Hosted by Savannah Gunter and Perry Becker, featuring reports by J Banzet and Valerie Jackson.
Graphic by Brennan Tripp
J and Valerie discuss their recent story on Joel Hughes, a Green Beret veteran turned UNC Hockey Goalie.
00:00:00:04 – 00:00:26:13
Perry Becker
Welcome to episode one of the UNC Media Hub podcast. My name is Perry Becker.
Savannah Gunter
And I’m Savannah Gunther. Thank you so much for joining us today. We’re here with Valerie and J, and we’re talking about our first story today, looking at a Green Beret veteran and his return to civilian life as an athlete. So, Valerie and J, can you tell us a little bit about this person and what you learned about them?
00:00:26:21 – 00:00:50:16
J Banzet
Yeah. So Joel is a 39 year old Green Beret special Forces veteran who served for 20 years in the Army. He came back fall of 2022 and got into school here and is pursuing a degree in exercise in Sports Science, Fitness Administration track and plays goalie on the UNC Club Ice hockey team. And he’s supposed to graduate this upcoming December.
00:00:50:16 – 00:01:13:03
J Banzet
So pretty wild story for Green Beret to come back to school and play a sport. And he’s a father and a husband at the same time. But he’s a great guy and he has a really great story to tell.
Valerie Jackson
Yeah, I didn’t know much about hockey or the military, so I really enjoyed doing this story because we got to speak to someone who he was in service with in the Green Berets and one of his teammates.
00:01:14:00 – 00:01:42:15
Valerie Jackson
So it’s really interesting just to get the full picture of like how he can handle doing all of this every day.
Savannah Gunter
Awesome. And what was the most surprising thing that you learned about him?
J Banzet
I was not able to tell it in my video story because of time constraints. But he’s adopted. And the hockey team, the Carolina hockey team that he was playing on, played an outdoor game at Carter Finley Stadium, which is the NC State football stadium last year in front of 26,000 people.
00:01:43:06 – 00:02:08:19
J Banzet
And so, Joel, a couple of weeks before that game has gone on Facebook, tried to establish who his biological parents were. And so his biological father came down with his adopted father and watched him at this outdoor hockey game. And that was the first time that Joel had ever quite consciously met his biological father, which is to me, the coolest, wildest thing that we learned.
00:02:09:07 – 00:02:37:09
Perry Becker
Yeah, that’s definitely, definitely awesome. What about you, Valerie? As someone who hasn’t had that experience with hockey or the military, what was kind of surprising to you?
Valerie Jackson
We learned a lot about how difficult it is for veterans to return back to civilian life, especially with Joel. He was seeing active combat. He’s suffered from hearing loss and also a little bit of brain damage from just basically what he was dealing with day to day.
00:02:37:09 – 00:03:11:06
Valerie Jackson
He was jumping out of airplanes. He was firing off bombs like blowing doors open, stuff like that. So the fact that he was able to do all of that and then come back to class because now he said studying is a lot more difficult than it was if he had started back when he was 20 years old. But just the fact that he has made such a smooth transition after such a varied and intense career in the military and is now just sitting in Woolen during the day and just taking his classes, I just found that all really impressive.
00:03:12:01 – 00:03:34:05
Perry Becker
Classes are hard enough without having, you know, any brain damage or difficulties from time serving in the military. So that’s awesome!
J Banzet
Plus, You think about everybody in the classes, 18 to 22, and he’s 39 years old. There’s like a he says it’s not that awkward, but I can’t imagine just walk in with a bunch of people who to us are five years old and just taking a class and trying to interact.
00:03:34:05 – 00:03:54:19
J Banzet
And then that’s also it.
Valerie Jackson
Yeah, He did say he had been mistaken for the professor of the TA a couple of times.
Perry Becker
But to that point about the age difference, you know, he has that same age difference on the hockey team. So, J, I know you’ve worked a little bit with the hockey team, so kind of what’s that like watching his interactions with those 18, 19, 20 year olds on the hockey team?
00:03:55:04 – 00:04:22:19
J Banzet
He’ll tell you and everybody else is going to tell you he’s just one of the guys. We’re a shorter team, but we have some tall dudes. Joel is six foot five, 225 pounds of like a chiseled brickhouse. Okay. This guy is he just looks different. He is different, but he’s really a college kid who’s loving his college experience that is just happens to be completely different in start, I guess, 20 years later than everybody else who he’s hanging around.
00:04:23:04 – 00:04:41:01
Savannah Gunter
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you guys so much for giving us a deeper look into this story and for helping us kick off the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
J Banzet and Valerie Jackson
Of course. Thank you.
Perry Becker
If you want to hear more about the story, check out Mediahub.unc.edu. Also, check us out on Facebook.
00:04:41:06 – 00:04:44:04
Perry Becker
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