Where It Started
Yesterday, I visited my hometown, and I was able to take longtime athlete, Ryan Grimsland. I think that he will be able to understand me better after spending the day explaining my youth. I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the most Northwest corner of North Carolina specifically, Ashe County. After taking that stroll down memory lane, I was left with one conclusion: I wouldn’t change a thing about my childhood.
I was eight-years-old walking down the same little path you see in the image above when I decided there and then that I needed to discover more about the world. I loved my home. Heck, my grandparents still occupy an immense section of my heart. They molded me. It is my grandfather’s work ethic that was instilled all those years ago that drives me to this day to work a little harder than my competitors. It was my grandmother’s love for me and my cousin Kim that shapes the very way I love my own children every day of their life. It was my mother’s persistent effort to mold me into something better that drives me to excellence. For whatever reason, she believed I was capable of more, so she insisted that my actions met those expectations. I am still trying to live up to those markers, and I am thankful for that tough mother. My wife, Emily Drew is that same amazing mother allowing my children to room for being slack. I suppose part of what attracted me to her was that same drive for excellence she would show through her own art and everything else in her life.
However, it was the way my father’s love that I don’t believe I will ever match. His world revolved around me, and then later around my daughter, Bailey. It’s his love that is immeasurable. It’s his view of family that seems unattainable because he was clearly on a different level. Yet, it was the entire family and the community that created the person you all know now. Yesterday, while telling Ryan all those stories, I realized just how tough the people in those beautiful mountains really are. I have traveled the world over, and yet I have not found a group of human tougher than those mountain men and women.
When you think about it, it makes total sense. The mountains were settled by what most people refer to as the Scotch-Irish, which is a name given to folks that migrated from Northern Ireland specifically Ulster County consisting of Protestants from Scotland and Northern England. Many of the Ulster County Scotts fled Northern Ireland at the end of the 17th century due to the continued threat of war, religious persecution, and economic hardship. My ancestor, Joshua John Cox was one of those Ulster County Scotts. His father was Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chancellor of Ireland 1703–1707 basically making me Sir Trav. Obviously I am kidding, so anyways back to the story.
Joshua John Cox fled Northern Ireland 1717 eventually landed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with his wife Mary. They had eight children with two of them John Jr and Richard Cox being abducted by Native Americans from the Delaware tribe. They gave their accounts of their time in captivity which were nothing short of horrific. They spoke of being stripped naked and tied to trees each night while witnessing small bands of the Native Americans coming home from their raids with scalps from the settlers. Luckily, they were able to escape, and John Jr. made his way to the New River Settlement at the border of Virginia and North Carolina. He became the largest landowner in the region amassing 8,000 acres of land. This is the region in which I grew up.
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In 1799 upon the creation of Ashe County, North Carolina, Captain John Cox was one of the first of three County Commissioners of the very county I grew up in. Also of note, Captain John Cox was a Captain in the Revolutionary War fighting primarily against the Cherokee, who had become allies of the British. My point to all of this is that the people of the Appalachians are a group of people that weren’t afraid of a fight, and they were willing to go to any extreme to worship and live in the way they felt God had called them to do so. The people there are still just like Captain John Cox.
After visiting Ashe County yesterday and performing the research for this article, it is quite clear why the people of the Blue Ridge are the absolute toughest humans that I have ever encountered. I believe that they are so sheltered from the rest of the world that they have no idea just how amazing they really are. The way I grew up left no room for weakness. If we had a problem with a school mate or a neighbor, we didn’t tell the teacher. We didn’t tell our mom and dad. We were taught to handle it. Conflict was a daily occurrence, and one that I am thankful for.
By the time I was competing at the International level in Powerlifting, I was completely unafraid to face a bar loaded with 1,000 pounds. Growing up in those unforgiving mountains left the children with no room for fear. Let me give you an example. There was a school bully that was aggravating me on a daily basis. I will leave his name anonymous because I actually love the guy now. One day, I told my stepfather about the ordeal assuming I would find an easy way out of my torment, but instead I was faced with greatest problem that I would ever face to this very day. I was told that if I didn’t handle the bully myself during the next day at school that I would be in trouble by stepfather and my mother in a way that would be even worse.
That night, I couldn’t sleep a wink. It was like being on death row awaiting the electric chair with no chance of pardon. 7am came faster than ever. My mother drove me to school the next day. It was like being hand delivered to the executioner by my own mother. Well, sure enough, when I saw the bully, he punched me in the arm and I swung back. I would love to tell you that I won a glorious battle, but I didn’t. Yet, it wasn’t near as bad as I thought, and the bully never picked on me again. I realized at that moment that life wasn’t necessarily about being the toughest kid on the block, but instead it was about being willing and unafraid to fight back. That lesson never left me, and that very lesson is the one that gave me the power to assert my thoughts even in situations that were scary. I have the power to give my true opinion or thoughts to people and groups even when they intimidate me because my fear of man was thrown out the window the day my parents forced me to face my ultimate fear.
Telling Ryan that story yesterday made it clear how lucky it was to grow up in that county. I look at my best friend Kevin KJ Jones, and you can see the same thing in him. He’s in Nashville, TN, and still he carries himself like Nashville is smaller than our county of 30,000. He has won entrepreneur of the year twice. My point is that those people are still the most incredible folks that I have ever come across. Someday, I dream of a time to give back to my home and all the people in it. I want those children to know just how amazing they really are, and I want them to know just how capable they are. I want them to know that those kids “off the Mountain” aren’t even close to being as tough and resilient. Lastly, I want them to know that if they desire something out of this life that seems unattainable, I want them to know that they are capable of that very thing.
If you are not from the Blue Ridge, I hope that you don’t take this as a put down. On the contrary, this is simple meant to be empowering to a group of folks that need to hear it. I am so very thankful to be from a region of the world so embedded with such a unique culture filled with incredibly tough men and women. I am thankful for the music and folklore that I grew up listening too, and I am so thankful for children to pass that culture on in their lives. To all my friends and family from those breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains, I am forever grateful to be counted amongst all of you. To Chad, Larry, and Kim, thank you guys so much for yesterday. I love all of you so much.
Coach Travis Mash
