Stephen Caudill on Warpcast

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Stephen Caudill

My dad's on hospice care, so I'm in Florida helping out. I've been less active here as a result, but I love this community, so I'm going to try posting a little bit (hopefully light moments amidst a tough time) outside of a channel so I can talk about this experience. You can watch this cast for updates if you want.

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Stephen Caudill

Dad has Alzheimer's and esophogial cancer and decided last year to stop chemo because it has had such a detrimental affect on his ability to enjoy life. It's final days and my sister and I (along with some other local, close family) are just here trying to keep mom sane and be with dad as we can.

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Stephen Caudill

The dementia that coincides with his Alzheimer's means he isn't always "there", so when he is I've been trying to talk to him about his life. Asking questions and pushing his memory. He's done some amazing things and it's worth highlighting a few from our conversations.

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Stephen Caudill

He's a native Bermudan and grew up in the hotel his parents ran there. He was exposed early to lots of success. Bermuda is a corporate tax haven, so lots of important people came through his hotel pretty regularly. I think this helped set his horizons pretty far out, rather than just fixing his eyes on the island.

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Stephen Caudill

Pop loved diving from a young age. There are lots of cliffs overlooking the oceans around Bermuda with clear plunges beneath them. He and his childhood friend dared each other to dive off them and he found it exhilarating, so he kept up with it... turning it into a college scholarship in England.

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Stephen Caudill

A lot of folks don't know that Bermuda is a British principality... so most of the promising kids there end up going to school in England.

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Stephen Caudill

In England, he did so well at diving that he was offered a spot as an Olympic diving team alternate. He didn't get to compete, but I have still always found this pretty inspiring.

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Stephen Caudill

At the same time, he'd grown up on an island where playing football is part of being a kid... and he'd always been good at it. While in England, he kept playing and played for his college as well. After graduating with an MBA and a masters in psychology, he took time to focus on football for a while.

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Stephen Caudill

He spent two years playing "soccer" for the New York Cosmos and was even able to take the field with Pelé when he joined the team in '75. He assures me that Pelé was a very nice man. me: "was he arrogant?", him: "Yes and no. It was more that he knew he was the best and would say so."

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Stephen Caudill

Pop also played golf and I'm not really clear on when he started... Until a few years ago (he's 85) he was a scratch golfer and played without handicap. He met a ton of pro golfers, but was always most impressed with Tiger Woods. He said he was among a few athletes he'd met that he got to watch transform a game.

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Stephen Caudill

His big match of the year was always the Founder's Cup at the Mid-Ocean Club in Bermuda, which he won 3 times. This gave him a certain amount of local celebrity on the island and led to him golfing with folks like Lee Majors, Michael Douglas and playing in a ton of pro-ams.

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Stephen Caudill

Mom bids me interject that she outdid him in one way in his golf career, via a mention in Sports Illustrated (she's not at all competitive) - from the SI vault, search for "Lela Stearns": https://vault.si.com/vault/1999/03/29/notebook

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Stephen Caudill

All that to say, he always loved sports and being active.

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Stephen Caudill

He also loved dancing. He says he learned how by watching people dancing at his parents' hotel when he was young. In the 70's he was in New York, fit and liked Disco an awful lot. I've never gotten any candid stories out of him (and it's too late now), but I like to imagine him in a leisure suit out on the dance floor.

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Stephen Caudill

Dancing's actually how he met my mother when I was 10 (he's technically my step dad). They were both at different conventions at the same hotel in New Orleans at the same time. Pop for Coca Cola (he was an executive at the bottler in Bermuda) and mom for real estate.

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Stephen Caudill

He's probably 6 inches shorter than mom (who's always been a tall woman) and she said she saw his blue eyes go flashing by just above a high hedge that separated them and thought to herself that they were stunning, but that was that. 5 minutes later he came up and asked her to dance.

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Stephen Caudill

Say what you will, but to me, New Orleans may be a city of music but it is first and foremost a city of love (h/t to my lovely wife @desi who, I coincidentally became a "thing" with there). They danced the night away, had beignets at Cafe du Monde as the sun came up and my mom came home absolutely swooning.

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Stephen Caudill

I think that's probably it for now. More here soon.

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Also thanks for sharing all this about Pop. I haven't gotten to hear many of these things so I very much appreciate the story.

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Ah yes.. New Orleans.. and that time a little bit of booze gave us courage..

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