the best team in the world. You're going to have to go play. It was a good wake-up call for us. There's an interesting, funny story of you in Barcelona. I think you were on a bus, and then the bus, it's stuck in traffic. There's a huge traffic jam. And then you just decide to walk out through the crowds. I think you grab a video camera with your family and go through the crowds. And you wear sunglasses and people don't recognize you. And the other players on the bus wish they could do that, but they couldn't because they would be swarmed by fans. What was that like? Did you enjoy the fact that you can do that and not be swarmed by fans in that way? Totally. I've always enjoyed that. It's two different stories, actually. So one was somebody with the NBA asked me to carry a camera and walk down Las Ramblas. And it's a great walk down there to by the port where Christopher Columbus departed from and everything. It's a beautiful area in Barcelona. And we just walked around and they just wanted to see, hey, how nobody reacted to me. And finally, pretty good story. This lady was wearing a Dream Team t-shirt. I'm sitting there talking to her and she doesn't know who I am. Until one of my sons pointed out, hey, there's Daddy. And then that called attention to it. And then people started crowding around now that they knew, you know, they put the two things together. The other story was we were coming back from a practice. And we were stuck in traffic. And I said, look, I'm out. And I just got off the bus and went on the subway. And I was home 45 minutes before everybody else. But Horace Ballmer was pretty upset with me. He was the head of security. He said, we're not doing that one again, John. I said, okay. Okay. Yeah, and I think that team, the average, I think you guys won by an average of 41 points per game against every other team. Would you say that's the best team that was ever assembled or other future teams could compete with it? I don't think it can. I do think it's the best team ever assembled. It's not because of the score differential. I mean, it was one of the most uniquely high basketball IQ teams I've ever seen. I mean, you didn't even have to have an offense. If one guy makes a cut, the pass was in his hand on time and on target. He's already visualizing the next cut. It's in their hand on time, on target. The same intelligence applied to the defensive end. It was one of the best defensive teams I've ever seen without. having to be a bunch of dogs out there just, you know, crawling up and it was just intelligence. And it was so much fun to play with 12 smart, very gifted, very athletic guys. And like I said, I don't think it'll ever be matched. I don't know if the game lends itself to that type of player as much as it did back then either. What would you say are the main differences now between the way the game was played in the 80s and 90s and the way it is now? Well, they like freer movement, by the way, you know, so I think there's a lot of emphasis on on not touching guys, allowing them to run where they want to run and do what they want to do. It's an emphasis on scoring. However that's implemented, they wanted to raise the averages, raise the amount of points because they see that as exciting. It was a lot tougher game back then. And I know I've heard the old-timers talk about our era, and they said, yeah, you guys make it sound like we came in on the Mayflower. But But they were athletes too. And so I know there's the natural thought that, hey, we're just way better than everybody beforehand, be but I don't think it's the case. So there's a lot more emphasis on three-point shots, right a lot more emphasis on free throws. You know, we give guys more free throws now. So it's a different game. Can you tell us who are your favorite players? back. I don't want to ask you the best players, because then maybe it's a different way, but your favorite players, the ones you got along the best, the ones you thought of highest on? Well, one ended up being my teammate, Jeff Hornacek. He just... Can't believe how many ways he impacts the game. And he's not often regarded in those terms. But, again, very smart, could pass, could defend, could really, really shoot. So he's always going to be one of my – and he's a buddy of mine too. There's a lot of guys throughout the league. I mean, Isaiah Thomas was a big guy in my career, in my life. I played against him in high school. I admired him when he was in college and get a chance to play against him there. And then, you know, trying to emulate what he could. What he could do as a small man in the game. So, gosh, I keep mentioning guys, keep mentioning great competitors that I played against. Kevin Johnson is an example of a guy that I played against with the Phoenix Suns that was a very big tussle every time we got against each other. Let's move on and talk a little bit about the first time the Utah Jazz made the conference finals. And there was what they called the shot. When you had the shot that went over Charles Barkley, And you guys beat Houston Rockets, and you made it to the finals with the Bulls. What was it like? What did it feel like when you made that shot? I think it was a few seconds left in the game. Yeah, that was a culmination of a lot. It exercised some demons that we'd experienced. We had been to the conference finals, I think. Six times in eight years and didn't make it to the finals ever. So we were always at the doorstep, but couldn't quite punch our ticket to get to go to the finals. And so one of those teams that beat us a couple of times in that journey was the Houston Rockets. One of the players on that team was Clyde Drexler, who... He was another nemesis at Portland. He was a team that knocked us out a couple times when he was in Portland. So there were a bunch of Charles Barkley being such a great player. All of these guys were on this one team and we're kind of cruising along. We look like we could win it and then it looks like we could lose it. We have one more game at home if we lose this one and we're down to the end. We came back, we were down 16 or something like that late in the fourth quarter and made a big comeback and here we are with the last second shot. We ran a play that we've run a thousand times and we changed it up a little bit and I had a good look at a three and it went in and I tell you, I don't know if there's been a better feeling in my life, certainly not in sports, than that ball going in the hoop and getting the opportunity to play in that great championship that everybody yearns for. Yeah, that was pretty amazing. There was a time I was watching basketball. I watched all those games live. I remember them very well. And of course, then he was in the finals with the Bulls. Now, especially in 98, the last game with the Bulls, you played probably arguably the best team ever in the NBA, the best player arguably in the NBA, and also probably his last three minutes were probably his best three minutes ever in the NBA. And still, you barely, barely lost. It was so close. You were up by four points with like 30 seconds left. Again, Michael Jordan made two shots. Can you talk about those moments? What was it like? Well, first of all, I mean, people are pretty, they look at you funny if you haven't won any. And I said, look, I'd rather get to the championship a hundred times and not win one than not to get there. So, I mean, to get that opportunity to play against such a great team, such a great player in a series for all the marbles, it doesn't get any better than that. Now, obviously, we would have loved to have won a couple plays. One way or the other, and it could change all that. It didn't. They earned it. We didn't. But we laid it all out there. So I don't have any qualms about it. As I mentioned, I'd rather have won. The fact that they are a great team doesn't make the pain less. In fact, you don't look at them as the best team ever. You don't look at them even closer to the players. You just look at them as the other guys, the opponents. So, you know, good for them. Good for them. I have great admiration for them. Okay, I have one more question before I move to the other part. All right, let's move on to the next part. John, I wonder, can you talk about the importance of faith in your life, and not just in your life, but in sports? And has that balanced your life? How has that guided you throughout your career? Well, I've never been the preacher type. I've never been the outwardly very Religious or spiritual, I grew up Catholic. I was born and raised, went to Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic college. My parents were Catholic. They had, you know, we had that upbringing as solid as you get. I mean, to be servants for other people, to think about other people's needs, to also see, you know, see your What God's role is in your life. Again, I don't talk about it much. It's kind of embarrassing for me to talk about, but it has impacted me at every single level, personally, professionally. Emotionally. It's the foundation. And so I'm grateful for that upbringing and trying to do the same with my children and my grandchildren at this point. Yeah, there's also a degree of humbleness that you have. And maybe you don't want to share about it because you are humble. But I just remember one interview, someone said that, oh, and by the way, John, you still hold, you know, the record for all assists, you know, in the NBA. And then you didn't say anything. You didn't say like, well, yeah, but it's not just the assists, it's also the steals. So, you know, that to me, it's almost like telling Michael Jordan, Michael, you won three championships. Good job. Great. And for him, not to say, no, no, no, sorry. It wasn't three. It was six. So how do you do that? You know, can you talk about that? Well, humility is never. Been difficult for me. It's handed to me at every turn. It's, uh, I walked into my dad's, my dad's business, uh, let's say a couple of months ago and had a full lunch, full dinner, whatever. And nobody even knew who I was. And I said, you know, it's, it's when you look like this, you don't stick out in the crowd. And so, um, Gosh, you start thinking you're big stuff, the world puts you back where you belong pretty quickly. So I don't know. I imagine I dealt with it from one point or another. It's Yeah, let's move on to some of the things you are working on now. You have looked into the dangers of COVID vaccine or in general vaccine injuries. Can you tell us how did you get to look into this? What prompted you to question either the vaccines or the results of the vaccine? Well, it's funny. You brought it up earlier, believe it or not. We talked about the care I had with the jazz. Dr. Buehler, Dr. Craig Buehler, was the chiropractor for the jazz. And I thought he was a quack. I didn't want to use him. I didn't use him for a couple of years and had some medical interventions that didn't help things. And so finally, some of the other teammates talked me into seeing this guy. And one after the other, he fixed my back hurt. He fixed it instantly. I had a tendonitis that I took an anti-inflammatory for for a year and a half. Um, and he fixed it, he fixed it and took that discomfort away in five minutes when the medicines did nothing for me. Um, and so he earned my faith one after the other, after the other. And so imagine that moving five years forward where this guy has kept me healthy for five years and he says, and I'm starting to have children, we're starting to have children of our own. He says, maybe you ought to think about not vaccinating your kids. I said, you're out of your mind, buddy. Do you think I want him to get polio or do you think I want him to get some of these diseases? You're crazy. And so he just said it, let it linger. A couple of years later, I had a son that reacted to shots. And it was. Thankfully, in our case, it wasn't anything awful like the autism or things that we see regularly now. But it was enough to get our attention. I said, I need to start learning about this because he gets the shot and this happens. It's not, it's not not cause effect. It's, it's actually happened. So, um, we started research that's 35, 36 years ago. So I started reading books. I started paying attention. I started asking questions. And then my, my, my father. Comes along, and this is many, many years later. He's 80-some years old, and he goes into sepsis three years in a row. That's a terrible blood infection that you can very easily die from, and he nearly did. Three years in a row within two days of getting the flu vaccine. Why have I not been digging into this? Why have I not been paying attention? So now I'm really dug in. I'm learning about it. And then COVID hits. And I said, look, I can tell you what's going to happen. They told us it's a disease, just like the flu. They told us we're going to get sick of something. They're going to bust out this vaccine, and it isn't even a vaccine if you know the mRNA is not a vaccine by any normal standards, and they're going to jam it down our throats. And boy, did those things come true. And you could see the writing on the wall. You could see it coming. And the only regret I have about that was that I didn't start talking earlier. I know that a bunch of people were hurt that might have listened to me. And I just figured if I did it for my family, and if I was paying attention for my family, that was good enough. But at that point, I said, there's going to be millions of people damaged severely by these things. And I didn't have a background in it to have any credibility publicly. So I'm doing my best to do that. I want to get the word out. People who don't get vaccines of any kind, do your own research. Don't listen to me. But start looking into it while you can, because it happens in a hurry in those doctor's offices. It happens in a hurry with these manufactured diseases that pop out of nowhere. And they don't give you time to make a decision if you haven't done your homework. Now, you know, Steve Hilton, who's running for governor for California, was on our program just a week ago. And I asked him about a term that seems that he coined. which was that the cure, in this case, is worse than the disease. And he was, of course, referring to the COVID vaccine. How much research, how do you even do research? Because there's just so many layers of looking into this. So can you talk more about the research you did and how do you know it's accurate? Well, reading books, which doesn't guarantee you're getting the right answer, right? So you read a bunch of books on a lot of different subjects and you kind of synthesize it. What makes sense? What data are they presenting? What's your own experience? I think that's a huge one. And then you start looking at contrary indicators. So if they tell you it's safe and effective and you watch a friend of yours take the shot and immediately die, have these serious injuries, paralysis, Guillain-Barré, any of the numerous injuries from it, then you kind of... Piece it all together, you go, boy, those aren't safe and effective. Then you look at some of their own studies. For example, the Pfizer report. It's a famous report now that they petitioned the government to bury for 75 years. The Pfizer report comes out and tells you it was an absolute insult on the reproductive system. More women died. More women lost their babies in that era. than they could have from an abortion pill. I mean, it was more, the MNRI vaccines were more impactful than the abortion pill for aborting babies. We watched athletes. I watched, it was 1,100 athletes had passed away. And these are finely tuned athletes in the best shape of their lives falling dead on the field by 2023. That was two years after the shots. Wow. Then another one, Naomi Wolf, she's a liberal reporter, did this study on the Pfizer report, and it's amazing the data that has come out of that. So yeah, we still have to trust the research of other people. I'm not in a lab experimenting these things, but once you get smart people, and I'm talking about scientists, frontline doctors, there are thousands of these guys saying, look, this is awful, guys. And then you see the treachery of the government led Led by Anthony Fauci and how they Bent the rules, not bent them, just flat snapped the rules to get this emergency authorized vaccine in place. There's just no question. It's the worst thing to humanity since, I don't know, World War II and the Nazi regime. So it's awful. And I just try to get that word out. Can you talk more about, you said 1,100 athletes died. Can you talk more about that? That's obviously a huge number. And these are, you know, COVID by itself would really have a very low fatality rate. And if it did, it was higher, you know, for very old people or sick people. But for young athletes to die from the vaccine, that's very disturbing. Can you talk more about that? Yeah, the death to athletes, because it happens. I mean, I can think of some in my lifetime that died on the court. It's 27 times different. It was 27 times higher than any time in history for that. A guy by the name of Ed Dowd did a book called Cause Unknown, and it tracks not just professional athletes, but high school and college and childhood athletes. I've got the book back there on my shelf. Um, and he shows the, their, their death certificates. It shows their age. It shows what was happening, shows when they got the shot. So on both cases, I've got a list. It's gotta be, um, 400 people. It's just, I have to get a micro microscope out or not a microscope, but, um, magnifying glass out to read it. Death unknown was vaccinated, vaccinated, vaccinated all COVID vaccines. And so, but nobody wanted to hear that. Um, and it's, it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating to see that the media doesn't. Doesn't want to pick up that story. Shows the power of the money behind the pharma. What would you say made you share your views about the COVID vaccines and COVID mandates when so many other athletes stayed silent, even though they might have seen the same problem as you did, but they would not dare to speak out? Well, my hand got forced a little bit. I've attended Gonzaga University basketball games my whole life, except when I was playing myself. Thank Going to the games during COVID, they insisted on you getting a test or get the shots and wear a mask at the games. And I did that. I didn't get the shots and didn't do the tests, you, but got in the door wearing a mask. And finally, I sat there going, you know what? Ralph. I'm looking across at all these students. Who are forced to vaccinate in order to attend school and attend this game. I said, I can't wear this mask. So the mask comes off. Because I'm a public figure, because I'm a little bit more visible, they took away my tickets. And I'm just shortening this a little bit. They rescinded my lifelong season tickets. And so they're gone. And so it kind of forced my hand. It got some attention. I had to speak out in the newspaper. And I said, you know, this is a touchy area because people won't play. When you start talking against vaccines, they get very angry. A lot of nasty stuff comes out. And so I had to dip my toe in that water a little bit. That's what got me started in talking about it. And then I just started realizing with the dad and stuff, there's just no way that I cannot. I mean, I can see people getting hurt. To silence myself, to intentionally just go back into my little cocoon, I think would be darn near immoral. To know what I know and know what I've learned and not share it, you can't do it. Do you think anything changed, either your views on the vaccines or overall in society, since 2021 or 22 to now? Do you think people are more educated, they're more aware of what's going on? I do think so. I would qualify that with I'm still amazed that sometimes I talk to people and they have no idea about any of this. And I'm going, oh my goodness, how can this be? I mean, if you can have 1,100 deaths from professional type athletes. How nobody knows this. If you can have the Pfizer report, their actual report by the company who made one of the so-called vaccines report that you're more likely to get COVID if you've taken the shot. So it was more of a causational thing than it was preventative. So the effective part is a lie. The safe is clearly a lie. They had, what'd they have? 3,500 deaths and serious injuries in three months of testing it. That's in the Pfizer report. The fact that that information isn't common knowledge is an indicator that our news isn't to be trusted. I missed it. You can't get them. So I think people have tuned into podcasts. They have tuned into other forms of learning it because the vaccine uptake has definitely decreased in large numbers in the last three years. So it's slow progress. It should be massive progress with the dangers of taking a vaccine, knowing that there's mercury in many of them, aluminum, formaldehyde. Unknown anything. They have no recourse. You can't sue a pharmaceutical company if their product harms you. It's like one of two things in the entire world that you can't sue if they harm you. They have that protective mechanism through Congress in 1986. And so they have no, they have no motivation to make it safe. All they need to do is put, they could put anything in those things and say, Hey, it's good for this. It's good for a freckle. You want to get rid of your freckle? Take this. They don't even have to tell the truth because they can't be sued. It is an awful industry. And I would recommend anybody listening with no uncertain terms, you should avoid every single vaccine, do your homework. So you do it on your own, but, um, but learn about those things. They're awful. And the MNRA was... I'm going to say 100 times worse than anything before it. So, yeah. Now, I know, of course, there are very few, very few, but there are other athletes who spoke out or refused to take the vaccine, to go to the vaccine. And, of course, the one that really stands out the most, and he was very much criticized and, you know, taken out from different platforms, the tennis player Novak Djokovic. And, you know, if you or I or me, for example, don't take the vaccine shot, what is going to happen to me is I may not have been able to go to dinner at some restaurant with someone that I probably didn't want to go anyway. But in his case, in his case, he missed two Grand Slams and many other titles. And of course, he has 24 Grand Slam titles. So he's, you know, one or two more to put him on the all time record ever. He has 102 titles now and he's very close again to the all-time record. So he missed what he works out the hardest for, which is those Grand Slam titles. Now, of course, the year after that, he came back and he won both of them, the US Open and Australian, I think it was, the ones he missed because he didn't take the vaccine. What do you... What do you say to someone like that, who really has the courage to stand up for what they believe in? And he's not even anti-vaccine, he just doesn't want, he wants a choice to what he puts I have so much admiration for him I can't even describe. I'd love to meet him. I'd love to to chat with him. The courage it took for a present-day athlete, a guy who is going to wear the expense of his decisions right then and there, and he did. You mentioned, I mean, he's like Muhammad Ali to us Americans. I mean, for what he believed, he gave up a major part of The prime ripeness of his career. And they took it from him. It wasn't like he gave it up. He says, no, you don't have the right to put things into my body to allow me to play. He's kicked out of countries. I just, such great respect for him. And yeah, it might cost him ultimately being the best of all times, where clearly he qualifies for that role. I thought that it was hard to see so few athletes step out. Because I think if the athletes had, right from the get-go, and they said no, We're not doing this. And they did it verbally and visibly, it would have gone away because you can't overwhelm that kind of publicity. And then professional athletes, everybody cares about them, you know, from soccer to basketball to baseball. It doesn't matter. Football, if they're talking and they're using their celebrity, this would have ended in a hurry. It would have not become the disaster that it's become. And so I think we all have to live with our lack of involvement at some point in time in our lives. Well, we'll try to invite Djokovic on this program, hopefully, and maybe we can invite you, have a three-way discussion. I think that would be a very fun and interesting discussion to have. Until then, I want to ask you about the vaccine safety case that you're involved with that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Can you tell us what happened there? Yeah, almost all the way to the Supreme Court. It was brought up a couple of times. Thank What it was, it's actually a freedom. What I found out about vaccines, Steve, is that The freedoms that we were seeking, medical freedom is what we were seeking, so nobody has the right to put anything in your body without your okay, is actually about freedom. And you could see that freedom of speech was really shot down. you. And so I have a doctor friend and other doctor friends who lost their license. The Washington State Medical Board stripped them of their license, not because they did something wrong in their office or because somebody was hurt, but because they spoke against the vaccine narrative. They stepped out and said, look, I think it's kind of like we're talking today. They're saying, no, here's the study. This is why you shouldn't do it. This is why they don't have the right to do it. And because they had an opinion, it's protected speech in the United States of America. It's called soapbox speech. It's been protected since the Constitution was brought into play. And these guys lose their license. They lose their careers. They lose their reputations publicly because the Washington State Medical Board decides that how dare you question us, okay? So as a citizen, here's where my part in it was, as a citizen of Washington at the time, I have a right to hear that soapbox speech. I'm curious. I'm interested. I want to learn more. And you're going to say anybody that disagrees with you guys, I can't hear. So that was my portion of speech, not just freedom of speech, but freedom of being able to hear other people's free speech. It's hugely important to this government, to this beautiful country of ours, United States of America. And Washington state, they didn't agree. So we lose in Washington State, of course, because they, you know, because judges agree with this and this and this, get all the way to the Supreme Court, where the case they called Childs was settled right before us, was largely a freedom of speech case as well. And then what the Supreme Court did, again, I think they've done this a few times, they punted. The Washington State Medical Board said, OK, we lost on Childs. So, oh, never mind, we just won't, we're done. So they just basically, after two years of these people having to spend their money and their time defending themselves, losing their careers, the Washington Medical Board could just say, we're done. And because of that, there was no longer anything to argue with the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court punted it down the road and didn't rule on it at all. It's a huge case, huge, huge notion. So there was no judgment. It's just the case went away because they stopped their appeal or whatever. And they stopped it on the grounds of childs, which you can look it up. There's something, government versus childs or something like that. And you go look it up, and it was a freedom of speech thing. And as soon as that one ended, they said they had nothing more to say. I just find that offensive. In this country, you can ruin a person's life. For two, three, four years and just say, oh, oops, sorry, didn't mean to and walk away. I think that, I mean, just doesn't seem right. Not in this country. John, what is next for you? What are your plans? How do you plan to bring more awareness to this issue of vaccine safety? And what are you going to do about it? Well, we continue to do a podcast, myself and Ken Rutgers. Ken Rutgers plays football for the Green Bay Packers, great player there. We continue to do our podcast, and we try to invite people. We've had great guests, phenomenal guests, intelligent people that know this better than us, and we just talk to them. It's been a great experience. The people we've had a chance to visit with, we enjoy doing that. I don't know. You have your own sphere of influence, and hopefully... We're enlarging that sphere of influence so people will hear us. I want them to make their own decisions, Steve. I don't want them to go, hey, John said to do this or Ken said to do this. I want them to go, whoa, there's something there. I have enough faith in those guys. I guess I've seen them talk enough that at least to look into it. If you get a chance to look at the data, nobody would take these things. And it's such a moneymaker for the pediatricians. And the pediatricians have sued the people that are trying to get the rules straight because it costs them money. Plenty of data, if they. If they fully vaccinate their practice, up to 90%, they get a paycheck, plus they get derivative monies that increase their, I mean, it can increase, one doctor said a million and a half dollars a year, it increases their pay if they can vaccinate their patients up to 90%. So it's a huge cash cow. And as long as it's a big cash cow, we're going to be fighting it. Yeah. From what I understand, it's part of their quota. They get graded and they have a quota for this. Yeah. Imagine that. You're taking your most precious thing you have in the world as your child, and you take them into this doctor, and the doctor says, huh, a million and a half dollars over here for the health and well-being of your child, not just on a temporary basis, but for a lifetime. And they choose this. Shame on them. What would you like your legacy to be as one of the best basketball players in the world and now an advocate and speaking on medical safety? Probably the latter. I mean, basketball is great and everything about it was great and how I was treated was great. The fact that I have a voice now because of that is all great. I think it may even be a mission. You mentioned God earlier on. I said, maybe this is in fact what my mission is. What I've been waiting for is what is the rest of my life about? And so it gives me that window to try to try to impact this. As I mentioned before, it's not just freedom of medicine. It's freedom of speech. It's freedom. If you can't speak freely and get information freely, you don't you don't have a free country. If somebody can force you to take a shot, I don't care what it is. I mean, if it's even if it's something that actually is good for you, if they can force you to take that. In this country, to have a job, to go to events, to eat out, to go to the store, you don't have a country. So this is existential type stuff for the United States of America. It's that important, and I hope I can convey that. Now, have you talked to some of your friends, former colleagues from basketball, about getting involved in this? And have you had any success with it? Yes and no. Yes, I've talked to many, both colleagues and people that I've met afterwards that are involved. I haven't had a lot of success at having people feel confident enough in that position to step out and say something. I mean, I think you can, and I've also had a number of people that have stepped up and talked and it just gets lost. You don't see it on the news. You don't see it. That's part of the problem is. Even if you're willing to speak out, will they publish it? Will they air it? And I think I've had a little bit of both. I've had a lot of people tap me on the shoulder and say, hey, thank you so much. This is exactly how I think. This is so important. Thank But they're unwilling or unable or unlistened to. I feel this, you know, I think the way you were in the NBA and even the issue of medical freedom. It's really like the Rocky Balboa story, the Rocky story, where you have someone that doesn't have a chance you. and goes all the way up and he fights the Russian and the Russian is a foot taller than him and then he wins, you know. So I think it's the underdog story that America has and people have a chance and a much better chance than in countries outside the U.S. You know, it's much more difficult to make it as an underdog. So that spirit, I think, is what we embody and what you show in so many ways. So we thank you so much for that and really appreciate it. Yeah, it's awful nice of you. Thank you. Everybody loves Rocky, right? Everybody's the underdog at some point in time. So it's great. And I do think this country gives that opportunity. It's a special place. John Stockton, basketball great. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Best of luck with everything you do. Thank you so much. My pleasure, Steve. Thanks. It's been a nice conversation. Love it. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbayatepochtimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.