Sept. 20, 2026

48-Year-Old Freshman Football Player

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mac shares five good news stories: a supposed new island in British Columbia’s Williston Reservoir that vanished and reappeared 18 miles away, which BC Hydro says is actually unstable driftwood and decaying debris; Chardonnay, a four-year-old Australian shepherd, setting a Guinness World Record by jumping across 56 people’s backs in 16 seconds at an Alberta Riverhawks baseball game with 44 seconds to spare; a retired South Carolina firefighter collecting over 2,000 pairs of socks aiming for a Guinness record and planning to donate public sock donations to shelters after certification; Justin, a 48-year-old San Jose City College freshman defensive end returning to football after a decades-old injury; and Athens converting a former airport into a 400+ acre coastal urban park designed to cool the city with extensive planting and climate-focused design.

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WEBVTT

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Hey there, I'm Johnny Mac with five good news stories.

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Remember that island that I told you about recently? The

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one that showed up out of nowhere and then disappeared again?

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It's back. It turned up 18 miles away. Usually when

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you lose track of an island, you assume it's a

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map problem, but no. You may recall that residents spotted

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the new island on Williston Reservoir on July 12th and

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by August 5th it had disappeared. Well, BC Hydro spokesman

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Bob keeps trying to explain this thing away. He says

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driftwood can collect along the water's edge for years as

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that wood decomposes, plants and even trees can take root,

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creating what looks like an island. BC Hydro said it

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isn't an island so much as a loose collection of

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logs and decaying woody debris. The surface is unstable and

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unsafe to land on or climb across. For your safety,

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please keep your distance. And if you see a hatch there,

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the code is 4815162342. A dog named Chardonnay needed 16

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seconds to set a Guinness World Record. What's the record for?

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Jumping on people's backs. Yeah, Chardonnay needed 56 people to

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help her out. She is a four-year-old Australian shepherd. Her

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human friend Jennifer taught her how to jump onto her

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back a few years ago and That wasn't enough, so

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at a Riverhawks baseball game in Alberta, 56 fans lined

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up in the outfield and Chardonnay jumped from one person's

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back to the next. The record category allows a full

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minute for a dog to make the most jumps between people.

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Chardonnay finished with 44 seconds to spare. I guess they

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just needed more humans. Jennifer told the Washington Post, jumping

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across backs is just one of her many skills. That

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is fun. A retired firefighter in South Carolina has more

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than 2,000 pairs of socks. Buddy, you haven't seen my drawer. Oh, no,

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my drawer doesn't have pairs. I just have 2,000 individual socks.

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Daryl started collecting socks after receiving socks for Father's Day.

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More arrived for birthdays and anniversaries. Then his family suggested,

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why don't we do something with it? He told the

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local radio and TV. My wife was like, yo, listen,

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you got so many socks here. And my grandkids came

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and told me, how about we try for the Guinness

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World Record? And I was like, you know what? Let's

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do it. His plan is to keep collecting socks through

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the end of the year and then ask Guinness to

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certify the record. He says new socks donated by the

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public will go to local shelters once he secures the title.

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Nice job there. How about this guy? He's 48 years

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old and he's a college freshman and he's on the

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football team. Justin, where's number 48? That's how old he is.

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He's a freshman defensive end for the San Jose City

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College Jaguars. He told the local news after his first game,

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I feel good. I mean, I'm sore all the time.

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I haven't hit anybody in a football game in 30 years,

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so it felt good to do. He previously was playing

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college football 30 years ago, but was redshirted and then

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got injured and he couldn't play. Decades later, his son

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encouraged him to return to the field when he heard

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stories of other older men playing college sports. He explained

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his decision-making process. I came up with a pro-con list.

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The pro list was super long. The con list was,

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what if I get hurt? San Jose City College was

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open to giving him a chance, so he went to

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work and started weightlifting, put on 10 pounds of muscle,

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and said, I'm just sprinting all the time so my

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hamstrings are on fire. But at the same time, I

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realized I can do this. And in Athens, they are

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transforming the site of a former airport into one of

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Europe's biggest urban parks, creating a new massive green space

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designed to help cool one of the continent's hottest cities.

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The new park will stretch more than 400 acres along

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the coast in southern Athens, making it the second largest

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city park in Europe. The entire park has been designed

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around keeping the area cooler. Researchers studied wind patterns, air circulation,

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and evaporation to determine where to put the pathways, plants,

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and other features. The goal is to make the park

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as much as 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than surrounding areas

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of asphalt and concrete. The plan includes 30,000 trees and

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3 million smaller plants. Athens once held the world meteorological

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organization record for the highest temperature recorded in Europe after

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reaching 118.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Athens was also the first European

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city to appoint a chief heat officer to help deal

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with increasingly severe heat waves. Those are your five good

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news stories for today. If you'd like the program without

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