Within the last 24 hours, you have hopefully seen the video of a Columbus, Ohio man named Ted Williams. He is currently homeless, partially by his own admission that drug and alcohol abuse ruined his life.
He now says he has been sober for two years and he is trying to find a way to get his life back on track. What does he want to do? He wants to be a radio announcer, something he used to do before his life fell off the tracks.
If you have not seen the video, take a look and be amazed. A camera crew found Ted at the side of a road, begging for money. Once they started talking to him, Ted’s amazing voice came rolling out.
I first saw this video on the Facebook page of my buddy Tommy Lang at KCJJ in Iowa City. Then I put it up on my page. Then it appeared on the Facebook profiles of my friends Steve Scott at WCBS Radio in New York and voice over legend Charlie Van Dyke. It continued to snowball from there. All of us saying essentially “This guy is good and everyone deserves a second chance”.
This morning, I was pleasantly bowled over to learn that Ted Williams has been hired to do Public Address announcing for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. In addition to that, he was on the NBC Today Show this morning. And I did some digging around, look at these other job prospects that Ted Williams is being offered;
(1) A possible voice-over gig with NFL Films
(2) Work as the commercial voice for the Ohio Credit Union League.
(3) Possible voice over work with MTV.
(4) Possible voice over work with ESPN.
(5) A possible DJ position with a radio station in Pennsylvania.
(6) Possible work as the narrator of a homelessness documentary being produced by WBNS Television in Columbus, Ohio.
I don’t know about you, but this story is just about enough to make me cry. Here is a guy with amazing talent who knew he blew up his life through addiction and probably thought he would spend the rest of his life on the streets. But someone with a camera told his story and now his life is well on its way to being dramatically changed forever and for the better.
Folks, this is the power journalism can have. Never forget that.
TSA stopped Ted Williams from getting on his flight from Columbus to NYC. No appearance on “The Today Show” on Thursday morning. No visit to 92 year-old Mom in Brooklyn. See, he didn’t have ‘proper ID’, said the TSA. So Ted spent today at the Columbus Courthouse, trying to figure out how to get a copy of his birth certificate. Obviously he did have some form of ID, but the TSA wasn’t satisfied with it. OK – What are we going to do about this out-of-control phony security dance? These blockheads, however, are typical of our society. Follow the little rule book, and throw common sense out the window. Wrong. No little rule book takes away YOUR OBLIGATION TO THINK FOR YOURSELF. There are times you have to make an exception. That’s “the exception that proves the rule”. It’s like the traffic cop giving the mother of the little girl in a coma in Las Vegas a ‘jaywalking ticket’ – gave it to her right in the hospital. Or the policeman giving a ticket to the Dad who raced to the hospital while his wife’s water broke in the car on the way to the hospital in New Hampshire. RETRAIN EVERYBODY — OR FIRE THEM.