This is a must-listen episode! Clay Egan was paralyzed at age 22; started rockcrawling at age 32; became a full-time motivational speaker at age 37. If you’ve ever struggled with life, with circumstances, with your future, this is one episode you need to hear. The power of prayer, positivity and healing is strong with this one.
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3:20 – Utah, the most amazing state on the planet
7:44 – Let’s talk about the accident
11:15 – good enough that I’ve been able to be fully independent as a C6 quadriplegic
13:32 – the physical pain and trauma was so bad, I just wanted to feel better
15:18 – it wasn’t that bad mentally because of my back story
19:23 – construction was my thing
21:47 – my rockcrawling start
29:45 – my final rockcrawling competition
31:43 – KOH 2009
33:39 – I made a deal with God
36:13 – I started speaking all over the country
“my good attitude has been my meal ticket everywhere, it’s been the key t my success. You know, we all have stuff we deal with in life, we all have challenges, whether it be financial challenges, our jobs, marital challenges, loss of a child, divorce, whatever it is, we all have those obstables to overcme and they suck when we’re in it. But what I’ve learned through all of mine is if you can find just one good thing in that bad experience – you grow, you learn, you go forward a better person.”
41:40 – I retired from speaking in 2017
44:38 – I have always been blessed with the best of friends
We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:20.500] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Clay Egan. For those of you that are new to Off-Road Motor Sports and Rock Crawling, you may not know who Clay is, but if you’ve watched any of the old videos from the early days of UROC and ARCA and some WE Rock, you will see Clay.
[00:01:38.800] – Big Rich Klein
He was in a used to compete in an XJ that had some diamond plate on it and was yellow. And Clay is is a very motivational person. He’s done motivational speaking and he competed as a quadriplegic. And Clay has got about the best attitude of any person I’ve ever met. And Clay, I want to say thank you for coming on board and joining us today.
[00:02:05.240] – Clay Egan
Well, thanks for having me. You know, it’s it’s been a been quite a while since, you know, I’ve had a lot of interaction with anybody in the offroad community. And, you know, it’s it’s nice to know that I haven’t been forgotten. So I appreciate it.
[00:02:19.010] – Big Rich Klein
Absolutely. You’ll never be forgotten, at least with us old school guys. All right. So let’s let’s jump right into it and let’s talk about where you grew up and where you were born and what your early years were like.
[00:02:33.260] – Clay Egan
Well, early years, first memories were Galveston, Texas down there and the kind of the south and and, you know, just grew up loving the outdoors and, you know, spending a lot of time in the sticks. And my dad’s job kind of moved us around a lot. And so I, you know, spent some time in Utah and then quite a few years in Sacramento and then back to Utah and and, you know, I call Utah home.
[00:03:00.830] – Clay Egan
But, you know, that’s that’s kind of where where I grew to love the outdoors, love motor sports. And, you know, and that’s really where I. I got into stuff.
[00:03:11.790] – Big Rich Klein
Right. There’s a lot of open, open area in Utah so that there was a lot of opportunity to get to get off road and outdoors.
[00:03:20.240] – Clay Egan
You know, I mean, honestly, it’s to me, it’s it’s the most amazing state on the planet. I mean, you have everything from rock crawlin to desert to hunting, fishing, lakes, boating, sand dunes. I mean, whatever your whatever your passion is, we’ve got it right here. So close. I mean, it’s just been it’s been so much fun being able to to call this home.
[00:03:47.630] – Big Rich Klein
So how long were you in the Galveston area up to.
[00:03:52.160] – Clay Egan
I was there till I was five.
[00:03:53.900] – Big Rich Klein
OK, five. So you probably don’t have a whole lot of memory of that.
[00:03:57.080] – Clay Egan
Well, you know, being that I moved around a lot, my in my brain, everything is segmented by places I lived in. So I actually do have quite a bit of memories down there. And and so, you know, and and, you know, throughout the other Sacramento and and being in Utah, lots of lots of just great memories.
[00:04:19.940] – Big Rich Klein
And what time period in your life were you in Sacramento?
[00:04:23.750] – Clay Egan
So I was there from seventy eight to eighty five. OK, so from about the time I was seven until I was 14.
[00:04:32.690] – Big Rich Klein
OK, I lived in Placerville, California during the during the 80s and 90s, very, very familiar with Placerville, did some of my funnest Boy Scout camp outs up there and you know, just love that area.
[00:04:48.750] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah. It’s a great area. So let’s let’s get into some of those those early year activities, did you ride motorcycles? Did you hike? I mean, what was the what was what was the gig?
[00:05:03.780] – Clay Egan
Yeah. You know, I mean, I always got of kind of into the action sports. I mean, started off, you know, and BMX and then move to dirt bikes. And then, you know, by the time I turned about 16, got into high school, then I was racing motocross and and, you know, spending a lot of time riding out in the desert and and, you know, and then my family was very, you know, very involved in the outdoors with hunting and fishing.
[00:05:31.710] – Clay Egan
And so, you know, during during hunting season, you know, I was I was in the mountains, you know, chasing deer or elk or, you know, whatever it was. But as far as as far as the motor sports go and I mean, it was always definitely dirt bikes.
[00:05:47.000] – Big Rich Klein
OK, so in school, were you did you play sports or were you more of an after school kind of guy and getting out of, you know, doing your own thing or scholastic or.
[00:05:59.610] – Clay Egan
Yeah. You know. No, I definitely definitely wasn’t Scholastic, man. I was one of those dudes out in the parking lot with the bong, you know, getting to trouble with my with my dirt bike, you know, on the back of the trailer being towed by a nineteen eighty one Buick Regal there. So, you know, that was kind of my after school activities, you know. I mean, I did I can’t tell you how many times I towed my bike to school and then, you know, snuck out early and went, went riding.
[00:06:27.070] – Clay Egan
But, you know, as junior and senior year, I kind of straightened up a little bit and and, you know, got got on the wrestling team and, you know, and wrestled and, you know, so I did it all. I was very active, very active kid.
[00:06:44.250] – Big Rich Klein
Well, cool. So what was your motorcycle of choice growing up?
[00:06:48.510] – Clay Egan
You know what it was? My YZ 125. I had a nineteen eighty five YZ125. That was, that was what I started racing. The very first dirt bike I got was a an old seventy eight R.M. one hundred. And you know that’s where I, where I learned to ride and, and grew to love the power band of the old Two-stroke Motors and you know and then got into. Got into, you know, moved up to the one twenty five and then sold that just out of high school and and the year, the year that I had my accident, I was actually I’d switch to racing quads and was racing in our local series, our local motocross series on a on a Yamaha Banshee. READ MORE
