An oral history of the man, the myth, the legend: Jamie Ogden
So, let’s see, I was born in...where was I...South St. Paul. Lived there five years, my parents moved to White Bear Lake and lived there till I was 18, then I left from there to go play pro-ball; I traveled for eight years, then I came right back! But yea I’m a White Bear grad--started dating my wife in 11th grade; in seventh grade, I saw her...uhm...thought she was mint! Then she saw me as an eighth grader and thought I was a teacher... So I had no chance. Thankfully, it wound up that she liked sports, she made it through all the professional years and I realized she actually liked me which was scary and awesome at the same time, ya’know! My wife is the most impactful person I’ve met. Ya know, I’ve had some pretty cool teammates and people who have had a lot of courage but my wife is one of the most bold people for what’s right that I’ve ever been around. She’s a public school teacher and doing what’s right is many times, maybe not what the norm is because it means more hours and more work; like if you want to really reach this kid, or his or her family, she goes above and beyond whatever her union contract says but she does it everyday...and she raises me, she home schools me!
In The Spotlight
Sports was pretty cool cause I grew up around my brothers teams and they didn’t lose for 2 years at White Bear, think about that. They were 52-0 over 2 years...it was just bedlam but I got to watch their work ethics! And I started dunking in 7th grade, which is weird but cool, I got second in a dunk competition my senior year...I think it’s actually one where I ended up hurting myself permanently, and I slipped and landed on my back.
So then I quit football, focused on basketball with a little baseball. Then baseball took over by going to the Junior Olympic Festival(1) in ‘89. Coach was bold enough to pick 3 Minnesota guys to be on this 12 state team. So we’re in Oklahoma, and the stadium was packed and we get announced White Bear, Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota...everyone was rippin’ on us but... we won. That’s when I sort of got thrown in the national spotlight. But, then I signed to Oklahoma to just play baseball. So I was getting ready to go there when the Twins drafted me in the third round in 1990 right out of high school and off I went. But it was a long way, man. I was away from my family and girlfriend. I went to a bible study at the end of the year led by a guy named Gary Carter(2), wound up being a Hall of Fame player. And I just wanted to meet him! But...it cleared my vision...do I want to be “The Big League” guy or that guy? So that is when I gave my life to Christ and that’s kind of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes(3) thing and from that, it’s what makes me passionate for it. I was raised as a Christian but it wasn’t until 18 that I understood the concept of Personal Savior and the personal relationship. So, religiously, yeah Lutheran taught me how to pray and everything; I had a relationship with God and had a clear understanding of a lot of things, which I am grateful for but, again, it wasn’t until, ya’know you’re all on your own and you kind of got to decide for yourself...and that’s when life changed.
So the adversity was a couple things! One, I knew I wouldn’t do this, but my roommates were taking steroids. It would help the healing a lot and I would be able to stay on the field. But it was getting worse. The Twins didn’t know how bad my back was and how cracked it was. It was always my back that was the problem and an injury would be made up...well, not made up but I guess made worse than it really was like in my shoulder. I didn’t have to be but I chose to be a little bit dishonest about that so that it wasn’t always my back. I wasn’t really trusting God’s plan there. We had our daughter, Elise, and I put it clear in my heart that I’m done with sports. Time to be a dad.
Being a Light
Sure sports got done and I went and finished my degree at Concordia, Saint Paul. I have a Child Psych degree and I worked at a children’s hospital where I did start my internship, Fairview University(4). That was cool but I didn’t realize that I wanted to be more of an entrepreneur. I started a real estate team, did that for 12 years. During that time we built Manitou station(5)...a little restaurant and bar facility in White Bear Lake, put up a nice facility...what else have I done…? I’ve done a lot. Ya’know, then the last...oh I don’t know how many years, I’ve dealt a lot with death and dying; first with my father-in-law... I lived in his house with him until he passed away from a disease called Huntington’s...he gave me my wife’s life and he served my country so I wanted him to pass in the dignity he deserved...um so I did that and once I got done with that I started getting back into the other stuff again...--and then my parents started having health problems. So that just made me kinda think okay...I need to cut away from doing the entrepreneuring stuff and need to focus on...on just getting “regular” jobs and things so I can take care of my folks. Instead of wanting to raise money for Huntington’s here, or Dementia for my mom, or lung cancer awareness for my dad, I’m thinking...why prolong lives if they still don’t get to hear truth. So that’s when God put it clear in my heart we need to start pulling people in on His team, then quality of life happens because of it...so you’re doing both of them with one opportunity.
...
You see, my biggest adversity was my back. Second adversity was just being able to say no to doing stuff I didn’t want to do. I did have a team meeting at Hooters but I decided, years before, I’m not even gonna go there...any bar actually. So I decided no bars with teammates. That decision led to the toughest peer pressure moment of my life and it was--did I ever tell you the Puckett story? Well, Kirby Puckett, the biggest, most successful sports figure in the state of Minnesota...was just a super teammate. So here I am in my first big camp, wanting to impress like everyone else. Like I said about Carter, “I wanna be like that guy” and not being perfect but, it’s kinda like you know like building a blueprint for your life...let’s go back to the restaurant. When you’re building a restaurant, the blueprint isn’t just so you build what you wanna build, it’s so you don’t build something you don’t want. So when construction starts going wrong, you can go “whoa stop”. You need to do this or get outta here. That’s what we all need to do in life. I’m trying to build a penthouse, but you could quickly build an outhouse with a few decisions based on not knowing where you wanna go. So we’re there. Puckett’s a super inclusive guy, but like off the field he was not exactly perfect, but he was 100 percent. Whatever way he was going, he was going 100 percent. So anyways he comes into the room and there’s 52 of us in there and he says, “We’re going over to (some strip club) and I’m going to treat White Bear and we’ll all have a good time!” He had nicknames for everyone and mine was White Bear Flash. So he goes, “Come on let’s go, let’s go!” and I didn’t get up. I’m supposed to go follow him, supposed to have a great time. He kinda stopped and looked and said, “Come on, let’s go.” And the words that came out of my mouth I thought were spirit led cause when I say, “I’m not going. I’m not going to do that” that makes the person feel like they’re lower than you. So the words that came out of my mouth were, “That’s not my game Puck.” I had never said anything like that. So, “Alright. Alright, let’s go.” All that night the rookies are like, “What are you doing, you moron? I know you aren’t into that but you could just go along, not do anything and not disrupt stuff.” I don’t exist in there. I don’t want to build an outhouse. So the next day this just shows how great of a leader Puck is, he comes in but, he always uses your nickname. If he uses your name, you’re in trouble, most of the time, because he’s very vocal; kinda like Torii. So he walks into the room and goes, “Ogden!” and it just got really quiet. I go, “Yeah Puck?” “Hey man let’s go and hit off the curve ball machine and we’ll work on hitting the ball the other way!” I didn’t realize it at the time, what he was doing, but ya’know, he didn’t even talk about it [the strip club incident], he just talked about hitting and baseball. He just went out of his way and found another way to relate to me. That’s being a leader. I like to tell that one in peer pressure moments. But think about it, if you don’t got people taking stances around you about anything, you’re just going to believe yourself, in yourself.
From Here on Out
Ya’know what’s cool is that I spend a lot of time on what I’ve felt-- ya’know let me put it this way; the good thing about being an athlete is that you can get a lot accomplished. But often times you put God next to us when we’re doing it. So all this time I thought I was good and right in creating jobs and trying to motivate and help people and how that’s admirable, but it wasn’t him calling me out to do that...it was me calling me out to do that. So recently, really my biggest mission statement I guess would be just to make sure anything I do is what he’s called me out to do as best I can before I do it. Cause the doors just *pshhhh* they open. Not that it’s easy, but then I’m accomplishing. I mean basically it’s like uh-- going back to the creator of the computer you’re working with, and it’s got issues. If you want to keep it maintained and working it’s best, go back to it’s creator or the company that created it to get it straightened out..to have its best computer. So as far as from here on out, I just wanna play the right cog in the machine whatever that may be to accomplish His goal. It’s about decreasing self as much as possible because you never know what part of the machine you’re going to be asked to play. You may seem insignificant but, the machine won’t run without it. If you guys can embrace everything you’re doing, He’s going to use it in some way. Go achieve…But trust that he’ll use it in some way for its good. It’s easy to be anxious, but He’s never failed and He won’t.
Footnotes:
1)Olympic Festival: held in Oklahoma City, the nation’s biggest amateur athletic event
2)Gary Carter: was an American professional baseball catcher whose 21-year career was spent primarily with the Montreal Expos and New York Mets.
3) Fellowship of Christian Athletes: an international non-profit Christian sports ministry
4)Fairview University: award winning, nonprofit health care system based in Minneapolis
5)Manitou Station: restaurant in downtown White Bear Lake that Jamie helped build.
Story Facilitators:
Kalley Fleck
Flynnton Schlicht
Justin Baker
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