Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 678

Lance Allred [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John De lynn. It is November 15, 2016. We're here in Murray, Utah, right outside of Salt Lake City. And I'm super interested to to have today's interview. Today we are interviewing Lance Allred. Lance, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Lance Allred [00:00:54] Thanks for having me, John. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:00:58] All right, so la Lance is cool for a number of reasons. Lance has published a book. It's called Long Shot Lance Allred the Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA. And that really does summarize a lot of reasons why Lance is cool. For those of you who follow Mormon Stories, you'll know that we interviewed Lance's father, Vance Allred, just in our last episode. We did a good three or four hours, I think, with Vance. Vance was super cool because his father, Lance's grandfather, was Rulon Allred, who started the Allred Group, the fundamentalist Mormon polygamy group, also known as the Apostolic United Brethren. But we just did a fantastic several hours on what it was like to grow up as the son of Rulon Allred. Ruland got assassinated, what happened to the Allred group with some sort of sexual abuse scandals, what led to Vance leaving his fundamentalist group and joining the mainstream Mormon church, and then what led him out? If you haven't listened to our interview with Vance, you really should go back and listen to it first because it provides a lot of fascinating context for my interview with Lance. Now, Lance, in addition to if you were ever a University of Utah basketball fan or a Weber State basketball fan, or if you follow the NBA at all, you'll know that Lance played college and NBA level basketball, professional basketball, for I think, 10 years. Is that right? 10 years? Yeah, 10 years. So we're going to be talking about a lot of cool stuff today. We're going to be talking about growing up the grandson of a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous prophet. We're going to talk about Lance and his dad joining the Main Street Mormon Church and sort of his high school years here in Utah. We're going to talk about his career in college basketball. We're going to talk about him losing his LDS faith. We're going to talk about what it was like to play in the NBA. I think you even played with LeBron James. Is that right?

Lance Allred [00:03:24] I did. I played with LeBron.

John Dehlin [00:03:25] So you were on the Cleveland Cavaliers for how long?

Lance Allred [00:03:28] I was with them for about 10 months.

John Dehlin [00:03:31] 10 months. So pretty much a year, right?

Lance Allred [00:03:33] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] Other NBA teams as well.

Lance Allred [00:03:36] The Pacers for a bit, for a while. And then every continent in the world except for Antarctica.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] A lot of European. European stuff.

Lance Allred [00:03:43] Yeah. And that's a grind. Most people don't realize it, but it's not fun.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Oh, I'm sure it's awful. So we'll talk about that. But also, if any of you followed the Salt Lake City TEDx, you will know that Lance gave a really great talk called something like, what is your polygamy? Right.

Lance Allred [00:04:03] What is your polygamy?

John Dehlin [00:04:04] Is that right?

Lance Allred [00:04:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:06] Really good talk. Talking about blind spots and how we all have them. Even progressive and post Mormons have blind spots. Absolutely. Isn't that weird?

Lance Allred [00:04:16] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] Yeah. So we'll be talking about sort of that epic journey.

Lance Allred [00:04:20] Absolutely. A lot of fun. It's funny. It's always fun to have someone else narrate your life for you like that, give a summary. I'm like, wow, that's actually kind of. It's kind of, when I say it to myself in my head, is all normal, but when someone else is saying it back to me, I'm like, yeah, that is kind of an interesting, weird life, isn't it? So, hey, let's do it. Let's have fun.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] I. I think it's a fascinating life. So we're really excited to have you on Mormon stories.

Lance Allred [00:04:45] It's gonna be fun.

Lance Allred [00:04:46] I'm excited for this. I mean, because as a credit to you, I've had a lot of people with podcasts or meta interviews that want to interview me that have a very biased agenda when it comes to doing their podcast to basically be all negative or all offensive. And I've. I've noticed you and I've watched you. A lot of people that I trust have always highly recommended you. So this is a great opportunity. So thankful. I'm thankful again for it. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:05:15] My pleasure. All right, so let's go ahead and begin. And if it's all right, tell us a little bit about your life and what you remember about growing up as the grandson of a fundamentalist polygamous prophet and the son of The Bruce R. McConkie.

Born Deaf in a Polygamous Fundamentalist Community

Lance Allred [00:05:36] Yeah, the Bruce R. McConkie fundamentalist Mormonism, yeah. The reason why I'm legally deaf, 80% hearing loss, is what's called the Rh factor. And this is actually pretty common in polygamous communes, in that the mother's a negative, the father's a positive blood type. And nowadays at medical hospitals, they just inject the mother with something without even really asking questions. Right. It's just kind of status quo. But when you're born in a polygamous commune in your grandmother's bedroom, they don't think about those kind of things. And my grandfather Rulon, who was a naturopath but also delivered all the babies, told my parents not to even worry about the Rh factor because Jesus is coming again. And he was supposed to come in 1976 or 77, but he never came.

John Dehlin [00:06:19] Wait, who had said that he was coming?

Lance Allred [00:06:21] Rulin.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] Rulon said that, my grandfather said. And Rulon was assassinated when?

Lance Allred [00:06:25] 77? Yeah, four years before I was born. So I never knew Vuhlen, but I was raised in his utopian dream of Pinesdale, Montana. And that is why, again, the hearing loss. What's happening is my mother's white blood cells were recognizing me as a positive blood type, as a parasite. So her body was killing me off. When I was born, I was almost dead, pretty much lethargic, jaundice, very inactive. And, you know, the polygamists called me to Pinesdale, Montana, and they did all the prayer circles and all the fasting for my health, and eventually my mom said, you know what? Enough is enough. Let's get Lance to the hospital in Hamilton, Montana, just outside of Missoula. It's about 40 minutes south of Missoula, Montana. And there was a Johns Hopkins educated resident who specialized in Rh at that hospital because he was an RH baby himself. So it was dumb luck.

John Dehlin [00:07:20] What are the freaking chances of that?

Lance Allred [00:07:22] Exactly. So he quickly took me, measured my blood count in something called a bilirubin liver. Titer count count. He came and told my parents, okay, at a 25, most babies have severe brain damage. Out of 35, titer count babies are dead. Your son's a 45. He's off the charts. I don't know why he's alive right now. And so he quickly rushed blood down from Missoula, Montana, and we started going through blood changes. Not just transfusion, but changes flushing out all my bad blood that had my mom's white blood cells. And so he released me. I was in an incubator for about two weeks, I think 18 days, actually. But he released me and he kind of chuckled and he told my parents, yeah, I would publish this in the Journal of American Medicine, but no one would believe me. And there's no logical, scientific, rational reason as to why I'm alive other than simply I chose to be. I fought and I had someone help me. And that's the thing about life. I've had a lot of peaks and valleys and ups and downs, but I've been able to be successful because I always get back up. I choose. I choose to keep fighting. But there's always someone there that has helped me. And this doctor was the first one to do that for me. And the reason why I speak and I don't do sign. When you're born and raised in a polygamous commune, there's no amenities to learn sign language. So you just have to learn to be thrown in the fire. And I was in speech therapy until I was 15, learning to talk this way. And, you know, most that's how I talk. But we talk like that in the back of the throat because you feel that reverberation, that vibration in your skull, so you feel like you're actually making a sound. And it's kind of a catch 20, not a catch 22. It's just one of the things that's hard about being deaf or legally deaf is that you can either talk like a deaf person and everyone thinks you're an idiot, or you work really hard to sound this way and you don't always respond because you don't ever hear anything. Always hear anything. Especially when people talk into your back and they call you an asshole in that either you're dumb or you're an asshole. But that's my life. And I've always kind of been on the fringes, the outliers. And as a kid, I always wanted to be normal, quote, unquote. So I kept working that much harder to be normal. But that hard work always pays out, that eventually you keep always falling on the outliers there. And so growing up in Montana, there's a lot of wonderful memories. Actually growing up in Pinesdale, Montana, real quick.

John Dehlin [00:09:55] So you're just. For those who didn't listen to the episode with Vance, your grandfather Rulin was sort of started out in an LA area in California. He moved to Salt Lake City, left his wife, moved to Salt Lake City, and sort of got connected with the

Lance Allred [00:10:15] Short Creek, actually, the Short Creek people. He started out in Short Creek with the Barlows, then he eventually. And the Jeffs, he started.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] So he was down there.

Lance Allred [00:10:24] He was down there but he started to notice some things he was not comfortable with at all. Delivering babies, 13, 14 year old girls. You're like, yeah, no, I can't do this.

John Dehlin [00:10:34] So they were sleeping with sort of underaged girls.

Lance Allred [00:10:38] Absolutely. At that point they were marrying all these young. And you know, I do say this about ruling from everything, the journals and the diaries I've read, it's easy to cast these people in black and white spotlights. But I can say this about Rulon in the context of polygamous leaders. He never introduced new doctrine. He always believed in adhering strictly to Joseph Smith doctrine. So he never said, oh, I have revelation from God, this is not what we need to do. And so in that context, I can say confidently that in my opinion, I believe Rulin was the most ethical of polygamous leaders. It's not saying a lot, but I still do believe that as far as integrity. And obviously I do know that he and all of it's have. We have the ability to tell the story so many times that you begin to believe it's true and that you buy your own propaganda.

John Dehlin [00:11:35] Real quick, why is it ethical for a prophet to not reveal new revelation?

Lance Allred [00:11:40] Well, the thing is what he's doing is saying, you know what, he's kind of, he's kind of hamstringing himself saying, you know what, I am just holding down the fort as a disciple of Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ and that I believe Joseph Smith was the prophet for the latter days and I'm just trying to hold that vision and then God will come again and we can sustain that rather than simply trying to use that platform saying, oh, the keys have been handed down for me and the 13th article of faith now allows me to have further revelation. And you see so many prophets like the Jeffs or even now in the mainstream church that people use that 13th article of faith as a get out of jail free card. Kind of like, oh, well, we didn't allow blacks to have the priesthood, but now the new revelation allows for it to happen. If you and I had that 13th article of faith in a marriage and we could say, oh, I'm sorry I hit you yesterday, honey, God told me to. But today he told me to apologize and say that was a bad thing to do, that would be labeled as a schizophrenic, emotionally abusive relationship. But when it comes to religion, somehow we accept that. And so Rulin never really played that card. It was just, I am trying to hold down the fort. I believe strongly my testimony is this. And I know sometimes like, he would passively tell my father. Yeah. That he had seen God. I've heard enough of my dad tell his experiences. And so I can't say ruling was a saint by any means, but I understand why he would do the things what he did. And it's a tale of great hubris, actually, in that I know Rulon probably didn't get a lot of attention from his father. And then finally, someone like Joseph Muster comes around, tells him that not only is he special, but he's also God's next chosen prophet. And Rulon was very charismatic, and he got to have someone tell him that he was a good person. And I do believe, again, in context, that he thought he was doing good. He really thought he was trying to fulfill Joseph Smith's prophecy for the latter days. But eventually, when you have that much power and that many people around you always, yes, Manning, you telling you how awesome you are, it's pretty hard not to start drinking your own Kool Aid. And so I think eventually it just got away from him. He just started. He was happy just to accept anybody into the alry group because that meant more money would come in, he could build more buildings and grow a larger following. And that I think he just got pretty lazy as far as who he vetted and who he allowed into his space. And that's when you see all of the very questionable people come in that really. The monsters, I guess you could say. And so it just got away from him. So it was a classic Greek tale of hubris and pride, I would say. So that's kind of my summary of Rulin.

The Fundamentalist Mormon World He Grew Up In

John Dehlin [00:14:51] And so as I remember the story, Rulin eventually moves to Salt Lake. There's some Time magazine article.

Lance Allred [00:14:58] Yeah, Life article.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] Life. Life article.

Lance Allred [00:15:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:01] Where he's on the COVID along with, like, a bunch of wives. Slash, yeah. Random women, children. And that makes him kind of a bit of a celebrity.

Lance Allred [00:15:11] He became the poster child for. For. Not for 20th century American polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:15:16] Yeah, for sure.

Lance Allred [00:15:16] Again, he was charismatic, he was charming. And you have to be in order to be able to get 7,000 people to give you all their money and seven women to marry you. So obviously, he had game. More game than I'll ever have.

John Dehlin [00:15:31] And then he starts the Montana community

Lance Allred [00:15:35] to escape religious persecution. After he was arrested in the 40s, he took an oath he would never practice polygamy. But then it happened again. The police came after him. As you know, my dad went to Pocatello. The wives split up, rule and establish another colony up in Montana where there were no anti polygamy laws. So just on the Idaho, Montana border, you know, the side of Montana looks like a man's face. Pinesdale is right in the nose of the Montana border. The man's profile, and it was pretty much right there, backed up against the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where there was nobody behind us. So if we ever needed to retreat into the canyons that went hundreds of miles deep, we could. It was like the escape contingency plan plan. And so that. Yeah, and all that ruling. Then he was assassinated in 77, four years before I was born. And when I was born, when I grew up, my experience at Pinesdale is that obviously, from what I've heard from my siblings and my parents and my aunts and uncles, that the 70s fervor was really intense. How they just really did the law of consecration and they were living at gung ho. 1980s was still pretty intense in that you still have so much of that residual afterflow. That the community was really there, it was palpable. And that the memories that I have were, again, there's a dichotomy that it was wonderful growing up knowing that everyone knew my name in this town and everyone knew my name. So I was a deaf kid with the word, the big giant hearing aids, and I talked funny, but I was also Van Santana's kid. And we were all Reds. And this is some of the ironies that I started to notice in a socialist commune in that, wait, we're all God's chosen people. He loves us equally. Yet all Reds and Jessups are superior in Davis's and Wideaus. And you don't really, you know, kind of bottom tier. So.

John Dehlin [00:17:38] Real quick, I have a question. Go ahead. So I like. I feel. I feel a lot of the Zion kind of impulses that I think Joseph felt in the sense that I'm very social. I love people and I have all these friends where, if I could, I could. I would want to buy this huge plot of land.

Lance Allred [00:17:55] That's fun, isn't it?

John Dehlin [00:17:56] And have all of us build houses and, like, live together in a community. So I.

Lance Allred [00:18:00] It's a wonderful idea.

John Dehlin [00:18:01] I think I understand the commune impulse. So before you talk about how that started unraveling for you, talk about if there are any genuine ways where it was actually wonderful or idyllic.

Life Inside the FLDS Commune

Lance Allred [00:18:14] Absolutely. That's the thing I'll miss the most, I'll always miss the most, was the sense of community and family, not just my nuclear family, because I grew up in a monogamous home. I was the youngest of Vance's kids. His second wife had left shortly after I was born. I had no memory of her, and she took her three kids. So I grew up in a nuclear monogamous home, but all my cousins had three or four moms. But my grandmother lived right through the woods. My cousins were right through the gully. But all 400 of my first cousins and I were there. I mean, just running around like smurfs in the wilderness there. And I could walk outside any time of day into the forest there, or to the school playground or to the baseball field. And there would be cousins and kids playing. And sometimes it would be pinecone fights, sometimes it would be baseball games, sometimes it would be hide and seek, all that stuff that you would do in the forest. Beautiful, beautiful memories. And I loved it. And I will always miss the that. And did people share their money? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:19:20] And what was done with the money?

Lance Allred [00:19:22] People shared their money. Sometimes it was ordered. Kind of like, you know how the government does when divorced couples, they kind of have to pay their child support to the government, then they filter it back to the other spouse. The Oliver group would want to do that, like, you know, give us our tithing, and we decide who gets. Who gets the lion's share for whatever welfare needs this month. But, you know, I grew up in a home where my mother's mom, my mother's mother, my grandmother wrote Yaya and that it was very always financially intertwined and that we always helped each other. And that's something that my parents still have and I too, do, in that I've clashed with brothers in laws or sisters who. It was funny because in our home, in this polygamous commune, when you married a sibling, you were joining families, and then the families would get together and have big picnics, right? And that's just. It just became this big cluster. Adding on, adding on, adding on.

John Dehlin [00:20:30] And

Lance Allred [00:20:32] financial. Financial situations or bank accounts, that wasn't taboo. It was just kind of like, do you need help here? Okay, fine, I'll float you this month. Okay. Can you help me this month? This month. So money was just another part of the equation and energy that was going around that were all intertwined with it together. And so it was just a means to give and help our loved ones.

John Dehlin [00:21:00] Did everyone work for the business?

Lance Allred [00:21:02] No. The thing is, the reason why the All Red group was so successful in the 70s, I know my dad because they were getting ready for Jesus to come. That's why he built all those homes for the utopian cause without getting paid. Right. But the reason why Rulin was so wealthy and why Ervil LeBaron wanted his money. And that's why he was a target of Ervil LeBaron. Ruland didn't believe in building up these big chain link fences and came keeping everyone inside the compound. We didn't have compounds, we had communes. And so Rulin, who was a naturopath, who was a doctor in the outside world, would go and make good money, but he'd tell all of his followers, even the wives, go, work, make money, bring it back. And so the Allred Group at its peak was the largest and most financially wealthy polygamous group that I believe still today that the world has ever seen. At Ruling this time, I always thought

John Dehlin [00:21:55] it was second to the flds.

Lance Allred [00:21:57] Flds? The thing is, the problem with the FLDS is that they keep people inside that compound so that money just recycles. They're not really bringing anything new in. Except for the few people that are allowed to go out and work the Alvare Group. Everyone's going out, working, bringing money back in. And that's why Ruling was such a target and why he was also the biggest threat to the LDS Church. Because the Felds has always been kind of. They're kind of, yeah, really exclusive. But ruling, you know, he sent his scouts out there into the wards and find out who was asking questions, who was disenchanted. And then with his charm and his, I don't know, he was just. He was just so inclusive that he was really, again, he could draw a of piece. And so I don't have the pamphlets, but there's a couple. I have a funny Ensign pamphlet and it was issued in like 1960 something where the Ensign magazine is actually calling Rule into Repentance.

Lance Allred [00:22:57] Wow.

Lance Allred [00:22:57] On the front cover.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] What?

Lance Allred [00:22:59] Yeah. I need to find this for you.

John Dehlin [00:23:01] Oh, I don't believe that. Oh, wow.

Lance Allred [00:23:03] And so that's how much of a threat he was.

John Dehlin [00:23:07] This idea of no poor among them, was it, Was it, Were there poor?

Lance Allred [00:23:12] Absolutely. Again, those are the ironies that you see.

John Dehlin [00:23:15] Okay?

Lance Allred [00:23:15] When you're in Allred, you're not going to go hungry. You're ruling posterity. When you're a Jessup, you're not going to go hungry because they're the boss. They're the guys that have all the, all this purse strings and all the. They have their businesses, but it's also backed by the aub, so they can't go bankrupt. So you saw the Jessups do this a lot. Like, their construction companies would be going under and then they would just Tell Owen Allred, my grandfather here. Hey, we need money. Okay, Owen, go grab a shoebox full of a million dollars and give it to him. That's why the Allred Group was busted for money laundering after we left in, like, 2002, and that the Allred Group would just keep shoeboxes full of millions of dollars of cash just ready to spend on hand. But the Jessups had access to that money, and so they were kind of like the beard, the face of the money laundering. And so the Allred and Jepses definitely had it nice. And the Jessups, instead of, you know, hell, why are these prophets and their sons, the Jesups, instead of building homes for free, why are they getting all the nice homes? And then why are they flying around in the Tory Plains all the time? And yet we're here. My dad's building homes for free and all that. So socialism is a beautiful idea that no one should ever want or go hungry or be poor. But I learned at a young age from this experience that socialism will never work because different people have different sets of work ethic and entitlement, and human nature will always spoil it. But then again, I had friends, neighbors like the Wyricks or other people that were just. Or the Reynolds or the Wissenbachs, who were very poor and Allsopps and Davises, and they were treated as less than, as inferior. But this is why my parents were so popular and why they were a big threat and why we actually ended up leaving Montana. Because my parents taught me what integrity is, that they treated everyone exactly the same. My mom, because she grew up outside of polygamy in mainstream Mormon church, but then her family joined the All Right group, and she was 16. My mom's parents were just very kind and giving and generous people. And her dad, who did not come with her, her parents got divorced. My grandfather Pacus, he died two years ago, but he was always just so kind to everybody. And my mom took that same upbringing, and it really rubbed off on my dad. So much so that they became the champions of the poor people that you speak of, that they noticed that people were getting different treatment, and they had a real hard time with that. And that's why my dad became the champion of the disenchanted in the All Red group. And that's why there was a power struggle between my dad and the two main Jessup brothers, Marvin and Morris, up there in Montana. You read about that in my book. And my mom's youngest sister actually got pregnant out of wedlock. Now, it happens all the time, right? But in 1980, Montana. Oh, the horror, right? It may as well be a Scarlet letter. And the Jessops then intervened and said, she does not belong to that family anymore. She belongs to the Stoker family, who she had the father of the upcoming baby, right? And so they tried to swoop in the Jessops as, like, the authority, and, and say she no longer could really have any say with her family. My mom's family. As my mom's younger sister, my dad said, whoa, what's that about? No, she's still a woman. She's a human being. She can do what she wants. And my father, in a very chauvinistic world, actually stood up for my mom and her sisters and his family. And that just really butted heads and it got ugly. And so we actually ended up having to leave. And that was one of the saddest things, because John, again, my mom didn't have to work. My dad was a schoolteacher up in Missoula, Montana. He'd commute every day. But at that time in the 80s in Missoula, they paid the teachers very well so mom could be a stay at home mom. So I grew up having mom around my siblings, and our family was very happy. And then all of a sudden, bam is gone. We had to leave. And we ended up moving to Salt Lake City. And so I lost that community, that all my friends were there, my cousins were there, and we were safe. And also we were so special. That's the drug. That is the thing that I will miss most about polygamy. The idea that I was special, that because I was an all red, that my grandfather was in heaven right next to God and Jesus waiting for me. And that is a drug. And why would people let that go if they didn't have to? We moved to downtown. We moved here to Murray, Utah. And my father's mom, real quick, wasn't your dad.

Abuse, Exile, and Family Fractures

John Dehlin [00:28:21] Didn't he also discover sexual abuse? That was happening. This was later.

Lance Allred [00:28:25] Okay, so remember, there are two headquarters at the Allroad Group. One in Montana and one in Salt Lake, okay? In Bluffdale. And so we moved here when I was 7. And then when I was 12, we actually broke away entirely. Because when my dad moved here to Montana, to Utah from Montana, he then became closer to his Uncle Owen, who was the prophet. Instead of being 500 miles away, he was now in Owen's pocket.

John Dehlin [00:28:49] So the Jessups were in Montana.

Lance Allred [00:28:50] Jessups were in Montana. The Ovids were really down here now. But a lot of things changed. And I don't want to embarrass my dad, but that transition was very painful. John. When we left Montana again, it was such a happy memory that actually my dad had to be checked. My mom checked my dad into suicide watch because we left that life behind and we loved it so much. And to your point is those happy childhood memories until I was six years old, for years at the subconscious level, a blind spot was well into my adult life. Even after my sisters were married, I had this story subconsciously that, oh, we all just need to get back to Montana. Not Pinesdale, but somewhere in the area, we can all be happy again. It was a very childish dream that I was holding onto, but I wasn't really aware consciously that I was. And that was such a powerful community, a sense of belonging. And that's. You have to understand, that's why a lot of people join these polygamous cults. The idea that you belong to something greater than yourself and you're a part of something. You have this great truth that no one else knows about. And also, you're so special. And so when we moved here to Utah, mom started working, and I was a latchkey kid. I was the youngest, and it was tough. I hated Utah because I had the big giant hearing aids. I talked funny, and I was a huge target of bullying. And Also, this is 1980s and all red name is still very synonymous with polygamy. And if there's one thing a Mormon doesn't like, it's a polygamous Mormon. How dare you remind us of our very curious 19th century past. Go away. Lead me to my perfect paradigm, my Whiggish history, where divine intervention is perfectly clear as I connect the dots. You know, we Mormons love those paintings in Costco where Joseph. I mean, where George Washington is praying in the forest and there's an angel there. Somehow there's angels holding the hands of all our founding fathers, signing the Declaration of Independence. I mean, we love all those connect the dots history. And I'm a history major like my dad, and I enjoy how people choose their history to fit their paradigm. And so

John Dehlin [00:31:14] the Mormons didn't like polygamists.

Lance Allred [00:31:16] No.

John Dehlin [00:31:17] Still, though.

Lance Allred [00:31:18] And so I was a huge target of bullying. I was very introverted, very shy. And also as a second grader, I was like the third biggest kid in the entire school. And people think, oh, well, you're big. You got bullied. I'm like, yeah, actually, you're a big guy too, in that you're told when you're a kid, we're so much bigger and stronger. You have to be soft. You have to play with everybody. If you want people to like you, you have to be very soft with everybody. And so most big people are taught to be ashamed of their size and their strength. And we just want to have friends and we want to fit in. And so therefore you have all the little napoleons come at you in school and try to torment you and bring you down and sort of. So they looked tough in front of the girls. And so as a kid, I became very introverted. Dealt with suicidal depression as a kid. But luckily, eventually, after we house hopped for a while, we settled into that little pod in Taylorsville where my cousins lived and my dad's two brothers and my grandmother and my dad's mom. And it was nice. Then I felt safe again because I had my cousins. Because you see this a lot with polygamists in that our social skills are very delayed arrested development, to say the least, in that they're very loud, they laugh loud, they have poor social cues. And that's because you're special. You don't have to worry about other people liking you. And also if I say something wrong, do something stupid. They're still my cousins at the end of the day, day. So they're always going to have my back. So we don't really have to worry about developing social skills to make normal friendships in the world. Because it's kind of like, why would I want to be his friend? I already got my cousins. So I can be who I really want to be and not ever have to really work on compromise and communication skills and having different perspectives. And so when you see polygamists leave polygamy, they're very emotionally stunted when it comes to developing social skills. And I was no exception. And I'll give. Yeah. Oh, gosh. It was awkward looking back on the social miscues that I made even after we broke away from polygamy. So dad became The Bruce R. McConkie of the All Red group as a way of coping with his stress and everything, I'm sure. And his disappointment that he was like, if I'm going to lose everything, if I'm going to be poor, poor and struggling in my family, my wife has to go back to work. I'm going to make sure I know why we're doing it. And so dad, the mental gymnastic that he can be, and Mormons are very good at mental gymnastics, he started writing all of his manifestos that even the Jeff's group, the FLDS church, uses his Content. And the all of a group still uses his content. And dad will tell you it's very well written, but it's full of crap. And I've read them. I chuckle, I laugh at them. I'm like, wow, my dad actually wrote this stuff. But, yeah. So When I was 12, at the end of sixth grade, dad had discovered that, yes, several of our leaders have been sexually abusing their kids for years. And I would go up and spend a lot of time in Pinesdale. Actually, my fourth grade year, I went and lived in Montana with my aunt and uncle and my grandma because I was that bad for me here in school in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] You were allowed to return?

Lance Allred [00:34:44] I was allowed to return, and I lived with them for fourth grade. And so I developed a very close bond with my mom's younger sister. Not the one that was in the scandal, but the second one.

John Dehlin [00:34:54] How is it that you were kicked out, but you were allowed to return?

Lance Allred [00:34:57] We weren't really kicked out because, again, the thing is, to say it's kicked out is too extreme in that we just left because the Jessups from the pulpit and from priesthood meeting were just making it hell for my dad. It's like, you know, I just. I can't be here anymore. It's just horrible. But the thing is, we were allowed to return because the aub, Owen, all the way at the helm, still owned the property in Montana. The AUB owns all the property. The Jessups really are just the stewards, basically, if you want to view it that way. Not anymore, but they were at the time. And so it was kind of like they could have never forbid us. But also, at the end of the day, the Jetsup, I can respect them for this. Even while there was a power struggle between Morrison, Marvin and my dad, they never took it out on kids. If there were adult disputes, kids were off limits. You just didn't. You didn't make any. Except for the people that I recall that were just completely miserable. But actually, those people were here in Utah that would really just go out of the way to criticize my father by telling me. And then I had to go back and tell my dad about what he'd say. And so dad had discovered that these two leaders, the Thompsons, have been sexually abusing their kids for years. And I remember. I remember this very clearly. We were actually up at General Conference in Montana in Pinesdale that year, and dad got the family around. My mom, all of her sisters, grandma, and we're all sitting there in the living room, and my dad said this was happening. And right then, John, I knew it was over. As a 12 year old kid, I knew it was over because, I don't know, I don't want to put myself on a pedestal. But with my hearing loss, I've always been forced to be very introspective, sit, watch people, watch your body languages. And so I've always been very sensitive to double standards, ironies. I'm like, wait, did you not just see that was happening? So I've always been very attuned to people watching and reading their body language and seeing those things. And so I was always very reflective as a kid. And the story that, you know, yeah, I was Rulin's grandson, he's going to get us to heaven. But when I learned that Vulin actually knew about it shortly before he died, but didn't say anything, I'm like, well, and if Owen knew all this time, and yet they're prophets, they speak to God. That doesn't compute. Why would God allow this to happen? Or why would he not tell his prophets? Or maybe they're just not prophets at all. And so I knew then and there that it was over. And I thought it was all going to end for everybody, but we were the only ones that did leave. And so I learned.

John Dehlin [00:37:58] Isn't it incredible how resilient religion is? You think something really big is going to happen and it's going to change everything. And it's like a flick, it really is.

Lance Allred [00:38:08] So I learned at that age of 12, at the age of 12, I learned that religion for most people is mostly psychological. It has nothing to do with spirituality. And that we were the only ones that left. And my parents were the only people, because I had aunts and uncles who were, yes, trapped in polygamous marriages. I don't want to say trapped, but they had made these commitments to their second or third wife who'd given them kids. So where they're supposed to tell that wife, the second wife, hey, good luck, you take the kids and we take the kids. Not that simple. They're in a very tough predicament there that I would never want to trade places with them. So how could I ever judge them, ever? But I also have monogamous uncles and aunts who again, could not let go of the idea that they were special. So my parents were the only people in the entire Allred group who could put aside their own fragile ego. My dad especially, because everyone was expecting him to get married again and then he'd be eligible to become the next prophet, because we were kind of the Bastard family being monogamous, you know, like we were worthy. We weren't quite worthy. Did all that guilt and social abuse. But I had the belief that hope that one day dad would get married again so we could step into our place and help everybody. Because not only did I like. Did I. Yes. I was a kid, I liked the idea of my dad being the boss, of being in charge. Every kid likes that idea. But I also liked what my parents stood for and how they stood up for everybody else. And I wanted them to become the leaders and that everyone else we could truly become that socialist commune.

Leaving the Community and Finding Identity

John Dehlin [00:39:46] Did you have a dream for yourself about maybe what role you might play?

Lance Allred [00:39:50] Oh, yeah. I mean, what kid doesn't? I'm not gonna lie. I mean, like, if I'm proud of my dad, I love my dad and I want to make my dad proud of me.

John Dehlin [00:39:57] Did you want to be prophet someday?

Lance Allred [00:39:59] Sure. Because that was part of the family legacy. Like ruling was doing that. He was assassinated. I want to make him proud. I want to make my dad proud. Absolutely. And I don't know, maybe I do have that ego, but I would like to think that almost every kid has that dream. Kind of like every kid has a dream when they're on the basketball court shooting the basketball, they're going to put in the NBA someday, you know, and then therefore with that story about, oh, I'll be a prophet and then I'll be worthy. Because at the age of five, there are some dark things about growing up in Montana. But you heard about it on the TED Talk. At the age of five, I had a Sunday school teacher tell me that God had made me deaf is a form of punishment. And rather than sending me to earth as a black man, and that's why men were black, because they sat on the holy war and the. In the great. They sat on the fence in the great holy war in the pre existence as Brigham Young said, God was nice enough just to send me to earth as a deaf man, but at least I was white, right? So I should be grateful for that. So I had this While there were many wonderful things about growing up in polygamy, there was that dark side, the guilt and the shame and the self worth aspect that I. That I had to earn love, that I had to somehow atone for some past sin that I had no recollection of. And that guilt really I could say was the impetus for why I like, you know what? Not only do I want mom and dad to stick up for everybody, but if mom and dad become the next Prophets, and they're doing everything right, then that'll lessen my burden of having to earn God's love, then we're on the right path. And so alleviating that fear that I was going to go to hell, that if I didn't step into my place, I had that kind of fear. Dear John, I truly believe in hell. And I was worried about my eternal well being all the time. And we'll keep in this vein in that when we broke away from polygamy, the last Sunday school, I mean, priesthood lesson I ever heard was that homosexuality is the greatest sin in the world. There's no atoning for that. They said you're immediately going to hell. On any one act, you're going to hell. But also that masturbation leads to homosexuality. So here I am, a 12, 13 year old kid going into puberty, right? And I start, I see Cameron Diaz for the first time in the movie the Mask, and I'm like, wow, she's really pretty. It's making my body feel things. I want to act on an urge. But wait, if I feel that urge that maybe I want to masturbate, does that mean I'm gay? And bam, that's when the OCD started. The thing about obsessive compulsive disorder is that we know these thoughts are stupid, we know they're not rational, but you can't stop thinking about them. So imagine the loss of foundation that we escaped from polygamy. We actually had to go in hiding. The Salt Lake county lead detective, Detective Fisher, came and got us out of our home.

John Dehlin [00:42:58] Why are you going into hiding?

Lance Allred [00:42:59] Because you know what, Detective Fisher? When my dad. Because everyone's very angry with my dad. Because instead of now people being angry with these prophets that were abusing their kids, now dad becomes the scapegoat. Dad's standing up. Dad's not staying in his place. Dad's rattling the paradigm. You know what? We don't have to think about these prophets anymore. We now can project our anger onto Vance. He's being the bad boy. He needs to stay in his place because by dad leaving and Dad's a theologian, he's a doctrinaire. And if he's saying, I'm out, yo, what does that say for everybody else in their religion?

John Dehlin [00:43:38] So were there threats on his life?

Lance Allred [00:43:40] Yeah, that's what Detective Fisher believed. And so that's the thing about absolutes. When you grow up in a world of absolutes, that you're special, that your grandfather is a prophet, and that you have the one True church with a capital T. Absolutes are very dangerous. And most people will do anything they can to protect that. And they're very, very dangerous. And that's why you see violence in extreme religious situations, because people want to hold on to the idea that they're special. It becomes a base survival instinct that that's black and white story, that they have absolute truth. And they've invested all these years of their life, their blood, their sweat, their tears into this idea that. Wait, you're making us think about it. No, it's just time for you to go. Just cut him out completely and they can go back to living in your fantasy world. And that's the thing people have to understand. Whether it's polygamy or mainstream Mormonism, we know we're going to die. That gives us huge fear. We're cursed with the existential awareness of our own mortality. And we have religion to pacify that with beautiful stories. The Mormon story is a beautiful story. You get to live for time and all eternity with your family and everyone suddenly has the same personality. Sounds like hell to me, but to many people sound like heaven. And that's another thing is if God wanted us all to be the same, he would have made us the same from the get go. But that's a whole other tangent. And so people have these stories as a comfort blanket. Why would they let go of that comfort blanket if they didn't have to? You're asking people to let go of a lot and step into a world of unknown. But that's the thing about absolutes. Absolutes, they make us feel safe. They're able to compartmentalize a very abstract world and make sense of it in a black and white absolutes. Black and white paradigms, us versus them, right, wrong. And it makes things very simple. And life's easier when you have all the answers. And I miss having all the answers. I wish I could go back and bury my head in this sand some days and think, oh, everything's good. I don't have to sit here and wonder about the point of it all. And like, you know what? All I have to do is follow the prophet and everything will be fine. And that's the thing, though. A lot of people, when they come into polygamy, oh, another appeal of polygamy is that people get to absolve themselves of accountability by saying, you know what? All I have to do is follow the prophet. He'll hold my hand, he'll get me to heaven, and he says, I'm a good person. So therefore I don't have to worry about what's going to happen to me after I die or this or that. But the catch 22 of it all is actually you're doubling down on accountability. Because if something bad happens to you or your family, a child dies or whatever, it's like, wait, what happened? I was doing everything the prophet said, said, I'm living God's law. Why would God punish me? Why would God make this happen? Which is a Mormon thought pattern. When something bad happens, you think immediately it's something that you did wrong. And so why would God punish me? But then the prophet will say, oh, well, yeah, maybe you weren't worthy enough. Maybe you didn't pray hard enough. Because the system is never wrong. The prophet is never wrong. So you're actually doubling down on accountability. It flips back onto you, which is kind of like MLMs, social marketing, whatever, network marketing. And so. But that's why polygamists and Mormons are awesome, awesome candidates for network marketing, because they know how to play that game. And so I can talk about these kind of ideas all day long.

OCD, Scrupulosity, and Mental Health After the FLDS

John Dehlin [00:47:38] So your dad, your family went into hiding.

Lance Allred [00:47:41] He went into hiding.

John Dehlin [00:47:42] Pretty much. No one left except for just us.

Lance Allred [00:47:45] This is 1993. Went into hiding, hopped through summer cabins. Luckily, my mom's side of the family, the Riplingers, my uncle Don Riplinger was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir director. And the Riplingers could have very easily cut us off when my grandmother joined polygamy, but they didn't. They kept inviting us to family reunions over the Christmas parties, the Thanksgiving parties, never judging us, always letting us feel welcomed. And because of that, that allowed us to reach out to them when we needed help. And I wish every Mormon church and family could see that. Just because I wrote about this in the Solid Tribune last year, last November, when the church came out with the children of gay people, the policy against the children of gay people. And I told them in this article, this op ed that people who are in need of help aren't going to come ask for help from people who have been calling them sinners all of their lives. It just doesn't work that way. So if the church did a better job of having an actual outreach group to help women and children and the lost boys of the Alvri group find a place to land on a footing, that would be huge. But then they say, well, polygamists do that, but they do that to then join the group and then recruit within the wards. I'm like, is that their fault or is it the church's fault that the people, the members of that ward aren't their testimonies or their faith isn't strong enough that they can be that easily swayed to join another group. Really? Whose fault is that, if you think about it? And second, the reason why they're swayed is because they realize you've been withholding information. If the Mormon Church would just own its history, say, yeah, we have polygamy. This is something we choose not to do anymore, but let's educate everyone about it. I grew up in a home John, where we read Journal discourses, we read Pearl of Great Price, we read all of these things. So as a kid, yeah, Joseph Smith was reading from a stone in a hat. No biggie, whatever. Totally cool. Polygamy, yeah. And so that is the one thing that I would tell the Mormon Church is that just own your history. And there will be a lot less backlash and people will less likely feel that they've been conned, that they've been duped. And a lot of people will say, well, you know, if I had known about Joseph Smith and polygamy as a kid, I never would have gone on a mission. Like, really, though? Because if you grow up in childhood where you believe that he found these golden plates in the hill and he wore this big giant breastplate with stones and was able to transcribe it all there, to say that this man then was ordered by God to practice polygamy and isn't too much of a stretch.

John Dehlin [00:50:48] That's all weird, right?

Lance Allred [00:50:49] It's all weird.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Yeah.

Lance Allred [00:50:51] It's just like, you can't, like, somehow say, that's like the final straw when you're being brainwashed with all this information at such an early age. When you're a kid, your brain doesn't know how to decipher fact from fiction, that you're just taking everyone at face value at their word. And so the Mormon Church, the fear that there would be a backlash if you just tell the kids at a very early age, if you're already telling them, follow the prophet in that minor key.

Lance Allred [00:51:18] Right.

Lance Allred [00:51:20] It's not too much of a stretch to say, well, yeah, Joseph Smith practiced polygamy because that was God's law, but he doesn't order that law anymore. Kids aren't going to say, wow, that's weird, that's creepy. They're going to say, okay, I got it, it makes sense. And that's just one thing that I chuckle. But too, even when people who have escaped Mormonism or broken away, they use polygamy. As a focal point to be angry or validate their stance against the church. I say, well, really, no. And I'll talk more about how I kind of came out of my place down that line.

John Dehlin [00:52:00] I think you're right. We're seeing it now. The church is changing its curriculum. It's starting to inoculate its youth. And they're still going on missions.

Lance Allred [00:52:10] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:52:10] So inoculation has won the essays. They've led some people out. But I think there's a good chance that the church's essays are actually successfully inoculating most of the members.

Lance Allred [00:52:23] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] Such that less Mormons in the future are going to feel betrayed and deceived. And so in some ways, those of us who were a part of convincing the church to be more candid and to release the essays have actually helped the church.

Lance Allred [00:52:41] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:52:41] Be stronger in the future.

Lance Allred [00:52:43] Fun ironies.

John Dehlin [00:52:44] Fun ironies. But let's not get derailed. So your family goes into hiding. Tell us about ocd. Why ocd?

Lance Allred [00:52:50] Ocd. So, yeah, here's that thing that happens. Yeah. I just went off on advanced algorithm tangents there. I apologize. I'm usually pretty good at staying on point. My dad is the master of tangents. So OCD starts and that. I had this thought, wait, so we eventually we settle in downtown Salt Lake when the detective says the heat has died down enough that we can kind of settle in downtown Salt Lake, but we don't let anyone know. This is where we settled. And I started going to school at Bryant Junior High. And again, I'm going through puberty. My body that eighth grade year grew from five' ten to six' four. So I slept a lot.

Lance Allred [00:53:27] Just.

Lance Allred [00:53:28] Yeah. And I.

John Dehlin [00:53:28] Six inches in one year.

Lance Allred [00:53:30] Yeah. It was brutal. And I didn't play. I never.

John Dehlin [00:53:34] What grade?

Lance Allred [00:53:35] Eighth grade.

John Dehlin [00:53:35] Eighth grade.

Lance Allred [00:53:36] I never played organized sports before that time. I didn't. My inner ear imbalance with my hearing loss was atrocious. I was just a Nintendo kid growing up, and I was really good at it.

John Dehlin [00:53:47] But

Lance Allred [00:53:49] at that time, imagine the loss of foundation. All of my cousins have been my best friends. They're gone now. We're in hiding. We're living on the run. We're leaving the Allred Group, the world that I knew to be true, that my grandfather was a prophet and I was special. But wait, I'm not special anymore. I'm just some death polygamous kid. Ex polygamous kid. Now I don't. At least I always have that I was special, that my grandfather was a prophet. I always had that going for Me and now I don't have it anymore. So I could totally understand why people cannot let go of the idea that it was special because I know how hard it was for me. And so with all that loss of foundation, then the story that masturbation leads to homosexuality and that's the worst sin in the world. And we joined the Mormon Church. So we're still talking about Brigham Young who said that black people were black because he sat on the fence in the great holy war. So I still had this distorted story that God had punished me because I had done something wrong in the pre existence and I had to earn love as an adult. It makes no sense. But when you're a 12 year old kid growing up in this world, that makes perfect sense. And so I would be sitting there in school, Brian Junior high, pretty girl be sitting next to me, she'd be wearing a skirt, beginning of school, it's summertime, very pretty. She makes me feel these feelings. I'm like, oh gosh, but what are these feelings? Oh, does that mean I want to act on these feelings? Does that mean I might want to masturbate? Does that mean that I'm gay, but I want to be gay? I like girls. Yeah, but you don't know. You never know. But I like girls. I couldn't possibly be gay. Yeah, but still, what does this mean? So I'm totally hetero, 100% hetero. And I'm not threatened by homosexuality at all now. But as a kid when you believe that homosexuality is the worst sin. So my compulsion would be I would sneak out of class and I would go pray. I would pray like 10, 15 times a day saying please God, don't be angry with me. Don't be angry with me. I'm so sorry that I'm even having these thoughts. And so that's when the OCD started to kick in. It's just that religious dogma, how they control you, and that's the greatest comedy we've ever been sold, is that you have to earn love. And that's how people control you.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] So have you listened to my episode about scrupulosity?

Lance Allred [00:56:10] No, I haven't actually.

John Dehlin [00:56:11] Have you heard of the term scrupulosity?

Lance Allred [00:56:12] No. Educate me.

John Dehlin [00:56:14] Okay. No. So for my Master's of my PhD in psychology, I did a study on something called scrupulosity. Scrupulosity is purely the name for religious ocd. Okay, so there's a name for it.

Lance Allred [00:56:29] Oh really? I'm glad to know.

John Dehlin [00:56:31] Thank you. Scrupulosity. It's what you had compulsive praying, compulsive scripture reading, obsessing, ruminating about guilt and shame, confessing to your church leader, to your priest, or to your bishop.

Lance Allred [00:56:48] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:56:48] That's all. That's all called scrupulosity. And it's a thing. It's a thing.

Lance Allred [00:56:53] We learn something new every day.

John Dehlin [00:56:54] So you need to go back and listen to the scrupulosity. I'm gonna go watch episode of Mormon Stories. Go read up on it. It's a thing.

Lance Allred [00:57:00] I'm excited.

John Dehlin [00:57:01] And it's one of the coolest mental illnesses because it's so fascinating. It's fascinating.

Lance Allred [00:57:07] I'm a textbook case for it. I guess then that makes sense. No, you are glad to know that there's actually. Because I would count saying like, yeah, the doctor just put me on effects her. He said it was kind of ocd, but when people say, well, did you like flick the light switch or jump over cracks? I'm like, it wasn't like that. So I always felt kind of like, do I say OCD or. I guess now I can say no. Scrupulosity.

John Dehlin [00:57:28] Scrupulosity.

Lance Allred [00:57:29] I love it. I learned something new. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:57:31] Scrupulosity. That's the word.

Lance Allred [00:57:32] It makes my life a lot easier now. Thank you. You're welcome. So I was a textbook case for it. But luckily at that same time, that's when I started playing basketball. The basketball coach saw me walking down the hallway one day and he says, hey, wow, you're a really tall kid. You should come try out for the basketball team. And I'm like, yeah, okay. I don't really have any friends. And it'd be a good way to meet people, not only have to communicate. Little did I know that team sports requires extreme amounts of communication. But I started playing. At first, I wasn't very good, but it was a good way for me to fit in, find new friends, and to belong to something again. Kind of like I lost my community, but now I have another community that can belong to that's more important than me as an individual, best as a team. And so there was so much baggage, though, John. I brought into it that I realized. But again, because I grew up in this black and white world, socialism, everyone should have a chance where socialists were a team. That I would always struggle a lot of times in basketball teams throughout my career when I see double standards or when coaches being hypocritical or they're a preferential treatment. And that was a lot of baggage I brought. That was my polygamy. That I took into my adult life, but also the big one was that I truly did believe that I had to do something great and then God would be proud of me. And that was okay. Now I know what it is. I have to be the first deaf player in NBA history, and then God will be proud of me. And I couldn't play basketball with my hearing aids in because of sweat and concussion issues. So I was out there playing just whatever. I had to learn to be very visual. I had to approach it like a game of chess, Always account for all the other nine guys. As a center, as a big man, my back was always to the basketball, so I could see where everyone else was and always be accounting for them and approaching it like a game of chess.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] And so 100% deaf without your hearing aids, about 80%.

Lance Allred [00:59:36] Hearing loss without hearing aids, about 80%. And so I hear. I hear percussions, bass sounds. That's what I hear when it's high pitch or whistles on whatever. So I've had to learn to always just stop when everyone else stops suddenly stop, you know, and don't. But you always have those awkward moments where I'd play through the whistle and it was like, lance, just chill out. Plays over. I'm like, oh, sorry. But those were the challenges. But because I was so visual, that's the thing about being an underdog, that you learn to see life. Not just basketball, but you see life through a different lens. And so you're always thinking outside the box. And so I would always do little different things and little habits that would help me quickly remember other teams plays. Just little formulas I would do. But also, you watch people's body language that, okay, I'm on defense. Other team, small forward is acting way too casual right now. That means he's probably going to come off the baseline on a double staggered up for a jumper here. And so you just learn to be very perceptive of people's body language. And also another thing, in the fourth quarter of a loud arena, everyone's deaf. And so in the land of temporary deafness, the permanently deaf man is king. And so you're not always the underdog.

Discovering Basketball and Early Development

John Dehlin [01:01:01] So when did you go from clumsy, awkward, you know, kid to, like, semi legitimate to, like, like, was there AUB or like, basketball, this sort of elite leagues in Salt Lake City?

Lance Allred [01:01:19] Well, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] Did you start, you know, what grade did you start seeing? Hey, I may have a future in this.

Lance Allred [01:01:25] Yeah. The thing is, because I was growing so much and so tall, everyone, the doctors predicted I'd be around 6, 117ft. So I'm like, you know what? That's an opportunity for me to do this. But right at the get go, I already had so many people telling me I couldn't do it. I was too deaf. I wasn't hearing the plays, I wasn't reading the lips. I was too clumsy, too awkward. And people all my life have been telling me, sorry, this is not a gimmick, I just have to itch my ear. All my life, what I can and can't do, and my joke is I choose not to listen. I can't hear very well anyway. So what happened was not only was it a way to fit in, but I still had that. People have many avenues of inspiration, of why they go and achieve their dreams. It's not just one single thing. Yes. Did I want to be really good at something?

John Dehlin [01:02:21] Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:02:21] I want to be a great basketball player. Did I want to have friends? Did I want to be popular? Yeah. Did I want to prove people wrong? Did I? Yeah. Spite's a great motivator, but it's empty calories when you get there to the end. And also there was love. I was playing for love, for worth. And I was playing so that God would be proud of me. And I truly believed I had to be the first death player in NBA history and that God would be proud of me and then I'd be worthy to go to heaven. I had that really distorted thought pattern that was my polygamous thought pattern growing up as a teen. And so that fear, fear of not being good enough that I wouldn't be able to go to heaven, that fear was one of the great motivators that kept me. But again, love. And I actually really enjoyed basketball too. My parents had to wake me up zero times. But for three years going to East High School, I Woke up at 5:30 every morning and I went and worked with my high school coach, Kerry Rupp, who's now the assistant head coach at Oregon State. He didn't receive an extra dime working with me, but he knew how important that was for me. And so through a lot of labor, through a lot of hard work, hours and hours and hours, it wasn't until the end of my junior year that I started starting for East High School in downtown Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [01:03:37] There you were six, eight by then

Lance Allred [01:03:39] I was about six, nine.

John Dehlin [01:03:40] Okay.

Lance Allred [01:03:41] And I started, I just started. I started playing really well. I just had these awesome games where like, hey, you know what? My breakout game I remember. Gosh, why we remember these things like glory days now.

John Dehlin [01:03:53] This is what year about this is 1998. 98 my junior year. Okay. East High School, Salt Lake High School.

Lance Allred [01:04:01] My first game as a starter, coach took a chance on me, but that game, then in the fourth quarter I had like 12 points and that's a big deal in high school basketball where you don't have, have a shot clock. Having 12 points as a junior, for me, that was a really big, that kind of was kind of like the momentum builder for confidence in me.

John Dehlin [01:04:21] And you were a center.

Lance Allred [01:04:22] I was a center.

John Dehlin [01:04:23] So most of your points were kind of were posting up.

Lance Allred [01:04:25] Posting up. Yeah. I wasn't a jump shooter. I was just always a center rebounding. But Coach Rupp was an amazing coach as far as skill development for big men. And he went to the, with me to the University of Utah. At the end of that junior year, I didn't have any recruitment letters or anything. I went to an AAU tournament, last minute invite for a guy that couldn't show up. So I went to fill in for somebody because again, I really was kind of a no name.

John Dehlin [01:04:48] Here in Salt Lake.

Lance Allred [01:04:49] Here in Salt Lake. Here in Salt Lake. Because, you know, most kids, they start doing those AAU tournaments in 7th, 8th grade and they started developing like the buzz and the hype and I didn't know anything about that. And so junior year, end of junior year, I get about to go to California and I showed up a no name. But then I left that weekend ranked the best center in the west.

John Dehlin [01:05:10] Multiple states.

Lance Allred [01:05:11] Multiple states.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] How'd you do that?

Lance Allred [01:05:13] It was just, I just came out of nowhere and just like, wait, who is this kid running around? Just. That's the thing about Coach Rupp is that, you know, I never was the greatest leaper. I never had the biggest vertical.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] You could dunk though.

Lance Allred [01:05:27] I could dunk, of course, Yeah, I could dunk. But the thing about Coach Rep taught me, he taught me a lot, like to be a lot like Tim Duncan in that, you know, just for longevity. If my whole game is simply based on dunking and blocking shots, there's always going to be someone younger, faster, stronger than me. So Coach Rapp taught me a lot of skills that, cerebral skills as far as being able to face up, being able to shoot bank shots, being able to shoot the 15 foot shot, being able to pop, pick and pop. When a guy bigger than, when someone's bigger than you is playing against you, who wants to block your shot, take him outside, shoot shots on him, shoot left hand and right hand. He taught me to be ambidextrous and that As a professional, I actually scored more points with my left hand than my right hand, even though I'm right handed. In the paint, I learned to score more with my left hand, so people didn't want to know which way I was going. But that was part of. Again, maybe that's the way my brain works too. But because I don't hear very well, my brain always. My senses are always kind of in hyperdrive as far as feeling, seeing, touching, smelling. And so challenging me to be ambidextrous actually came pretty natural to me. And so the ability to score with both hands, to always run the floor every time. So I wasn't the greatest leaper, but I was fast and that I would race with my guards on the track, just try to outrun them all the time. And I knew how to run. And I didn't have the longest wingspan. My body's proportional. It's 611 wingspan, 611 height. So actually, from a distance, I don't look 6'11. You don't look that big either, but when people get up to you, I'm like, he's actually a really big guy because you're not long and gangly. You're just kind of proportional. And so Coach Replacement taught me all those subtle little things of how to set a screen, how to roll, how to read the defense and know when to slip off the screen or the pop or to read the defense just so that again, I was playing chess with my sight. I couldn't hear what my teammates were saying. I just learned to watch what everyone's doing and say, all right, time to slash here, time to bump on the stagger or whatever. And so there was little things that Coach Rupp taught me and. And kind of just amplifying my visual skills that I was developing. That's what allowed me to kind of come up out of nowhere. But here's a little thing I didn't know. This is 1998, the year that Utah lost to Kentucky in the national championship game.

Playing for Rick Majerus at the University of Utah

John Dehlin [01:07:53] Van Horn and Andre Miller.

Lance Allred [01:07:55] Van Horn. It was Doleak and Andre Miller. Van horn graduated in 97. He was drafted with Tim Duncan. 98. Doliak and Andre Miller went to the championship game with Hannah Metalla and Gang Brenton Johnson. And so the year before and the sophomore year, when I was still a nobody, Coach Rob took me up to the University of Utah and I went to University a camp, Rick Majeris Basketball camp. And I remember I was so enamored with Rick Majeris because his attention to detail, how he could take anyone like Keith Van Horn or Mike Doleak and make them NBA players. I knew I was never going to be that guy who was dunking alley, ooping on people, blocking a lot of shots. And so I just fell in love with this idea of playing for coach Majeris and the attention to detail, the rules and all that, the system and that everyone knows their role. The thing is, if you want a team associate, this company that work in, everyone has to know their role. Marjerius was all about everyone knowing the roles. But sadly, a lot of times socialist communists don't work. That's why they become dictatorships. I didn't know these things. Neither did coach Rep at the time. After that junior year, that tournament, when I came back ranked the best center in the West, I got scholarship offers from Utah, Stanford, Kansas, Purdue and byu. But we just don't do byu. But Mageris actually had offered me a scholarship to co trap in the middle of my junior year. But Coatrup didn't tell me. They didn't tell me. They just wanted me to keep working hard. So I already had a scholarship long before, even before they went to the championship game. And it was a no brainer, I mean, but sadly, yeah. I was a history and English major and Stanford's offering me a full ride scholarship. But I'm living two blocks away from the University of Utah. My family's going to school there. They'd just gone to the national championship game. And I believed my grandfather was a prophet. Owen Allred was a prophet. They were going to get me to heaven. But now Rick Majeris is going to get me to the NBA. That's going to get me to heaven.

John Dehlin [01:10:04] Your new prophet.

Lance Allred [01:10:05] He's my new prophet.

John Dehlin [01:10:06] Now let's pause for a second. Had you lost your faith by this point?

Lance Allred [01:10:10] No.

John Dehlin [01:10:10] Okay. So you're still believing?

Lance Allred [01:10:12] Yeah. So we joined the LDS Church. Good question. We joined the LDS Church and I'll be honest, I really liked Gordon B. Hinckley. I liked the guy, he meant a lot to me. But I never at one point ever believed that he somehow actually spoke to God on my behalf.

John Dehlin [01:10:32] You'd been burned.

Lance Allred [01:10:32] I'd been burned enough to realize, you know, he's just a human. And to think that he could somehow speak to God on behalf of 10 million different people, different personalities, just doesn't make any sense to me. He can teach us kindness and everything, but to think that one system applies for everybody. If that was true, then people wouldn't leave. There wouldn't be disenchantment everyone would be happy. The system applies for your traditional families. And, you know, being a single parent now, thinking, oh, my gosh, how would I, even if I wanted to, how could I even go back and sit in church? I don't know. But. So I still believe, though, John, even though I didn't believe that Gordon B. Hinckley spoke to God on my behalf, I still read the Book of Mormon. I still did my studying and research.

John Dehlin [01:11:30] And.

Lance Allred [01:11:30] And again, it wasn't like I was unveiling anything new ever. When people use the term studying, I'm doing my studying to find out all of the information now about the church. Yeah, that's what I did all the time when I was a teenager. I guess I was at a place where I accepted that the Mormon Church itself was flawed, that it simply was a tool that was mainstreamed to help reach as many people. But I still believed in the gospel and the teachings, the foundations of it. But above and all that, I was the type of kid. When I became seminary council president at East High School, it wasn't like my testimony was about Joseph Smith or Gordon B. Hinckley. It was about Jesus Christ. You know, I prided myself on being a Christian before being a Mormon. That's how I was different, if you want to say. And so when I accepted, go play at the University of Utah. By then, my sister and my brother Cort had both served LDS missions, and they both had complete mental breakdowns, nervous breakdowns. And so here's the thing, John, is that when we broke away from polygamy, my parents got us kids into psychotherapy, counseling.

John Dehlin [01:12:47] And.

Lance Allred [01:12:48] And we're working with these counselors that are telling us it's okay to question authority, it's okay to question reality. And so once you do all that work to break outside of that tiny little box, that paradigm that is polygamy, it's really, really hard to ever go back inside of another perfect little box. And yet that's what my siblings did. They went on their missions, which is a very tough, tiny, tight little box, and they just completely broke down.

John Dehlin [01:13:18] It's a little bit weird. And I felt this with your dad. It's a little bit weird that he left one. I don't know if colts the right word, but if he left one, just fundamentalist religion and kind of move to another one because your dad's super smart.

Lance Allred [01:13:36] Let's talk about that.

John Dehlin [01:13:37] Yeah, talk about that. How do you explain that the Mormon

Lance Allred [01:13:42] Church is child's play compared to polygamy? So it's like, okay, we're leaving this tiny little basketball court. I'm going to join the LDS Church, which is like a big giant baseball field. There's still rules, but it's a little bit more room to maneuver. Whereas if you want to go on an LDS mission, you got to go sit in the dugout, basically.

Lance Allred [01:14:06] So

Lance Allred [01:14:09] we were leaving one paradigm that was very small and just insanely intense going into another paradigm. But it's kind of like the frog out of hot water. Frog out of hot water analogy. If you had taken us out of polygamy right away into nothing, that would have been too much shell shock, too much culture shock. Like, who are we? Even more.

John Dehlin [01:14:35] Yeah. Depression as it was.

Lance Allred [01:14:37] Yeah. Instead it was a smooth transition in that it allowed us to start questioning authority. But we still had the foundation or I guess a belief that Joseph Smith and God and all that stuff still fits. Right. And also I'm glad that it allowed us to fit in community. Community that we had in the downtown Salt Lake area. That ward, the university ward, is the progressive stake in the entire LDS Church in that pretty much all of them are like Mormons building bridges, pro gay marriage, Very, very progressive. And so that's why too, we were able to do it. It was a very liberal ward where they were very accepting and not very judgmental at all. Whereas if you said, yeah, let's join the Mormon Church and go live in Draper, Utah, I've been like, yeah, no, we couldn't have done that.

John Dehlin [01:15:35] Okay.

Lance Allred [01:15:36] So that's how we were able to do it. The liberal context of downtown Salt Lake City, where people have a lot more open psychological boundaries to explore. But also it was less of a culture shock for us. And so I would say that's how it works.

John Dehlin [01:15:51] Got it.

Navigating Faith, Mission, and College Politics

Lance Allred [01:15:52] And so, but your, but your brothers,

John Dehlin [01:15:55] you had mentioned that your brothers, two, two siblings, awful mission experiences. So when it comes time for you to consider a mission, it comes time.

Lance Allred [01:16:03] I honestly, I was scared of blowback for sure. And I was so afraid of my parents being upset with me. But I had such a fear of going on a mission. One, I had fallen in love with basketball so much, but my whole identity was in being a basketball player because again, basketball, that's my self worth is going to get me to heaven. I need to play in the NBA that if I take two years off, I might lose that. Because if I'm just another Mormon leveling the playing field with all the other Mormons, I still have this whole story behind it. There's a fear of that, but also just a fear of seeing what happened to my siblings, of losing my freedom to explore my emotional and psychological boundaries. That was terrifying for me.

John Dehlin [01:16:48] Was the OCD still raging?

Lance Allred [01:16:49] Oh, yes. And that's the thing is luckily I was able to hide it and channel it through basketball. That instead of me worrying about girls or homosexuality or masturbation or, hell, I can now obsess about that miss shot or that turnover or that bad play. And I would go home every night, John, and just replay all the mistakes in my head.

John Dehlin [01:17:13] That's good, right? I mean, it was good for performance.

Lance Allred [01:17:16] It was good for performance.

John Dehlin [01:17:17] Was it? It was.

Lance Allred [01:17:18] But here's the thing is sadly, because I put so much pressure on myself that every. Really, John, every made or missed shot in my mind had like eternal ramifications. And so there's a fine line. There's a fine line that how much is too much? But the accountability I held myself to, to always get better, that's what allowed me to really propel so fast. But also because I had that much weight on my shoulders, I didn't have as much fun as I could have that I really. I was such an adult at such an early age. And that even when we moved to Utah, that's kind of like when I feel like a lot of my childhood ended and that everything just became so serious. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:01] But not everyone makes it to the NBA. So you have to wonder whether that OCD perfectionism drove your excellence.

Lance Allred [01:18:10] Absolutely. No, no, no, no. I get it, I get it, I get it. So.

John Dehlin [01:18:15] And it robs you of the fun, which is ironic.

Lance Allred [01:18:17] It is ironic. So It's a catch 22.

John Dehlin [01:18:19] Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:18:19] In that, you know, I always. People often ask me, if you hadn't had that polygamous upbringing of fear and guilt, do you think you would have made the NBA? That's a very good question. And I do not know. Yeah, yeah. But it's part of who I am as part of the nature versus nurture. How much of it is my parents work ethic that their parents have? Because you know, that stuff is passed down through genetics. If you look at both sides of the family, the Riplingers are just insane hard work workers. Some of the first homesteaders up in the Teton Valley, they were just dirt poor, but they loved living the land there. And so lava is genetics about lava is the nature and the nurture. So it's a balance of it. So it's a fair question to ask. And I can't give you a fair answer saying that I believe it all comes into play. No doubt. And So I decided not to go on my mission. And I was terrified by going. I told my parents about it. My parents just kind of sighed, and they said, yes, thank you, we don't want you to go either. Because they themselves. Around the same time, when my brother wanted to come home from his mission, my dad dealt with the mission president and the state president. And there was a lot of bad advice and guilt thrown at my dad and my brother. And so that was kind of also the beginning of the end for my parents as well. And that was. But again, once again, they left polygamy for their kids, their family. They wanted those kids to have the best opportunities possible. So now we're hearing Mormonism, and my parents are once again being challenged to put their faith ahead of their kids. And my parents are like, no, our kids will always come first. And I think that marked the beginning of their exodus. It was a slow exodus, kind of like mine, but that allowed them, you know, once again, to start questioning authority. And I chose not to go on a mission.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] And of course.

Lance Allred [01:20:13] Oh, the horror. You know, within a week, there were rumors that I had gotten a girl pregnant and all that stuff. And it's ridiculous. No, I. I'll just be blunt. I was a virgin till I was 25, right? I still had all that hell and shame and fear and guilt, but here I am, 18, deciding not to go on a mission. All of a sudden, the rumors are flying around and. And so. But that thing is, it didn't. They're. People. The guilt and the shame of the critics, and I developed a thick skin. If you want to be a basketball player, you're going to have people hate you. They just are. And that you really. You just a projection of most people's own angst and worries and fears and their own paradigm, really. And that people would watch me play basketball, and they think they know me, but they really don't. I'm just a character on a stage. I'm either the good guy or the bad guy or the whiner or whatever, you know, and so I'm just entertainment for them. And so I was already developing a thick skin to criticism. And so when I decided not to go on the mission, oh, yeah, I got a lot of blowback and criticism, criticism. And people would guilt and shame me and always feel like they needed to give me their two cents about how a basketball is only so many years, but your spirituality is eternal. I'm like, yeah, I get it.

John Dehlin [01:21:39] Who's telling you that?

Lance Allred [01:21:40] Oh, lots of people, like bishop. Bishops or friends in high school or girls that were waiting for their missionaries or teammates who would come back from their missions. All sorts of feedback like that. And, you know, it's so. Yeah, I mean, that was really the beginning of the end for me because it's kind of like, wait, you guys trying to guilt me and make me feel bad. I'm so glad I do it, because why would I go waste two years of my life for people like you if your love is conditional? If you like me only if I do this, you don't deserve my time and my labor to bring people into your fold.

John Dehlin [01:22:26] There was a BYU coach around this time. There was some athlete that was trying to decide between Duke.

Lance Allred [01:22:33] Chris Burgess.

John Dehlin [01:22:34] Duke and.

Lance Allred [01:22:35] Yeah, yeah. A teammate. Chris Burgess.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] Does that happen around time?

Lance Allred [01:22:37] Yeah. What do you mean, your teammate? Yeah, he actually went to University of Utah. He went to Duke, then he left Duke. It was Roger Reed who byu.

John Dehlin [01:22:48] He was guilty of people, too, right?

Lance Allred [01:22:49] He guilty the hell out of people. But he put Chris Burgess on the guilt for disappointing 10 million Mormons for not going to BYU, and Burgess didn't buy it. But then Burgess ended up going to Utah and he and I became very good friends because, again, we're both Mormon kids who decided not to go on a mission. But he's one of the. He's one of the highest caliber people you'll ever meet. And it's not that phony. That phony, shallow. Nice. He's actually someone that's been through the grinder, and he's a good person and I'm proud of him. He and I actually both had the longest basketball, professional basketball careers of our entire collegiate network of teammates.

John Dehlin [01:23:29] And we both played, including Andre Miller

Lance Allred [01:23:32] and Andre Miller, actually. Yeah. Andre Miller, he's the longest one. But Andre Miller was. He graduated 99. That was my senior year in high school. Burgess and I Both came in 2000, so he graduated just before we showed up.

John Dehlin [01:23:47] Okay.

Lance Allred [01:23:47] Andre Miller had such a long career. He's a heck of a player. I'm a big fan of his, and he's a great guy, too.

John Dehlin [01:23:53] Let me ask you, just really quickly, we skipped over this, and I'm just curious. We got so much I care. Your senior year. Did East High do well? Was it, like, well celebrated? Were you like the big star in the state?

Lance Allred [01:24:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:08] Were there rivalries? Like, I'm just curious.

Lance Allred [01:24:10] Yeah, we were East High School. That would always be a sad, sad spot in my life. That senior year, we were ranked preseason number one, and. But I had come out such a late bloomer. That the other kids that had been doing the AAU or throughout all their lives, some of them just were not happy that, wait, Lance is now suddenly the big shot. And so the high school politics and the parental bickering and luckily my parents knew nothing about basketball. My dad hates basketball, so they didn't coach me in anything. They just stayed out of my way completely. And I tell that to parents. If you're trying to get your kids to play sports, just stop. Figure out what their passion is and support them and find out what that passion is and back them up 100%. Your kids don't need to live their lives for you. You've had your shot. Let them live their life. And I always learned. I knew the teammates that were playing for their parents. I knew you couldn't rely on them because in the fourth quarter when the pressure was so great, the love and the passion wasn't there to carry them through that pressure. So they're just wasting their time. Parents time, our time. But a lot of those same teammates who were playing for their parents, their parents became very hostile to coach up to a lot of the situations. So there's just. A lot of things just fell apart at the wheels.

John Dehlin [01:25:39] So you're saying there were politics at East High?

Lance Allred [01:25:41] Oh, yeah. In high school there's serious politics.

John Dehlin [01:25:43] So you weren't starting or.

Lance Allred [01:25:45] I was starting, but let's just say someone tried to have CoachRupp fired. There's all this stuff. And also for me, too.

John Dehlin [01:25:53] That sounds crazy.

Lance Allred [01:25:54] It sounds crazy, but that's just how parents are when they think they're every. Every kid is special, no doubt, but not every kid's a star. Sorry, helicopter parents. Gotta break that one to you. But so also, you know, I take a lot of ownership too, in that.

John Dehlin [01:26:12] Well, did the year not go well?

Lance Allred [01:26:14] The year did not go well.

John Dehlin [01:26:15] What happened?

Lance Allred [01:26:15] We lost. We lost in the first round.

John Dehlin [01:26:18] But how was the regular season?

Lance Allred [01:26:19] Oh, we actually. We limped because we were just losing a lot of games. I actually got really sick. I had mono and pneumonia at the same time. And I missed a few games there because I got so sick. Sick, but also just the pressure. The year before, we lost in the first round, which is East High School. But then all of a sudden I come out of nowhere, but in the off season, and all of a sudden we're now the number one ranked team just because there's Lance Allred on that team. And so I think we all felt so much pressure that. The pressure to suddenly just be the best team. We all just Kind of collapsed underneath.

John Dehlin [01:27:00] It was a 4A.

Lance Allred [01:27:01] It was 4A.

John Dehlin [01:27:02] Okay.

Lance Allred [01:27:02] Yeah, 4A.

John Dehlin [01:27:04] But that didn't hurt your scholarship hopes.

Lance Allred [01:27:05] No, no, no, no, no, no. I already have my scholarship with Majeris. And despite. Despite not having shot clocks in high school. I wish high school would get shot clocks. Was what a lot of teams would do, John. They would just hold the ball for the whole quarter. They would. They wouldn't shoot. So the games would sometimes be like, 18 to 16 because they just didn't like. Judge Memorial would do that with a. And so. Because instead of letting me have the ball and actually abuse people, they would just hold the ball. So I wish Utah high school sports would put a shot clock in. But also, despite all that, I averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds a game, and I was the Gatorade player of the year for Utah. And so the scholarship is fine. We went through to that. And, you know, but coach rep. Gatorade

John Dehlin [01:27:50] player of the year for the stadium.

Lance Allred [01:27:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:51] Okay.

Lance Allred [01:27:52] Yeah. For the state of Utah.

John Dehlin [01:27:53] So you did well.

Lance Allred [01:27:54] I did well. I did. I did what I had to do. But the team didn't do well. No, we didn't do well at all. And again, there were parts where I could have done so much better, and I put so much pressure on myself that. Yeah, but again, you're kids. You're just kids, and you're learning how to deal with all this pressure. But a couple of those teammates and I are still very, very close. Awesome people. And so went to the University of Utah, but I decided too late not to go on my mission. And Majeris had already given my scholarship to Chris Burgess, who was transferring from Duke. So I actually had to sit out that year as a gray shirt, which means I didn't have a scholarship. I couldn't practice with the team, so I could only take half classes as well. But I used that year as an opportunity to work with a strength coach and just gain, like, 25 pounds of muscle, which allowed me to go from being a stick to actually looking like somewhat of a man. And then the soft freshman year started.

John Dehlin [01:28:48] Okay, so I want to go ahead. We're about. At the end of kind of this. This episode.

Lance Allred [01:28:54] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:28:55] So I want the next episode to be your college and pro career as kind of a. Because I. I'm a. I'm a little bit of a basketball fan, so I kind of want to dig into that a little bit. Sure. So if we're. If we're kind of closing out this session. We talked about growing up fundamentalist. We talked about growing up deaf. We talked about being bullied. We talked about transitioning from the FLDS or from the AUB to the LDS church. And your ascent on the basketball floor. Anything to sort of summarize, anything else you wanted to say or anything to summarize?

Personal Growth and Leaving Fundamentalism Behind

Lance Allred [01:29:34] Like, I wish I could have a lot of easy compartmentalization, but it all is kind of an exodus together. My, my maturation as a man playing around the world that kind of simultaneously allowed me to fully step outside of limited religious beliefs. It all kind of so intertwined. Okay, but I think this is funny. This is a good point. A good point to stop because there's so much change in metamorphosis going on there that I'm stepping into my space and I'm investing fully into my identity as a basketball player. And I wasn't, I still was not comfortable in my skin who I was. And you know what my TED Talk is? What is your polygamy? My polygamy truly was still that I believed I had to earn love. So I think that's pretty much sums it up. I was just a kid trying to find love. Love.

John Dehlin [01:30:25] So up through, up through your time at the U of U, even you were searching for love?

Lance Allred [01:30:33] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:30:34] Okay, so that's, so that's, that's the theme of your first theme, and that

Lance Allred [01:30:40] is going to come to a class with Vic Mageris.

John Dehlin [01:30:42] All right, so this has been the first segment of my interview with Lance Allred. It's been fabulous. Thanks for tuning in. Next episode, we're going to talk about his college and pro careers. We're going to talk about his marriage, what happened to his marriage, and we're going to talk about what happened to his faith and that sort of thing. So, Lance Allred, thank you for joining us. Tune in, go to MormonStories.org to make comments if you have any thoughts or feedback for Lance and join us in just a few minutes for part two. Thanks, Lance. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@saber rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Hymn Interlude and End of Part One

Lance Allred [01:31:40] Come, come, you no toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Just better far for us to strive our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well.

Lance Allred [01:32:34] Well,

Lance Allred [01:32:37] why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard t not so all is right? Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?

Part Two: Weber State and Rick Majerus Revisited

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 679

Lance Allred [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org. hello and welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. We are now beginning part two of our interview with Lance Allred. Hey, Lance, thanks for joining us.

Lance Allred [00:00:42] Good to be back.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] Lance is the author of this book called Long Shot Lance Allred, the Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA. And we're basically asking, how does a kid born into the AUB all red fundamentalist polygamist group who's deaf end up not only staying alive and thriving in life, but becoming an NBA athlete and also a motivational speaker and a published author. And we just finished recording the first episode where Lance talked about growing up as a fundamentalist, talked about his experiences with his, you know, what he knew about his grandfather, his experiences with his dad, what led them out of their commune in Montana to Salt Lake City, what led them to leave the fundamentalist organization that they belonged to and to join the LDS Church. Then we talked about how Lance dealt with being deaf, with being bullied, with growing up a super tall kid in Mormon central ground zero and eventually becoming a standout basketball star for East High School in Salt Lake City and eventually being recruited by the University of Utah to play NCAA Division 1 basketball, I should note, not only passing up scholarships at Stanford and what, Kentucky, Kansas, Kansas,

Lance Allred [00:02:22] Purdue, North Carolina, and most importantly, byu.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] Yes. Can't forget that. Yeah, can't forget that. Turned down all those opportunities and went to play for Rick Majeris at the University of Utah at a time when the University of Utah was one of the most respected, well, respected programs in the country. In the country.

Lance Allred [00:02:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] So now we're going to focus this episode on sort of his college and NBA careers and whatever naturally comes after that. So, Lance Allred, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Lance Allred [00:02:55] Good to be back.

John Dehlin [00:02:56] So why don't you, why don't you start by talking about what it's like to be an NCAA Division 1 athlete. We left off last episode with you talking about being gray shirted.

Lance Allred [00:03:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] So you bulked up your freshman year.

Lance Allred [00:03:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:11] Your first year, you didn't play, weren't on scholarship. What happens next?

Lance Allred [00:03:16] So the next year when I was eligible to receive my scholarship, it was a Funny year. This is kind of back in the dark ages in that we basketball players had to do the same list of the football players. And so lo and behold, we look like football players, especially as big men. The Majera system, we had so many big men with lower back problems, Nate Althoff, Chris Burgess, me, Britton Johnson and that we kept doing all these major squatting, hang cleans and everything. And so we'd always get hurt. And then Marjeris would keep cycling us through. Majeris was a brilliant X and O, but also a big man coach teaching fundamentals and everything. But also, if you remember, I talked about Coach Rupp in the first half. Coach Rupp went with me to the University of Utah. And Coach Rupp, Majeris was brilliant X and O tacticians. I learned a lot from him. But as far as skill development and basic fundamentals, Coach Rep taught me everything I know. And that's why Majeris brought him. But one of the main.

John Dehlin [00:04:17] What's Mageris known for? Like, before your experience? He's kind of a legend.

Lance Allred [00:04:22] Like, he's a legend.

John Dehlin [00:04:23] ESPN knows him, they mention him all the time. He's dead now, but yeah. What, what made him so famous and well known?

Lance Allred [00:04:30] Well, one that's the thing about Coach Majeris and a lot of basketball players is that he was very charming on camera, very charming. But he was two different people that when he recruited me, very charismatic, very gregarious, jovial. But I learned this behind closed doors as a very different person. And one of the main recruiters for me was Jeff Judkins. And Majeris ran him out of the program when I signed with Utah, Jeff Judkins left shortly after. And Jeff Judkins was very loved by the players and so was so loved that that actually bothered Majeris that the players liked him so much. And so right when Mijudkins left, I'm like, huh, that's interesting. But the thing is, Majeris was brutal. Every swear word in the book he would just throw at you. But at least.

John Dehlin [00:05:32] So his charisma made him famous. What else made him so famous?

Lance Allred [00:05:35] His charisma famous made him famous, but also his X and O tactician. His mentality of being able to understand the nuances of a game and the way he could scout other teams was just brilliant. How he would one, he would know all the plays, he'd watch them on film, but he would figure out very quickly everyone's tendencies before he even played that team. And that a lot of times, once you play a team A couple times, you know, people's tendencies. But he would scout so far in advance that before I even saw this guy, I knew all of whoever I was playing against. I knew what his strengths and weaknesses were. I knew that this guy could not drive left or had no right shoulder game. So it was just force.

John Dehlin [00:06:18] And Majeris helped you think about those things.

Lance Allred [00:06:20] Yeah, exactly. But it was so detail. But Mageris knew everything that was happening on the court. So he knew even if when he was coaching the game, he could know even without directly looking at me, if I was not in the right spot on defense. And so he then would like sub you out. And so there was a fine line there that Manjeris, he would overcoach.

John Dehlin [00:06:45] Was he at Marquette? Where was he before he came to uc?

Lance Allred [00:06:47] So he was an assistant coach at Marquette. Then he became the head coach at Ball State and then went to the university.

John Dehlin [00:06:54] Did they do well? Ball State?

Lance Allred [00:06:55] Yeah, Ball State did very well. And so the thing is, his system works. And the thing is, I can't fault him because even when he went to St. Louis after university of Utah, they then became a top 25 program. Jarris here was his flaw.

John Dehlin [00:07:10] No, do his benefits before his flaw.

Lance Allred [00:07:13] Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. Okay, well, you already did.

John Dehlin [00:07:15] So scouting, scouting knows the game. Knows the game really well. X's and O's developing charisma.

Lance Allred [00:07:22] And he knew how to recruit, he knew how to be charming.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] And had he had any big championships or successes prior to the U of

Lance Allred [00:07:31] U. Yeah, U of U. And that's the thing is this is the nice flaw I'm giving him in that he was such a brilliant mastermind X and O coach that he didn't know when to release the reins a little bit. That eventually guys like Van Horn and Doleak and Miller, but later on, eventually he just stopped allowing you the have room for failure. And that basketball is a game of mistakes and it's all about who picks himself up and who has the confidence to keep playing on. In that majority. There was so much over coaching that eventually you just forgot how to just go out and have fun and play basketball. But I'll kind of get to that point in just a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:08:19] Just real quick. Prior to you starting the U of U, it had its best season ever. Talk about that.

Lance Allred [00:08:26] Absolutely. I mean, there was such a buzz. But the thing is that changes a lot of things too. I wasn't aware how much dynamics that would change because then once University of Utah becomes a top five program, he then starts recruiting a bunch of other players that I learned this, that we spend so much time thinking, oh, I got to get that scholarship to Kansas or Utah. That means I'm a good player. But if you're competing for playing time with your teammates, you're not playing and you're not getting better. And I learned later, had I had to do it all over again, I would have immediately just gone to someplace like Weber State where I was going to play. You get better when you play and you're able to learn from your experiences and you're able to grow. And so what happened with Majeris is normally he would take these no name kids and that's why he lasted as long as I did, because nice quiet Mormon boys like me would never stand up to him. And that there's a fine line between motivating and then just intimidating and bullying people by fear. And that every name in the book. And this is going to get kind of vulgar. This is just locker room talk. But like sometimes we say, lance, you know, just so there's no confusion with your hearing loss, I'm going to fingerspell it for you. Capital C U N T. That's what you are. That kind of stuff we can laugh about now as adults. But college sports is a business. It's about money. And majority lasted as long as he did because he won games. As long as he kept winning games, people would turn a blind eye to it. And I use a metaphor. The Stalin brought Russia to power, but did the ends justify the means? All the 20 million Russians, probably more that he killed. So there were a lot of dead bodies left along the way. One out of every three freshmen survived. The Rick Majeris program. People don't really pay attention to that. They just focus on all the highs. But he filtered so many kids through because he would just break them and most of them would just leave and they would just disappear because they would get so broken down and that he would just break you and break you and break you. And the flaws, I'm going to speak on the technical flaws of what happened is that he didn't know when to release control and just trust his players and their instinct to come in at the end of the game. The University of Utah was up in the second half against Kentucky in 1998, up by 10 points or so, but they ran out of gas. But also having talked to players that were on that team, that Magyaris is kind of like a Mormon prophet. As long as you follow the system, everything's going to be fine. But sometimes not Everything, there's deviations and so when things aren't going according to plan, when the other team had done a total adjustment. Mageris was horrible at coaching on the fly. He was a brilliant pre game tactician and general tactician, but in the heat of battle, his ability to improvise was like some of the worst I've ever seen.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] Okay, so you're a freshman, so your second year is your first?

Lance Allred [00:11:33] Yeah, my second year.

John Dehlin [00:11:34] What's it like to go into a program as a NCAA athlete? What's that like? What was it like for you? How did it feel? Were you excited?

Lance Allred [00:11:42] Oh, I was so excited.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] Van Hornen and Andre were gone.

Lance Allred [00:11:47] Yeah, doj, Andre, Miller, they're all gone.

John Dehlin [00:11:49] All the stars were gone by the time he got there.

Lance Allred [00:11:51] All the stars were gone when I came back. Britton Johnson had just come back from his mission, so he was expected to be the next star. He was a McDonald's All American and Mary High School here and. But really we didn't have any real major stars. We were all pretty young and so we all kind of grew up together in that process. And that was a tough transition too for Mageris because he'd have Van Horn, Doleak and Miller for so long, for consistent years being the stars to carry the load. So we really became a very balanced team. We all became very close. That freshman year. It was fun, but you have to realize people say, oh, well, at least you get the athletic scholarship. But if you count in the hours that we put in weight training, conditioning, practicing, those hours add up to a lot. Even though there's NCAA rules on caps, Mr. Jerry's didn't care about those rules. You'd be practicing, oh gosh, two A days, all the time on Mondays, on Saturdays and Sundays. And you'd practice three plus hours every day, just in practice, not even counting weights and other things. And they were brutal practices, just brutal. So breaking down of the fundamentals. And guys would get hurt because he would. We would be warmed up, we'd be running, doing a drill, and then he'd stop and then he would just Talk for like 10 minutes and usually just berate us or insult us. And by then he gets stiff, he says, okay, we're live. Then you have to go 100 miles per hour again. So guys would be tearing out their L5, L4 disc and just getting a lot of injuries. That was how he coached. But that takes a toll on your body. But again, the first year it was great with me and him because he was such a taskmaster And I had that insatiable need to always be working that I really thought, he's going to get me to the NBA. And so I was willing to do whatever he asked me to do. I didn't complain. I didn't stand up to him or anything like that, because I really thought he was going to get me to the NBA. And that would be my worth. That would be my salvation.

John Dehlin [00:14:02] Was this the Mountain West Conference?

Lance Allred [00:14:04] The Mountain West Conference had the tour.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] So you were still with BYU in the same conference it was before the U went to the Pac 12.

Lance Allred [00:14:10] Yeah, this is Mountain west date.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] Okay, Mountain West. Were you as good as byu? Were you?

Lance Allred [00:14:15] Oh, we were always better than BYU

John Dehlin [00:14:19] was preseason. That first year, were you ranked to be top of the Mountain West?

Lance Allred [00:14:24] Yeah, we were almost always proverbially ranked to be the number, number one team in the Mountain West. And that year, if you remember, this was an interesting year. This was a year that Marjeris mom got cancer and he left. And then Dick Hunsaker, former, just recently the head coach at uvu, became the interim coach. So my freshman year, I had Magaris with preseason, but before the season actually started, right when we left for our preseason tournament in Puerto Rico, Mageris left. His mom had cancer. So he was gone that entire season. So I didn't actually have Rick Majeris that year. So we had coach Dick Hunsaker, and I think we were. We tied the regular season Mountain west that year with Coach Hunsaker, and he did a pretty good job. It was interesting, though, the pressure caught up to him as an assistant coach, he was one of my favorite coaches. But then when he became head coach, I guess he felt the pressure that he had to just be somebody else. And that was tough to adjust to. But everyone became really unhappy with Coach Hunsaker. He had a lot of pressure. He really did. And he made it difficult, sadly, because he really became a different person. But that's what Majeris would do, too. So a lot of coaches think that's what you have to do. On camera, you're amazing and charming, but behind closed doors, you're a totally different person. Person. You see that a lot with coaches, sadly.

John Dehlin [00:15:53] Do you think that's. Do you think that's all coaches?

Lance Allred [00:15:56] Not all coaches.

John Dehlin [00:15:57] To get the top performance from players, you really have to ride them hard.

Lance Allred [00:16:02] No, that's the thing is that's poor coaching in that like. Like retail school teachers, not every kid learns the same way and not every kid has the same motivation. And, you know, I honestly think If Majeris had understood that loyalty and compassion are the greatest motivators and not fear and intimidation, he would have been one of the top five coaches in the history of basketball. That he was that brilliant, he was that smart, but he was just. He really was so personal. And the thing is, he was mean, he was brutal. But when he came back that next year, sophomore year, something changed in that he just became cruel and that he really started getting personal. Cruel, just personal.

John Dehlin [00:16:47] Maybe his mom.

Lance Allred [00:16:48] Yeah, maybe his mom dying of cancer really took a toll on him.

John Dehlin [00:16:52] She died.

Lance Allred [00:16:53] She did not die that year. Maybe she's dead now, I don't know. But she didn't die that year. But she was not doing well. But what started happening is that there's a fine line of just berating players and riding on them versus using their personal family insight stories against them in public, in front of their teammates. And again, but here's. When you saw him do it to your other teammates, you were like, well, one, I feel bad for my teammate. It doesn't mean we feel less, think less of him. But two, I'm just glad it's not me right now. And that somber year was an interesting year because I was being trained and groomed as a player that year to just simply be a defender and be a rebounder, be the backup center to Chris Burgess, the Duke guy. But Burgess actually tore his plantar fasciitis and he went down in December. And by default I became starting center. And then all of a sudden, like, I'm not Chris Burgess at the time. I'm still just developing a lot of things.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] Was Burgess good at the time?

Lance Allred [00:18:05] Burgess was very good. He was a senior. He was a senior. He did a lot of offensive scoring for. And a lot of players were built around him, but he was far. He was. He was much more skill advanced than I was in his confidence too. And it had gone so far to the point that I was over coached, that every time I stepped on the court, John, I'd be like, please don't pass me the ball, please don't pass me the ball. Because I'd be afraid of making a mistake. And then the next day on film, the Jerry's would have film and he would just rip into you, and then you'd run sprints up in the tunnel for hours and everything like that. And it was an interesting program. And even Coach Rupp one day, Majeris made his assistant coaches run sprints as discipline too, in front of the other players. He would just do that just to berate everybody. And I remember Coach Rupp just said, you know, he pulled me aside one day, he says, I'm so sorry. If I'd known this is what it was here, I never would have allowed you to come here. And I wouldn't be here either. And it was hard on everybody. And the thing is, it was just different. That year off, something really did snap. It changed. And we were getting ready to play a game at St. Mary's College. We were in California and Marriott's just cussing us all out and we're on the baseline, it's the pre game and then he looks at me and he says, Lance, you're the worst of all. You use your hearing aids and excuse to weasel your way through life and you're just a disgrace to cripples. If I was in a wheelchair and I saw you play basketball, I'd shoot myself. Now as a 35 year old man, I would just laugh at somebody who said that and say, you need to get yourself checked out. But when you're a 19, 20 year old kid and you think you're invisible, but you're not. And also I put all my faith into this man thinking if I just do everything he says, what my prophet says, he's going to get me to the NBA. And it just, it broke me.

John Dehlin [00:20:08] Repeat those words slowly.

Lance Allred [00:20:10] You are. Yeah, you use your hearing as an excuse to weasel your way through life and you're just a disgrace to cripples. And if I was in a wheelchair,

John Dehlin [00:20:20] there's so much wrong with that.

Lance Allred [00:20:22] I know, and if I was in a wheelchair and saw you play basketball, I'd shoot myself. And there's so much wrong with it. But the funny thing is, that's the thing, that's, that is the double standard when it comes to sports and the mentor protege dynamics and that we think, oh, that's just the coach giving tough love. But excuse me if that's cruelty. It is cruelty. If it was a romantic relationship or marriage, that would be considered emotionally abusive or parenting. Yeah, exactly. But in sports it's fair game, right, because, oh, he's just bringing out the best in them. Isn't that what any abuser can say to any person they're victimizing or whatever? But that's the thing about sports, it's a different world. Sports is a projection. As Marcus Aurelius says, given bread or the circus, people who always take the circus. And people go through life and it's so abstract. They think they know what the rules are, but there's not really rules but hey, I can go watch my sports team, the University of Utah, play Kentucky, the national championship game. The powerhouse, the evil empire of Kentucky. And the rules, we know what the rules are. The rules are fair. That's why we see people get so angry and just irrationally upset and throw a beer can at the TV if the ref makes a bad call. Because they're projecting their frustrations on life, because they're expecting it to be fair in sports. But it's not. There's nothing rational about sports. It's pure emotion. That's why fans are short for fanatic. And as long as you allowing them an outlet, you're entertaining them a distraction from their everyday life. And you allow them project their anger and their frustration onto you, whether you're the enemy or you're on their team. But you're not playing well. People don't care about your feelings. You're just a gladiator. You're a means to an end. You're an entertainment for them. And so they don't really care about what's happening behind closed doors as long as Majeris keeps winning. And as long as I can go spend my $30 and buy my beer and vent my frustrations about life at this game and we win, I can go home and a lot of stress is relieved. And so when people say, oh, I want my kid to play sports, I'm like, if you really knew what went on behind closed doors, why would you wish that on your child?

John Dehlin [00:22:56] Wow. Wow.

Lance Allred [00:22:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:00] So your sophomore year turned into a nightmare.

Lance Allred [00:23:02] It was a nightmare. Absolute nightmare.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] How did it end?

Lance Allred [00:23:07] We lost to Indiana in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] So again, you tied or won the Mountain West?

Lance Allred [00:23:13] Yeah, we tied to win the conference championship, but then we lost in the conference tournament in Las Vegas, which Majeris never won any conference tournaments. And remember that, because next year something funny is going to happen. But after that sophomore year, again, I just broke down, John, in that I was afraid to even touch the ball.

John Dehlin [00:23:36] But you were starting.

Lance Allred [00:23:38] I was.

John Dehlin [00:23:38] Because Burgess had been injured.

Lance Allred [00:23:39] Burgess had been out.

John Dehlin [00:23:40] So you finished the season as a start.

Lance Allred [00:23:41] Finish the season, but not scoring? No, but actually, it broke down so bad towards the end that he started another player, Cameron Colford, because I just. After that, what happened at St. Mary's when he said those things, I really just broke down. I just.

John Dehlin [00:23:56] So what did that do to you? Yeah, we didn't talk about what that. What impact had on you? Oh, it really.

Lance Allred [00:24:00] The whole psyche of me needing my worth to be validated as A basketball player that I needed to make to the NBA to be worthy of love, God's love and make it to heaven. Honestly, suicidal depression for sure that I just didn't talk. I was dating a girl, we broke up. I just stopped talking to her. My parents, I didn't talk to them for months. But it wasn't until the end of the season I just stopped talking to everybody. And some people said, oh, that's Lance pouting. But looking back, it was me just in shock. I was just like in basic survival mode.

John Dehlin [00:24:46] Was there anything about just the pressure of everyone wants you to succeed. It's like the pride of the community. And everyone respects Rick Majeris, like I would imagine. And your parents want to see it all. Be positive. I would imagine part of the silence would just be not feeling like it's safe to talk or that people will believe you.

Lance Allred [00:25:12] So you're tapping into the code of silence and that Mormons, polygamy, we have a code of silence. Mormon church, we have a code of silence. The University of Utah, byu, you know, the honor code system. Utahns, Mormons are a perfect psyche for codes of silence. And it really was. I thought it was going to be a dream, but playing again in your community, a community that already is questioning my choice of not going on a mission, like, wait, I didn't go on a mission. And I sacrificed that to play here at the University of Utah. And I'm not even very good. That pressure doubled down for sure and I felt like a total failure. And it wasn't all that pressure. So really what I thought would be a huge boost behind me actually was just more pressure on top. And so towards the end of the season, my parents finally heard about what was going on with me and Marjeris because it didn't just stop there. I mean, he would just. Yeah, I have a lot of funny things. And as far as coaches sometimes would keep scores, just to keep tally of how many sprints you had to run out of after practice or up the tunnel, up the stairs, up to the top of the arena. And one coach gave me the tally and it was like, x player has 10 sprints, 12 sprints, Lance has 78 sprints, etc.

John Dehlin [00:26:45] So you were his whipping boy?

Lance Allred [00:26:46] I was a whipping boy.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] Why was he picking on you?

Lance Allred [00:26:50] I can honestly say because I think he really did see a lot, maybe the most potential out of me. But his archaic coaching strategy of thinking that that's going to get the most, the best out of me, that he didn't truly understand the makeup of where I came from. And that if he had understood that, sure, there's a time and a place for tough coaching. There's a time and a place when a coach has to call you to task and call you out on your bs. No doubt. Coach Rupert was brilliant with that. Coach Craven Weber was brilliant with that. There's a time and a place for all of that. But I honestly know, I can say this 100%, he cared about me, but I do know that he came from an abusive home.

Conflict With Majerus and Being Blackballed

John Dehlin [00:27:44] Majoris.

Lance Allred [00:27:45] Yeah. And so as I. Abusers, people who

John Dehlin [00:27:50] abuse, were often abused.

Lance Allred [00:27:52] Exactly. And so as I've gotten older, John and I've gained more experience in life and more compassion, we learned that people inflict pain because they're in pain. And if I saw Majeris today, I probably would just give him a hug, tell him thank you, and he is forgiven. And I don't hold on to that anymore. It didn't. Yeah, it was tough. And the Johnson brothers, Jeff and Britt and Johnson, they're actually the ones that told my parents about what was happening because, you know, I didn't want to be the kid that went. Told mom and dad what was happening. Right. I didn't want to go cry and tattle. I just kept it inside and kept it hidden. And they finally learned about it, but they kept quiet for a while. But then once we lost to Indiana, Coach Rupp sat me in the hotel in Sacramento, California, where we lost that night and says, okay, you need to go. Get out of here. Please go. I'm so sorry I brought you here.

John Dehlin [00:28:58] Was that him saying, do you think he was motivated by, like, well, you're not really good enough. Let's get someone better, or was he, like, really caring about you?

Lance Allred [00:29:06] Oh, Coach Rupp.

John Dehlin [00:29:07] Yeah.

Lance Allred [00:29:07] Oh, Coach up. My high school coach was, no, I care about you.

John Dehlin [00:29:10] Go. He thought it just wasn't healthy for you.

Lance Allred [00:29:12] It was not healthy.

John Dehlin [00:29:12] Did he stay?

Lance Allred [00:29:13] He stayed for. And he was getting. He was. He was exhausted, too. Coach Rupp was breaking down. He is. He wasn't at home. He was missing his family. And he's like, yeah, I'm so sorry. Just. Just go. And John, I was about to quit basketball entirely, and I only got one scholarship offer. One going from being number one ranked center in the west to getting one scholarship. That was. Go play for Weber State.

John Dehlin [00:29:40] Okay, wait, so talk to us about how you told Coach Majeris that you were bailing. Or did you?

Lance Allred [00:29:50] I did, but actually, I think Coach Rupp told him. But then Mageris Coach up. And I went and picked up Majeris at the airport. He was flying in later, and we just had a little goodbye chat. He says, you know, he actually was surprised. He says, no, Lance, you have a bright future in front of you. This is really surprising to me.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] He didn't want. Did he not want you to go?

Lance Allred [00:30:10] He did not want me to go.

John Dehlin [00:30:13] Did he, like, try and bargain with you?

Lance Allred [00:30:15] Yeah, he did, actually. I was like, no, I can't do this anymore, and I need to go someplace where I can be allowed to fail and learn and grow.

John Dehlin [00:30:33] Was he sweet about it at the end or mean or indifferent?

Lance Allred [00:30:38] I could tell he was upset and he was hurt, and he tried to be indifferent. He tried to be objective about it. He didn't cuss or scream. It was a very anticlimactic departure. And then he dropped me off at the Huntsman Center. And no one will ever know how much I loved that place and how many dreams I had there that never came true. And all the people saying I was overrated, even in high school, saying, yeah, I was overrated. And I had failed, and I had chosen not to go on a mission, and I had failed. And a lot of shame. A lot of shame. Just a lot of shame. And I wanted to run away. I wanted to quit basketball, too. I actually. I just wanted to go, move up to Montana, maybe walk on to the University of Montana. And they didn't give me a scholarship. University of Montana wouldn't give me a scholarship.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Are they in Division One?

Lance Allred [00:31:35] Yeah, they're Division One. They're Big sky with Weber State. And

John Dehlin [00:31:41] why do you think no schools wanted to give you a scholarship?

Lance Allred [00:31:43] I do know. Here's what happened, actually. The day that my. I was released from the University of Utah. You have to go on what's called the wire, the waiver wire, NCAA waiver wire. I had about 30 schools contact me, and then all of a sudden, they just stopped contacting me. And my dad actually called one of the coaches and said, I thought you were coming out to see what's happening. He goes, well, I actually. I heard some feedback from the University of Utah. We're just not sure if we want someone of Lance's character here. So, yeah, I had been blackballed.

John Dehlin [00:32:23] And is that just sour grapes, or is that just the university not wanting any competition?

Lance Allred [00:32:31] No, what it is, it wasn't the university. It's is actually Marjeris in the feedback.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Sour grapes.

Lance Allred [00:32:37] Sour grapes. Because here's what happens, is that sour grapes Majoris doesn't want to look bad. And as I'm leaving, my mom actually was getting her master's in social work special education at the very same institution that I'm playing basketball at. Being berated by the highest paid government employee in the state of Utah, Rick Majeris. He's on the public salary being berated. And he never discriminated against me. He simply used my hearing as a means to humiliate me. And I had the highest GPA on the team. And he actually had me go see a social worker on campus because he thought I had a learning disability. And I remember the social worker's working with me and she's like, okay, what's going on here? She just rubbed her eyes. After she interviewed me for an hour, she goes, why are you even here? Because Majeris wants to humiliate me. He just does. And it was that kind of environment. So my mom and my dad actually went and spoke to Chris Hill, the athletic director. And Chris Hill said, you know, this is very interesting because Lance is the first arc type Majeris player to ever leave the University of Utah. Because you had a lot of other players that were just, you know, they were more of a street baller type kids from out of state, and they didn't like majority, and they just clashed and wanted to leave. But he. Chris Hill said, I'm the first art type player to ever leave. And there's this misnomer, John, that I filed a lawsuit against the University of Utah. Never did. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to get away. My parents did not file either. What it was is that Chris Hill of the University of Utah launched its own internal investigation to see if there had been discrimination against me. If Angerius had discriminated against me, that would mean he played me because he did not play me because I was deaf. That would have been discrimination. No, he simply used my hearing as a means to humiliate me. And there's no law against that. And so the University of Utah was cleared of wrongdoing by themselves. And so people would always say this misnomer that I had filed a lawsuit against Utah. I never did. I just wanted to get as far away as possible. And Weber was a great fit because coach Cravens, the head coach at Weber at the time, had at one point been an assistant for Majeris at the University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:35:09] Had a what?

Lance Allred [00:35:10] Had at one point been an assistant for Majeris at the University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Got it.

Lance Allred [00:35:14] So he knew what went on behind closed doors. And he was ran out of Utah. Majera's had broken his heart. Broken had burned him out, too. And so he knew what I was coming from, what I was recovering from. And Weber was the perfect fit for me because it's a smaller school, smaller campus. But again, I'm not competing with five. There were five centers on my team my sophomore year at the U. Yeah. And you'll notice this on basketball teams, whatever position has the overstock of players, that becomes the scapegoat position. If you have five point guards on your team, they become the scapegoat. If you have five small forwards, they become the scapegoat. It's a weird phenomenon that occurs on basketball teams. I've seen it enough times. Whereas at Weber, I was just. I was the center and they knew it. And so I had to sit out that year as a red shirt because when you transfer schools, you have to sit out that year, but you didn't

John Dehlin [00:36:21] lose a year of eligibility.

Lance Allred [00:36:22] I did not use. Because I did not use my red shirt year. Remember, I was a gray shirt. Yeah, yeah. And so. But there were good and bad with it. The ptsd. I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was at Weber State. And then the OCD or the scrupulosity. Scrupulosity really started to kick in.

John Dehlin [00:36:45] About masturbation or about playing?

Lance Allred [00:36:47] No, just life in general. So really what happened was because I couldn't channel my perfection, that, oh, I have to be this awesome person. I have to be perfect. I have to get to the NBA. I have to do this. I have to earn love to get to heaven. It wasn't about masturbation anymore. It was more about, okay, one, I can't channel all these neuroses into basketball. I have to turn in the perfect homework assignments. And eventually I got so overwhelmed, I just stopped turning in my homework assignments. But because I didn't have majority to put on a pedestal anymore, I then, like, you know what? I started putting it on women, girls. I started dating that. It became really intense in that I was so insecure and so needy because I had no worth. I wasn't playing basketball. Who am I anymore? Right? My whole identity is in being a basketball player. So I would date these poor girls that I would. Oh, how it was so funny that I would go on a date with a girl, drop her off, go home. They're like, okay, all right. I get out a piece of paper and I start writing it down. Call Sarah in three days. Call her in one day or text her tomorrow. Call her in three days. She doesn't answer. Leave a Message. Don't leave a message. I started making a flowchart that I was trying to control the situation because I had no control over my life at that time because I couldn't play basketball. And so I started designing this grandiose flowchart and just manipulating these people because I had no control over them. I would just put these girls through so much chaos. Around the same time, Russell Crowe's A Beautiful Mind came on to film, and I went and saw A Beautiful Mind with my friends. And that scene where his wife walks into the shed and sees his conspiracy theory walls and the flowcharts. When I saw that, you would think that, I was like, oh, boy, I got a problem. Instead it was, I better hide my shit so no one can find it. But I only lasted so long before eventually I just broke down the ptsd. This is when I was diagnosed with ptsd. I told my sister. She's now a medical doctor. I said, raf, I think I'm sick. And she says, yeah, we know. We've just been waiting for you to acknowledge that you are. So I diagnosed with ptsd, ocd, put on Effexor and everything. That's the thing about going on medication, but medication doesn't solve the problem. It just slows your brain down enough that you actually have to start working on adjusting thought patterns and the stories behind the thought patterns that you think are true that are not necessarily true. And as I'm going through this work, John, seeing a counselor, being aware of thought patterns and polygamy and Mormonism, more and more, I just stopped going to church. When I stopped going to church, a lot of these OCD tendencies start to dissipate. They start to go away.

Trauma, Emotional Health, and the Road to Recovery

John Dehlin [00:39:51] And

Lance Allred [00:39:55] luckily, Coach Cravens was amazing with me, and this is my restroom year, and I told Coach Cravens, I'm going on medication. I was, like, really embarrassed about it. I was shameful of it because there's such a stigma about emotional health, mental health, which makes no sense, because if there's something wrong, he said it best. You know, this is what Coach Craven said. He's such an amazing man. I love him. He says, lance, you needing to take medication for your OCD for your brain is no different than your teammate Brad needing to take insulin for his diabetes. Your brain is your most important organism. So why is there so much shame when people need to take medication for, oh, you have a liver problem, Take this. Good for you. Way to be responsible for your health. Oh, you're taking medication for your mental health. Oh, well, what's your Problem. Why can't you just buck up? Why can't you count your blessings and be grateful? Right? That's the part of the whole Mormon life that we have is that count your blessings, always find the silver lining. We don't talk about our feelings. You're either happy or peaceful or you're just ungrateful or the devil is tempting you, right? Instead of just saying, you know what, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be frustrated. Doesn't mean you get to be abusive and take it out on people. But it's okay to feel these things. But I didn't know how to grieve. I didn't know how to process anger or anything. It was just stonewall, stonewall. That's all I knew how to do, stonewall. That's what I did with the majoris too. And it irritated them. And I have very good passive aggressive skills. I just do. But most Mormons do. We're very good at it. And that I would never talk back to Majeris and sometimes, yes, I would want to push his buttons by just not giving him any emotion at all. Just stare at him. Sometimes I turn my hearing aids off and he didn't even know. But.

John Dehlin [00:41:50] So you're on antidepressant medication and you stop attending church and your OCD scrupulosity symptoms start to decline, you start to get healthy.

Lance Allred [00:42:03] Start to get healthy? Absolutely. You start to get healthy. But it's a long road for sure. And that's the thing, it's a lot of work. That's why you see so many people like Britney Spears or whatnot, shave their head in a department store because you think you can just take medication, but you don't have to do the work for it. It takes a lot of work and it's a long haul. That's the thing about emotional and mental health. It's so abstract. It's such an abstract concept. Whereas we Mormons grow up with very linear black and white concepts. Get baptized, go on a mission, get married in a temple. We have this criteria, these benchmarks. The concept of emotional health and well being is. What the hell does that even mean? Does it mean you pray twice a day and you read your scriptures and you go to church on Sunday? Okay, yeah, I can do that. But instead for me, emotional and mental health. And I'm not the best at it, I'm no saint, but I choose to be accountable. And it is accountability. It's accountability for my thoughts, my thought patterns, the triggers beneath the thought patterns. What are the stories that I inherited from my childhood, my polygamy, that is the basis, the foundation from which I am in a constant state of reaction to all my current and future events. But we all have ptsd, John. PTSD is an event that causes us to have a fear based reaction to any current to a future event. And by that definition we all have it. And so when I see a lot.

John Dehlin [00:43:30] When you say we all do, you mean all people in the world.

Lance Allred [00:43:33] I believe most of us do.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Mormons.

Lance Allred [00:43:35] I believe most of us do. And Mormons are no exception in that. A lot of times I see a lot of Mormons who break away from polygamy, just from mainstream Mormonism and they're claiming their independence. But what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing is they sound like angry Mormons and that they're still viewing the world in a very black and white way that their raised in Mormonism. Oh, the church is true. Hold to the rock, go serve on a mission, proselyte, just go convert people to the church. They take that same degree, the same fervor, fervor, and flip it into a new paradigm that now maybe they become atheist, but now they now have to convert everyone to think like them.

John Dehlin [00:44:22] Yeah.

Lance Allred [00:44:23] And that there's. So what I'm seeing is angry Mormon. And so they're still thinking and processing the world in a very Mormon way.

John Dehlin [00:44:33] And you're saying that ties to ptsd,

Lance Allred [00:44:35] that ties to ptsd. But the thing is the PTSD is deeper than that. So when people are talking to me about, oh, I did all my studying and this is what I found, this is what I would say to them, it's like for me, people, a lot of times when I speak to Jack Mormons or atheists who are no longer Mormon, the first question when they see that I'm no longer Mormon as either is they say, oh, well, yeah, how did you find out? Were you studying and you found something or I just tell them, no, I was just unhappy and that was enough. And I can't say this as a generalization, but many Mormons, there's a cognitive, there's a dissonance, there's a break in the logic that either a child who's gay or a loved one that's gay, or maybe they're simply just unhappy and there's a disconnect from what one of the prophets said. Maybe Bori K. Packer said something that really just didn't resonate with them and they're unhappy and they're not comfortable enough with that being the validation in and of itself for me, my discontent, my emotional well being, my unhappiness, my discord was enough for me to just stop. I didn't need to research or have any data or scripture or information to validate that I was good enough with how I felt. Being enough as enough. And that's what I say. I don't say that to shame or make anyone feel stupid. But what I would just encourage anyone. Go steady all you want, but who are you trying to convince? You're asking people who have not had that discord or unhappiness yet to feel that discord and step outside their comfort zone and let go of that safety blanket that they're special and everything's going to be okay. Why would people let go of that if they didn't have to? I honestly some days wish I could bury my head in the sand that I could be happy and that everything would make sense. I do miss those days when I had all the answers. So I understand why a lot of people would not choose to let that go. Does it make their choices or the way they treat other people okay? Do I absolve them of that? Absolutely not. But I understand why they would hold onto it because I saw it in polygamy and I still see it with Mormonism and that these people that had that truth. And so when I see these atheists or ex Mormons really feeling like everyone has to agree with me, I'm like, why would they let that go? And number two, you have to acknowledge and you have to come to peace with, they're not going to validate you until they have their own earth shattering experience that rattles their paradigm. Sure, you have to come to terms with that. So you can do all the studying, you can do all of the research and missionary work that you want, but until people are ready to hear it, they're not going to hear you. And so what it is that you see with people of faith or atheism or whatnot, that it is usually the insecure people that need to have everyone around them agreeing with what they're doing. And the confident people just bail. Yeah, you just bail. I'm just done. But then you also have the confident people who are like, you know what, I know my church is flawed, I see it for what it is, but I can still make it fit and I don't judge them that I'm like, that's great, God bless you, that's okay. But we do need to be responsible that you, as a person of your faith, you can still have a voice and hold your church authorities accountable if they're treating or alienating any certain other demographic, that onus is on you.

John Dehlin [00:48:44] We'll come back to that. Talk about your. So your junior year, your first year at Weber State at South Florida.

The Salt Lake Tribune Story and NBA Opportunity

Lance Allred [00:48:50] Yeah, first year at Weber State. It was a great season. And the University of Utah came and played against us and I had a really good game. And all of a sudden everyone, Jon is like, wait, Lancelot Red doesn't suck. What's going on? I'm playing against Rick Mageris and the Youths and I have a really good game.

John Dehlin [00:49:06] Did you guys win or no?

Lance Allred [00:49:07] We lost by like five points. It was a great game, though. Had a really good game. And then that's when all the rumors started coming up again. Like, wait, what happened with Lance Allred? Because every other player that's left in Majera's system, none of them went on to do well. They all just broke down. So it was always easy to say, oh, they weren't very good. Instead of like, wait, here's Lance doing really well. He's not fitting the trend. What's happening here? And so Gordon Monson at the Salt Lake Tribune had actually heard a lot of these rumors that were happening and he wanted to interview me after this game. And he sat down and said, so I'm hearing these rumors. Are they true? And I simply finally just said, yes, they happened. He'd already heard the things. That exact quote. He heard it from the Johnsons, he heard it from other people. And so later that week on Sunday, I was a front page edition to Salt Lake Tribune. My story about what happened at the University of Utah just being mistreated by Majoris. Yeah. And then 10 days later, Majeris resigned due to health reasons.

Guest [00:50:15] What.

Lance Allred [00:50:15] And caught a plane to Santa Barbara.

John Dehlin [00:50:17] What did he do that was so severe that it warranted resignation?

Lance Allred [00:50:22] Oh, no, just the.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] The disability comments.

Lance Allred [00:50:24] Disability comments. Okay. Just realize, you know, that actually is abuse.

John Dehlin [00:50:28] Yeah, of course. Well, I just. In the public eye, I just wonder.

Lance Allred [00:50:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:32] Whether that would be enough.

Lance Allred [00:50:33] Oh, the thing is, it definitely was dividing in the public eye. No, there, there. Just like in politics, you have. People are going to believe that. What they want to believe, what they hear, they choose to believe. And people say, oh, no, Lancelot is a liar. Majoris never said that. But Gordon Monson, he had enough people confirming what had been said that Marris knew he had. It was done.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] Did the quote about being a cripple and all that. That's what you actually gave that to Monson in the article?

Guest [00:51:02] Yeah.

Lance Allred [00:51:02] Well, Monson actually asked me. He actually almost quoted that verbatim saying, did he really say this? I'm like, yeah, that's what he said.

Guest [00:51:09] Wow.

Lance Allred [00:51:10] And so I know the University of Utah, the board of trustees basically said, I do know this. I had someone on the inside who was actually in my LDS ward at the time. They said, we basically told Majeris, you can leave your way or our way. So you left.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] And do you think they were grateful for you? Mad at. You were community members, really?

Lance Allred [00:51:32] Yeah. I had of a lot, lot of fans that were, oh, so angry with me.

John Dehlin [00:51:36] You'd fans.

Lance Allred [00:51:37] You fans. But that's the thing is.

John Dehlin [00:51:40] Did they tie it to you?

Lance Allred [00:51:41] They tie it to me. And rightfully so. But here's the thing is the code of silence. I didn't wait two years to say what happened because I was really afraid of blowback. When you escape from polygamy, which is a code of silence, and when you don't go on a mission and you get that kind of abuse, which is kind of a code of silence, you just stop really caring about a code of silence. And that if someone's afraid of finding out, if you're afraid of someone finding out what you're doing or saying, you probably shouldn't be saying it. Right. Simple as that. And I just knew, maybe it was Machiavellian. I didn't really have the intention that I was ever going to say anything, but I knew, being a history major and seeing how things work when people speak up, that if I had spoken too soon, it would have been sour grapes. And everyone said, lancelot sucks anyway. Who cares, right? He's blaming Majeris. But two years later, when I'm actually playing well and I'm not fitting the trend, you had more power. More power.

John Dehlin [00:52:47] You were speaking from a place of power and credibility. Yeah.

Lance Allred [00:52:50] And that was. I can't say I plotted and just waited anxiously for two years for it to happen, but it just kind of happened that way. But here's the thing. It was a perfect storm of it all. Majoris, the system wasn't doing as well as it had. He was losing more. We weren't going deeper into the NCAA tournament. Mark Jackson had left that year. He was done with Majeris. Andrew Bogut, that year was a freshman, and he said he wasn't coming back to the insiders. They knew he was going to come back and play for Majeris that year.

Guest [00:53:22] Whoa.

John Dehlin [00:53:23] He went on to do well.

Lance Allred [00:53:24] Oh, yeah. He was done with Majeris too. He hated Mjeras. Okay? And people knew about all this. And plus, Majeris was just. He was just pushing everyone the wrong way. Chris Hill, everyone. He would just. He just become this Frankenstein's monster that had gone away with murder for so long that I basically was just the perfectly timed dagger that he couldn't challenge.

John Dehlin [00:53:44] Did you feel. Did you feel guilty for.

Lance Allred [00:53:47] No, no, no, no, I did not feel guilty. I felt guilty. I didn't feel vindicated either. I felt guilty for the lies that I had told to parents and other recruiters, recruits that came to Utah that I convinced to come to the University of Utah. So in a way, that was me for kind of atoning for the lies that I had told, buying into the code of silence that I felt.

John Dehlin [00:54:11] Were you told lies?

Lance Allred [00:54:15] I wouldn't say straight lies, just lies of omission, you know, saying, oh, yeah,

John Dehlin [00:54:19] this is a great place to work.

Lance Allred [00:54:20] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:54:21] A great place to play.

Lance Allred [00:54:22] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:54:22] He's a great coach.

Lance Allred [00:54:23] Exactly. And two recruits came because they were. I was their host and I got them to come, and I felt guilty about that. And I guess that was just me atoning for that. And so did I feel vindicated?

John Dehlin [00:54:44] No.

Lance Allred [00:54:47] I didn't find any particular joy in it. Because, honestly, I was happy at Weber. I loved it. Even though it was only 40 minutes away, it felt hours away. And I had my own little world going up there. Teammates that I loved, the coast that I loved and I didn't really get again, it was not like they were in our conference either. It was just. There's my own. It was a different world now.

John Dehlin [00:55:18] So how was that year?

Lance Allred [00:55:20] That year, it was a good year and, you know,

John Dehlin [00:55:24] shooting the big sky.

Lance Allred [00:55:25] My redshirt year, Weber State ran the table. They won all 16 games in that conference. Beat Utah State, State. Jermaine Boyet, Brad Barton were on that team. That senior year, they were seniors. My junior year was kind of a disappointing year for the seniors who were coming back from that amazing team. We lost in the semifinals. Then before my senior year, I started writing down my goals again, and every goal I've written down in my life has come true. I put my goal above my light switch, and every time I touch my light switch, I have to read it three times. And does it come true? Exactly what I thought it was going to look like? No. But in some way or form, it's come true.

John Dehlin [00:56:04] What was on that piece of paper?

Lance Allred [00:56:05] So this before my senior year at Weber State, I said, I, Lance Albert, will average 18 points and 12 rebounds. A game I believe the nation in rebounding. Ilan Solver would be a best selling author. Ilan Solwater would play in the NBA. Ilan Solrard would be an academic all American. So my senior year at Weber State, I led the nation in rebounding for most of the year, for most of the weeks out of the entire season. And in the conference tournament championship game, we're playing in Portland, Oregon. We lost to Coach Krzysztofiak, now the head coach at University of Utah. He was coaching the University of Montana. He came after the coach that rejected me. So he would have loved to have me in Montana. But coach, Coach K, we lost to him by two points in the conference tournament championship game. And I ended my season with 12 rebounds a game, 18 points and 12 rebounds a game. Like I said I was going to.

John Dehlin [00:56:59] That's a lot of rebounds.

Lance Allred [00:57:00] That's a lot of rebounds. It's a lot of work. And that's the thing. The odds are. Most people would give up on those odds. But if you add up the amount it misses a game. So let's say your team's going to shoot maybe if you're lucky, 45%. But if you're shooting 80 shots a game, so that's over 40. This is easy math. We'll just say 40, 40 misses a game. I averaged four offensive rebounds a game, which was number one in the country. But that's one out of 10. That's 10%. Most people would say I'm not playing those odds, but I just chose to every time keep going back at it. Keep going back at it. And when my season was over, Andrew Bogut at Utah, he and I were racing all year long for number one rebounding position. And then Paul Millsap, he used to play for the Jazz also. Andrew Bogate and Paul Millsap both passed me up after my season was over in the. In their NCAA tournament games with massive rebounding games.

John Dehlin [00:57:53] You guys didn't go to the.

Lance Allred [00:57:55] We lost in. We lost a two point by two points in the conference tournament championship.

John Dehlin [00:57:58] And that kept you out of.

Lance Allred [00:57:59] Yeah, we were done. My season was over. So they both went on to pass me up at 12.1 rebounds a game. So I went from number one to number three.

John Dehlin [00:58:08] Still not bad people to lose to.

Lance Allred [00:58:11] Not bad people to lose.

John Dehlin [00:58:12] Freaking Millsap and Bogus.

Lance Allred [00:58:13] Not bad people to lose to. But I forgot this part. Junior year, when Mageris resigned, Coach Rupp stepped in as interim coach. Kerry Rupp was the interim coach at University of Utah. He went on and won the conference Tournament championship, which is something Mageris never, ever did. But then Chris Hill didn't bring Coach Rupp back. Coach Rupp then went to assistant at University of Indiana, then was the head coach at LS Louisiana Tech, and then now he's assistant coach at Oregon State now. And so he's had a good career as well. But so I went from number one to number three and I got one NBA workout one, and that was to go practice for the Utah Jazz as a last minute guy because someone had missed their flight and like, oh, Lance Arler lives up the street.

John Dehlin [00:58:57] Okay, wait, did you ever play in the NCAA tournament

Lance Allred [00:59:01] at University of Utah?

John Dehlin [00:59:03] Not at Weaverstown.

Lance Allred [00:59:03] Not at Weaver, no.

John Dehlin [00:59:04] Okay. And were you, Were you kind of a standout nationally? Were you a big name?

Lance Allred [00:59:09] Yeah. When you lead the nation in rebounding, you started getting attention.

John Dehlin [00:59:12] Okay, but I'm. This is going to be my ignorance, but I'm thinking. Yeah, but it's Weber states.

Lance Allred [00:59:16] Yeah, exactly. So as far as mid major. Yes. Was I. Espn, Buzz and Uboga was getting all the attention that year. And even then they were only the Mountain West Conference. Yeah, but Weber State is. Yeah, it's a very small conference. No doubt. But a couple years ago, ESPN did collegiate basketball rankings. Weber State was the number 36 most prestigious basketball program in the country. So it's no joke. Weber State makes good players.

John Dehlin [00:59:49] Wasn't there some player that could just dunk? Crazy high flying point guard guy that went on.

Lance Allred [00:59:55] Talk about Damian Lillard.

John Dehlin [00:59:56] Yeah, yeah. Did he, did he play with you or.

Lance Allred [00:59:58] No, no, no. He was younger than me.

John Dehlin [01:00:00] He came after you?

Lance Allred [01:00:01] He came after me.

John Dehlin [01:00:01] Okay. Yeah. Some crazy good players. Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:00:03] Weber State makes good players.

John Dehlin [01:00:05] Are they still good right now? Yeah. Okay. They're good.

Lance Allred [01:00:08] Weber State. Joel Ballumboy, drafted this year out of Weber State, drafted by the Utah Jazz in the second round, but I think they sent him down to the minor league. Weber State makes good players.

John Dehlin [01:00:18] Okay, so only the Jazz invited you? Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:00:21] And I worked out against a guy who was so out of shape, shape. He couldn't finish the workout. But the Jazz still drafted him in the second round. So sorry, excuse me, but this guy they drafted went to an NAIA Division 3 school and they still drafted him because he had an academic all American resume in high school, but he had been such a bust in college and also with legal problems, he went to the smaller school and the Jazz drafted them. So I learned very quickly that professional sports, the NBA, the top 30% of players in the NBA are there because they're flat out the best athletes in the world, hands down, the other 70% of players. It comes down to luck and timing and who you know and who your agent is. Because the line that separates a bench player in the NBA versus an All Star or a solid player in Europe is so thin it may as well not even exist. It comes down to who you know is your agent. Former teammates with the general manager of this team, or former player of a coach of that team, or does he have several clients on this team he's leveraging to get you on? So the NBA, just like any business, it's about who you know and timing. And that was disenchanting at first and frustrating and heartbreaking. I then did summer camp with the LA Clippers, did very well. But again, I was. No one's going to do anything they don't have to do because again, at the end of the day, it's here's how it goes. John. Lancelot is a Weber State player. Oh, I like him. But we don't really have to look at him because not many other teams, if they're not looking at him, we won't look back. Because what a GM does not want is to not draft a player he's drafted later. And he does really well and makes them all look bad. Same kind of thing that happened with Majeris at Utah. If I go somewhere else and play, and play really well, it makes Majaris look bad. It's all about kids in a candy store. They don't want to be the one that has regret. So almost everyone's playing it safe. So it's like, oh, I could draft this guy from Weber State, but if he's a bust, everyone will say, why the hell are you driving a guy from Weber State? Why didn't you draft someone from Kansas? Because they have all the best players, right? And so it's all about protecting your butt. Everyone's just on defense. And that's it, really. It's a business. It's a silly business, but that is what is professional sports. It's all a silly business. And if you add up the money I'm owed around the world, it's about money that I was never paid. It's about $900,000.

John Dehlin [01:02:59] Okay, wait, we just fast forwarded.

Lance Allred [01:03:01] I'm just telling you it's a silly business.

John Dehlin [01:03:03] No. So you try out for the Jazz. Try for the Jazz.

Lance Allred [01:03:07] I don't get drafted. I do summer camp with the Clippers. And then my very first job as a rookie was to go play over in Istanbul in Turkey. And for a Rookie, it was $100,000 contract for a rookie.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] US dollars.

Lance Allred [01:03:24] US dollars, thinking this is good for a rookie.

John Dehlin [01:03:27] That's great.

Lance Allred [01:03:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] And

Lance Allred [01:03:30] I went over and they were really excited and like, wow, this guy is a steal. They called on my agent, they said, this guy is a steal for $100,000. He's killing it right now. We played so well. We were playing so well. In fact, that actually was a detriment because the owners and the coaches, a lot of these guys never played basketball. They just. The coach is a guy that loved basketball but didn't have politic and now he's the coach. So they don't understand things like the importance of chemistry or the stuff that's not measured on a stat sheet. All they do is they look at a stat sheet and they say, oh, well, he's not scoring enough. We can bring in this guy who's over in Iran. He's averaging 37 points a game. He'll average 37 points here. No, doesn't work that way. There's only so many shots you can have in a game. There's not enough shots to go around. But so this coach and this owner, they sit me down, they say, lance, we really like you. We're playing so well that we think we can win the championship this year. So we're actually to make sure that everyone, the whole team has a chance to win the championship. We're going to bring in another center who's more experienced. He's been playing here for 10 years. And we think if we bring him in, we can really win the championship. So I was playing so well at such a bargain, but they thought my inexperience would eventually the wheels would come off at the end and it couldn't be that good for as long as it was. And so I learned very quickly when you sign a contract outside the United States, it doesn't mean anything. That just means that's the most they're going to pay you. And if you're lucky, you'll get paid all your money, but probably won't.

John Dehlin [01:05:01] So talk about like the pecking order of leagues. What's the top non NBA league? Oh, that thing is like, what are the other. Are they top tier, Are they middle tier, Are they lower tier?

Lance Allred [01:05:13] Every league thinks they're the best league in the world.

John Dehlin [01:05:15] John, I'm asking your opinion. What's your opinion?

Lance Allred [01:05:20] I would say Spain is the number one league outside the United States. Top tier. Spain. Spain, Spain. Then you have Turkey, probably number two, but then maybe Russia Then Italy, but it's changed so much.

John Dehlin [01:05:40] Why isn't there like a European Union kind of thing?

Lance Allred [01:05:44] There is. And it's called the Euroleague.

John Dehlin [01:05:46] Okay, that's not as good as these other leagues.

Lance Allred [01:05:48] No, no, no. That's the thing you asked about country outside the NBA, there's something called the EuroLeague where the top two teams in each country send their best teams to play in this tournament that lasts the length of the season. Season. But they play on like Wednesday nights, whereas they go back to playing their national countries in their national leagues on Saturday nights or Sunday nights. So they all go playing on a Wednesday night. And so those two. That Euroleague is a legit league. But the funny thing is, here's the difference between the NBA we have was called illegal defense. You can't stand inside the key if your man is not in the key. Euro league FIBA rules does not have that rule rules. It's like college. You can stand a guy right underneath the basket and just clog in the interior. So these games become very low scoring and they're grinded out. And so you have guys averaging like a Superstar is averaging 16 points a game. Whereas in the NBA you're expected to average close to 30 points a game. And you're a superstar. So it's totally different. And you have a lot of owners over in Europe who are frustrated, like, wait, I signed this guy in the NBA. Why is he not dunking all the time? But even the owners can't grasp the fact that you're actually playing a very different game. Because in the NBA you have illegal defense. A guy can't be in the key for longer than three seconds when he's on defense if he's not touching his guy. So he has to clear out of the lane, which then allows for cutting or driving lane for a guy to go in and dunk it, which is what the fans want to see. They want to see points scored. Whereas I'm more of the 90s type of basketball player. Bowls and jazz with where they were just really hard nosed grind out games. That's the kind of basketball I love the most.

John Dehlin [01:07:23] Karl Malone.

Lance Allred [01:07:24] Karl Malone, exactly. But now everyone wants to see high scoring games. Europe is so different. Yet the. Yet the owners don't really grasp that. They're like, well, yeah, I know we're the toughest league in the world. We're not sissies like the NBA. We played hard defense here. But he's coming over from the NBA. Why is he not averaging 25 points a game? It's like because you just Said, your rules, your defense is tougher here because the rules are. And if you. And in the 10 years that I played around the world, John, so what

John Dehlin [01:07:57] other leagues did you play in? Was it Turkey the whole time?

Lance Allred [01:08:00] Turkey, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Ukraine.

John Dehlin [01:08:08] Did you ever play in the European euroleague?

Lance Allred [01:08:10] No. The thing is that's. Here's what happened. It's all about timing. Because that's why I was crushed when it happened, because you want to be able to stay in one place an entire season. As soon as they let me go, you have all these other Americans that are just moving around like carpetbaggers trying to find a job that I was then immediately cast into that spot. Oh, he's just a hitman for hire. And that set me on a trajectory that my very. So that team, they released me and I said, okay, well, you still owe me $20,000 for the first two months. They said, okay, yeah, we'll mail it to you. I'm like hell you're going to mail it to me. I want a wire transfer receipt before I get on the plane. Somehow, some way, they gave me cash, which I didn't want, and I was being chased down a back alley in Istanbul by some guy when I had $20,000 in my pocket. That's a long story. But anywho, that's the kind of things you get into when you're playing professional sports basketball outside the United States and when you're not a citizen in that country, what are you going to do? File a lawsuit. And by the time it gets to the courts and goes through all the process, it's a wash.

John Dehlin [01:09:20] So you say $800,000 was owed to

Lance Allred [01:09:22] you, that you weren't paid 8 to $900,000. Because I peaked too in 2008. 09, when the economy collapses. So even if you win a lawsuit against that team, a lot of them would just say, fine, we don't have money, we go bankrupt, we fold. So a lot of teams. So they asked you a question about what country is the most powerful. I saw Greece and Italy, which were like top tier leagues. The economy was so bad that they can't even afford to bring in good players anymore. That is all now just such a jumble of what is the most powerful country as far as international basketball. It's been such a hodgepodge after that experience in Istanbul, went and played over in France, did a substitution job for a guy that was injured. That's my next job. So again, I'm doing this hitman for hire thing, then did everything I Was asked to do. Then I went and played over in Spain. Finished up the scenes there in Spain. I actually hurt my knees. I injured my knee in Spain. I tore off the cartilage in the back of my knee, my joint block in the meniscus. The team there said, oh, that's a pre existing condition. We don't have to pay for it. So I ended up my first year professionally coming home, paying for my own knee surgery. Broke in the red. These are not the stories that people tell you.

John Dehlin [01:10:35] Why are you broke if you're making $100,000 a year?

Lance Allred [01:10:38] I didn't make 100,000, I only made 20 of it. And then I'm making like $5,000 a month for this little substitution job and this and this and this. So I ended up making like 50,000. But then I helped out my parents with some finances before I knew what was going to happen. Then had to pay for the knee surgery and all. Pretty much, yeah. I was like, wow, that money just went fast. And I don't think it was even 50,000. More like 40, 45,000. So around this time too, John, I was traveling around the world. I was in Istanbul, I was in France, I was in Spain, meeting these awesome people, Muslims, Catholics, like, wait, they're nice to me, my friends. Not the people I was working for, but the friends I made, the teammates I made. And I'm like, but they're really good people and they're happy and they're just kind to me. Not because they're trying to get me to join their religion or whatever. They're just kind to me. And I call them my friends. And so how could I possibly somehow believe that I have absolute truth and pity them because they don't have the full truth and therefore they don't get to go to heaven where I'm going to heaven. Through all this process, more and more things just aren't fitting inside my paradigm anymore. And in a last ditch effort, I came home that year going through the knee surgery, rehabbing like, you know what? I'm going to go to the temple, I'm going to get my endowments, I'm going to double down one last ditch effort to see if I can make this work. And I went through the temple and I felt absolutely nothing. Just nothing. I said, yeah, this isn't, this isn't for me. I actually felt discontent. And the idea that my wife is subservient to me and all that.

John Dehlin [01:12:47] You were married by then?

Lance Allred [01:12:48] No, no, no, no. Just the idea that my wife, my future wife, would be subservient. And so again, I just came to a place. This is when I was done, when I was 25 years old. That's when I stopped going to church.

John Dehlin [01:13:03] It's also when you first had sex.

Lance Allred [01:13:07] Ah, very astute. Look at you.

John Dehlin [01:13:09] You told us that.

Lance Allred [01:13:10] I know, I know. I just didn't think it would be off the top of your head. But very, very good for you.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] But you just wanted to have sex.

Lance Allred [01:13:18] That's what I actually. It's not. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But I wouldn't be ashamed to admit it, but no.

John Dehlin [01:13:28] So that's when you lost your faith completely?

Lance Allred [01:13:29] I just lost my faith completely because I just realized that the system works for some people, but doesn't work for everyone. And if they're this Christian God, if they're the juris. Yeah, true, true. The system, the system. The system's never wrong. And his system was perfect for a while. If there really is this Christian God, this Mormon God that people are saying is there, Why would he make me have these thoughts? Why would he give me the brain chemistry that I have? And there's a great book by Malcolm Gladwell called David and Goliath. It talks about. About people with learning disabilities either completely break or else they go on to be very successful entrepreneurs because they think outside the box. And my hearing loss and having to learn how to speak and read lips and figure out things in my brain is. I've always seen things in a different way. I acknowledge that. Does it mean my perspective is right? No, it's just how I see things. And so with all that, it's kind of like, why would God, this God that you say exists, give me these experiences, these challenges and this perspective that I have and then use it against me or punish me for not thinking exactly like everybody else and fitting inside perfectly in this box with all these other people? If he wanted me to be the same and wear that white shirt and tie every Sunday and look just like everybody else, he would have made me that way. And that was enough for me. I didn't need to combat anybody. I didn't need to challenge anybody, because I figured the best thing I can do to. I don't need to convert anybody either. But the best thing I can do to convert people is show them that I have peace, that I'm happy, that I'm living the life I want to live. Whereas I see the irony when people are always in a constant state of attack against the church. They leave the church, but they're always being in an uproar or offended or watching it like a hawk or burning their letter of resignation and all that stuff. I see the irony in that. Again, I'm not trying to make them feel stupid, but this is just the way my brain works and I see things. I say, you do realize that when you're spending all this time going at the church, claiming your independence, the church is still controlling you, right? And ironically, when you're in a constant state of reaction, it's a reaction against the church. And so therefore, it is still controlling you, and you don't have that independence that you're claiming to have. And I don't say that to make people feel stupid. I say that for myself. Because I'm like, you know what? I actually want to be in a place where I'm free. I want to be able to have my life and my liberty. And when people say, well, why haven't you turned in your letter of resignation yet? That would imply that it's worth my time. And I also say, you know what? It doesn't mean that I absolve the church and its authorities of all the choices they make. No, not at all. But there's a time and a place. Like my article with the Tribune last year. I got thousands of thank you letters for that. But if I were to always be on the constant state of offense, I would lose whatever influence my voice would have that it become diluted and watered down. But when there's a time and a place where something needs to be said, I will say it and use my experiences and my perspective. And what I was able to do last year with the Salt Lake Tribune article was.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] What was the article?

Lance Allred [01:17:35] It was in response to the church saying children of gay people cannot be baptized. A new policy. It was me and how they were saying, just as we do with children of polygamy, not allowing them to be baptized, so too we now do with children of gay people. And I said, yo, wait up. I'm in a place of authority where I can actually talk about that. Because when we actually moved to Utah, my dad wanted us kids to go to church in the Mormon Church when we left Montana, because he wanted us again to have as much of a normal childhood as possible so we would fit in. But because my dad was not ready to disavow his father, his family, we could not. We kids were not invited to do that. We could not be baptized. And so therefore, what happened was that I became a pariah. We kids were just pawns in this power game between the lds Church and polygamy, and that your kids are now going to pay the price, which is the direct conflict of the second article of faith, which is that men shall be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgressions. Adam is a metaphor. Yes. Not the little Adam, when people would always challenge me on that. Adam is a metaphor of the father. This children should not have to atone for the sin of the father. And so I had an opportunity to say, yeah, you know what? Actually, you're being coy and flippant when you're saying, oh, well, when kids, when they turn 18. Yeah. After years of going through an emotional gauntlet of being a pariah, being an outcast, it's not so much that the adults are judging the kids, but we know kids themselves are brutal. And they give kids a platform to be superior to someone else and say, oh, he's not worried. His dad's gay. He can't be baptized. That does a huge number on people's mental state. Having been a victim of bullying, been a victim of ostracization myself. And I didn't write that article for vindication. For me, I just wrote that article to say, you know what? Bullshit. Let's not be coy. I want to try my best to give these kids a voice. I know it's really not going to change your mind, but I'm not going to let you guys get off easy by using kids of polygamy as a baseboard for the vindication of your intolerance. So those are times. There are times I will speak up, but if I was always in a constant state of offense going after the church, I would not have been in a position to actually write an article that profound and have that much impact that I got thousands of thank you letters for thousands of letters, emails from people saying just thank you.

John Dehlin [01:20:18] Thousands.

Lance Allred [01:20:19] Yeah, yeah, really. And people were just grateful for it. And so that's kind of where I have stood on the religion. And

John Dehlin [01:20:31] so I want to. I want to kind of end with that. So if it's okay.

Lance Allred [01:20:34] Yeah.

Playing in Europe and the Path to the NBA

John Dehlin [01:20:35] So you. You did professional basketball in Europe? Europe for how many years?

Lance Allred [01:20:42] I did it for one year. Then I went and joined the minor league team of the Utah Jazz, the Idaho Stampede. And then I was eventually called up and became the first depth player in the NBA history when I joined the Cleveland Cavaliers.

John Dehlin [01:20:51] Okay, so wait, how long were you. How long were you in the minor league?

Lance Allred [01:20:55] So what happened after that year? My first year professionally, I only got one job offer. That was go play for The Utah Jazz minor league team, the Idaho stampede, making $900 a month. That was it.

John Dehlin [01:21:07] Nothing.

Lance Allred [01:21:07] Nothing. And I only made it.

John Dehlin [01:21:09] Your career was over in Europe pretty

Lance Allred [01:21:11] much because you had injured your knee. Injured my knee. And everyone says, oh, he's hurt now. He couldn't stay on the team the whole year. That's just how it is. It's just that you get one shot to make a good impression. And so I got that job in Idaho basically because the head coach of the Clippers summer team I played for the year before, the summer team. He liked me. And he told his protege, who was now the head coach of this minor league team, to look at me and give me a shot. And I only got that job, turns out to be the media guy, to be the token guy at the end of the bench that does the radio interviews, the TV interviews, speaking to kids at schools. Now, I didn't know that's what I could do, but I was being pigeonholed. I was given the demeaning job of doing that. And I could have very easily set out, to heck with this, I'm not doing this. But I said, fine, watch me. I'm going to learn how to do a radio interview, a TV interview. I'm going to learn how to do public speaking skills that were considered demeaning, but I'm going to learn how to do them. Skills that I now use today that allow me to make more money than I ever did as a basketball player. And so in just the last couple of months, but I'm jumping ahead of it. But so it was funny, though. I was frustrated, I was stressed out, had bleeding ulcers and everything, because again, I'm only making $900 a month. I'm trying to eat, I'm trying to pay bills. And within one week, finally, towards the end of that season, starting center broke his leg. Starting power forward got bought out, ironically, to the same team in Turkey I played for the year before. He's gone. And then the backup center got recalled, and by default, I became the starting center. And my first kick game as a starting center on the road, I had 30 points and 10 rebounds.

John Dehlin [01:22:46] Wow.

Lance Allred [01:22:46] And everyone's like, where did this guy come from? I'm like, I've been hanging out here, end of the bench. But that's the thing about hard work. Doesn't always guarantee your dreams will come true. It guarantees you a shot. And I knew the universe owed me a shot because I believe in the laws of physics. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. It would give me one shot, and I knew if I were going to get that one shot, I would take it. And so I just stayed in shape by always running the floor, touching the baseline every time I was on fast break and team scrimmage. In practice. In practice, that was my game time. My teammates were shooting a layup. I made sure I was running the floor even if I wasn't going to get the shot. I just ran the floor and just stay in shape. So when I had that opportunity, I wasn't going to blow it. And then for the rest of the season, I averaged 22 points and 13 rebounds a game for the Idaho Stampede. Yeah, okay. And I was recalled. Then I was called up to the Cleveland Cavaliers and became the first.

John Dehlin [01:23:42] So you went from the Idaho Stampede to the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Lance Allred [01:23:45] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:46] What was that like?

Lance Allred [01:23:48] It was fun. I walked in my first day and my locker was next to LeBron's.

John Dehlin [01:23:52] Okay, is this before LeBron went to Miami?

Lance Allred [01:23:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:55] Okay, so this is pre Miami LeBron.

Lance Allred [01:23:57] This is 2008, 2009, and my locker's next to LeBron. I sit next, and he sees my tattered D league shoes, and he says, what size shoes are you? I'm like 15. He goes, Ah, hell no. Take my shoes. We had the same shoe size.

Guest [01:24:12] What?

Lance Allred [01:24:12] And he was a cool guy. I really enjoyed playing with him. Here's the thing about LeBron. This is a guy who didn't grow up with any parental guidance. His mom basically was, for all intents and purposes, street walker, a prostitute. And he never knew who his father was. So he grew up in his friends homes, house hopping and coming out of money, coming out of high school with all the money and fame thrown his way, with no real parental guidance, teaching him social skills, coping skills. He'd done far better than I ever would have. And, you know, Jordan and Malone, they didn't have to deal with social media. Media. He's got to deal with it all the time. He's always in his space. And so I tell people, LeBron is one of the top five most intelligent people I've ever known. Not just basketball players, but people. Everyone focuses on his athleticism, but he's a brilliant, brilliant basketball player. He's very intelligent. Most people don't get that. And most people don't like Superman, but it's not easy being Superman. But then they look at Steph Curry and they say, oh, well, we like Steph Curry because he was an underdog, Went to Davidson, skinny and scrawny. He was overlooked in the draft he worked so hard to train himself. He's now the best in the world. It's a great underdog story. I'm like, yeah, but Steph Curry grew up in a great home with parents that loved him and a dad who played in the NBA who taught him how to be savvy, who taught him work ethic, who taught him how to do all and say all the right things. So is Steph Curry really an underdog? I don't think so. It's all about perspective and everything. And I love playing for the NBA real quick.

Becoming the First Deaf Player in NBA History

John Dehlin [01:25:59] So you show up with tattered shoes, don't you, like, tell us what it's like to play for the NBA? Like, why are you, you know, why are you, why is LeBron giving you shoes? Don't they give you shoes?

Lance Allred [01:26:10] Thing is, we were on the road and they didn't have any shoes. I flew in overnight red eye to meet the team in Washington D.C. from the Idaho Stampede. And so they just called me in last second. They didn't have any size 15. So LeBron, he has a bunch of shoes carried with him all the time. So he gave me some shoes. Okay, and so did you.

John Dehlin [01:26:34] You didn't start?

Lance Allred [01:26:35] You were back home? No, no.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] But you played for, you said 10 months.

Lance Allred [01:26:39] Yeah, I was with, I was with them under contract for 2, 10 months.

John Dehlin [01:26:42] And do you, like, what are you able to tell us about the income of someone who comes from a D league or whatever?

Lance Allred [01:26:48] So in my income, I was making the minimum salary, which was $450,000 a season. But I'll tell you a funny story. When I got my first paycheck from the NBA, the first two 10 day contracts I signed, then I was signed for the rest of the season. A 10 day contract is $25,000. So in my head I'm thinking, okay, 50 grand. I like this. I don't have to go hungry ever again. I can buy some shoes if I want to. I opened up my check and I did a double take. I'm like, wait, it's just one check. But after taxes, I made $23,000 because every city and county and state you play in is going to tax you. So you just get taxed to high heaven. And so, yes, it's still good money. Hey, 23 grand for 20 days of work ain't bad at all. I'm not saying that. But compared to the ridiculous salaries that we see, the gross, it's much less that. It's basically half. At least half. Let's just say at least half. And so, but you know, I mean, just the lifestyle of the NBA, the perks, the food, there's food everywhere. The travel on your own plane, staying at the Four Seasons, all that stuff, people knowing you, it's company jet. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:16] And it's catered on the plane.

Lance Allred [01:28:18] Yeah. And anything you want, you're wanting for nothing. And the thing I miss the most about the NBA, towels. Because I played in so many shoddy gyms in humid countries that don't have ac, let alone a towel, just to wipe your hands and practice. Right. So you're trying to play basketball with sweaty palms is the most frustrating thing in the world. And so there I am in the NBA. I could be standing on a practice court or in the hallway at the hotel or on a plane. I swear, John, I could put my hand out anywhere and there'd be a minion there to put a towel in my hand. It was just insane. But the one thing I most wanted the NBA to do for me, it could not. And that was validate me. My very first point in the NBA, I banked in a free throw shot. Shooting a free throw. And most people thought it was because I was nervous, but actually what was happening, I was sitting there and a thought came inside of my head. I'm shooting a free throw in front of 20,000 people. And I thought, is this it? Is this the best that it gets? Because even though I had stopped attending church, I still have at this time, the age of 27, just two years after I stopped attending church at the age of 27, I still had that belief in the Christian God, the Mormon God, that some semblance of it. So I was still playing basketball for love. And not even the brightest lights in the world, the NBA stage, could fill that void. In my gut that was the loss that I was trying to feel by thinking, oh, once I play in the NBA, I'll be worthy of love. And I think we all have that to some shape, to an extent. We think that next job, the next car, that next lover will fill that void and we'll be happy. Instead, I had to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. I had to learn to be proud of 5 year old me. For years I tried to leave 5 year old me behind. The kid who was a loser, he was a sinner, he had to be better. And that's where the hole in my gut came from. And through a lot of travels around the world, 10 years playing basketball on every continent, I was released from the Cavaliers later that season. The next season, when the economy really hit in.09. And most NBA teams released their 14th or 15th roster spots to save money. And I was no exception. And so severe disenchantment, heartbreak. And that's when I realized it was all God. Any last idea that I had of that Christian God was gone. And with it came, you know, again, severe depression. I would say suicidal depression. I almost jumped out of a hotel window in Italy when I went back to Europe after that experience. Because the life that I had been chasing, the stories that I had been chasing, that I thought would validate me, that would make me worthy of love, they were all lies. They were all myths. And it was like, what had I been doing it all for? And I still, at that time, also didn't know how to be comfortable with myself.

John Dehlin [01:31:41] Were you enjoying your time in the NBA while you were in it?

Lance Allred [01:31:45] Yes. But again, I had the disenchantment that, wait, I don't feel any different. Why do I still feel right? I had this whole. That I have to make everyone else like me. I didn't like that. I thought I would just be.

John Dehlin [01:32:02] Did it all good. Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:32:04] But also, you start seeing the politics of it all in the NBA, because if I'm the minor league guy being called up and I'm making minimum salary, I can practice as hard as I want. But unless there's amazing opportunities coming my way, why would the owner want to see the guy on a minimum salary playing ahead of the guy? He's paying $5 million a year.

John Dehlin [01:32:26] It's like the scholarship thing at the university versus a red shirt.

Lance Allred [01:32:29] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:32:30] Walk on.

Lance Allred [01:32:30] Exactly. It doesn't look good. And so there's a lot of. There's a lot. So many politics.

John Dehlin [01:32:36] So you didn't get a lot of playing time?

Lance Allred [01:32:38] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:32:39] Like, how many? Any idea total minutes for the cat? Probably

Lance Allred [01:32:51] 30 to 40 minutes. That's about it.

John Dehlin [01:32:54] Across an entire season.

Lance Allred [01:32:56] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:57] Was it. Was it cool, though, to, like. And I. I've never talked to an NBA player before, like. And. And I do want to get to the rock bottom.

Lance Allred [01:33:07] Sure, that's fine.

John Dehlin [01:33:07] Assuming there was only one, maybe.

Lance Allred [01:33:10] But hopefully.

John Dehlin [01:33:12] But, like, going to all those cool stadiums, sitting on the bench, playing with elite players, playing against elite players, front court seats flying around.

Lance Allred [01:33:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:24] Like, here's what happened. You probably got to see superstars, right.

Lance Allred [01:33:29] It was amazing. And one day, I'm sitting there, I'm like, wait, I do a double take. I'm like, is Beyonce sitting next to me?

John Dehlin [01:33:36] Yeah, she is.

Lance Allred [01:33:36] Okay, cool. Yeah. No, you fall into this trap in that when you're not playing so much anymore. When you go from playing all the time, you're not playing anymore. You're usually dressed in business clothes because you only suit up 13 guys, but the other two guys have to. You start to lose your confidence because you're afraid, oh, gosh, I got to go out there maybe and play today if they suit me up. And that again, you're so. You love that life so much. Such a comfortable, nice lifestyle, eating, traveling around the world, playing basketball and practice. But, you know, you have to play in the game. You want to play in the game because you miss playing basketball, but that's

John Dehlin [01:34:19] why you're there to play.

Lance Allred [01:34:19] You're there to play, but you're not playing. You're not playing. And so you're like, but I really want this. I don't want to lose this opportunity. But if they put me back out there in the court, I get a chance to play. Am I out of shape? How am I going to look? I'm going to lose my job. So you have so much time to just sit and analyze. You drive yourself crazy instead of just being able to just let your instincts take over and play. And that eventually it went from being a blast to a wonderful experience, to fear that I would lose my job, especially when the economy started to collapse, fear that I'm going to lose my job. And that part wasn't fun because I loved it so much and I was so grateful for it, I was almost too grateful for it, that I lost confidence in myself and just being an alpha. I lost my alpha status, I would say, and that I was just in such a place of receiving that I couldn't really give. And that made me completely at their whim to do whatever they wanted with me. And so the Cavaliers released me in the next season.

John Dehlin [01:35:24] Any real quick, any prisoners, personal interactions with LeBron or any teammates?

Lance Allred [01:35:28] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:29] Or opponents. Like, interesting or fun or.

Lance Allred [01:35:34] Sure, I got some stories. The nicest guy I've ever played basketball with was actually Ben Wallace. If you remember Ben Wallace from the Detroit Pistons, the guy at the permascal, Mr. Muscle Man. He is the nicest guy in the world. He was my teammate with Cleveland, and he would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him to. Just the nicest guy. His wife travels with him wherever he goes. Just a family guy. I just love playing with him and, you know, all the perks and all the hazing. You know, I have to sing Happy Birthday. I have to bring people bagels and coffee and newspapers every morning to Veterans like Eric Snow or Wally Sodrinus, Ilgauskas, you know, they had fun with me. But here's the nice thing too, in that most NBA players too acknowledge that a lot of it is hype and timing that does Jay Billis on ESPN give you love and then you get drafted. And so when they see a guy like me come up through the back door, so to speak, doing it the hard way, there's actually a level of respect that they extended to me. Like, you know what? You did it the hard way. Hats off to. Because so much of it, they know a lot of it for them. The people who are grounded, who last a long time not talking about people like LeBron who were just generational talents, but you know, the sub tier guys, even guys like Steve Nash. I met Steve Nash, a great guy, I got to talk to him. And he said, you know, I acknowledge a lot of it. A lot of life just went my way. And he knows that. But that's why they last as long as they do. The ones that acknowledge that they're there because life went their way and they didn't take it for granted. Versus the guys that have the entitlement, that think it's always going to go their way, they always just disappear. They fall by the wayside. So they all gave me a lot of great advice and insight and I appreciated them. And it is sad. I would have liked to have lasted longer. And the sad thing is it was awesome being called up to Cleveland, but they were a championship contender team. We lost to Boston in game seven that year one Boston went on to win the championship. We took Boston to the wire. It was an amazing game.

Life on the Cavaliers and the LeBron Era

John Dehlin [01:37:45] Game seven, Eastern Conference finals.

Lance Allred [01:37:47] Yeah, Eastern Conference, actually Eastern Conference semifinals. The next round they went and destroyed the Pistons in like five games. And then they destroyed the Lakers in the finals that game.

John Dehlin [01:37:57] So you got to go to playoff.

Lance Allred [01:37:58] Yeah. We're in playoffs in Game 7 in Boston and Madison Square Garden. Boston Garden. And so it was amazing. It was just amazing energy just being in there, seeing all that. But the thing is, it would have been nice. Also. Here's what happened to other people that get called up in the D league. They go play on really crappy teams, but they get opportunities to play and then they sign a longer NBA contract with a different team.

John Dehlin [01:38:27] Your team is too good.

Lance Allred [01:38:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:29] So there's no way for you to play.

Lance Allred [01:38:30] Exactly. And so it was an amazing experience. But also there were no opportunities really for me to.

John Dehlin [01:38:35] It really is luck. So much luck.

Lance Allred [01:38:37] It is, it is.

John Dehlin [01:38:38] But hard Work, too, so.

Lance Allred [01:38:39] Yeah, exactly. So much about. Again, you can either choose, say, oh, it's all luck and timing, or no, a lot of it is. But all I can do is work my ass off to make sure that when something does swing my way, I am prepared to take it. That's what hard work does for you.

John Dehlin [01:38:54] Yeah. What about. What about the sort of live rumors about the lifestyle that these men are sleeping with, all these women, the drug use, like just crazy behavior?

Lance Allred [01:39:06] Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, because they're mostly true.

John Dehlin [01:39:10] Oh, but so did you get to see all that?

Lance Allred [01:39:13] I actually. I just kind of kept to myself. That's why people like me on my basketball teams and that I was always. I never ran with clicks. I was always just. I learned that from my high school days with my teammates, when the betrayal and the backbiting started happening. I learned that through college and through the pros, that I just did my best to always kind of be a neutral guy. That on the court, I worked my butt off the court, I kind of just compartmentalized my life. I would never stand offish that they want to do something. Yeah. But it was never like, oh, we got to do everything together. We got to play video games and go to the club. It's like, for my own sanity. But also, I'm an introvert. Some guys would go clubbing. I would write. I started writing my book Longshot, my first year professor professionally in Europe. And I was really frustrated. I didn't have any intention of it being published. I just started writing it for cathartic reasons, my memoirs, so that my future kids would know who I was, but also for catharsis. And so when Harper Collins heard my story on NPR, after my call up to Cleveland, HarperCollins reached out and they said, wow, this is an amazing story. We want to send a ghostwriter out to get Lance's story. And my agent said, no, Lance is a writer. You should readings. I gave them 800 pages, and then they axed it down to 250. So that was a frustrating process. So the lifestyle definitely is there. But again, you have guys like Ben Wallace, you have the guys that are partiers or whatnot. LeBron's an amazing dad. And his wife, Savannah, she was awesome to me too. Again, coming from where he's come from and the father he's chosen to be to his kids, it's absolutely remarkable. And it's a story that needs to be acknowledged and validated choices he's made with his life. But, yeah, you know, I would say it's about 50, 50 down the line. Guys that are just fitting all the stereotypes you could possibly want versus guys who are not fitting the stereotypes. So.

John Dehlin [01:41:18] Yeah. So were you happy to see LeBron bring a championship back to Cleveland?

Lance Allred [01:41:26] Absolutely not. So much for the Miami Heat. I didn't like the Miami Heat. Didn't like that super team, but when he came back to Cleveland. I love the fans in Cleveland. They're fun because they don't do the passive aggressive thing that we do out here in the Rocky Mountain west or the Mormon culture. They just tell you exactly what they're thinking. And I could be walking down the street at a mall one day or whatever. And honestly, this happened all the time. John. I'd walk into your store, oh, hey, Lance, what's going on? I'm like, oh, they just knew who I was because I was on the team. Right. They were passionate fans in Cleveland, and they said, oh, yeah, you did a great job last night. But I didn't like that shot you took. That was kind of. That's kind of a weak shot. You need to go harder to the rim. Thank you. But they're just tell you exactly what they think. But they would coach you in good fun and love. Not in good fun, but like, they really meant it, though. But I knew they meant well. Whereas here in Utah, it's kind of like, oh, you did a great job, but awesome. Then they'll send you an email later saying, no, you actually didn't do a good job. You could do this. Right. But here in Cleveland, it was just, they tell you exactly what they think. And I found it very refreshing. And I love those fans. And so I was just glad that they got to have the Cleveland. The championship brought to Cleveland this year.

John Dehlin [01:42:40] So you get sort of your contract end. I get released.

Lance Allred [01:42:45] Yeah, you get released.

John Dehlin [01:42:46] So you go back to Europe.

Lance Allred [01:42:47] Go back to Europe. Because the timing was the Cavaliers released me at the worst time.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] Economy crashed.

Lance Allred [01:42:54] Economy crashed. And also just right in October before my contract became guaranteed. They released me in November, and by then, most teams already filled up their rosters for preseason. So they released me. I only showed up for 10 days in preseason. Then they released me. But by then, all the other teams had already filled out their rosters. So my only option is to go over to Europe, and timing and buzz is everything. And so I had the buzz for a while. I was in the D league. People were like, holy crap. This last is a legitimate deal, Everyone. I had my agent show me a list one day that he had received a Phone call from every team after this showcase event in the D League where every team gets together and play. So all the GMs come and watch all these teams play over three days. And after that event was my big breakout. I could only play 24 minutes because there was an assigned player, a center, so the coach had to do gymnastics, musical chairs. So I could only play 24 minutes out of 48. In 24 minutes, I had 24 points and 12 rebounds in front of every GM in the NBA. And I went from having every GM in the NBA call up my agent, trying to figure out how they can get me on the team. But the bane of my existence was the guaranteed contract. Because every team's trying to dump these guaranteed contracts. They can't get rid of them because they want to make room. They want to have me come on the team. It wasn't until the Cleveland Cavaliers made a huge trade, the trail Chicago Bulls that brought in Ben Wallace and Wally Szczerbiak, that roster spots finally opened, that I was then able to go join that team. So, again, so much of his timing and what opportunities come your way. And so I went from being the bell of the ball to 10 months later. Lance is kind of. He was yesterday's news.

John Dehlin [01:44:47] Why didn't teams pick you up other teams? Oh, I guess. Okay.

Lance Allred [01:44:49] And the timing of it.

John Dehlin [01:44:50] Because.

Lance Allred [01:44:51] And the timing of timing. They had already filled out their preseason box.

John Dehlin [01:44:54] Yeah, no, no. You told me that. I just.

Lance Allred [01:44:56] And so it's so much of it. I mean, do I want.

John Dehlin [01:44:58] It's so weird that that would just do.

Lance Allred [01:45:01] I want to be a victim and say, oh, the Cavaliers totally screwed me. They released me at the worst time because they didn't want to see me go join another team and do really well. Make them look bad.

Guest [01:45:10] Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:45:12] But that is kind of how it works.

John Dehlin [01:45:13] I would almost think you could then go to Europe, just bide your time, and then someone would pick you up the year after, Right?

Lance Allred [01:45:21] Yes and no. Honestly, so much of it is timing and. Because if I'm gone, I'm now pushing. I'm getting 28, 29, almost 30. You got all these younger kids coming up. It's a young man's game.

John Dehlin [01:45:34] Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:45:34] And talent. Yeah. Young legs, new sexy buzz. He's the new hot girl. He's the it girl now.

Dark Night of the Soul and Suicidal Crisis

John Dehlin [01:45:41] Yeah. Yeah.

Lance Allred [01:45:41] That's just how people are. It's like kids in a candy store.

John Dehlin [01:45:44] Okay, so what country did you go back to?

Lance Allred [01:45:45] I went to Italy.

John Dehlin [01:45:46] Italy. And that's where you got depressed?

Lance Allred [01:45:48] You seriously depressed? Because I'm playing for a team that's going bankrupt. They hadn't paid me. And I'm thinking, wait, this isn't how I was supposed to go. This isn't what I was doing. I was in the NBA. Now I'm here and I'm not making money. And all this bullshit is a lie. And when the Cavs released me, I remember, I walked out of the arena. This is where my second book is about basketball gods. The whole recovering from that Hollywood ending.

John Dehlin [01:46:19] Is that a book you've published?

Lance Allred [01:46:21] Yeah. Basketball Gods and Long Shot is the perfect Hollywood story. Point A to my birth to the happy ending of being called into the NBA. Basketball gods is like the Empire Strikes Back kind of thing. What happens the day after and having to find peace with all that. So, yeah, severe suicide, suicidal depression kicked in, and I really had to come to a place of redefining. If there is a God, I had to settle into being agnostic for a while, thinking, you know, what it is, what it is. I can't control it. If there is a God, if there isn't a God, he hasn't done shit for me. What I could easily say, like, whatever, where did he go? If he was there, he definitely pulled out the rug from under me. He left me high and dry. So I don't care. Even if he is there, I don't care.

John Dehlin [01:47:15] Someone say, that's ungrateful. Like, he got you to the NBA, yet are your goals achieved? How could you. That's almost like you turned on God.

Lance Allred [01:47:23] Exactly. This is where I. This is the space after. Then it was like, you know what, God? I did everything you asked me to do. Where did you go? And that's because, John, I had been trying to live up to someone else's idea of God. Some twisted Sunday school teacher or my grandfather's or Gordon B. Hinckley's idea of God. And so I really. I came to a place where, if you want to call it Buddhism or Wayne Dyer or whatnot, Wayne Dyer was a huge impact on my life and helping me come to a place of acceptance, challenging me to really, you know what? Let's go address my thought patterns. Let's go attack these stories. Underneath the paradigm. What are the beliefs that I hold? Are they actually true? Are they not? And what is the engine behind my thought patterns that is allowing me to process information the way I do? I'm still thinking like a Mormon. I'm just an agnostic Mormon. I think and process the world like a Mormon, in very simplistic black and White terms. And that's why I keep getting frustrated with the world. Because if I think like a Mormon, the world's supposed to look a certain way in a black and white way. But the more and more I'm traveling, as Mark Twain said, travel is. The travel kills all prejudice and biases. And I'm seeing a world of gray, of abstract. And this is where the pain comes from.

Guest [01:48:49] When.

Lance Allred [01:48:50] When reality is not meshing with your paradigm, that's where the pain comes from. That's where depression and suicidal depression comes from. Reality and your paradigm are not matching. So I really had to come to a place where I had to learn to shift. And I had this mantra really was God, if you exist, help me to know the things about you that you would want me to know. Simple as that. And so I really. That's part of the things that I cover now as a motivational speaker is finding self worth, your value underneath. Behind all my principles of perseverance, the motivation, the inspiration. I do a lot of talking on how we find our intrinsic value. And so I got to a place of acceptance, really. And then I thought, you know, I kind of have it figured out. It is what it is. I can control what I can control. And, you know, people, when I deal with atheists or extreme religious people, I like to. To me, when I have an extreme religious person, like a Mormon putting God inside of a box, to me, it seems almost as arrogant or just as arrogant for an atheist to say we're the greatest intelligence out there and this is all a mindless mistake. And that for me, in my opinion, I'm at a place where I'm fine not having all the answers, and that's okay with me. And do I believe there's a higher power? Yeah. Does it look like a Christian God? No. I do believe the universe is an intelligent being. And I. Because, again, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. I've seen too much dark in my life. Therefore, I know there's an opposite to it and there's good. And so I don't know when people want to try to put me in a box. So are you Mormon or not? A couple weeks ago, I was speaking at American Express at this convention. There was a Q and A after. And at this Fortune 100 company, some guy asked me, so what religion are like, whoa, okay, that's pretty taboo. And so I enjoyed that conversation. But, you know, I guess for me, I can always come down to this. If all we are, John, is just for a brief moment in Time, an extension of the universe, gathering experience and intelligence. And then we die. And that's all we are. Still. What a beautiful gift that was. That's all we ever get to be. And I'm okay with that. Who knows where life will keep taking me next? But I choose, just as my TED talk, I choose to continually push past my comfort zones and to allow life to continually teach me. Because the more you learn in light, the more you learn how little you know. As Einstein said, as your circumference of knowledge grows, so too the circle of darkness around it.

Guest [01:52:00] And

Lance Allred [01:52:03] yeah, and so that's when people. That's the best way I can sum up whatever religious proclivities that I have now.

Life After Basketball and Healing From Heartbreak

John Dehlin [01:52:14] So just to kind of finish the arc of the story, you did end up playing professional basketball for a few more years.

Lance Allred [01:52:23] Yeah. So I was in Italy for a while. Then you just go quickly through, like, okay, then Italy. Let's see, after Italy, where did I go after Italy? Gosh, what happened after Italy? Actually came back, went to the D league just a little bit, then went to Australia, then went to Venezuela, then went to Ukraine. Then I actually joined the Pacers for bit. Just for a little bit for a month. Then that was fun. Playing for Larry Legend. Getting a pat on the ass from Larry Legend is always fun. Telling you, Larry Bird? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:55] You met Larry Bird?

Lance Allred [01:52:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:56] Sweet.

Lance Allred [01:52:57] It was awesome. I really liked him. He's a good guy. And guys like Paul George, Paul George, he's a good person. I'm happy for his success. He's a good player. Then let's see, after that. Let's see. Oh, gosh. There was New Zealand, then there was Japan. Then eventually after that, I ended up getting my passport to Mexico. As my dad told you, they found out my grandfather was born in Mexico. So this team in Mexico found out about it and it was good. But you only have three Americans on the team, so I didn't count as an American. So it was amazing job security. So I could have a really bad game. Didn't matter. I was still playing better than all the other Mexican. And so it was great job security. And it was good pay too. If you're playing on the right team with the right cartel owner, it's a good team. But in Japan, that's when I met my now ex wife. She and I went to Japan and she was with me through Mexico. And even though the job security was there, it's a hard life going from job to job, living out of a suitcase. And I asked a lot out of her and, you know, all I can do is keep my side of the street clean. I acknowledge the baggage that I brought into my marriage and that I had some clarity after the mba, but I didn't realize just how much subconscious baggage I still had. And my polygamy that I brought in, that I grew up in a world where my value was attached to women, that if you had multiple women, it meant you were more worthy, you had more power, and God blessed you more or whatever. And so I needed to believe that my marriage was perfect, that my wife was perfect, that I was perfect. And that would mean I was a good man. And I still did not know how to. She was my first real relationship. So I was a babe in many ways. I didn't know how to have like an actual adult argument. All I knew how to do was stonewall Majera style. I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know that it was okay to be angry or frustrated. Wait, we're not always peaceful, not always happy. My parents never had an argument. I grew up in a home where they were just very repressed in their polygamy too. But they've always worked very well together. And I was surprised when my dynamic was not the same in my marriage. And so all I can do is keep my side of the street clean and own up to my part.

John Dehlin [01:55:35] You had kids together?

Lance Allred [01:55:36] Yeah, we have a three year old son together.

John Dehlin [01:55:40] So the marriage lasted two and a

Lance Allred [01:55:42] half years and I'm grateful for the time she chose to give me.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] And how long did your career.

Lance Allred [01:55:49] When did. When I retired last year in April of 2015 to be a father to my son.

John Dehlin [01:55:55] So you had good. 10 years? 10 years professional career.

Lance Allred [01:55:58] 10 year professional career. And so I was going through the divorce and I didn't want to be away from my son, so I retired to be with my son. And so it's been a lot of hard work. It's been a crazy last year going into motivational speaking, had to learn a lot of different things. But I figured, you know, if I take the same work ethic and integrity and principles that I use in basketball, I should be able to flip them over and apply them into this new career. And so I can honestly say now with the TED Talk, there's over 200,000 views of the TED Talk now. That TED Talk was really kind of me coming out of the grieving cycle of my divorce because that's the most painful thing I've ever been through. Far more painful than the loss of the MB dream was losing My marriage or your faith? Yeah, because faith and religion was always kind of superficial. MBA was superficial validation too, that I always believed underneath it all that a woman. A woman, my soulmate, that those two can't do it. After the NBA dream died, I still had that hope, John, that at least I'll find my soulmate and she'll validate me and I'll be happy and she'll complete me. I didn't know how to be a leader in my own life. I didn't realize that those are Hollywood stories that we hear that when someone's going to validate you. No, I'm the only one that knows the pain I went through as a kid. And therefore I'm the only one that's responsible for my healing and my growth. And so that's the kind of pressure I put her on. I didn't know I needed her to validate me and how smothering and controlling that must have felt. But now she and her family, they're big fans of yours. I believe they've listened to every one of your podcasts. So this might be. This might be tough for them to listen to, but the Bears, I love them very much.

John Dehlin [01:57:57] Hi, bears.

Lance Allred [01:57:58] Hi, Bears. And so it's. But I'm always grateful because that experience, that marriage, it really broke down that last story of where my self worth was going to come from. And she's the only person that I could have fallen in love with that madly that would allow me to be that vulnerable, that would then break down all those barriers, that would really challenged me to step into my authentic space and learn to be truly comfortable with who I am. So. And I'll always be grateful for that.

John Dehlin [01:58:36] So how do you go from losing the love of your life or becoming heartbroken to like becoming whole? Like, what was that? That sounds almost too idealistic.

Lance Allred [01:58:49] Well, if you watch the TED Talk, what is your polygamy is that I have to realize, you know what I choose? I choose to be aware of my thought patterns and ask myself with each thought, is this Lance thinking or is it my polygamous thought patterns? Thinking thought patterns that no longer serve me. I choose the clarity that it is mental gymnastics to believe that my self worth is ever in question. We Mormons are brilliant in mental gymnastics that's used the clarity that love is either unconditional or it's not love at all. When you lose the love of your life, the pain is so great that we either choose more pain or we choose clarity. And I chose clarity and I chose the clarity that Those stories no longer serve me about where my value resides. That my value is never. My value cannot be calculated. It's never a question. And so it was a choice, John, to answer your question, how do you go from being the love of your life to being whole? It's the choice that you choose. Clarity. Knowing that you are the only one that truly knows. How ridiculous was it of me to think that my ex wife could truly understand the pain I went through as a boy at the age of five, believing that God was angry with me and that's why I was deaf. She wasn't there. To place that burden on her, to be my soulmate, and that somehow she's going to heal it and complete me and make me whole is ridiculous, not to mention childish. But that's what Hollywood tells us is true love. That's not true love. That's codependency. And so, again, all I can do is keep my side of the street clean. I realize the pressure I placed on her to validate me was so great, and that's why we have so much ridiculous high expectations when it comes to finding our soulmate. To me, the concept of soulmate is people absolving themselves of accountability for their own personal development and growth and mental wellness. I'm the only person that can do that. And so that's how you do it. You choose clarity instead of pain.

John Dehlin [02:01:28] So what? What's the future for you? What do you got? Do you have a new list? Yeah. Above your light switch?

Lance Allred [02:01:36] Yeah. I choose to be one of the greatest communicators in the world. I choose to be the best father in the world to my son Simon. I choose to write many more books and sell millions of more copies. And that's all I'll share with you for now.

John Dehlin [02:01:54] You're going to hold back? You can't hold back. You're holding back.

Lance Allred [02:02:00] I'm holding back.

John Dehlin [02:02:01] You have other dreams.

Lance Allred [02:02:02] I do.

John Dehlin [02:02:03] You want to be President of the United States?

Lance Allred [02:02:05] No, no, no. That title's been tarnished anyway. Who wants that?

Closing Reflections on Faith, Loss, and Wholeness

John Dehlin [02:02:11] All right, so closing advice for people who are struggling in their faith or who have lost their faith, who have been heartbroken either from church or from life or whatever you've been giving your thoughts all along. What's some closing advice you give people who are struggling in their religious transition or in a life transition?

Lance Allred [02:02:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:40] And you can summarize. You can repeat.

Lance Allred [02:02:41] No, I could do a little summarizing. This is not me coming out. This is my coming out party as, like, a prophet or Anything like that. But with my hearing loss, even as a boy, I remember I would see things sometimes. You know, we hear stories of people losing a sense that other senses tend to overcompensate. And I'm hit with deja vu all the time. All the time. Like I've been here before. I know that that's what happened. Yeah. Okay. If I. If one thing I could say to anybody who's struggling with a life transition or a loss of faith is that. If you only knew just how loved you are, it would blow your mind. And I had to learn how to accept that because, again, I didn't think I was worthy of love. I didn't understand what unconditional love was until my son was born. And you know what? Choose to allow yourself grace.

John Dehlin [02:04:04] Loved by who? Loved by what?

Lance Allred [02:04:08] Loved by what? Good question.

John Dehlin [02:04:11] You said it.

Lance Allred [02:04:12] I know. In that I choose love. In that I believe love is energy. That is my religion. E equals MC squared. And that if you look at the human body, the space between a neutron, a nucleus, and an electron is so vast that we may as well be empty space, that the only thing that's holding us together is energy. And I think that what that energy is, it's just love. It is just whether you want to call it universe or whether you want to call it Mother Earth or whatever, if you must quantify it in a way. But to me, it's just energy. That's how I would say it. But through it all, just without summarizing everything again, just choose clarity. And always choose to move in gratitude. Gratitude. Choose gratitude. Always. That's the highest frequency you can have. Gratitude. And that's because the whole New age thing, like, oh, life's always awesome. It's peaceful. That's too easy. Always float downstream. Always go the path of least resistance. That's too easy because you have to have resistance. Resistance makes you stronger. As a basketball player, if I didn't train or work out, I wouldn't be prepared to go play basketball. You have to have resistance. But through all those highs and lows, always just choose gratitude.

Gratitude and Final Thoughts on Lance Allred

John Dehlin [02:05:43] All right, well, want to thank Lance Allred for his time, for his wisdom, for his story. There's some really, really powerful stuff there that I wasn't even anticipating. But please, please go to mormonstories.org and make comments there. Hopefully, Lance will respond. Buy his book Longshot Lance. All the Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His journey to the NBA. Share his TEDx talk. Let's get it up to 300,000 and more. I think that'd be fine.

Lance Allred [02:06:18] Buy his other book, Basketball Gods.

John Dehlin [02:06:21] Basketball Gods.

Lance Allred [02:06:22] Yeah. You can find it on lancealrid41.com lancealrid41.com or else Amazon. It's there.

John Dehlin [02:06:28] 41. What is that?

Lance Allred [02:06:29] That's my jersey number.

John Dehlin [02:06:30] Okay.

Lance Allred [02:06:33] Yeah, that was actually my senior year because I actually gained so much weight, I had to be number 50. They had to change jerseys.

John Dehlin [02:06:42] That's over 41 dot com. Yeah.

Lance Allred [02:06:44] 41 dot com.

John Dehlin [02:06:44] Okay, and I'll just end by thanking both Vance for his story and Lance for his, and thanking all the Mormon Stories contributors that donate to make this podcast possible. If you want to see it continue, Donations kind of tend to taper off. If you want to see it continue, please go up to MormonStories.org and become a monthly subscriber. And that will keep us going. And if we don't stay viable, I'll go do something else. But, Lance, thank you so much for coming on. Good luck with everything.

Lance Allred [02:07:20] No, thank you. And thanks for your patience and allowing me to tell the story. Hopefully I was a little bit more focused on my dad.

John Dehlin [02:07:27] Your dad was great.

Lance Allred [02:07:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:29] But you were great, too, so stay in touch.

Lance Allred [02:07:31] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:07:31] All right, thanks so much, Lance. Take care, everybody. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Music today was provided by the Saber Rattlers. Check them out@sabre-rattlers.com the Mormon Stories logo was generously donated by StudioCase.com thanks for listening.

Guest [02:07:54] Come, come, you saints no toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear Grace shall be as your day Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo Hearts will swell oh, all is well all is well well, why should we mourn? I think our lot is hard

John Dehlin [02:08:59] T

Guest [02:08:59] not so all is right why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.