True Patriot Love - April 27, 2026


Breaking The Silence on His Career & Legacy ft. Ben Johnson

Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Guests
Ben Johnson
Mentioned
Charlie Francis Ben Johnson Shamir Andersen Karen Robinson Young Ben J. Martin Run Fast Chuck Phil
What Most Canadians Get Wrong About Taxes ft. Luigi De Rose Is Organized Crime Taking Over Canada’s Streets？ [Weekly Crime Update]

Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

188.97

Word count

4,156

Sentence count

153

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of All Jokes Aside, I sit down with the greatest Jamaican sprinter of all time, Mr. Ben Johnson. In this episode, we talk about his early life growing up in Jamaica and how he went on to become one of the fastest men in the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 what a wonderful day you are tuned into all jokes aside with yours truly jay martin the
00:00:09.560 renaissance man and as you can see i have the biggest most popular iconic guest in the building
00:00:17.460 ladies and gentlemen i present to you none other than the icon himself mr ben johnson how are you
00:00:22.540 my friend thank you very much for inviting me here listen this is an honor to be here and i think
00:00:27.760 based on who you are and what you've done you must get this all the time don't all the time yeah
00:00:33.180 like everywhere you go i can imagine this has been years it's been a lifetime of
00:00:38.300 all you've done and it's everywhere you go and i've been places where you are and it's like
00:00:43.800 they whisper they start off and they go ben's in the building ben's in the building and how is it
00:00:48.820 when you're in a public place how do they kind of approach you uh you know people come and shake
00:00:52.960 hand in a smile and say you know great run uh i remember where i was and so you know all different
00:00:58.880 kind of thing it's all good you know what people expectation is and yes how you feel about people
00:01:04.560 approaching you and everything like that so it's nice it must have took getting used to though
00:01:08.640 because as your demeanor and i studied it it was more quiet self within yourself and now the whole
00:01:15.200 world everybody in the world knows who you are how did that take on a toll with you i'm a more
00:01:20.880 I'm a reserved guy, you know, I'm very shy, I'm very quiet.
00:01:23.880 And if people doesn't know me very well,
00:01:25.580 they say that, oh, he's stuck up, or he doesn't, you know.
00:01:28.080 No, I'm not like that, I'm just very quiet.
00:01:29.980 And if people talk to me, they will see a different side of me.
00:01:33.280 They do, they do.
00:01:34.080 Well, let's start from the beginning, shall we?
00:01:36.080 Okay, so when it all first started, you know,
00:01:37.680 you started sprinting,
00:01:38.880 when did you know that you were ready to compete
00:01:42.780 on an elite level?
00:01:44.580 Like when in your age would you nail that you're like,
00:01:46.780 hey, I know I'm fast when I first started,
00:01:49.140 But on an elite level, when did you know that you could compete?
00:01:52.600 Well, I think, I believe when I was about 14 years old, when I, you know, when I just
00:01:57.580 came up to Canada from Jamaica, I was about 14 years old, but I was competing in track
00:02:03.260 and field in my high school.
00:02:04.840 Okay.
00:02:05.320 And I know I was pretty fast, but as a young boy, I didn't know that was my destiny and
00:02:11.560 this is what I want to be in or become.
00:02:13.640 But as I go along through my high school years and, you know, meeting my coach, Charlie, at the time, and I said to myself, well, I think I find what I want to do and what my journey is and where I've been in this lifetime.
00:02:29.240 So as a young boy, I decided to, this is my destiny.
00:02:33.300 This is running.
00:02:34.300 So running in Jamaica, for those who know, we are the fastest people in the world.
00:02:39.440 Records have shown that.
00:02:40.540 And explain to us how the training was in Jamaica when you first started running.
00:02:44.760 And I know you're from Falmouth.
00:02:47.340 My family's from Trelawney, Egg Trelawney.
00:02:50.980 They would have to, everyone as I know in Jamaica would run track and then the goal
00:02:54.640 was to get the champs.
00:02:56.460 Explain to me how training was for you in Jamaica.
00:02:58.140 Well, in Jamaica, I didn't really train in Jamaica.
00:03:00.400 I was just with friends on the street, running around on the streets, running from light
00:03:05.300 post a light pulse and see who the pass is,
00:03:07.160 even though I was one of the youngest,
00:03:10.640 one of my friends, they were much older than me
00:03:13.240 and more developed than me.
00:03:14.200 So I was like, maybe like a meter and a half behind them,
00:03:17.420 which is not very bad for a young guy.
00:03:20.820 So, you know, it's quite interesting.
00:03:23.620 That is when I came from Jamaica to Canada in 1976,
00:03:28.260 April 29, I met my coach, Charlie Francis,
00:03:32.060 and my brother said, where'd you get those ribbon from?
00:03:34.620 I said, I warned him a track meet.
00:03:36.200 Then he goes, how fast do you run?
00:03:37.640 I said, 11 flat and 23 flat for the 200.
00:03:41.100 Wow.
00:03:41.940 And he go, wow, that's pretty good for your age.
00:03:43.100 Yes.
00:03:43.940 And then he was doing some homework and he goes to me,
00:03:46.120 do you want to come to my track club?
00:03:48.580 As a young boy, I say, yeah, track club, man,
00:03:50.660 that's big, you know, track club, right?
00:03:52.420 Right, right, right.
00:03:53.140 So I said, yeah.
00:03:53.980 So he took me down to see Charlie French,
00:03:57.620 which was his coach and becomes my coach later on.
00:04:01.820 And he said to me, I heard that you can run.
00:04:04.980 You're pretty fast.
00:04:06.040 Right.
00:04:06.500 So when you met this track coach and you run pretty fast,
00:04:09.980 were other track coaches kind of looking in to see who's this guy who's the next best thing?
00:04:15.580 No, most people start to look it on later on.
00:04:19.080 Okay.
00:04:19.620 Once I started getting developed and started getting more weight on and running much faster.
00:04:24.180 You know what's funny?
00:04:25.440 People tend to draw to people when they're doing well.
00:04:27.740 And in those days when they were drawing to you, how were you able to differentiate loyalty in where you were as opposed to maybe going to another club or other people that come to make offers?
00:04:39.300 Maybe it's a gift.
00:04:40.140 Maybe I just block it out of my head and just do what I need to do and do things what I love and just focus and just keep, you know, training hard and keep improving and see where you're going to take me.
00:04:52.500 True.
00:04:53.320 So trams is big right now.
00:04:56.120 A lot of the runners there, I watch Champs Day in Jamaica, they're getting some really fast kids.
00:05:00.880 How do you attribute to the fact that the speed seems to be getting faster and faster every year with these kids?
00:05:06.860 Do you think it's something evolved in their genes or just the art form?
00:05:11.880 What can you attribute from your knowledge, because you have all the knowledge, on why these kids seem to be getting faster? 0.98
00:05:17.460 Well, number one, there's not much thing to do in Jamaica.
00:05:21.400 That's number one. 0.86
00:05:22.280 uh they see a way of doing track and field and this is a way out uh they're very uh you know
00:05:30.040 focused on what they want to do and what they want to achieve they got good coaches down there
00:05:34.360 yep uh they say that you know by me running fast and be on social media and see all these athletes
00:05:40.440 traveling over the world and making so much money and they want to be a part of it and i think that
00:05:45.640 that also give them that push but it's not everybody that go to champs becomes a role
00:05:51.960 known sprinters some will make it and some would just very often go and do something else you said
00:05:57.080 something very intriguing uh they saw you or their parents saw you or people saw you what you did
00:06:02.920 as an example and we know the long line of the amazing sprinters runners in track and field that
00:06:08.840 have come out of that little island do you and i know you're humble do you not consider yourself
00:06:13.800 one of the forefathers of allowing people to have that vision to look for the future?
00:06:19.320 I believe that being on the top of the mountain at that time, that a lot of kids in high school
00:06:28.040 and in college in Jamaica look up to me and want to be like Ben Johnson on Run Fast.
00:06:35.160 And I think that I give a lot of people a lot of inspiration over the years and continue to doing
00:06:42.200 so and uh despite of what happened into my career it's still um a great thing for these young at
00:06:50.680 least to want to be a great sprinter in the future around the office here we did a we had a couple
00:06:57.240 people ask people ben johnson one word ben johnson one word we did this around the office before you
00:07:04.200 came and uh i'd be surprised what you think is the one word and i'll tell you what the word was
00:07:10.200 synonymous with everybody here but what would you think would be the one word that anyone would
00:07:14.600 describe ben johnson as people got great love for me yeah you know the word was they all said iconic
00:07:23.960 iconic and iconic is such a big word you know people say living legend iconic and i'm not here
00:07:30.520 to gas you or make you feel that way but you when was the moment that you realized that you became
00:07:37.080 iconic like you're in the trenches you're training you're going against that guy you're
00:07:42.360 going against everybody in the world everyone is watching when was that time because usually
00:07:47.960 people don't remember who came third or who came fourth fourth fourth place people don't usually
00:07:53.640 become iconic when was the moment that you're like holy i've become iconic when did it come
00:08:02.040 a realization to you uh i would say around early summer of 1985 that's where i break on the scene
00:08:10.360 right and people start to recognize who this guy this guy is yes so it is fast um it's different
00:08:18.760 blocks okay so now i know because i've done my research uh what has been doing now like everyone
00:08:26.280 wants to know what is Ben doing now Ben doing now Ben just finished a six series TV show called
00:08:32.600 hey the player yes uh played by uh Shamir Anderson uh he's also involved in a lot of movies like
00:08:39.720 John Wick 4 and coming out of movies and and uh Karen Robinson who plays my mom also yes
00:08:46.440 long harder and some yes so yes so they really do a really good job on this and and um people
00:08:53.960 who believe in my story yeah i believe in me uh take this on and make it a reality yes and uh a
00:09:01.400 lot of people who saw the flim uh they love it it's a joke about it i know there's some
00:09:07.960 sun some sad part about it but people enjoy it and every time i i saw people people knows me
00:09:13.560 and they watch it they said ben it's great it's great this guy do a good job i said yes
00:09:17.960 antoni farewell do a good job on the script and everything so i'm gonna i'm gonna dive into that
00:09:23.560 because that's my world you know i've seen some comedic satires some favorite comedians some world
00:09:27.560 knowledgeable comedians canadian comedians as well as actors i saw the piece of work and i at first
00:09:33.160 i thought it was uh like a direct movie but then i was seeing the jokes that were involved with it
00:09:38.600 why why humor on a toll to describe your past because i'm a comedian i want to know why the
00:09:44.040 choice of humor to get the story across to many people you thought it was easier for them to
00:09:47.880 taking why why why i think i think uh anthony fairwell decided it should be a comedy because
00:09:55.560 based on based on the facts and some of the things that happen on my point of view i think uh if it
00:10:03.400 was a too serious a lot of people wouldn't watch it right so it put it on his background from his
00:10:10.840 writers he he do a lot of scriptwriters on on comedy and stuff like that so so it was the best
00:10:16.120 thing for him to do to go that route and and it was a great move how involved were you in that
00:10:21.160 process of what goes i know you've been involved because it's the story of your life i mean from
00:10:25.880 mom sitting down and i feed you yama and all these different foods all the different parts of it did
00:10:31.240 they lean on you for some of the help in terms of the script writing and yeah i spent about
00:10:36.760 at least four hours with about 13 14 people just making notes and asking other questions right give
00:10:43.000 them lots of flesh on the bone and they put it into into this and here we are and you are happy
00:10:49.000 with what it would it turn out to be i'm very happy and and the reason why i didn't answer that
00:10:53.160 question um about the comedy part i think my career and what happened to me it's a complete joke
00:11:01.160 right i i i and now i i just are you know um put it into that way and i just enjoy myself doing it
00:11:10.920 and make a laugh and go from there go from there you know um also with what what mr ben johnson is
00:11:18.760 doing i know you're still involved with track and field can you tell us a little bit about that and
00:11:22.920 your influence influence with coaching and what's working on going on with that i still
00:11:27.800 do some coaching in track and field uh uh private coaching uh because i cannot coach internationally
00:11:36.280 because okay because of the suspension and uh yeah and the lifetime ban right but uh this is
00:11:43.640 how i made my living by coaching and they took that away from me wow so so now i i'm coaching
00:11:49.880 private i have some good kids that uh that's also um going to states right now on scholarship
00:11:57.640 doing very well i coach a lot of athletes over the years who also doing very well not only in track
00:12:04.280 but in the everyday life get married have kids uh good words of wisdom i teach them and taught
00:12:09.960 them proper things and they all of my girls and my guys they're all doing good i love that i love
00:12:16.600 that so you mentioned it briefly on on the ban do you think that the media how they portrayed
00:12:22.600 everything was fair or unfair it was it was unfair we know what they what they did there
00:12:28.840 and they believe that they know the story of ben johnson and they didn't right uh so i have the
00:12:33.640 the second set record straight once and for all just to you know my point of view and you know
00:12:38.980 they think that they were there i was there you were there to see all of it i was there to see
00:12:43.060 the truth like you're the truth so what does this entire you know experience taught teach you in
00:12:49.040 terms of lessons in handling pressure success and failure what did it really teach you if you think
00:12:55.340 well you know it teach a lot you know i it teach me how to well i'm always humble but but it's also
00:13:02.240 teach you fairness and it's also teach you um uh you know you know it's it's it's also good to
00:13:10.080 trust people and it's also not good to trust people because you trust people they can take
00:13:15.920 you for everything you got and uh in my in my life and my career that happened to me so right
00:13:23.120 so now you know i i learn and i understand it and i and i um do things my way now and um whatever
00:13:32.240 I do, and I think, and get it out there, it goes very, very smoothly.
00:13:39.080 I love that.
00:13:39.700 But if I bring somebody in, then everything goes sour.
00:13:43.260 See, that's the difference.
00:13:44.380 You control your own destiny.
00:13:45.700 You feel like you control it.
00:13:47.260 But once someone else is involved, sometimes it turns it the other way.
00:13:50.440 It turns it the other way.
00:13:51.060 And this time in my life, I can't make any more mistakes.
00:13:53.820 No, no.
00:13:54.880 I'm 64 years old now, by the end of the year, I'm 65.
00:13:58.080 No way.
00:13:59.500 Look at him, folks.
00:14:00.480 That looks like 64 to 65 to you.
00:14:03.080 The man looks cut.
00:14:04.040 I need to come to your gym.
00:14:05.300 How do you stay in shape so well?
00:14:07.160 Well, you know, many years of my life being taken away from me.
00:14:11.980 So now I try to stay healthy as much as possible.
00:14:17.000 And when everything turns around, I can live some more longer life to enjoy some of the good times.
00:14:23.100 Yeah, the fruits of your labor.
00:14:24.740 Because, you know, as older folks, we always sit back and say, in our time, in our time.
00:14:29.920 Do you know what I mean?
00:14:30.920 And I really have a question.
00:14:31.920 Do you think it's possible, modern athletes, to separate performance from extreme pressure?
00:14:37.600 Because you were under a lot of pressure prior to, during, and you still delivered.
00:14:43.620 Do you think that the kids growing up today can handle the pressure?
00:14:48.680 No, no, no, no.
00:14:49.680 They're not built like that, right?
00:14:50.680 Never fall up within one, within six, four, five, six months, much less than eight years.
00:14:57.680 because so now you know even with my friends that coach basketball they say you can't really coach
00:15:02.720 as hard as they were coached uh a lot of things that are different is they have an opportunity to
00:15:07.560 train much more uh at their skill set than we did i don't know how many how often you were in
00:15:12.740 you're training these kids hard now they don't show up and they look at you funny like you're
00:15:17.040 crazy or something you know and and but it's not only these kids can benefit from training but
00:15:25.000 But this is everyday life.
00:15:27.000 You know, we're not expecting it to be a world-class sprinter, or world-class, or anything
00:15:30.760 you can get.
00:15:31.760 But this will help you through life, to be controlled, to be strong, to be focused,
00:15:36.500 to be patient, and to be assisted, you know, all those things.
00:15:40.760 It teaches you everything.
00:15:41.760 It does.
00:15:42.760 And that's why Chuck and Phil is the master of our sports.
00:15:44.860 It is.
00:15:45.860 It is.
00:15:46.860 No question.
00:15:47.860 Because it teaches all of that.
00:15:48.860 And it teaches teamwork, camaraderie, individualism.
00:15:51.900 It teaches all of that.
00:15:52.900 Loyalty.
00:15:53.900 Everything.
00:15:54.900 of that so recommended this is what people are doing uh should be doing um what else has brought
00:16:00.580 you i know we discussed it briefly on the walk-in your book tell us a little bit about your book
00:16:06.180 well it's called the incredible life of ben johnson the rarefossist man and uh it's come the
00:16:11.220 best seller i think two or three times on amazon canada nice and uh people can probably order the
00:16:18.740 book on amazon canada or indigo they can go to the bookstore yeah in indigo and they can get it
00:16:24.260 but um it's a great book and some of the um the scenery from the book was in the movie okay so it
00:16:30.820 was pretty good and uh i'm very happy about it and i'm very thrilled that i can live to see
00:16:36.660 this thing i've come to pass in my life at this point in time so i'm gonna go back to the roots
00:16:41.780 uh jamaica how often do you get to go back to jamaica and how are you received when you get
00:16:47.060 back to the island well my friends in falmouth jamaica just receive me as just ben really they
00:16:55.140 don't they don't uh treat me as the word fastest man so when you reach it just like any other guy
00:17:01.060 any other guy which is which is which is which is i like that you like that i like that yeah you
00:17:06.740 know nothing nothing nothing out of the door but i never say it's a ben is here ben is here ben is
00:17:13.060 here yes I never hang out and you know how high you get you go to Jamaica they're gonna say so
00:17:28.280 I'm telling you especially even as a comedian and then people go you go back home to Jamaica I go
00:17:36.320 back home to Jamaica it is the hardest place to make people laugh when I go to Jamaica and I meet
00:17:40.940 with all the other comedians who have done great jobs uh oliver samuel's one of the greatest of
00:17:44.940 all time jamaica jamaican jamaican survive jamaican people can survive anywhere in the world yeah
00:17:51.900 anywhere you put them out there and they can survive this is all we are we're strong
00:17:56.780 mentally emotionally zillion and we can survive i'm telling you i would love to go to jamaica
00:18:03.660 with bed and see and be like hey everybody it's in bed last week i didn't buy me a beer it's just
00:18:09.100 all level vibes uh we're in canada you came you told me the date when you said april 21st we're
00:18:15.660 so close to that day uh when you came here um what was your experience man you came off the plane
00:18:21.420 you walked through the door piercing what was your first experience it must have been shocking my
00:18:27.260 first experience is when i walk off the plane through custom yes the only person i want to see
00:18:31.980 was my mother okay that's it that's it nobody else and she was here and i and i i greet her and
00:18:38.780 And I hold her hand.
00:18:40.700 I said, Mom, I miss you so much.
00:18:43.160 You know, all happy.
00:18:45.680 Everything, my whole mood changed.
00:18:47.440 My personality changed.
00:18:48.960 Yes.
00:18:49.540 You know, everything's changed.
00:18:50.620 Even when the cold weather catch you?
00:18:52.180 Even cold weather catch me.
00:18:53.680 Well, you know, coming here back in those days, you know, it was sad leaving some of my friends back home.
00:18:58.820 Yes.
00:18:59.460 And it was kind of sad.
00:19:00.800 But this is a path that I have to take because my mother sent for us.
00:19:06.680 And I got here and, you know, culture shock and snow and everything like that.
00:19:12.300 And it was cold and, you know, it was just different.
00:19:15.940 Getting to use to everybody and meeting new friends and everything like that.
00:19:19.240 But over the years, we all do this.
00:19:21.160 We acquire wisdom.
00:19:22.840 And we have this opportunity sometimes to sit back.
00:19:26.520 If you could ask young Ben, 1985 to 88, if you could tell him something that he would know that you're new now,
00:19:35.700 What would you tell him, young Ben?
00:19:40.000 Oh, man.
00:19:42.560 Young Ben, I would say probably, you know,
00:19:48.700 be focused on what you're doing and don't trust a lot of people
00:19:54.360 and try to take care of your own business and your own affair
00:19:57.600 and make sure that you can invest what you make
00:20:02.040 so when you finish your career, you have money.
00:20:04.760 my investment to sit down and those things that I tried to do was take away from me.
00:20:12.760 Right.
00:20:13.760 So I kind of figured out what they were doing, but they used the law and the track and field
00:20:25.760 situation against me.
00:20:26.760 Right.
00:20:27.760 Well, I'm going to wrap up only to say that I'm very honored to have you on this and you
00:20:33.760 time out of your day to come to the podcast all jokes aside here on true patriot love but before
00:20:39.760 we leave i just wanted to say to you that i'm honored to know you i'm honored to know that you
00:20:44.720 represent our country of jamaica to the fullest uh you to me was the first hero in jamaican history
00:20:53.040 and i know they have heroes day with the real heroes in music but i say in track and field
00:20:57.680 and athletics.
00:20:59.820 You personified some things that we've seen
00:21:02.780 that we didn't think were human, like a man could do.
00:21:05.820 So on behalf of all of our people from the island
00:21:08.460 and the world of track and field,
00:21:09.960 I would like to personally thank you on air
00:21:13.020 for what you've done for us as Jamaicans,
00:21:15.600 as Canadians, and for our country.
00:21:17.640 I'll give you a round of applause.
00:21:18.800 Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
00:21:20.640 So anything before we go,
00:21:21.800 you'd like them to know what's up next for you.
00:21:23.740 Besides coming to my Mother's Day show,
00:21:25.340 happy to come Mother's Day, I've got tickets for bed.
00:21:27.580 and his family to come enjoy themselves.
00:21:29.480 Anything else that you want anybody to know?
00:21:31.320 Of course, check out the series.
00:21:32.520 I got some more project coming up.
00:21:35.120 But I cannot say things at this point.
00:21:37.900 But it looks pretty good.
00:21:39.500 So promise me that when they happen,
00:21:41.340 you'll come back and let us know?
00:21:42.480 Yeah.
00:21:43.020 All right.
00:21:43.780 Well, we got it locked right here
00:21:45.320 with the greatest of all time,
00:21:47.060 Mr. Ben Johnson in the building.
00:21:48.600 Yours truly, J. Martin, the Renaissance Man.
00:21:50.740 You keep it locked right here
00:21:51.800 on True Patriot Love.
00:21:52.940 True Patriot Love.
00:21:54.040 One love.
00:21:57.580 You