259: Burn Your Ears: Why Experience is the Best Mentor with Captain Scotty McKnight

In this episode, Nole and Kevin sit down with Captain Scotty McKnight, currently serving at the "Fire Factory" (FS 16) in the heart of Los Angeles County. Scotty brings a unique perspective to the fire service, having transitioned from a professional baseball career to the front seat of a fire engine.

The guys dive into the parallels between the elite environments of professional sports and the fire service, the mental game of visualization, and the weight of "failing" on the big stage. Scotty shares raw insights on his journey through the minor leagues, the grit required for 16-hour bus rides, and why he believes young firefighters must seek out "busy" houses to truly learn the craft.

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Transcript

Nole (00:08.683)
we go, are you ready?

Kevin (00:20.595)
Welcome back to the Fire You Carry podcast eight. Today is special. got Scotty McKnight after wonderful technical difficulties. We got the captain at 16. Scotty, welcome to the show, brother.

Scotty McKnight (00:34.449)
Thanks, thanks for having me.

Kevin (00:36.779)
It's pretty fun. This is how, you know, don't know how other podcasts do it, but we met in a parking lot in Yoruba Linda on my way home from work and got him a microphone and it worked. It worked. It works, dude. I don't know how everyone else does it, but I don't think nobody works our schedule, dude. Our schedule is insane and trying to get three different fire schedules to like align and have like an hour is miraculous.

Nole (00:47.082)
It works.

Nole (01:01.033)
It is a miracle every time it happens.

Kevin (01:04.013)
So I know the county guys will know your name and I think it's really interesting but I kind of wanted to start like from the beginning because I think you had a very unique experience coming up Scottie as being having a baseball career prior to the fire department and we just had tram on so we're in a baseball theme right now we just had a Hall of Famer but I just thought maybe we could start out where did you grow up and and how did you start getting into baseball?

Scotty McKnight (01:33.457)
grew up out Temecula. So, grew up out there until college and then I left and never came back. But yeah, I started probably just like everybody else, four or five years old and just wasn't any good. was a little kid growing up and then it's not like it is now with travel ball and all that. I don't think travel ball really started with us until about 15.

So you just played little league and I was always really small, is I'm still small, I guess, but I was like really late bloomer. So I was always under gun growing up. So I didn't get to, I played on good teams, but I was never like, I wasn't like scouted or anything like that, especially really, really young.

But yeah, just, my dad played baseball. He pitched at Cypress where I, that's the reason I went there. and he ended up getting offered a contract, but didn't take it as a pitcher.

But yeah, growing up, it was kind of weird because my dad's six four, like two 30. And I was just a little runt the whole time. So I keep looking up like, when, when's this thing going to happen? You know, but, um, I ended up not growing to like my junior senior year, the summer in between. But so I was always kind of under gun playing, you know, and, uh, but yeah, just.

Nole (02:47.883)
Hahaha

Kevin (03:02.531)
kind of liked it though. I don't know, I was always undersized and I wouldn't say a chip on your shoulder, but definitely I liked proving you wrong if you underestimated. I don't know if that was a thing.

Scotty McKnight (03:14.581)
100%. Yeah. I mean, I still have it. It's just somebody telling you no is like the best thing, best thing for you. You know, like, and I was told no a lot as a kid, you know, that, like, you're not big enough or you can't play here. You're not, you don't have the arm, all those things, you know, growing up, I think, I think that whether it's a chip or not, it kind of, gives you like a lot of a drive or motivation.

to push forward, at least for me it was. mean, I had tons of people tell me no, at least in baseball.

Nole (03:49.535)
Was there ever a phase when you were young, starting to play that it was more of the type of thing that you were doing it because it was what your dad had done? Or was it always something that you enjoyed and were motivated to do?

Scotty McKnight (04:01.783)
No, it was more me. don't think, maybe there's some guys that are more talented than I was that could do it for another reason, but I think you have to, you have to want to do it pretty early. And I had a younger brother and older sister, so my brother and I would play until dark every night. So that's kind of all I ever wanted to do. I did all the sports. I mean, we did.

soccer, football, hockey, golf, like everything. And I always leaned towards baseball, but I think it kind of started my brother and I with baseball just through my dad was just, he was really into it. And we got taught the right way kind of early on. So even though I was small, always had a good arm. always knew how, well, actually my dad can never hit. So I had to teach myself that, but.

Kevin (04:54.818)
Hahaha.

Scotty McKnight (04:58.181)
But yeah, I mean, we just had good, I think just good information pretty early, which I think super important, but I definitely think it was more me than it has to be. think you have to, has to be to make it as, I mean, I didn't, you guys just had a hall of fame around here. I'm nowhere, can't even drink a cup of coffee with that guy, but I think even getting to even college, you have to want to be there because you have to spend so much time doing it, you know?

Kevin (05:27.916)
Yeah, what's your thoughts on that? Cause it kind of blows my mind with kids now. Like it's travel everything by the time they're eight years old, you know, club soccer or travel, whatever. And it seems wild. Like I always felt like some of the best athletes I knew, like somebody like did exactly what you did. You played all the sports and I don't know if that's like a thing anymore. It seems like you're not making a high school soccer team even for girls or boys. If you're not in club soccer by the time you're eight or nine years old.

Scotty McKnight (05:58.413)
Yeah, I think it's kind of a, it's kind of a double edged sword with that because, like I, I don't, I don't agree with the club stuff early at all, but the problem is at least we're like my kid's ages are I'm even seeing his, my boy's eight. And so I don't care if he plays baseball or not. don't really, whatever he wants to do, but.

that other families are putting their kids in these lessons and all these things early. And so these kids are getting a lot more volume like early on.

And so they're better than the other kids. It's not because they're better athletes or they're going to be better. It's just that they spend so much time early on. And so it kind of forces everybody else to do it because your kid's not going to make the All-Star team or they're not going to make certain teams or they're not going to play on the team they're on because they're playing other sports, you know? So it seems like...

It's kind of like that. Like once it starts, then everybody kind of has to do it. Not that, and I don't want to, I'm going to hold off as long as I can, but if he even wants to do that.

Kevin (07:04.003)
Yeah, it's wild. There's I'm out in Temecula and there's like a inside the Temecula mall. There's like this D1. It's like this athletic group and they have trainers in there doing like cross training for all the kids in their different sports. And they're doing ladder work and plyometrics and all this different band work and all this crazy stuff. But I'm like, they're treating them like a professional or a college little athlete. There's a bunch of nine year olds running around. You're like, this, this kind of it's cool, but it's kind of crazy too, you know.

Scotty McKnight (07:27.835)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (07:33.187)
Yeah, I think it's just too much. I always tell my friends and stuff like that, they want to do it early. like, don't, if whatever my kids want to play, I don't want them to be the best 14 year old in the country. I don't, like who cares? You want to be the best 18 year old in the country or the best 20 year old in the country.

I don't think you had, like, I think a lot of these people want their little Johnny to be the best home run hitter in Little League. And it's like, cool. You got like a cool trophy and whatever, but the kids burned out by the time he's 14 and doesn't even play high school baseball. And I'm sure you guys played with kids like that too. Like I was definitely not the best baseball player all the way through the ranks, but I, I wanted it more. And I, I don't think I had, I never really got burned out.

But I think it's easy to do with kids. burn these kids out when they're 10, 12 years old and then they don't even get to play the funnest years of their life, which is like high school, you know?

Kevin (08:27.159)
You just love the game,

Kevin (08:38.211)
I think you're so right. It's like, you want it or does your kid want it? I'm like, yeah, if my kid wants to get more reps or do something, I'm in. I'll pay for that. I'll do that. But I'm like, if I'm pushing it and they're crying to go to this thing, and I'm like, no, we're done.

Scotty McKnight (08:55.897)
Yeah. I think too, now there's just opportunity for people have realized it's like a, there's a business model to it now. And so like when I grew up, it was, I played for ABD, which is they were based out of like, I think Marino Valley. So I was driving from Temecula to Marino Valley twice a week and, or Arrowhead Christian we were driving up to like we were driving to get to these places. And, but I think now there's a lot of these guys, they've quit their jobs and they're making these teams.

like their business. they have three separate teams and they really only have one, but the other two teams behind them are just to pay for that guy's mortgage. know, like they'll, they'll take everybody, but they're really only pushing their 12 kids, you know.

Nole (09:34.805)
Hmm.

Kevin (09:37.218)
Yeah.

It's $700 a month. That's what we need.

Scotty McKnight (09:41.955)
Right. I mean, my daughter does dance too. And she does dance and club soccer and it's everything I do is time consuming. But I mean, dance is four days a week. Her soccer is two days a week plus tournaments and the cost that comes with it. And then my son does five sports. it's it just never ends. It never ends.

Kevin (10:04.132)
All over it can't get him in recall then my god

Scotty McKnight (10:08.793)
Yeah. And they're not good. don't like, that's what I don't, I don't brag about them. don't, they're not, they're not good. They're 10 and eight. Like they're not good at what they're doing. They're just little kids, you know?

Kevin (10:21.511)
Keeping them busy, maybe. So you get, I mean, obviously you kind of get your size in junior, senior year. then you, now did you, was it a choice to go to Cypress or did you have like a plan in mind to say like, I'm going to attack this or?

Scotty McKnight (10:22.949)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (10:35.545)
Yeah. So I remember, I was getting looked at by, I think Cal Baptist and then, my dad's friend, like really good friend growing up, Bill Pinkham, he was the one of the coaches at Cypress. And then I was getting recruited from Palomar, but I didn't know D1 schools, nothing. It was just, that was it. So I was kind of,

Cypress is in the best conference in junior college. A lot of guys get drafted out of there. And so I kind of had an in so I went there and I was again, I was like under gunned. had two I had two red shirt sophomores in front of me, which so they're on their third year. And they had just won the state championship the year before. And so I went in there knowing I wasn't going to play that I would be like the the following year I would be the starter.

And that ended up not happening, so that's it.

But yeah, I didn't have a whole lot going into that out of high school.

Kevin (11:43.523)
Do you think that you still had that hunger when you're in junior college or did you have anything, any thought of like, maybe I got a shot at this thing. Or, mean, obviously you're still grinding, you know, you're a young kid, probably 18 years old, like, and so how did it get from that to being drafted at a saddle back into the, into the league?

Scotty McKnight (12:04.812)
Um, well, I always, since I was a kid, I wanted to play in the big league. I didn't, that wasn't even a thought. I still think I could play there like right now, you know? But, but if you don't, if you don't have that mentality, you'd never make it. You wouldn't even, mean, so I remember sitting in the jacuzzi with my dad and he's like, you know, in senior year and he's like, well, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to play baseball. And he's like, okay. Like there's, didn't have another plan. Um,

Nole (12:13.232)
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that.

Kevin (12:13.283)
Let's go.

Scotty McKnight (12:33.905)
It wasn't even, didn't cross my mind. So yeah, I always, I always wanted to. So that was my only plan.

Kevin (12:38.403)
I it.

Kevin (12:42.411)
Now as a dad, I'm thinking like, if your kid right now goes, I'm just going to be a baseball player, we're like, all right. So I wanted to be an astronaut kid. Let's create a plan here.

Scotty McKnight (12:52.932)
Yeah.

Nole (12:53.451)
What's your plan B?

Scotty McKnight (12:55.941)
But there's part of that too, it's like you shoot for the stars and if you come up a little short, you're probably okay too, you know?

Kevin (12:56.045)
Yeah.

Kevin (13:01.347)
Totally, I love it. So you start getting some looks into as this now, obviously, I don't know how old you are at this point, probably 19 or 20. I'm assuming when you're getting calls to go into the minor leagues and stuff.

Scotty McKnight (13:14.819)
No, so I was at Cyprus and I saw the way red shirt works. I don't know you guys know, but you can't, you can't even play. can't even pinch run. You can't do anything. You just sit. So I travel with the team. I practice, everything. And we come back to fall ball and a Pickler, the coach there, he called me in the office and, and I was doing fine. And he goes, Hey, I know we told you, you're going to be the starter next year, but

Kevin (13:23.863)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (13:41.979)
You're not going to play. And I just looked at him like, what? And he goes, we had the chance to get the Canadian national team shortstop. So he's like, he's our guy. So he goes, well, he's like, our team's better with you on our, you know, still here as our backup. But he's like, you know, we know your dad and we don't want to just hide you here. So he's like, we're going to look for some places for you to play.

Well, he didn't want me in the conference. he was looking, so he was looking at like Monterey Peninsula, like places way far away. And a friend of mine that I played played against in high school, Garrett Parcell, he ended up playing like in AAA and he was really good pitcher, but his dad was Norco's coach. I don't know if this is like too deep of a long story for you, but that's how it happened. so his dad coached at Norco forever.

Kevin (14:08.962)
Ha!

Kevin (14:30.849)
No, it's cool.

Scotty McKnight (14:36.139)
and I killed them whenever we played Norco and he was a buddy of mine so his dad happened to be really good friends with a pitching coach at Saddleback so he made a phone call to him and you're not supposed to do this but I went and did like a little tryout at Elsinore High School or something like that and I remember like throwing up in the parking lot because I was like like super nervous like

So he hits me some ground balls. I was in shorts. I was like diving all over the place and he goes, Hey, why don't you come back to my house tonight? We're having a party. So I go to his house in Marietta and he goes, he introduces me to his entire family. Hey, this is our new starting shortstop. He, and so now I'm like, crap. Like I better do something. This guy just hung it out for me, you know? And he had never even seen me hit. So I think what my buddy's dad had told him.

Kevin (15:17.986)
No!

Nole (15:18.175)
Hahaha

Scotty McKnight (15:32.461)
held some weight, you know? So I show up to the first day at Saddleback and the guys at Cypress were not happy because they're our rival in the conference. So the next, I show up at Saddleback, to move all my stuff, go down there. Well, the one guy that...

He needed a roommate. He's like, Hey, he was a super cool guy. I went to Point Loma after a Christian guy and he's like, yeah, man, you come, you can stay with us. And he goes, what position do you play? And I'm like, Oh, I'm shortstop. And he goes, Oh, that's, that's what I play. So I ended up, I ended up taking the guy's job that invited me to. Yeah. So, so yeah, that, and then I did good in the fall. And, um, so I hadn't had any college looks. hadn't had any.

Kevin (16:06.627)
Awkward.

Nole (16:06.827)
ha ha.

Kevin (16:10.403)
Awkward.

Scotty McKnight (16:21.841)
professional looks at all really. And we played Mount San Jacinto at Cyprus in like a tournament. And I had a good game and my coach who at Saddleback that got me over there, he calls me after and he goes, hey, you're going to get drafted this year after my first game. And I was, that's what I said. I'm like, there's no way. So he said, yeah, the Cubs are looking at you. So.

Kevin (16:41.515)
Whoa!

Scotty McKnight (16:49.361)
so I ended up throughout through the year getting, don't know, I think I talked to half the big league teams, you know, and they just, it's not like they're not chasing you. They're just sending you like a questionnaire and, but it's a big deal, especially when you go from not playing saying you're, know, not, not getting any looks to you got a good shot, know,

Kevin (17:02.561)
Yeah.

Kevin (17:12.099)
It's totally insane. And I always think about this, like when Noel's at war and you're doing this, like, this is a young man. You're like, how old at this time?

Scotty McKnight (17:22.553)
I was probably 19, eight, yeah.

Kevin (17:24.339)
Yeah, so when the Chicago Cubs start talking to you at 19, do you go like, dad help or like what, do do?

Scotty McKnight (17:32.055)
Yeah, I don't know. like, it's mostly just like a questionnaire, you know, you just fill it out. And a big thing that they put on there is like, what do think your value is? Because they want to know if you don't think you're worth 200 grand or a hundred grand, they're not going to pay that. So you kind of try and dance around that, you know, like I'm worth the whatever's fair for the round or things like that. But

Nole (17:46.921)
Mm.

Nole (17:53.675)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (18:01.371)
But I was, I was pissed. was mad at Cyprus, know? And, so I had, I had like dreamed, I put their hat on my, on the ceiling of my, above my bed. And I had dreams for like two months before we played them in, in league that I was going to hit a ball off their scoreboard. First pitch hit it off their scoreboard. Like it was crazy. And my mom. Yeah.

Nole (18:22.237)
Yes.

Kevin (18:22.516)
Well, let's go.

Nole (18:24.935)
serves you right for picking that Canadian.

Scotty McKnight (18:28.111)
He ended up playing in the big leagues for the Brewers. it actually, but he was, but yeah, my mom filmed it. And so when I just by chance, and so I, as soon as I hit it, all three of the coaches put their heads down with their heads in their hands and she has it on. was pretty cool. She got on film. Yeah. So, and I killed them every time we played them, I killed them, but.

Nole (18:29.867)
Canadians.

Kevin (18:31.797)
yeah.

Kevin (18:46.173)
Yes. I don't think there's anything greater than that.

Nole (18:48.762)
that's rad.

Scotty McKnight (18:55.857)
So I try to teach that to my kids, know, like more like the mental, because if you think something long enough, you know, it's going to happen. So.

Nole (19:05.045)
Hmm. Yeah. What a great lesson to in that that can feel a moment like that can feel like a huge setback because you're you're kind of where your dad was. You're where you feel like you want to be. And then they come to you and say, you're not the guy we're going to we're going to farm you out, send you somewhere else that probably didn't feel great at the time. But then in the end, you get a little bit of you get a little bit of justice on the back end of that, which is probably super fun. And that doesn't happen without the disappointment up front.

Scotty McKnight (19:26.799)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. So it was, was good. And I, but I, and I ended up after getting drafted, went back and work and trained at Cyprus, you know, more than Saddleback, but so I still lie, you know, and it wasn't, they weren't trying to like screw me over or anything. It's just, it's not a business, but even in college it is, you know, it's, they're, they're looking out for their jobs too. So,

Nole (19:50.816)
course.

Scotty McKnight (20:00.517)
Yeah, I was the one that got sent out.

Kevin (20:04.58)
I don't know what you guys' thoughts on, like there's a lot of like woo woo stuff about people saying like manifestation and stuff like that and like you got to put it out in the universe or it doesn't happen. But I think on the athletic side, there's always like visualization, right? Like when you like, can think about this and I do have that even like, know, our job or whatever I can like, I can see where this is going. I can see family and I think there's probably value to that. And it's essentially goal setting, right? I mean, I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but.

Obviously that is like the coolest thing in the world. You have this vision of hitting it off of your scoreboard and you do. I mean that's like a Rudy moment, know? And it's just like, I love that.

Scotty McKnight (20:42.137)
Yeah, I think it's huge. think it's visualization and anything, but I think golfers do it big time, you know, but a lot of baseball guys do it. I think it's kind of like a, lost, but I think a lot of people maybe don't know about it or know that the power of it, you know, but I think just seeing yourself doing something in your head, it makes it like attainable.

Nole (21:07.711)
Yeah, it makes it possible. was talking about this with my, with Indy recently, he started getting into skateboarding and we were talking about just, I was literally trying to get him to kind of jump off this little ledge, like clear this little flat spot off of a drop off. And I was talking to him about that. Like you need to visualize doing this and then believe that you could do it. And then you just have to go commit and do it. But talking about when

And I'm not going to remember what year it was, but when Tony Hawk landed the first 900, it was, it was, you know, the best thing that ever happened. Everybody believed it was impossible. You've skipped forward a couple of years and now there's all kinds of people doing 900s. And then that just continues to move on. But there's something about seeing something happen, whether you're, you're visually seeing it or seeing it in your brain and believing that that's possible. That does make it possible. And I think if you don't do that, if you don't visualize yourself succeeding,

You might still hit that ball off the scoreboard by chance, but it's a lot more likely to happen if you've thought that through and believe that it's a possibility. I don't know what that is, but it's definitely, I think it's a real thing.

Scotty McKnight (22:20.367)
Yeah, I believe in it. I mean, it's the same thing like when you got ocean fishing, you know, you go 50 miles out and you think you're far out. And then you hear of other guys catching fish right there. All of a sudden it's, it's a good place to fish. But before that point, it seemed like you're away far, you know, you're, this is too far. It's like until somebody's done it. And I think that's, you can internalize that too.

Kevin (22:46.431)
No doubt. So you get into the league and then how long did you bounce around and play baseball? I mean, that's your full-time job.

Scotty McKnight (22:55.995)
for four years. So I did, so they, right when you sign, they send you to mini camp and I went to, I was supposed to go to Montana first, but they ended up sending me to Arizona and I was there for two weeks. And that was interesting because that, there's a lot of Latin players, but especially in the Arizona league, there's,

Or the, what is it called? The cactus league. Cause Arizona leagues like for prospects, but the, when you first sign that first, it's like rookie ball, but it's like even below many like short season. And there was many times where I was on the field with the entire team didn't speak English and my coaches didn't speak English. So it's, it's like an eyeopener, you know, it's like these guys, it come from all over like Dominican, Puerto Rico, Venezuela.

Nole (23:40.683)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (23:53.111)
And I got to see firsthand like the, like a lot of the disagreements and a lot of the fighting and all that stuff with between guys is, it's because they can't understand the language. It's not so much, but the one thing that's, that's true all the way through is like, baseball is like a, its own language. So you don't need to know what they're saying. It just, it just moves, you know? so I went there for two weeks.

Nole (24:07.243)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (24:21.923)
And then I got moved up to short season. So they call it short season because it's fraught. And I came out of junior college, but it starts after the college season, the D1 season. So when all those guys get done with the World Series, they get drafted and then they go to short season. So it's like 70, I think it's like 76 games. So I was up in Helena, Montana, my first season and that was a blast. It was just.

I wish I could go back to seeing it 20 years later because I was 19, 20 years old looking out of a window on these beautiful landscapes and I didn't care about it at all. I can still remember driving past, forget what it might've been, the Gallatin or one of the rivers. And there's a house, just like a postcard, was a house, guy out fishing at four or five in the morning, fly fishing by himself with the sun coming up. It was like,

Nole (25:03.883)
Ha!

Kevin (25:19.436)
Mmm.

Scotty McKnight (25:21.221)
was just insane. And I'm looking through all this through a bus window, you know, it's just, and I didn't care at all. You know, it like, it didn't mean anything at all.

Kevin (25:24.579)
Ha!

Nole (25:30.325)
Dude, there's something about youth in that experience. When, when I was that age, I was living in Savannah, Georgia in the military and there is so much history and so much rad just experiences you can have on the East coast and being from the West coast, Noel now would have taken advantage of so much of that. And Noel then did none of that. I didn't care at all that I was in the East coast. The only thing I wanted was to move back to California. And, you know, now that I'm

quite a bit older than I was then. look back on that and go, man, I should have gone and seen this. I should have gone and seen this and taken my wife to go do this. And we didn't do any of that stuff. But when you're that age, yeah.

Scotty McKnight (26:03.601)
Just...

Scotty McKnight (26:10.993)
Yeah, you just don't appreciate it. So I got to go up and down the East Coast quite a bit. So then the second year, go to spring training and I broke camp with the low A. So there's everybody thinks like single A, double A, triple A, but there's actually like six levels. Cause there's a bunch of rookie ball levels and then there's, there's low A and high A. So I went to low A, which is in Charleston, West Virginia. That place is really cool.

Nole (26:12.133)
You don't appreciate it.

Scotty McKnight (26:40.187)
They all that whole league, it's the, it's the farthest bus league in the country. Other than, so you travel. I mean, we had 16 hour bus rides, 12 hour bus rides, eight hour, and that was common. And so you play the next day. It's not like you get a day off after that, you know? But yeah, we, we went all the way to Savannah, Augusta, all the way to Columbus. So we were all up and down the East coast.

Kevin (26:47.139)
Cool.

Kevin (26:51.98)
Wow.

Scotty McKnight (27:08.973)
And just getting to see all that stuff was really cool. And the stadiums were awesome. They'd put, you know, eight to 12,000 people in the seats. And so you kind of, for the first time had like a big crowd and so. Yeah.

Nole (27:18.891)
That's lot of people. That's rad.

Kevin (27:21.222)
All right, I got to know on a 16 hour bus ride full of athletes did the tobacco nicotine thing ever kick in or was like what are you doing on 16 hours on a bus?

Scotty McKnight (27:32.419)
Yeah. I think that's why there's so much, so much dipping in baseball. mean, there's everything. Well, it's, it's not on the bus rides, but like even on the day to day, right? So you get to the field at two o'clock to hit and the game's not until seven. So you hit it to take infield outfield at four. And then you just have downtime because you're waiting for the other team to hit and take their infield outfield, all that. So.

Nole (27:39.083)
The bus rides

Scotty McKnight (28:00.857)
You have hours of just doing nothing. So it's just, you're just bored. but yeah, those long trips are, there's, you gotta find something. And the problem is too, is like everybody, it's a, it's a charter bus. So you guys have been on those. everybody on that bus is over six foot. So they're not, they're not meant for like long trips, you know, like, so I,

Kevin (28:07.489)
Yeah, I did.

Kevin (28:21.794)
you

Scotty McKnight (28:28.473)
I could sleep anywhere. think it's because of that, but yeah, like sleeping at the station is nothing. I could sleep on a blue chair. could sleep on the floor. They actually had rules against sleeping in the overhead compartments. Yeah. Because you're so tired. Right.

Nole (28:43.884)
my gosh.

Kevin (28:43.905)
Are you serious?

Get the Dominican dude out of the overhead compartment.

Nole (28:49.899)
Scotty McKnight (28:50.735)
I mean, guys would sleep on the floor. Like usually you'd have like two seats to yourself. So you could kind of sit sideways, but it's not comfortable. It's a grind. mean, it's. And at the time we were making 1100 bucks a month. You know, it's like.

Kevin (29:06.487)
And I'm sure there's some hopped up Dominican two plane, you know, know, reggae tone on the bus or something.

Scotty McKnight (29:11.951)
yeah. Yeah. That was right when the daddy Yankee gasoline came out. So that was just, yeah. But it was cool. mean, you, think the fire service is definitely the closest thing to that. Just that, maybe the military, don't, I it wasn't in the military, but you're just with a group of guys for so you just do everything. There's, think the difference is like in, in the station as you get to go home.

Nole (29:26.153)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (29:38.225)
But you spend eight months with these guys, you know everything about them. There's no stone unturned and you shower with these guys. There's no secrets.

Kevin (29:53.028)
But it's true that that's the first time I like tried tobacco or dipped or whatever it was like we're on some brush fire on our fourth day and we're just sitting in a in the rig in the cul-de-sac doing absolutely nothing and just bored out of your mind and somebody says try this and I'm like that's interesting and you know you get a head change and I puked and then everyone laughs about it and then no years later I have a

Scotty McKnight (30:11.695)
Yeah. Well, they, a lot of people don't know. I don't know if they've changed the rules now, but when I was playing, you weren't allowed to dip in the minor leagues. So it's actually illegal. it's, it's probably all different now with the fines and stuff. But if you got caught, when I was playing, it was a thousand dollar fine for the manager and a hundred dollar fine for you. So when you're making 1100 bucks a month, you're.

Nole (30:19.508)
Hmm.

Kevin (30:19.719)
really?

Kevin (30:31.938)
Whoa.

It's a monk's salary.

Nole (30:36.233)
lot of money.

Scotty McKnight (30:37.091)
So what everybody does, they put their tobacco like way back in their mouth. And when you spit, don't like, you just kind of spray it because it sounds stupid, but it's like, it's like you're in prison kind of like you guys are going to do stuff to get around it, you know? And so they would have, they would have dip police that would come and sit in the stands with binoculars and they were allowed to go in your locker or in the locker room.

Nole (30:50.483)
Yeah, you gotta try to get around it, yeah.

Kevin (30:52.515)
What are you gonna do?

Kevin (30:59.874)
No way.

Nole (31:00.014)
my gosh.

Scotty McKnight (31:04.901)
They weren't allowed to move anything. couldn't touch your locker, but if it was just sitting out, then they would hit you. And so if them, but if the manager, you know, if the manager gets fined, he's not paying the fine. You're paying it for him. Right. So yeah, there's a lot of interesting rules. I got in trouble. I got in trouble one time I for throwing a tennis ball into the seats.

Nole (31:10.261)
Wow. Dip police.

Kevin (31:11.491)
Imagine if we had that, what if the county had a dipolese, we'd all be fired.

Nole (31:16.405)
Don't give me any ideas.

Kevin (31:22.664)
brutal.

Kevin (31:28.887)
That's

Scotty McKnight (31:34.641)
because they, you guys probably, know, Michael Brantley, he played in the big leagues a long time. He was a player with the Astros and the Indians, but he was our left fielder. And these guys did one of the stadiums, they always have like these small minor league stadiums do these crazy like promotions. So they did a, would write your name on the ball. And then after the game, they threw hula hoops on the field. And so they,

Kevin (31:40.771)
We're not baseball again. Okay.

Scotty McKnight (32:01.433)
gave the beer garden their balls early. So like the second inning, all these drunk idiots have their tennis balls and they start launching them at our left fielder. So my third baseman, I ran out there and sailing them back into the crowd. And I guess that was, that was frowned upon. So.

Kevin (32:07.479)
Hey.

Kevin (32:20.747)
You have professional baseball players throwing 80 mile an hour tennis balls. Yeah. that's funny.

Scotty McKnight (32:23.961)
Yeah. So our, one of our admin guys just happened to be at the game and we got fined. It was like 50 bucks or something. It was worth it.

Nole (32:35.481)
It was worth it.

Kevin (32:37.154)
So is the dream still alive? I mean, obviously there's probably a step up in level, right? When you go from like play junior college, so now you're traveling with these dudes. I'm sure they got international guys and all that, but is the dream still alive? Like, Hey, I'm still gunning for it. I'm going to show you, I'm going to make it to the big leagues. Or is it starting to say like reality starts sitting in after four years and saying, maybe I should do something else. When did the fire thing come into play?

Scotty McKnight (33:01.167)
Well, so I played, I got hurt that second year and the following year they sent me back down or I actually moved up to high, which is like Florida state league. And then the, my third year, after I got hurt, they sent me down to back to Montana and then went to the next spring got released and that, yeah, getting released is like.

I don't know how to describe it. That was pretty much like the worst thing you could ever imagine. Because this whole time you're just chasing, chasing, chasing, right? And then all of sudden somebody else tells you you're not allowed to play anymore. And so, get released, I drive home and I'm just like lost. I'm 20, I know, think I was like 23 maybe, just trying to figure out what to do.

Nole (33:39.403)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (33:51.001)
And I get a call from my scout who initially scouted me and he said, Hey, do you still want to play? we have this team. It's an independent team. So it's basically it's professional guys, but it's not affiliated with a team. So it's still pro baseball, but it's not like there's no movement. like, you don't go up or down. Like you'd have to get picked by basically get drafted again. So I, it was a team out of Ottawa up in Canada.

Nole (34:17.547)
Scotty McKnight (34:18.671)
And so it was a Can-Am league. was a, there's a team in Quebec, a team in Ottawa, and then there's four teams down in the States, like in New Jersey, Atlantic city. And that was interesting, you know, being in, in, French Canada. So when we went to Quebec, they all like, there's a couple of Canadian guys on the team and they told us, they're like, there's, they get taught English in school. They all know English and they won't speak it.

Kevin (34:48.387)
Yeah, it's all friend.

Scotty McKnight (34:48.465)
So you go, it's, yeah, it's very frustrating because you go into like subway or whatever and nothing it's all in French and the people there, they just look at you like you're stupid and you're like, I know you speak this language. Like, you know.

Kevin (34:59.796)
Yeah, come on George St. Pierre. Give me it. Yes

Nole (35:00.427)
Please talk to me.

Scotty McKnight (35:04.491)
So yeah, so to answer your question, once I told myself after I released, I'd give it one more year. and I just, I was, I was kind of over it when I went up there, it just wasn't the same, you know, half the guys on the team and I wasn't playing well and that could have been just a mental thing too, but, half the guys on the team were like never played pro ball and they were like out of college and they got picked up. And then the other guys were guys that had been released.

And so there was like this mix, like it's very, very different in college to pro ball. the, an example is like we had, we were losing nine, nothing. And one of our guys that, that was from college, nothing, nothing against them. It's just, it's just different. And he hits a home run and he pimps the home run comes in and he's like looking for high fives in the dugout and in pro ball that like, because you live and die on every game with.

Nole (35:35.403)
you

Scotty McKnight (36:03.257)
Like it matters, right? So like nobody would ever do that in pro ball because number one, if you did that, you're probably getting hit the next time you go up. And it just, it was just different. So, after that season, I was like, okay, I'm to start looking around. And my younger brother was, he had already gone through a fire academy. so he was already, on the ambulance. was a paramedic and doing all that. So.

That was always kind of my backup plan. mean, it sounds, it sounds bad, but like, I guess the fire service wasn't number one because I was just, I was on like a one track mind, you know? And, so my brother had already been through this Academy up North and at Yuba city. And I just wanted to get done quick. Like, I don't think maybe it's a good one. Maybe it's not, I don't know, but, all the stuff by where I lived at was you had to have.

And like you had to have classes, you had to have your EMT, all these things. And I didn't want to wait that long because I felt like I was an old man because in baseball, but in baseball, I was an old man. remember calling 23 year olds grandpa when I was 19 years, you know, cause they're old in that world. But so I, went up north to a fire Academy, finished that up and just took a couple tests. took LA cities and LA counties and,

Nole (37:16.299)
Hmm.

Kevin (37:16.525)
Yeah, yeah.

Scotty McKnight (37:30.703)
I got into backgrounds with LA city and, they never called me back. So I'm still waiting, still waiting for a phone call. And then County, I got a letter with them and then my brother had gotten picked up with Cal fire. So he was already working. So yeah, I was, I think it was, I was done September of nine plan. And I was in the tower February of 11.

Kevin (37:58.679)
Wow, that's a quick turnaround, yeah.

Scotty McKnight (38:00.527)
And that was during the testing when it was like a lottery. I just, got super lucky.

Nole (38:06.635)
What was the transition like for you coming out of that world of just live in baseball and you've obviously already got the experience of living with and being close with a group of guys, but how did your expectations of coming into the fire service world meet the reality?

Scotty McKnight (38:25.669)
I think it's pretty close. my wife's, I went through with my brother-in-law. he's a captain at 33. So we got hired at the same tower and everything like that. So we were kind of going through that together. Ryan Kettleslager. Yeah. And then, yeah. And so his, his uncle was on the job, Gino. And so they, we kind of, my, actually grew up with.

Kevin (38:38.467)
Who's your brother in law? yeah, we know kettle. Yeah. Great dude.

Nole (38:41.247)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.

Scotty McKnight (38:55.409)
his uncle and or his cousin before I knew my wife. So I've known her cousin and her dad or her uncle a lot longer than I've known her. But yeah, so it was I kind of knew. So I did a couple of ride alongs with Gino at I think he was at sixty ones. He was a captain over there. So I kind of I had an idea, but. That couple of years between playing and coming out was it was it was hard.

Kevin (39:00.92)
Wow.

Scotty McKnight (39:23.993)
because it's more like, I don't want to even come close to saying it's like the military, it's kind of similar. you're kind of out, like not with, it felt like I was with not civilians, but it was like, you're in this group of people that are like, they're the best player on their team, the best player on their college team. They're the best, you're with these elite people that have these

crazy stories. And then you come out and it's like, was just not that it was dull. And I don't want to sound like it's, I don't know how to describe that, but it was just a different way of thinking. I couldn't understand that people couldn't do things. I guess you could say, because I was surrounded by people for four years that were elite at everything. We'd go golf on an off day or we'd everything. These guys are just, they're

Nole (40:09.845)
Mm-hmm.

Scotty McKnight (40:21.881)
And I wasn't the best one out of all of them, not even by close, but you know, not even close, but they, they're just good at everything. Like I played with Ryan Braun and he, got drafted with him and we had a conversation one day about, JJ Reddick when he was breaking the record at, was he at Duke? And he was talking trash on Reddick saying I would have beat that record. He goes, I just didn't play basketball, but that's like the mentality. like.

Kevin (40:41.111)
You can.

Kevin (40:49.911)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (40:50.575)
And then you come out and it's like, I don't know. It's just, it was kind of different, you know?

Nole (40:55.455)
Yeah, I had a similar experience to that coming into the tower with the county and coming out of the world of the military and the unit that I was in. It's a very similar mindset where everyone's on the same page. Everyone is the best at what they're doing. there's just kind of like a there's a cohesive type of camaraderie there where we're all on the same page and coming into the county's tower.

Everybody's reason for coming to this line of work is different and their backstories are different. And you've got everybody from the guy who's been a librarian for the county up to the point where he steps into the tower to guys like to guys like me, guys like you and everything in between. So there's a huge there was a huge range in my tower. And with the guys that you work with on a daily basis, right, there's a huge range. And that doesn't make them. Less. Good firemen, right, because part of the strength of the fire department is the fact that.

guys come from so many different backgrounds and different experiences. But it is different that there were guys there that were 100 % going to give their best and their all. And I would like to say that I was in that camp. But then there were also people who were kind of trying to give the least possible, right? And just do just the bare minimum to get through. And that was a little bit tough for me. And just realizing that it's...

In some senses, I mean, obviously we could go way deep into this, it's okay that not everybody looks at it exactly the same way.

Scotty McKnight (42:28.017)
Yeah, that's, and I don't want to, you know, say sound like I was any better than anybody or do anything like that. It was just kind of like a, you know.

Nole (42:35.82)
Yeah, I did state that in such a way that it sounds dangerously close to me saying that. I'm going to let it sit exactly the way said it though. I'm not going to take anything back.

Scotty McKnight (42:40.465)
No, I, I, yeah. I just, I don't want to, it was just different, you know, but it was cool. And I, couldn't understand either. Like, like you said, somebody being okay with like quitting something. Like I would, I would rather, I'd have both my legs falling off before I let somebody tell me before I would stop doing something, you know, and these guys would just quit on a run and you're like,

Nole (42:56.629)
Right. Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (43:08.869)
It doesn't make like, it doesn't register with me because I haven't been around people like that, you know, for so long. I I couldn't understand it, but.

Kevin (43:17.571)
Yeah. And what's wild is that those guys are above average than the actual civilian population, right? Like, so it's like, yeah, there are levels to the game and you're in the, you know, in special operations like no, or, you're in the pro baseball, like you like, that's the elites in, right. And so it's like, but even like, I have brothers and friends and things like that, that they look at the fireman being like, how in the hell could you possibly do an academy? You know? So it's a, what a different, there's, there's levels to everything.

Nole (43:19.242)
you

Scotty McKnight (43:23.173)
Right.

Scotty McKnight (43:44.473)
Yeah, and, and okay.

Nole (43:44.629)
Did you get, sorry, did you get any kind of special attention in the tower because of your background? did the cadre that were leading know who you were and give you extra problems or were you able to kind of be the gray man?

Scotty McKnight (43:59.441)
I

Scotty McKnight (44:03.313)
No, I stayed quiet. I didn't say anything. Because to me, I failed. I wasn't going to go. You know what mean? So I didn't say anything. And then the bigger thing was hiding that my brother-in-law was in the class. That was, yeah, we told them at the very end. So.

Nole (44:09.291)
Ouch.

Kevin (44:10.723)
It's so brutal.

Nole (44:19.371)
Did you accomplish that? Did you keep that a secret?

Kevin (44:24.791)
But wait, did you know, did Ryan set you up with Lisa? Tell me how this works out with Regina or how did this, how did you meet your wife, Lisa?

Scotty McKnight (44:33.073)
So we met at Cyprus. So she was going to dental hygiene school and she knew a bunch of guys on the baseball team from high school and stuff like that. So I met her and I remember the first time I heard her last name, I was like, do you know Casey? And Casey's a city fireman. And she goes, yeah, that's my cousin. And so I've known Casey since I was nine years old.

Kevin (44:35.875)
Scotty McKnight (44:59.471)
So it was her cousin that, we, you know, that's how we started talking. But so I knew her way before I knew Ryan. so I was, we were dating all, so I got drafted and everything. mean, she's, she's been, through it all. she.

Kevin (45:14.029)
So you guys were dating while you were on the 16 hour bus rides and doing all that? Wow.

Scotty McKnight (45:17.009)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So she's, me being gone for four days is, I mean, with kids it's a little more challenging now, but she's, she's kind of a rock star. at, you know, eight months being away is a little different, you know, she'd fly out a couple of times, but it's eight months straight being gone.

Kevin (45:35.413)
Now did you do that? Did you get married before the tower or did you?

Scotty McKnight (45:39.121)
No, so we were engaged. I got married on probation. after my... Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I got...

Kevin (45:42.667)
Yeah, you got to get the insurance. got to have insurance first, you know.

Nole (45:45.173)
Hahaha

Kevin (45:48.129)
That's wild. And it just happened that through backgrounds through everything that you and Ryan are in the same class. Wow.

Scotty McKnight (45:53.617)
And we took different tests, which was crazy. was, mean, within the same, you know, same test, but we took them on different time, like a couple months apart. So.

Nole (45:57.404)
wild.

Nole (46:05.356)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin (46:06.34)
That's cool. I forgot about that connection, but Ryan came up to the Fire Up program with all the 33s guys and just what I've always liked him. We've always been around the same time and with you guys and great dude. That's such a cool thing.

Scotty McKnight (46:18.169)
Yeah, yeah, so we got to, we rode the squad together at 16th for three or four years. So that was cool.

Nole (46:26.921)
Yeah, so talk to me about that because before we hit record, obviously you and I are just meeting for the first time, but it sounds like you did have done a legit amount of time at 16 specifically, which is one of our, what did you call it, Kevin?

Kevin (46:41.603)
I mean, it's a premier fire station. It's like the, when you think of, you know, that's the fire factory, dude. It's watch top dogs. It's what you think of when they think of the county of like, Hey, these guys burn. It's like that 33 is one 70s. Like those are, there's those are the premier stations, right?

Nole (46:43.827)
It's a badass house.

Yeah.

Nole (46:58.207)
Yeah, yeah, So how did you end up there? What was your mentality when you got in, got past probation? What was the mindset and the reasoning for you going to a place like that?

Scotty McKnight (47:10.621)
well, I, I rode the ambulance for a little bit around that area. and then my first captain was Frank Laurel. was at, 74 was my first spot. And, so he would get me TXs, so that I could get calls. So I would write it, 41s and, 147s a couple of times during probation. just so I could get the calls cause I didn't.

Nole (47:21.117)
Yeah.

Nole (47:27.659)
That's cool.

Scotty McKnight (47:37.295)
I think I had 11 calls in six months at 74s.

Nole (47:40.339)
Yeah, 74 as we call Sleepy Hollow. work there pretty frequently. They don't get, they don't get calls.

Kevin (47:42.659)
And if you guys don't know the other 41s and 147s, it's like Willowbrook, Compton area and Linwood, they're dramatically more busy and more urban than where he was at.

Scotty McKnight (47:53.615)
Yeah. So I worked, you know, on the ambulance around the area. And then I worked on, you know, those couple of stations. knew that battalions where I wanted to work at, but, so I, out of my second spot, I bid 57th cause I wanted to get in the battalion. and then I ended up, mutually to 16th with the guy that was on the list to promote. So I did a year.

I actually did 11 months at 57s. I put it in early and they don't think they caught it. but yeah, I don't, it might be kind of like that. To me, it's like the Yankees, know, like I want to go play for the Yankees. I don't want to go, I would have a hard time sitting around. I still get bored. don't, not that I like being up at night, but.

Nole (48:27.379)
Yeah, nice.

Scotty McKnight (48:49.455)
I don't know. just, I've always kind of chased that. Like if I'm going to do something, I want to be at the busiest place or the most, but I don't know. It's kind of the station since I've been there, you know, I heard coming in that it's a bunch of guys like beating their chests and it's, it's a rough crowd, all this stuff. Maybe it, maybe it was like that, but, I think there's a more humble guys there than at most places, you know, every

Kevin (49:15.779)
No, I Yeah. I kind of want to dig into that a little bit because you obviously have, um, you're super sharp. You're super competent, like everybody hears. I think from my perspective, being a fireman in the battalion, like you're very well liked and very well loved. And it's really cool. I think it's an interesting dynamic though. When you think about you're relatively young to, and you have spent a lot of time at busy places from 16 as a fireman to 16 as a medic.

Scotty McKnight (49:32.356)
Thank you.

Kevin (49:44.42)
you know, driving at 147 and 57 and then coming back as a captain. I want to see about just that, fast forwarding. You obviously have a lot of time on your belt. You've definitely seen some fires, but it's you're a relatively young captain. And, um, I, when I've always liked about, seems like those busier stations, it doesn't seem to sweat the small stuff a little bit from my perspective. It's just like, yeah, let's, we're going to get the job done, but it seems like, like nobody's worried.

as much about uniforms or you're picking your battles, if that makes sense, as a captain.

Scotty McKnight (50:16.665)
Yeah, I like I grew up in that firehouse. I haven't just that's kind of what I'm used to, I guess. But I had some great mentors also. mean, Paul Schneider is my captain. John Baturvich I've had. And then just the guys surrounding us, had Daniel Levis, Jalotti, mean, Hoffman.

Steve Spar, I mean, all the guys that were there. I think the part of the reason why the guys in that battalion don't promote as quickly as maybe they do now is because when I was there, when I got there as a fireman, most of the guys, we had gray haired engineers, you know, and we had captains that were 20 year captains. So for me to think that I could relieve that guy or do what he's doing, it just wasn't even in the wheelhouse. And I think.

Nole (51:05.013)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (51:09.999)
I think that's part of the reason why there's so many guys promoting fast now is because they see a guy sitting next to them and they think, I could do that guy's job because they're not, they're not having to prove themselves because maybe they don't get the incidents. But I've, I've, I've seen these, these captains that had 20, you know, 15, 20 years as a captain. And for me to think that I could do their job, this wasn't like

realistic to me. And I did promote kind of early. was mostly because I just, I didn't really like driving.

Kevin (51:44.899)
We get that struggle. Yeah, I'm like, I'm out of.

Nole (51:46.109)
Yeah, I'm with you on that.

Scotty McKnight (51:46.703)
Yeah, because well, Schneider was in the museum. He runs our museum, right? So he had a detail for the last four years that he was there or that I was there. So every day he could, he was gone until he had a detail for half the day. So he wouldn't show up till five at night. So he was doing all the museum stuff. every off squad day we're driving. so not that I felt like I had it whipped or like that I knew.

Kevin (52:05.814)
You're driving all day.

Scotty McKnight (52:15.663)
I didn't know any of the numbers. knew, I knew how to pump everything on the rig, but I couldn't like go, I just didn't know the numbers or how to get them, you know? And I felt very, I pumped more fires as a fireman than I did as an engineer. You know? And so when I became an engineer, I, it was just kind of, it wasn't anything new. And I just, I didn't, I didn't like stand outside. I felt like I was like a spectator. Like it's just boring. Some of the guys like it. I just, it's not for everybody, but.

Kevin (52:28.641)
That's hilarious.

Nole (52:28.725)
Yeah, yeah.

Nole (52:39.435)
Hmm. Yeah.

Kevin (52:39.959)
Yeah, you're a tip of the spear guy. Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (52:46.097)
and also I, I had started working on Schneider when I was a medic there to take his spot. So I was kind of asking when, when he was leaving and that's kind of why took it when I did, because it would give me enough time to come back.

Nole (53:02.119)
Mm hmm. You've kind of already asked this, but at the beginning of our conversation, I thought of this question. And the reason I'm going to ask this in the way that I am is that I've had several conversations recently with young guys that are either getting ready to come on the job or are new on the job, either with us or somewhere else. And I would love to hear your perspective, maybe a little bit more fleshed out on why you thought it was important to go to a busy house, but maybe even deeper than that.

why you would recommend going to busy houses for new guys coming on the job now. just an added qualifier on that, we've seen a shift. I know all three of us have seen a shift in the brief amount of time we've been on the job and where those spots used to be kind of fought for and coveted. And that's not so much the case anymore. We do have a lot of people coming on the job now who are more than happy to go to Sleepy Hollow 74s and stay there. So I don't know, maybe you could give me a little bit of a...

feedback on that for the guys that are listening who are young and either new on the job or just coming on.

Scotty McKnight (54:07.537)
Yeah, I think that's the most valuable thing we have is to gain experience from not only guys, because now there's not really guys in front of you. When I first came on, there was guys like Marshall Ott teaching you how to do things. He's an unbelievable mentor. He knows everything about everything, right? Or Billy Curtis or all these names you have, right? Those guys are all gone now. So I think...

Nole (54:35.52)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (54:37.105)
Uh, gaining experience through actually doing it is, is more important than any class you could take or any target solutions or any like all these things that they're offering to us. It doesn't, it's like you're, you're a paper fireman. And I, for me, it was super important to be busy, I think, because it's even like a small thing, like burning your ears, right? Like, I think everybody should have to go burn their ears for your captain, like, or even a good fireman. Not that I'm.

Nole (54:50.763)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (55:06.609)
promoting burning your ears, but how else are you going to know how far you can go to go grab a kid that's in a burning building? You're just guessing at that point. And to go somewhere and sit and not, and also I think there's like a timeline too. So if you don't get busy early enough, the chances of you finding a spot later at like the station, 16s, they're not going to let you come in. Right.

Nole (55:08.384)
Yeah.

Kevin (55:33.08)
No.

Nole (55:33.259)
Yeah, because you've been sitting at 74s or 66s.

Scotty McKnight (55:35.951)
Right. you know, Moca's all, he gave me a good thing when I promoted a captain, he goes, he goes at every rank there's, only get so many new guy cards to pull. And he goes, so he's like, I even have that as a BC because eventually you're not, you don't have like, I'm a new guy anymore. So you sit at these slow stations and now you have three, four years on. You haven't done anything.

You have no experience. You're not going to all your teaching the guys under you is what you think to do. It's not what you've actually done. You know, that's what I like when we do forest lunch and stuff like that is to tell the guys to do the book way and then tell them this is this is the way that actually works for me. Right. Or and everybody's different because like I I do the same thing like teaching the kids base like my little boy baseball.

Kevin (56:24.482)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (56:32.901)
There's no right way to do something. used to jump over fences, you know, like you could do all kinds of things. they, what guys don't understand is like the tower is just a guideline so they can grade you. That's not necessarily the way to do it. So it just gives you like a baseline. But I tell it like the new guys, when they come right along or, you know, guys get an overtime, it's like, you guys can be creative with how you do things. You don't have to like go by the way that.

Kevin (56:45.985)
Yeah, you're not learning anything.

Scotty McKnight (57:02.619)
just because somebody hasn't cut a lock for you, you don't have to stand there. You can jump a fence and take the, you know, you could do all kinds of different things. And I think the guys sitting on their hands at these slow stations, it's like, you get accustomed to that. And then all of sudden you want, promote to engineer and you, you're kind of forced to go to a station that's a little busier.

Scotty McKnight (57:32.635)
Yeah, it kicked me out. sorry. It like kicked me off the screen.

Nole (57:33.515)
Did we lose you?

I still hear you.

Kevin (57:36.568)
You're back.

Kevin (57:40.866)
No, it's an interesting dynamic, right? Because like the reality is like Nolan, I were on a standalone truck for when all was wet over 10 years. I was nine years there at the same place. And when that area, we, cut a lot of cars for some reason, they had a lot of TC trapped. And then we got geeked into auto X and then we started training and we started cutting more cars. And to this day, I think we're pretty good at cutting cars. And the only reason is because we cut more cars than everybody else. Right. And it's like,

you're going to get good at fires because you've had more fires than everybody else. And I think no matter how many classes you can take and how much theoretical stuff you can do, you just have to get hands on the tool and you have to get reps on that thing. And I'm like, it's kind of the same. think like you're right. Like you, I feel like whenever you kind of geek out on early on, like if you went to a brush station early on, I feel like those guys become brush guys. You know, if you go to a truck station early on, like I was that, I was like, I'm kind of a truck guy. You know, if you got

Scotty McKnight (58:31.697)
Right.

Kevin (58:36.577)
to 16s early on, you're like, dude, I'm a structure guy in the hood. That's what I, you know what mean? That's my own little personal opinion.

Scotty McKnight (58:41.8)
Yeah. No, I, I a hundred percent agree. You know, and I think, I think a big thing is to be uncomfortable, you know, like I used to sit in the front seat sometimes when, when Polly was gone and act captain as a five year medic, you know, it's like, I was very uncomfortable, but I, I, to me, it was like, I've stood, I've failed in front of 10,000 people on a baseball field, like let a ball go through my legs. So having people scream at you that you suck is like,

Kevin (59:07.117)
Mmm.

Nole (59:07.691)
You

Scotty McKnight (59:10.945)
way worse than being a little nervous about a fire. don't, I just don't understand. I can't understand it. I mean, I understand why guys are afraid to fail and all those things, but I think that's the only way you could learn and be good at what you're doing is to actually do it.

Nole (59:28.383)
Yeah, you said something really interesting a minute ago on the point of failure. And I really appreciate the idea that when you're new, there's allowance for that, right? Because you haven't been around, you don't know everything. And so when you do make those mistakes, you just get taught. But if you've gone and done three, four, five years in slow spots, you don't have the experience, and then you try to go to a place where you're going to get that experience, then you no longer have that kind of

new guy grace card, right? Because you're not the new guy and you don't have the experience. So you still have to learn and do all the stuff, but you've now been around for a while. And so there is the reality that guys are going to look at you and go, what do mean? You don't have to do that. You've been around for five years. What have you been doing? And the answer is not much. So that's, that's, think a really good pitch for the young guys coming on.

Kevin (01:00:20.481)
Yeah. And it happens later in your career because now I got guys like Josh Nessa, who is phenomenal at everything. Right. And we were doing like month ends on the squad and I've been off the squad. was off for six years before I came back and be honest, thirteenths isn't really a squad. Right. So we were doing like month ends or something and I had to ask him questions about it. And he's like, you got to be kidding me. You have like 14 years on and you don't know how to do this already. Like figure it out. And he's right. I'm like, dude, I got to step my game up. I got to start doing like.

Nole (01:00:41.205)
You

Kevin (01:00:49.665)
I got to start knowing how to do the basics, right? And because, and so, but that's what one of the things I love about like being around, you know, Scotty and all these guys is like everybody kind of in our world is kind of a really competent, I wouldn't say all star, but there are a lot of all stars. I mean, you, brought them up Billy and even our Billy McDougall or whoever it is, like there's all stars across the board. And like, you just, you have to kind of level up. You have to level up because everyone's pretty good at what they do.

You can't kind of hide.

Scotty McKnight (01:01:20.697)
Yeah, there's definitely no hiding. I think, you know, especially at 16s, I would even say the whole battalion, there's, I'd say probably 95 % of the battalion you could put in any seat on that rig or on any rig and you'd be better than most, you know? And like what you're asking earlier about, you know, like managing or being somebody's boss, like I never...

Nole (01:01:39.861)
Mm-hmm.

Scotty McKnight (01:01:49.923)
I don't know if it's just like, I don't think I'm good enough to be their boss yet or like, I don't know, but I just don't think, I don't treat like our crew like that really. Like everybody's on the same playing field. It's just, I have a different role with that. I'm, on the radio and I'm the one making the decisions, but it doesn't make me any better or worse than anybody. But I think if I swap places with anybody in that station.

they would do just as good of a job, you know, they don't have maybe the reps that I do now because I, you know, I'd get a couple of years a captain, but, I think, I think you could do that in a lot of places in that battalion and a lot, a few other battalions, you know, where you could, everybody's so competent and even levels above them that I think it's pretty, it's pretty interesting how they're able to do that, you know,

Nole (01:02:39.839)
Let me ask you a question about that. Yeah, yeah, me either. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that. But let me ask you a question for guys kind of on the other end of the scale, the guys that have been around for a while that are either promoted or getting ready to promote to captain into the kind of the leadership role in the station with your experience coming back to 16 and then now being being the leader of guys that you worked, you know, at the same rank with for so long.

Kevin (01:02:39.969)
Not me yet. I got, I got work to do. Not me yet.

Nole (01:03:09.375)
Would you recommend doing that or would you recommend doing some time outside in another station with guys that you maybe don't necessarily know as well?

Scotty McKnight (01:03:19.409)
I think it's huge to leave. I didn't leave by choice. When I promoted to captain, I went to 170s. I went there for three months and I knew most of them and I was with Craig Ross and he's running around like crazy and in a good way, but he was great to me. The guys were awesome, but I definitely got to leave for a little over a year. Then I got...

Nole (01:03:27.465)
right the department forces you out yet

Scotty McKnight (01:03:48.291)
sent out to, to El Monte at one six eight and I didn't know anybody. didn't even know the cross streets. And I think, and I had a chance to go back to one six fives. Excuse me. But I think that was, I think that was a huge, like a growing point for to become a captain, you know, is to be in a place where I didn't know anybody. I didn't know my driver. didn't know.

anybody in the battalion didn't even know the cross streets around the station. And I had to kind of learn. I had to learn by myself, you know, and I think how'd I come straight back to one six fives because even one seventies is pretty similar, you know, the battalion is similar to the 13, but and those guys operate kind of the same way. But when I went to El Monte, it was they just do things differently and not that it's a bad way, it's just different. so I think.

I think it's super important to leave and to be, again, it's just being uncomfortable. I was very uncomfortable. went, I went over there and I remember Ryan McKeon called me. He was down at nineties and he said, Hey, you know, you have a bunch of brush down here in nineties, right? You have your brush gear on the rig.

Kevin (01:05:01.001)
Wait, you're narrowed it. think that's the most brush fires in the county.

Scotty McKnight (01:05:04.625)
Right. Well, I had no idea. I, from that day forward, I put my stuff, I put my brush gear on the rig and we had brush fires and, I don't think I had to do any first in size ups on them, but, but we had a couple and I'm showing up on a brush fire in El Monte. was just, I was very uncomfortable. And there was, there was a lot of things there that, um, uh, like the hazmat that they had a lot of tanker rollovers and stuff like that. I mean, the station sits on a train track.

Nole (01:05:31.645)
Mm-hmm.

Scotty McKnight (01:05:35.151)
So it was good to have to get out of that, you know, 16s area because I mean, that area is a grid system. It's a super easy, it's the easiest district to learn, but it's the hardest district to drive in because the people there and the drivers and...

Kevin (01:05:51.679)
There's triple triple parked on a tiny little street. I don't even know how you don't hit a car every single hour of the day

Scotty McKnight (01:05:58.351)
Yeah. so the drivers are great. And like, I just got good at being uncomfortable, I guess, or not good at it, but I just got used to it, you know.

Kevin (01:06:08.931)
Let me ask you this. I want to back up real quick because you, and Lisa have three kids, right? And they're 10, eight and three now. So I'm thinking the 10 and eight year old is similar to what I have. Mine are 11 and 12, but I'm assuming you're a fireman or a medic at 16 when you having kids back to back like this. And I know for me, I sucked at sleep deprivation. I was great at work and I'm like on the squad at one five eights and it was busy and uh,

Everyone loved it and I loved going on fires. I loved going on everything. And then I'd come home and I'd just face plant and I'd just be like face in the bed or fall asleep on the couch at 930. And my wife was like, enough bro. Like this isn't really working. You're like the greatest at home. I mean, you're at work and you're like a bum at home. So I didn't know if you have any strategies personally, like for your own health, you seem to have stayed real fit. You play golf, you're an athlete. I saw you in the sauna with your shirt off. You're all lean and mean.

So like, how have you been able to like, yeah, like how have you been able to like offset the amount of actual, I mean, you guys, you've been up for years.

Nole (01:07:06.069)
Ha

Scotty McKnight (01:07:14.193)
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, my daughter was born when I was in medical, when I was in internship. So I got out of internship. She was, I had to complete my internship two shifts early. Actually, I had to double up two shifts 48 hour preceptor internship days, which is a nightmare. Cause if you, if you screw up one of them, you have two bad days. And so I was told before I left 16th, if you don't pass in 20, don't come back. So.

Kevin (01:07:32.131)
brutal.

Nole (01:07:42.067)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:07:44.259)
So I got done with that. my oldest daughter was, she was born and then I was on 16th on the squad. that's all they know. But yeah, and then my boy two years later than that, I don't know. I'm just used to being tired, I guess. don't know. I think the first time we kind of realized it was we were living down in Newport Beach and I think she was like four months old and she rolled off the bed.

I was laying next to her and she ended up roll off the bed and we're like, all right, we got to get a daycare, do something. I was, it was hard. It was really hard. But my wife's, she, her dad was a cop in Whittier and she has, I think three uncles. I think we counted 17 the other day between both our families that are either cops or firemen. So she doesn't give me any slack. There's it's not like, I hear some of these guys like, my wife let me go to sleep. It's like.

Kevin (01:08:35.789)
Wow.

Nole (01:08:36.085)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (01:08:43.161)
Now I come home and it's just go time, but she's a, yeah, she's awesome. She does, she holds, she does most of the heavy lifting, you know, and she, she's a dental hygienist. she, when she works, I got the kids and, but having the third one was definitely, it's a little easier now. Cause I, I know the, I know the program, you know, with the first two, you're kind of running around with your head spinning and don't really know what to do yet. And then we had.

Kevin (01:08:44.386)
Okay.

Scotty McKnight (01:09:12.197)
like a five year gap. So I feel like I get a lot more like one-on-one time and I'm taking advantage of that time with her, you know.

Kevin (01:09:23.191)
How do you guys balance? Because as a fireman right now, we're pretty lucky. I can take any day I want off. You got two working parents. You got three kids. And you're working a super busy place. And then somebody recalls you for a Saturday or Sunday when you had plans at your boys' baseball game. Or you're doing all this club and travel stuff and dancing. How do you figure this out?

Scotty McKnight (01:09:45.521)
I don't know. My wife, I mean, she I'll give her all the credit because she she does. She does a lot, but she works two days a week, so she works Monday, Tuesday and then. But yeah, when I get recalled, we have my in-laws are great. They're down the street, you know, like half a mile away or so. And they help out a lot. Yeah, when they say it takes a village, it definitely definitely takes a village, especially with what we do. But yeah, the recalls have been.

They're not, they're just kind of goes in cycles, but yeah, we just lean on friends or family a lot. And then my wife, she takes a lot of it too, which sucks, but she does great.

Kevin (01:10:29.027)
Now, do you have like, we've had Evan Holquist who spent most of his career at 33s and he has like these, you know, like non-negotiables, like he is going to get a workout in even when he doesn't feel like it. He tries to get into like some cold water in the morning after a bad night. He has a whole bad night protocol that we've put up here. But have you had any, have you thought of what has worked for you? Cause you've stayed lean and like, I've seen some guys that would say they get busy and they get on a super busy squad and they just let themselves go because.

Scotty McKnight (01:10:46.769)
You

Kevin (01:10:58.275)
They're not sleeping and they're eating burritos at three in the morning and donuts at seven. You know, I mean, it's just like one of those things.

Scotty McKnight (01:11:05.457)
I definitely, I wouldn't say I'm like a workout no matter what. I started going before work, you know, like at four 30, just because it, seems like you get kind of the day it's, you you're not in control of your day, you know, and it's, there's always something coming up at the station or, I don't know, it's just busy. So I'd rather just get it done early and, you're super.

Nole (01:11:33.599)
Those are Jocko

Kevin (01:11:34.977)
Yeah, that's odark30.

Scotty McKnight (01:11:36.625)
And I'm not saying it's every day, but I try to, you know, and I found that I have like more energy up until like two in the afternoon when I do that. But yeah, it's like, if you don't get a workout in before noon, at least at our station, I feel like it's not gonna happen. Cause it's just, it starts getting busy and there's motivations gone.

Nole (01:11:48.299)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (01:11:57.164)
No way, yeah.

Kevin (01:12:09.453)
So outside, mean, obviously you're busy, but you got some great dudes like Ian Nichols, who I'm friends with and a bunch of you're talking about fishing. And I know you're pretty still into the golf thing. Are you finding time to have like, are those things that give you joy, like outside of work? Because I know I'm just going to say, like, sometimes you work in those areas and it can be depressing because you see like some real low income and sad things and you'll see, I'm sure you've seen baby's birds.

born burned and I've seen you've seen it all right there's nothing you probably haven't seen working in that area are there things that like you do maybe consciously or subconsciously to keep your head right

Scotty McKnight (01:12:51.613)
I think, but well, it all changes, you know, with kids and their, their schedules kind of take priority. But I try to, like before I used to surf a lot when we lived in Newport. So I'd come home and surf and then, hang out with the kids a lot. but yeah, it's just your priority shift. Once you have kids, you know, they, the kids kind of, I mean, you could look at the schedule we have and it's just like, it's every day. I mean, I'm even today I had.

my daughter this morning and then going to pick up the other kids at school, taking my boy to the batting cages. My daughter has dance and then we have basketball later tonight. So there's not a whole lot of time. I think the trick at least for me is to get the kids involved in whatever I like to do. I take them to, I take my older two to like islands. We go hit golf balls or I just play with the kids. I've never really.

You know, Johnny Otten, you he always talked about his cup being full and all that stuff. don't, since I was a kid, I've always been able to see, I don't like watching things actually happen, but to see gory stuff or to, um, that stuff really hasn't affected me maybe as much as it should. don't know, but, I just have a bigger cup. I don't know. Maybe it'll catch up to me eventually, but I have had one, you know, when I was, um,

I was a new fireman, had a bunch of kids squished up in a car and thankfully I didn't have any kids yet. that one, was before we had peer support and all that stuff. And I think that one jacked me up pretty good for like a year. So, and I didn't really know. I don't, nobody really, I think I got a phone call at the station like, Hey, I heard you had a bad call. Are you all right? And that was it. That was it. And I didn't know any better. I'm like, yeah. So, but yeah, I, I think just,

Kevin (01:14:38.145)
Yeah, we're good, dude. Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:14:48.785)
I just try to stay busy. My wife's, she's really good about, you know, let me go out and hunt and fish and do all those things. And I get to now my little boy is getting older so he can go out and it gives me, it's a little easier excuse to get out there. But I think, I think having the right wife or girlfriend, whatever is, is huge because there's a lot of people that it wouldn't be like that. You know, she's, she's really good with me.

having my own time when it's possible. A lot of times it's not possible and we just grind through it, you know.

Kevin (01:15:25.603)
Yeah, you're like, I'm going fishing today. Like, cool story, bro. No, we have four practices, right?

Scotty McKnight (01:15:29.603)
Yeah, that's so it's it's definitely so I have to plan it out a lot farther out but.

Nole (01:15:35.881)
Yeah, getting the kids involved though, that's huge, especially when the kids are that age. Finding a couple of things that you can do with them, I think that's huge because they do take a tremendous amount of our personal time and it's the best, right? You wouldn't want it any other way. But finding things like that where you're taking them to hit golf balls or even taking them fishing with you or whatever else, I think that kind of stuff is super important because

Just sitting on the sidelines and watching while your kids are doing stuff. That's, that's rewarding in a certain way, but it's not really giving back to you as much as doing other stuff. So we've got a lot of buddies that do different things, jujitsu and whatever with their kids. And it's, it's important for sure. Especially in that phase when they require so much time, which doesn't last forever. I got a couple of adult kids and they don't require any of my time. And if I don't try to get time with them, then

Scotty McKnight (01:16:25.657)
No.

Nole (01:16:32.191)
There isn't any. So that's a phase for sure.

Scotty McKnight (01:16:34.289)
That's definitely, well, even having our three-year-old, you know, when she was born, I kind of realized, I definitely take more time trying to hang out with them and stuff because I don't know, just when you have two kids right back to back, it's like you don't really realize what you're in. And then all of sudden they're four and five or four and six. so then we had our last one, Blakely, and she's kind of like reset everything. I'm kind of like...

Kevin (01:17:03.235)
Hmm.

Scotty McKnight (01:17:03.791)
Trying to do more one-on-one time with all the kids and all the things you kind of forget about. I'm realizing that like it goes pretty fast, you So I think it's important if you can realize that early, it's probably better than later, but.

Nole (01:17:12.011)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:17:17.507)
We have these off track. have these legendary guys at our station. We have Stevie Miller, who's one of my favorite captains of all time. Just a total legend of 147s in a real busy area. But he's a baseball guy, and like, you know, have Josh Nessa, who's just an absolute freak of nature. And like he was as much I've never seen Josh be unable to do anything. And we were talking about you. And he was just like they were both talking about like, man, like if you only know

like less than 0.001 % of people will make it to as far as Scotty made it in baseball, right? And then you talk about like feeling like a failure in coming to the fight, which is wild, right? And then you hear, and like Stevie was doing the, like the county baseball team and he had guys like you and Jason Gorman and dudes that played pro ball and said they were just smash people. You know what I mean? Like you compared to Nolari on a bat or whatever would you just make us look like

Scotty McKnight (01:18:01.584)
Yeah.

Kevin (01:18:16.195)
buffoons, you know, and it's, but it is an interesting thought of, like you said, I felt like a failure and yet you're better than 99 % of the entire population.

Scotty McKnight (01:18:17.809)
Hello.

Scotty McKnight (01:18:29.263)
Yeah, I don't know. I think that's just how I feel. don't know. just feel like I... That was a big... Like when I got done playing, I felt like I let so many people down. But yeah, I mean, I still... I think a big reason why guys go broke, even these basketball players are...

You're like, you got a million dollars when you signed whatever it is and they blow through it. And it's not that they're, well, they're maybe financially irresponsible, but I think a lot of it is it's a mentality thing. I wouldn't you would have never heard me in a million years when I was playing say that I was planning for anything else. I wasn't even in my thought. And for me to go spend five thousand dollars on something stupid.

Who cares? I'm going to make more money when I make the big leagues. And if you don't think like that, and I think that's part of the problem why a lot of these guys rip through their money is because I can go buy a nice car because I'm going to make more later. Because it's right. Because it's not even in your thought process to plan for the future. at least how I thought is like, if I start planning for the future, I'm done. I'm done. There's no...

Nole (01:19:24.235)
Mm.

Nole (01:19:35.935)
Cause I'm going to be successful. Yeah.

Nole (01:19:48.299)
Hmm.

Kevin (01:19:48.899)
Hmm.

Nole (01:19:50.709)
No more fire.

Scotty McKnight (01:19:52.239)
Right. There's, well, I'm just done playing. if I, that's already enough doubt because there's so much doubt the whole way through as it is that if you add a little more doubt or there's another avenue for you to exit, you're gone. Like there's, if that makes sense at all.

Kevin (01:20:06.628)
Yeah. Well, it does. So let me ask you this then. So we know how you would measure success as a baseball player with your batting average, or if you made it to the league or you made it to the hall of fame, like we had Tram. How do you measure that as a career in the fire service then as a captain, knowing that like there are calls going out in six teams right now? Like, how do you met like it when we leave, we'll be replaced really quickly. How do you measure that six in your mind as a successful captain or a career put in?

Nole (01:20:09.269)
Yeah, that's interesting.

Scotty McKnight (01:20:38.289)
I don't know. mean, it's very similar to that. And that when you leave, someone replaces you. I think the only difference is like, if you don't perform in the fire service, you can still be around. As we've seen in many cases all through the ranks. I don't see it as like, I don't really care about, like I don't want to be the fire chief. It's just.

Nole (01:20:50.773)
Ha ha ha.

Kevin (01:20:50.883)
You

Scotty McKnight (01:21:03.577)
So like saying that, you know, that's not the pinnacle for me, if that's what you're asking, I think. But yeah, I don't, I just kind of want to, I don't know. That's a good question. I think it's more of like, I want to be somebody that can help guys out and teach them things and be somebody that somebody would look up to, you know, rather than, because it doesn't mean anything to me that.

Kevin (01:21:08.641)
No, for any of us, that's not my goal at all either, yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:21:31.633)
Like I don't even care that I'm a 16's cat. Like that doesn't mean anything to me. You know, like it's, it doesn't hold any weight, you know, it'd be no different than if I was a captain somewhere else. It just, I just like to work there. But I think at the end of the day, when you're, when you're all said and done, if you have a bunch of guys that respected you and they, think you did a good job, I think that's, that's kind of more than being a BC or being a, like, I don't, I don't know how far I'll go. don't, I might.

try to go to BC later on or, but.

Nole (01:22:04.79)
Let me say a little bit on that from a fireman's perspective. I've been a fireman now over 16 years, never done anything else. And for me, the captain's rank is, I mean, it's just the most important rank in the fire department, in my opinion. And this is just Noel talking, but captains that I would say from my perspective are successful and the type of leaders that I would want to work for.

are the captains that even though I've never worked with you and I just met you right now, I can tell you this kind of captain, but it's the guy who has enough experience that regardless of what we are confronted with, he's going to be capable of leading the crew in that situation. And is also the same type of guy where day to day in and out of the firehouse cares about us, is paying attention to what his crew needs and whether that's training.

a day where you just say, do your own thing, whatever. But the type of leader that has the competency to do the job, but then also the capabilities of managing the very interesting aspect of our job where we live together and it's, you know, we call it a fire family, right? But it is in a way that, and so the guys that manage both of those worlds well, they bring in a tremendous amount of value.

to guys like my life, right? That's my life is working for captains. That's what I do day in and day out. And so I think what you said there, your measure of success being that guys respected you and appreciated you as a captain. I think that's it. I think that's the crux. And that happens through that. it happens to a certain extent in my opinion, where if you're the guy that's just super bad ass at your job,

and you're terrible around the station and guys hate being around you. You can still be considered in some sense a good captain in that sense, but it's not the same as when you marry both together. And on the other side of that, you can also be the captain that's really cool and fun to work around, but doesn't know a thing about his job. Guys will appreciate that in a sense too, because day in and day out, day to firehouse stuff is depending on where you work, mostly what you do, but you need both, right? You gotta be both. a, I mean, it's a big job.

Nole (01:24:28.829)
It's a big role. There's a lot going on there. It's not just knowing how to do a size up on a structure fire. There's a lot more that goes into it. So it's a harder thing, right? To pin what success looks like. It's a much harder thing because there's not, there's not a, I'm going to go be the fire chief goal for most. In fact, even the guys that have gone on and become fire chief, I don't even know that those guys ever vocalize that themselves. Like nobody says that. So, so what is the measuring?

Kevin (01:24:39.856)
Yeah

Kevin (01:24:47.778)
No.

Kevin (01:24:55.885)
probably not the guy we want. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a good point because like the worst thing, you know, you could be called in the county, right? It's like, he's a nice guy, but right. And so that's a, it's a weird dynamic, I think always as captains. And I always look at some of the stellar ones that like we know, and we still hang out with all the time who's retired for eight years is like Kevin Tobia, you know, he wasn't always nice. He had like red lines of like saying, we don't do this. We don't do that.

Nole (01:24:57.363)
Well, and that's the thing. Yeah. That guy needs to go work somewhere else.

Nole (01:25:05.941)
But.

Kevin (01:25:24.567)
But in turn, like we, worked within the boundaries, but you knew he was always going to go to bat for you, right or wrong. He was going to take the heat and he was going to, and so he knew that you were going to take care of the guys, not just cooking or getting food for you or putting you on duty. Like he was going to take care of you. And that would make, you know, no, when I won't run through walls for the guy. Right. And so I look at it and it's like, he was, he was super competent. He was very well respected, but it was the relationship formed of like this guy would make sacrifices for me.

Scotty McKnight (01:25:43.984)
Mm.

Kevin (01:25:54.507)
and in turn I'll do anything for him. I'm like, it's subtle. You can't really measure that, but there's something tangible there.

Scotty McKnight (01:26:02.245)
I think we just had to like, about like earlier, how knowing, knowing your job, you know, because if, you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to tell somebody not to do something or to do something like, least where I work out, most of these guys are better at it. I was fireman with I think six or seven of the medics, you know, that are still there. So I've, I've been on hose lines with all these guys. I've, I've cut doors next to them. I like, there's no,

Nole (01:26:14.763)
You

Scotty McKnight (01:26:31.865)
It's not, there's no question whether I know what they're doing or they know what I'm doing. But I think, I think it's super important that like for a new guy to learn all those skills coming up, because I just feel like these guys are skipping steps and they're not. So now, okay, you're the cool guy in the station and you're taking care of the guys, but you go work on a really bad incident or something and.

Nole (01:26:48.619)
Mm-hmm.

Scotty McKnight (01:27:00.045)
They're not really going to buy into what you're saying because they've never seen you do it. Or you haven't had the, you don't have the whiskers to tell them like that's not going to work. Like, because they feel like they have more experience than you do. And not that I have a ton of experience, but it's just, I've, I've stood next to the same guys that I'm asking to do things for me or, like on a fire and it's. They're not going to, nobody's really questioned me yet. And I think it's because they're all.

Nole (01:27:04.063)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:27:29.573)
guys that I've worked with, I worked alongside them. And I might have a unique situation there because they do all know me, where if you went, you had the guys that you didn't know, it'd be a little different, but yeah, I just think, I think to measure all that is I just, I want to be able to take care of the guys at the station and know their families and know that what's going on. Like, I think that stuff's more important than putting your uniform on, like in my opinion, I just, it's not.

Nole (01:27:57.671)
Amen.

Kevin (01:27:58.677)
Yes, here he is.

That's great. So I probably think we can go on for a long time, but this has been super fun. And now knowing your schedule, we got to go. You got practices to go to. We got things to do, but it's got to be super fun. Thanks for coming on, brother.

Scotty McKnight (01:28:10.437)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:28:16.305)
Yeah, thank you guys.

Nole (01:28:17.567)
Yeah, good stuff. Thank you.

Kevin (01:28:19.275)
Yeah, and I will say from my perspective, job well done. You've got a lot of respect from us. And sometimes it only hurts when I'm here and you give another size up and we're not on it. It's like, come on, come on. But we do get to play over there every now and then, which is super fun. But it's always super impressive watching you guys get down.

Scotty McKnight (01:28:19.707)
Appreciate it.

Scotty McKnight (01:28:30.843)
Yeah.

Scotty McKnight (01:28:39.761)
All right, well thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Nole (01:28:42.997)
Thank you.

Kevin (01:28:44.215)
This has been the Fire You Carry Podcast.

Nole (01:28:48.971)
We're going to have to develop some sort of signaling system that you can use for me. You give me like the sign and then I'll start the music. We're just learning how to do video.

Kevin (01:28:59.286)
Yeah, we don't know what to do. Dude, that was awesome, dude. Thank you, brother.