- And welcome.

You've got More Than Money, you've got Gene Dickison, your host, and for the next half hour, your personal financial adviser and happy to be with you.

It's challenging times, as they always are and always have been.

So our mantra is be courageous, be creative, and most of all, be courteous.

I want to share just a short personal issue.

It's not an issue, that sounds a little grave, a personal endorsement.

I have admired Henry Louis Gates Jr, as his friends call him, "Skip" Gates, forever.

One of my dreams is someday to have Skip on our set with us.

PBS recently released a wonderful, wonderful outline of his body of work, a insight, a look kind of behind the scenes of Skip Gates and and how he's come to be one of the finest spokesmen for America, not just history, but for American future, that there is.

Kudos to PBS.

Fantastic.

Make sure you check it out.

And any time that you see on your PBS schedule that Henry Louis Gates Jr, "Skip", is on the schedule, you make sure you check it out.

Speaking of interesting people that we have an awful lot of fun with, we want to welcome to our audience and welcome to our stage, Mr Gary Laubach.

Gary, good evening.

- Thanks for having me.

- Thanks for being had, sir.

This is a real pleasure.

We share a good friend in common, Mr Scott Barr.

- We do.

- You and Scott have spent a fair amount of time together.

- We have many, many years.

I actually taught him when he was a high school student at Wilson High School, and then he came there as a teacher.

So I mentored him and I mentored him right out of the profession.

And he ended up now doing very, very well as well as he is probably the elite wrestling announcer, I would say in all Pennsylvania.

He is...

He has no match to his ability to call a wrestling match.

- And in his near perfect recall of of facts, figures, statistics and background.

Unbelievable.

- It is unbelievable.

And it's humbling, actually, when we get in a conversation.

He remembers all the things I forgot.

So... - Well, then you're a good team.

- The perfect team.

- So there are a lot of folks in our audience right now looking, going, "I know that face.

"I know that face."

So for the folks who are saying, "I know that face," where do they know you from?

- Well, actually, I get recognized in a couple of different ways.

I taught school for almost 30 years.

So I used to always tell my students, "Look, you only have to remember one of me.

"I have to remember hundreds of you.

"So please don't come up and say, "'Do you remember me, Mr Laubach?'

"Because I probably don't.

"You've changed a bit in the last 40 years."

So many times I am recognized for my classroom exploits.

And also I've been a television broadcaster now doing sports on RCN Television for 52 years.

- 52 years.

Have you ever even tried to kind of add up how many hours you've been on air?

- I have not, somebody, they asked me how many games I've done and I'm pretty much convinced I've done probably about 5,500.

- 5,500 games... - Yeah, somewhere in that vicinity.

- Even at only a couple of hours a piece we're way over 10,000 hours of games.

- And that doesn't count, the preparation's almost three or four times the games themselves.

So, yeah.

- Well but television.

Uh, we have something in common.

It wasn't our first professional choice.

- Correct.

- For you it was... - It was a way to make a little bit of extra money and do something that I thought I would love to do.

And eventually the opportunity arose to do it on a full-time basis.

- And prior to being a full-time TV person, you were a schoolteacher.

- Correct, almost 30 years.

- Teaching what subject?

- English.

- Interesting.

Now, I guess I'm not totally nervous about anything I'm going to say for... Is it "for me" or "for I"?

I... Never mind!

The teaching profession certainly has, and particularly now that I know that it's English, it has a lot to offer for somebody who wants to be also in broadcasting.

- It was the it was the perfect jump from going because I also played three sports.

I played basketball, football and baseball.

And in all three of them, I played a position where you really had to understand the game.

In football, I was the quarterback.

In basketball, I was the point guard.

And in baseball, I was the pitcher and a shortstop.

So you truly were almost in the head of a coach all the time in those positions.

So when the opportunity arose to come on, as a color analyst and analyze the games, I had no qualms about doing it.

I knew that I could hopefully speak properly and it all went on to 50-some years of doing it.

And I love it.

I still love it.

- You've broadcast every level of sport, high school, college, professional.

Do you have a preference?

- I actually even did a couple Philadelphia Flyers Stanley Cup games.

- Wow!

- Yeah, it's a long story as to how I got there, but my preference is college only because, I mean, I love high school and I love the fans.

They're so adamant about their kids and their sport.

But in terms of preparation, colleges do a lot of it for you.

High schools do do not necessarily.

You've got to go out and chase it down.

- Sure.

- The pros are even the best.

I do have a good quick story about that.

I was given a phone call in the summertime to come and do soccer.

Do I know anything about soccer?

And I told the station manager, "I... "Sure I know soccer," cos my mind said, "Summer time, "this has to be little kids playing soccer, I can do that."

So I said, "Yes."

And he said, "Great."

He said, "We just signed a contract with the North "American Soccer League, the highest level of soccer "in the United States.

"And we're going to do the rest "of the Philadelphia Atoms games.

"We'd like it to be Philadelphia tomorrow, "Veterans Stadium by three o'clock."

I had never seen a soccer game.

- Oh, my.

- I had never seen a soccer...

I mean, I knew you kick the ball in a net.

That was, everybody knew that.

But I didn't know positions.

I didn't know referee calls.

I didn't know any of that.

So I was also teaching speed reading at the time.

So I ran to our high school library.

They had three books on soccer.

I took them out.

I read all of them in the next 12-14 hours, had my notes, felt pretty confident, jumped in the car, went down to Veterans Stadium.

They treat you beautifully, they invite me in, they take me up, they give me dinner, they give me all the notes, all the things, they take me to this beautiful booth with a recliner.

I'm sitting right on the 50 yard line and they hand me the starting lineup.

And I had memorized every position and what their responsibilities were.

The positions had all changed.

The names were all different because I had gotten old soccer books and the new soccer books had brand-new positions.

So there was a little bit of panic that set in.

But the next game I did was the night Pele signed a contract.

I was there that night.

- Wow.

- I got to see Pele.

Got to talk to Pele.

- Fantastic.

- Fantastic.

- Now in this starting, you grew up in Wilson Borough?

- Yes.

Yep.

- A few years ago... - A Borough kid almost all my life, yeah.

- And taught in Wilson Borough.

- Yes.

- Your years growing up, you mentioned you were a three-sport athlete.

What do you carry today that came out of Wilson Borough when you were a kid?

What what did you pick up or what what lessons did you learn?

- Well, it's a small-knit community where everybody kind of knew you.

My mother worked at the high school.

She was a secretary at the high school.

So I really knew almost everybody.

Everybody knows you.

It's just a great community to grow up in.

There was no crime.

No, everybody kind of looked out for everybody and it was just the perfect environment.

- And you ended up teaching in the school you attended.

- Yes.

- Which means that if I've got my time approximately right, there would have been some students that you were teaching who had been in school with you previously.

How did that work out?

- Well, the interesting part, I guess I graduated from Moravian College.

I interviewed five school districts and every one of them offered me a job.

So I had my choice.

But I thought, "You know what?

"I'll be kind of, I'll be comfortable "just going back to Wilson.

"People I know, teachers I had," and I was right about that.

You know, the hardest thing for me was not to call them Mr So-and-so.

You know, they said, "No call us by my first name," but actually the first year my sister was in class.

I had to teach my sister.

- Oh, my goodness.

- So that lasted one day.

I said, "She shouldn't really be here, get her out."

But I did end up teaching my sister-in-law simply because she was in the honors program.

And I certainly didn't want to make her exit the honors program that I was teaching at the time.

So...

So, yeah, it was a nice fit and it always was a great fit.

I left teaching only because the television announcing just seemed like a great gig to do full-time.

- Oh, of course.

- Yeah, of course.

- You and I grew up in an era, football, basketball and baseball.

For me it was football, wrestling and baseball.

- Yeah.

- So that's not the trend today.

The trend is at five years old, a parent decides Little Johnny is going to be the next fill in the blank, Mike Trout or whatever.

And then they... 24/7, 365... What's your opinion of that trend?

Is that, is that, is that good, bad, indifferent?

- I don't like it at all.

First of all, the Mike Trouts of the world are the smallest possible percentage you can think of.

- Oh.

- Certainly parents are out there looking for college scholarships and all that, I understand that.

But I felt that you learned a little bit about life from each sport and there was something different about each one of them.

I thought the mental toughness of being a football player, the physical toughness of being a football player.

In basketball, it just was a great team sport because you had fewer people that were counting on you, you were counting on them, and baseball a little bit more of an individual sport in terms of your responsibilities.

So I always felt that the more you could expand your horizons and have different coaches, because I think every coach gives you a little bit something about life that maybe the other one didn't.

So, yeah, I don't like the idea of everybody specializing.

I understand the cost of college probably forces some parents to give that some serious thought.

- Well, for everybody out there listening, if the cost of college is forcing you to make your five-year-old do pushups at 6am in the morning, please call me because I'm a financial adviser.

I can figure out the college cost stuff.

Let them be a kid.

Let her be a kid.

Cut it out.

Sorry.

- Great advice.

- Thank you.

You mentioned coaches.

For any of us who have been in sports, coaches have some of the most incredible impact on us and in some cases in ways that we we didn't even see or appreciate at the moment.

Was there any one?

Let's start with high school, because you were at high school and college, start with high school, a high school coach that you go, "When I look back, wow"?

- You know what?

It wouldn't be one.

It would probably one in each one of those sports, because in football, I had an assistant coach that really kind of took you under his wing, really made... Was so passionate about the game.

He thrust that passion upon you.

And he was a lifelong friend, Wayne Grube.

Everybody in the Lehigh Valley.

- Sure.

- Was the assistant coach at the time, and I loved Wayne Grube.

I would run through a wall for Wayne Grube and I ended up teaching with them side by side.

We became even better friends than than when I was a student.

So he was certainly a mentor.

And then moving into basketball, Dick Eckert was there for years and years, and he was so knowledgeable about the game.

He had a way of punishing us and making us believe we deserved it.

I'm not sure why that happened, but... - That's a good skill.

- Yeah, that's a great skill.

Yeah, if we didn't play well one night, the next night, we knew we were in for it, but then we played so much better the next night.

- Sure.

- And in baseball, I just had I had two guys, Bob and John, who were just super nice people.

They were just great guys to be around.

It was fun to watch them work with kids and work with adults.

And just everybody just liked them.

They were that kind of person.

And in college, college, I started out playing baseball and basketball, ended up just playing baseball for four years, college basketball for two.

But my coaches in college were also great men.

I mean, they were just wonderful men to be around.

They had values that you wanted to aspire to.

So, yeah, and they're not alone.

I've had teachers that were great teachers.

- As you look at your college years, lots of us played all the sport.

We played all year round, but we played different sports.

And you go off to college and that isn't typically how things unfold.

You ended up with baseball.

Looking back, was that a choice that you made and you're happy with?

Was that circumstance?

How did baseball come to the forefront out of all three?

- Well, I went to college basically to play basketball, but they were going to allow me to play baseball.

And I knew I was a good pitcher.

I knew that.

And when I started basketball at Moravian, I was a starter already as a freshman.

So I was the starting point guard, played a couple of years and they brought in a young man from Easton High School who was also a point guard.

And he was terrific.

He's one of the leading scores in the history of the school.

And for some reason, they would never let us be on the court together.

I was a point guard.

He was a point guard.

He was better than I was.

There was no question about that.

I have no complaints about not playing, but I always thought that, you know, I had a pretty good first couple of years.

Maybe we could play together, but I had to guard him every day in practice, every day.

I was married at the time.

I had a child at the time.

I was working at the post office at the time.

So I would go to college, I would go to practice, I would go to the post office and I'd come home.

And that was my day.

And after my sophomore year, I said, "You know what?

"I'm really having a very nice and good baseball career here.

"There's no reason for as far as finances are concerned, "there's no reason for me to play both."

So that's why I exited.

- That makes sense.

They tell me, my sources tell me that you had quite an experience on the mound for Moravian against Temple.

- Yes.

- How did that occur?

- Next question.

Well, Temple was ranked number nine in the nation and we were playing them over at Steel Field at Moravian.

And I was going to be the pitcher.

So for six and two thirds innings, I was throwing a perfect game.

- Oh, my.

- I had gotten all, what, 20 batters out in a row.

- In a seven-inning game, I'm guessing.

- You know what?

I think this was a nine-inning game.

Almost pretty sure it was.

- Six and two thirds.

- Six and two thirds, perfect game.

And even when you came into the dugout, the old superstition - don't say anything.

- Of course.

- So there's two outs in the seventh inning.

And I throw a pitch and the batter, right-handed batter, hits it right off the end of his bat, down the right field line, just inside the line.

Base hit.

Perfect game's gone.

- Yeah.

Next batter is a left-handed batter.

He does the exact same thing on the other side.

Hits it off the end of his bat down the line just inside the foul line.

Base hit - first and second.

Next batter steps up, hits a ball right up between my legs, right between my legs, thank God, and it went out over second base, bases loaded, nobody'd scored, bases loaded.

Next guy was an all-American first baseman.

I don't know if people are familiar at all with Steel Field - out in right field is the neighborhood.

Houses are back there.

So the next batter up, I threw him a beautiful pitch that he hit on the rooftops at Moravian and it's now my perfect game of six and two thirds innings is now 4-0.

Two outs.

Coach comes out and I can't quote what he said cos it's not for TV.

- Exactly.

- But he basically said, "Gary, get the third out, would you, please?"

I said, "Coach, I'm trying.

I'm really trying."

- I'm with you on that.

So when I left the game, it was 7-0.

- But six and two thirds... - Perfect game against... - Against number nine.

- Number nine.

- That's something to hang on to.

- Yeah.

They wrote a really nice article.

Jack McCallum, who ended up being a great writer for Sports Illustrated, at that time, was the writer for the Bethlehem Globe Times - No kidding.

- And he wrote a really terrific article about the whole situation, cos he wrote it as only he can.

- You mentioned something that I'm sure caught a lot of people's attention.

You were in college, sophomore in college.

A young man.

- Yeah.

- Married, baby.

- Mm-hm.

- Going to school, working.

- Mm-hm.

For some of our younger viewers, they're going, "Is that even legal?

"Is that permitted in America "that people can do all those things?"

Obviously so.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb.

Your wife's name is?

- Luba.

L-U-B-A.

And you've had one wife.

- Of 57 years.

- 57 years.

- Yes.

I don't know how she has survived.

- Well, that's... - Well, I wasn't home a lot.

Maybe that's how.

- That helps.

- Yeah.

- What, separation makes the heart...?

- I think so, I hope.

-Exactly.

Interesting, I think.

I'm a curious guy, Luba, what have you learned over all those 57 years specifically from her?

- Oh, my goodness, that's another whole show.

Her family is, they're Ukrainians.

They came to this country from the Ukraine.

Their life story is a story that if you hear it and you feel a little bit sorry for yourself, get over it quickly.

Because they came here with nothing.

They came here, where a farmer's family paid their way here.

Their obligation was two years to work on the farm, which they did.

My father-in-law was as hard a worker as you could possibly be supporting his family.

The values I learned from my wife's family, I could not have ever gotten in any classroom, in any experience.

It's just a marvelous, marvelous story.

My wife has those same values - a hard worker.

Sometimes I say she works too hard.

She loves working out in the garden, in the yard.

Yeah, it was a marriage that didn't start out being made in heaven because the circumstances were such that probably not a good time to get married, that young, have two children that young, right away.

But I think the marriage is going to last.

I think it's got a chance.

- If history is any predictor of the future, you've got a shot at it, anyway.

- I think so.

- Children?

- Two daughters.

Both work for Lehigh Valley Hospital, have very good jobs for Lehigh Valley Hospital.

My two son-in-laws are wonderful men with terrific jobs.

Three grandchildren.

All of them... My grandson Brian works in the Communications Department of Lafayette College.

His sister is an aspiring actress living in New York, doing auditions and other jobs to help pay the rent.

And my other granddaughter works for the Inspector General of the State of Pennsylvania.

So they all are doing very well.

- Doing well.

- Mm-hm.

- Father of three daughters, father of two daughters.

Old jock, old jock.

- Older.

- Exactly I have learned a lot from being the father of daughters.

Would you agree?

And if so, what have your daughters taught you?

- Patience, for one.

- Mm-hm.

Uh, probably the stupidity of myself at times.

I remember one story where my daughter was taking clarinet lessons, and the teacher would come every Friday to give her the lesson.

And I would usually be there until I had to go off and do something else because I would get home from school at a reasonable hour.

So one week, he came, and Natalie couldn't find her music book, couldn't find it.

And I said, "Well, how could you not know where it is?

"Did you practice all week?"

"No."

She didn't practice all week.

So the book was gone.

That particular night she was going to her first dance ever in her life.

I think seventh grade, eighth grade.

So the music teacher left, he said, "I can't have a lesson without the book, "so I'll be back next week."

So I felt badly for him, felt badly that that didn't get accomplished.

So I said to Natalie, I said, "If you don't find your book, you're not going to the dance.

"You've going to have to learn a lesson.

"Don't find the book, not going to the dance."

Well, she cried and cried.

I felt terrible.

Cried... We didn't find the book.

Next morning, I get a phone call from the teacher.

He took it home the week before.

- Oh!

- Yes.

- Oh!

- He had her book.

As a father, that's a killer.

- It just knocks the wind right out of you.

- Yes.

Yes.

Awful.

- In the future, I'm sure you gave her lots more latitude when she had a good excuse.

- I think so, but in all honesty, they taught me a lot more than I ever had to teach them.

They were just good kids.

- Aren't we blessed?

- Yeah, for sure.

- Aren't we blessed?

You, in addition to all these wonderful things, have had quite an experience with a Dream Come True.

- Yes.

- How did that come about?

What has the result kind of been for you?

- Well, originally, I was basically a co-host, a guest to start maybe the first three or four years.

And then I took over as the host.

And I think we're in our 35th or 36th year now.

So it's just a labor of love.

I mean, you know, you hear these stories of these children who are terminally, chronically ill and the stories are heartbreaking.

And anything you can do to help them acquire some happiness in their life is well worth whatever four hours I can give them.

And certainly the organization is a great organization.

This year might have been the most interesting story.

We always used to have groups of kids come in who raise money, give us a check, other organizations who raise money, give us a check.

It was your typical telethon.

- Sure.

- And my job for the most part was to interview them as they came in.

Scott did a... Scott's spectacular.

He should be on QVC.

Spectacular at our auction.

That was his duty.

So we've worked together on this now for probably 30 years.

But this year, we had to do it all virtually, which had a positive, it's that we were able to interview people who lived in California, people who lived all over the country who we had never would have had on the show.

And we raised well over $100,000, which we never thought we would be able to do.

- Breathtaking.

- Yeah.

- Do you have any idea over the many years how much you've raised?

- Oh, I would say it's probably in $2.5 million bracket.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

Beyond your family... Now, I know sports is important to guys like us, obviously, it's been a huge part of our lives.

You start talking about daughters.

That's a different story.

- Mm-hm.

- I don't have grandchildren yet, but I could see the gleam in your eye when you talk about your grandkids.

They're just fantastic.

But the impact that you've made through Dream Come True, you can't measure that, you can't even get your arms around that.

So many years, so many dollars, so many lives touched.

It's got to be...

There's got to be a legacy in there that you've got to be really, really proud of.

- Well, you know, I hate to take a lot of credit for it.

I mean, I go in and I do my thing that they want me to do.

I'm very happy to do it.

But the people behind the scenes really do all the work.

- Isn't that always the case?

- Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

And so I'm proud to be a small part of whatever success we've had.

- Your children are grown.

I think they're beyond redemption at this.

- They are.

- Just let them go.

Your grandchildren are a bit younger.

If you could give your grandchildren one life lesson that you've picked up after this journey of yours, what might that be?

- Well, to go along with the theme of your show, I think the best lesson I ever had is the first day I taught school, into the teachers' room, saw my former teachers, great guys, and the one guy who I really admired, he was tough and, you know, had great discipline in the classroom.

People were afraid to do anything wrong.

But a great teacher - had your attention.

He came up to me and he said, "Gary, I have one piece of advice for you."

I said, "Oh, what's that?"

He said, "Pay yourself first."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "You're going to get a paycheck and probably "the largest paycheck you ever got so far," which was I think back then $6,000 a year.

- Yeah, could be.

- He said, "Whatever you do, is every paycheck, "even if it's $25, put it into an account "that you're not going to touch.

"Pay yourself first."

Greatest financial advice I have ever gotten.

- Maybe the greatest financial advice anybody could have given you.

-Yes, yes.

- Gary Laubach, you're right, we could have spent hours on lots of different topics.

- I have more questions for you.

- Ah, and that may come, that may come.

Thank you so much for being with us.

- Oh, my pleasure.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

- Just give me a moment as we say goodbye to our audience - thank you so much.

I hope that you enjoyed that interview as much as I enjoyed being part of it.

If you're part of our audience and you've got questions, like what's the best financial advice I can get right now?

Simply ask - send me your emails.

Gene@askmtm.com - gene@askmtm.com.

We're getting emails from far and wide - PBS's reach is fantastic.

Every single email is answered.

Some of those emails may actually appear on a future show.

So you might be a star and not even know it.

But every one of you, if you've got a concern, if you've got a question, we're here for you.

My entire More Than Money team is at your disposal, at your service at any point in time.

So if you want a successful life, very good advice, start out with pay yourself first.

Tremendously good advice.

Second piece of good advice - make sure every single week you come back to us and watch us on More Than Money.

Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.

We'll see you next time on More Than Money.