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I ran up to the police trying to see him.

They were all just like yelling at you to get back.

I just grabbed some napkins and all these lyrics started coming to me.

I'm a dog.

You hit me.

I'm gonna hit you harder.

All I want is 100%.

And he gives me 110.

It was like a perfect fit.

And I thought, they did it right!

It's like Christmas in March.

It really is.

Welcome to Beyond the Score.

I'm your host, Al Martin.

Every time MMA fighter Ayden Mosher steps into the cage, he carries something heavy with him.

It isn't just the weight of the fight.

It's the memory of his late brother.

Out here at Ayden's house, every rep, every round, it's all rooted in that loss.

Today we look at how a fighter turns deep personal grief into purpose.

Then we flip the scrip completely with David Barrett.

If you've ever shed a tear watching the end of the NCA tournament, you know his work.

He is the composer who wrote One Shining Moment.

We're sitting down with him to talk about how a simple melody became the soundtrack to college basketball's biggest stage.

This is Beyond the Score.

In mixed martial arts, the cage is a brutal truth teller.

It exposes your fears tests your conditioning and demands every ounce of your spirit.

In Lansing, a 19 year old fighter is moving through opponents with frightening speed standing 3-0 with a lightning fast knock out in his last bout.

But inside the kennel, a backyard sanctuary buil right on his family's property, Ayden Mosher isn't just fighting for belts or records.

Under the watchful eye of his trainer, who also happens to be his older cousin, Leroy Ortega, Ayden is carrying out a promise to his late brother Ryan.

Together, they are using this space to keep Ryan's memory aliv and eventually build a nonprofit training ground for underprivileged and troubled kids across the area.

For those watching this Ayden that haven't seen you fight, how would you describe your fighting style?

I'm a dog.

That's really how I fight.

I'm a dog, you know.

You hit me.

I'm gonna hit you harder.

All I want is 100%.

And he gives me 110%.

His work ethic is amazing.

He comes in, gets ready, warms up, boom straight to work.

Straight to work.

And that's the best kind of fighter.

Fight promoter Ron Deleon has spent nearly three decades showcasing the Midwest's rawest combat talent.

When Ayden Mosher entered his promotion, Ron saw something far beyond standard athletic technique.

Some guys just have that skill set, but some guys have that just aura about them that makes you want to fight.

That charisma about them.

And Ayden is one of those guys.

He's fought one tough guy, one stud after another.

He's got no easy fights.

Watching him just progress further and further.

I mean, the sky's the limit for this kid.

Athletic success came naturally to the Mosher household, Ayden, his older brother Ryan, and their younger sister were a forc on the wrestling mat, traveling the country and collecting regional hardware.

But while Ryan was considered the perfect kid- focused, disciplined, and straight laced, Ayden earned a reputation as the fiery middle child.

How good of a wrestler were yo before that senior year, Ayden?

I went like 37-5.

Sophomore year, I made it t states, lost in the blood round.

You win, you you place and you get more matches.

You lose, you're done for the day.

Heading into his senior year with state title aspirations, a chaotic altercation at a football game shattered Aiden's high school trajectory, leading to his expulsion.

Honestly, the worst part was wrestling.

I couldn't go wrestle with the team I wrestled with my whole life.

So it kind of hurt.

Not being able to do that.

Also if that never happened I wouldn't be a fighter.

When other collegiate program pulled back, Cleary University wrestling head coach Matt Santos stood by the young athlete, keeping his recruitment alive alongside his older brother Ryan, who was already wrestling for the Cougars.

He stood by me.

He knew I was a better kid than what I've shown to be.

A lot of peopl wouldn't take a chance on that.

And he took a chance.

Step in.

Step in.

Good.

My school, they created like an award for him called the Ryan Mosher Courage Award.

Because like I told you he was like the the perfect kid.

Like, he did everything perfect, the kid you wanted on your team.

And that's kind of what the award is about.

My goal is honestly, to try and get that.

Keep my brother's legacy alive.

Win his own award for me.

On Friday, October 25th, going on two years ago, Ryan Mosher was getting a memorial tattoo of their late do at a shop in Owosso, Michigan.

He FaceTimed his parents to show off the fresh ink, laughing as he prepared to meet them at a local haunted house.

We were all on Facetime.

Ryan was actually on his way to meet us.

You know, we all- I love you.

Bye.

Drive safe.

Soon as I hung up, the tattoo artist's wife called me and says, hey, Ryan's in an accident.

I need you to get here.

Pulling out from th tattoo shop onto the main road, Ryan's car was struck by a speeding driver.

The violent collision ejected Ryan from the vehicle and on to the dark road.

He got ejected from the car and then like, flew o to the other side of the road.

The tattoo artist went up to him.

He was coughing.

And then there was like a truck coming.

There was big headlights coming and they were like waving at him to stop.

And he didn't stop and he ran him over.

We jump out and they come walking over, and that's when they told us that he was already gone.

It was just... life changing.

The secondary driver sped off into the night.

The tattoo artist jumped on his motorcycle, pursued the suspect to a gas station, and held him until police arrived.

But despite the arrest, the court handed down a sentence of just six months.

With the driver serving onl four after receiving good time.

He only got six months in jail.

I think the court system is [EXPLETIVE] And you can just take somebody away and nothing can happen.

But the way I move on, and I mean, you just have to like, what am I going to do?

Who go hurt him?

Like, no, that's not the type of person I am.

In the wake of unspeakable tragedy, grief transformed into unyielding purpose.

Five months after burying his brother, and just five days after his 18th birthday, under the guidance of his older cousin and trainer, Leroy Ortega, Ayden stepped into the cage.

Before the walk out, Leroy grounding Ayden, reminding him who he is fighting for.

He knew what he has to do for his brother, even though he's not here, he's still here in his heart.

The minute we get ready to go in there, his, his whole face changes.

You can see it, you can feel it.

And it's like, you know, just it gets me excited, you know, and we get together as a team and go execute.

For me, it was it was more of like.

Like my way to cope.

Like, kind of like fighting is aggression.

It's just like a stress reliever, you know, like, or shadowboxing like it just eases your mind.

You don't you don't have time to think about what's going on in the outside world.

Ayden claimed his first two victories by decision, but it was his third fight back in July that felt like divine intervention.

I don't look to see what he's doing right.

I see what he's doing wrong.

We knew he was just going to come straight in and that's what I told him.

It don't matter how you win just win.

Ayden sent Jake Smit to the canvas with a highlight KO.

The clock stopped at exactly one minute and 28 seconds.

A direct mirror of Ryan's birthday on January 28th.

The time that I knocked him out in, it was a minute 28.

And my brother's birthday is January 28th.

Meaningful.

Come on man.

You can't, you can't make that stuff up.

For Samantha, the time code wasn't the only sign.

Reviewing the fight footage, she noticed a distinct green light flare following Ayden around the canvas.

She notes it's a phenomenon that only appears when her children compete.

A minute and 28 seconds, that's crazy.

It's nice to see all the signs.

I knew that was his brother there watching him.

Out of immense heartbreak came an unexpected bond.

Before the tragedy, Ayden and his father James struggled to see eye to eye.

But working side by side, pouring concrete under the summer sun shifted everything, turning old friction into mutual respect and companionship.

We couldn't be in a room with each other for ten minutes or we'd be arguing and fighting.

But now it's starting to change a lot.

Where, you know, he came to work for me this summer, and he used to go but he'd be more of a companion.

We got a lot closer over the last year.

Today, Ayden balance his collegiate wrestling career while expanding the kennel, turning a backyard barn into an enduring sanctuary fo kids who need a fighting chance.

Already you guys are collecting hardware?

Yeah, exactly.

That's pretty amazing What about the medals up here?

Ayden balances a 4.0 GPA as a business marketing major and collegiate wrestler at Cleary, while his younger sister prepares for her final high school wrestling season at Mason High School.

Together, with his family, Ayden continue to push himself to new levels.

He's got that drive, you know, he's got that, he's got that 'I want that' attitude.

And he goes and gets it.

I can only tell you what to do.

I can show you what to do.

But you are the one that has to execute.

And he does it perfectly.

Grief is a heavy opponent.

You can let it pin you to the mat, or you can carry it into the light.

"...Ayden Mosher!"

Hit by hit, round by round, until the work honors the legacy.

After the fight, he always looks up.

The last fight he just won you can hear him say, this is for you.

My brother, his, like, forever goal he wanted to build, like, a facility for underprivileged and troubled kids.

My brother is watching me.

I'm going to do this for him.

I got to carry our legacy somehow.

Every April, 3.5 minutes of broadcast television bring an entire nation to a standstill.

It's the definitive soundtrack of heartbreak and glory.

But before legends like Luther Vandross and Jennifer Hudson gave it an arena sized soul, it was born right here in Michigan on two paper napkin from a local singer songwriter who simply trusted the song.

Wow.

The great David Barrett.

David, nice to meet you, man.

Pleasure to meet you, Al.

I tell you you just transport me to March.

Any time I hear that, it's like, oh, it's it's it's time for some basketball.

Yes.

It's, it's like Christmas in March.

It really is.

We sit inside Solid Sound Studio in Ann Arbor, a sacred place in Michigan history built back in 1976.

For over four decades, this room has been David's creative sanctuary.

Guided by his long time audio engineer, co-producer, and trusted north star Will Spencer.

David walked in with a band.

I didn't know David.

I didn't know the band.

they did five songs, I think, and two or three of theirs were David' and I just dug his songwriting.

So I went up to David and sai we should work together somehow.

that was probably '78, '79, and we've been working together ever since.

To trace the origins of sports greatest anthem, you have to go back to 1986 a the Varsity Inn in East Lansing.

David was sitting at the bar after a gig watching Larry Bird on TV, desperately trying to strike u a conversation with a waitress.

There I was, minding my ow business, watching Larry Legend and, a lovely, beautiful woman was a waitress there.

Sat down next to me.

I had nothing to say, for fear.

And then I was watching Larry, and I thought, think, think, say something.

So I did, and I began to explain.

this guy Larry is miles in fron of everyone he's playing with.

So you're trying to impress her?

Yeah.

You're trying- Desperately.

Desperately so, yeah.

You're trying to flirt.

This is your way of flirting, right?

Okay.

Well, the next part of the story is that I turned and she had gone, so.

But it did- the beauty of it is that I thought, I know something about this.

And there was a napkin there, and I grabbed a pen and wrote down the title One Shining Moment.

The title sat in his pocket overnight.

The next morning, David was waiting on a friend who was running 20 minutes late for breakfast.

He grabbed a handful of napkins and the words began pouring out.

The ball is tipped And there you are You're running for your life You're a shooting star and I just grabbed some napkins and all these lyrics started coming to me.

and, went hom and sat down at the piano and, it just came pouring out of me.

in One Shining Moment it's all on the line One Shining Moment they're frozen in time Decades later, a news network tracked down that exact waitress from the Varsity Inn to stag a surprise reunion with David.

But what she revealed blew everyone away.

They did a video of m seeing her again after 30 years.

And, she said, believe it or not, I listened to every word you said.

I am a poetry teacher and a English teacher in Okemos, and I use One Shining Moment to impress the particularly the boys who are sportsmen, so they know there's poetry to sports.

Out of the blue.

I haven't seen her in 30 years.

Wow.

And she's still as lovely as she was then.

David wasn't a commercial pop star.

He was grinding in Michiga clubs and writing local jingles.

But after recording a simple demo tape, he mailed a cassette to his childhood friend, investigative journalist Armen Keteyian in New York.

We finished it, stick i in a cassette, mail it to Armen.

Because I just wanted him to hear it.

It wasn't like, go hustle it for me.

Yeah, and he knew some people at CB Sports because he was a sports writer himself.

And, just literally walke across the street to Blackrock and, went up and said, you gotta listen to this.

And that's just like, Armen.

Because he's he' very comfortable with himself.

And he'll just go, you, you need to hear this.

CBS that day calls me at seven at night, I'm walking around in sweats and thinking, you're from who?

Where?

I mean, we hit it off immediately and he had a good sense of humor.

And is this Doug?

This is my friend Doug Towey.

Doug Towey, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And at this point I don't believe it's CBS.

And he's laughing and I'm, he said, you'r going to have to get a lawyer.

I said, no problem.

I have a great dentist an I'm going to go with a dentist.

He goes, I'm serious.

I'm serious.

CBS loved the track.

But to elevate it into a network broadcast standard, David brought it home to Solid Sound in Ann Arbor.

Will Spencer and the engineering team experimented, failed, and invented new sonic techniques.

Glenn Brown, great engineer, said, we need to get a backwards snare sound.

And how do we do that?

We don't know.

So.

So we finally ended up putting the two inch tape recorder which was over there.

Playing it backwards and then putting reverb on th snare drum and recording that.

So you'd hear the... that, that, that sound.

We were in Atlanta down in the truck where they cut up the montage for One Shining Moment.

The guy who was doing the work listened to, you know, the song and he said, oh this is unbelievable.

Where do you mix this?

This is incredible.

It must have happened in New York or L.A.

or Nashville.

And I said, no it was in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And he howled.

This can't be, it's Midwest!

But this all was mixed here.

One Shining Moment.

It was originally slated to debut after Super Bowl XXI, in January of 1987.

David flew to Pasadena.

Brent Musburger referenced the phrase on air, but post-game interviews ran long.

And yeah, the montage was pulled from the broadcas.

Doug Towey called me up a couple weeks later, said, Dave, I'm sorry this happened.

That show biz.

We love your song.

It was written for basketball.

How about March Madness?

Would you accept that?

I said, absolutely, because that's all true.

A very wise reporter from ESPN pointed something out.

He said, look, you you dodged a bullet because when you watch the the montage, all the players, you see their faces, you see the hurt, you see their exaltation you see how hard they're working or, you know, all that stuff is so visual.

And the guy at ESPN said if you put that, you can't see.

Helmets.

Helmets.

And so the song got enhanced by the fact that you can see all those things, which really does give it, you know, goosebumps.

On March 30th of 1987, Keith Smart hit the legendary jumper to crown Indiana Champs.

Minutes later, David Barrett's words met CBS's visuals for the very first time.

As I watched what CBS had done, they did that and it's remained that ever since.

And that was Doug designing the way this montage was to work.

And so all the the changes and what they show- the emotions they're listening to the lyrics.

So what is in the lyrics of the song they're emulating on film.

And so it was like a perfect fit.

And I thought, actually, they did it right!

They did it perfectly.

It's exactly what I had in mind when I wrote the song.

It's so rar when things really fit together.

And they captured exactly what I had in mind in this funky little apartment in Haslett, Michigan.

And there it is for the world to see.

Over four decades, legend like Teddy Pendergrass, Jennifer Hudson, and Luther Vandross took turns singing David's melody.

Yet despite network offers to buy out his publishing rights, David retained 100% ownership of his masterwork.

In my view, Luthe sang the transcendent version.

He just didn't try to over-sing anything.

And his voice is so great.

And when he passed away, it was the last song I believe he recorded.

Wow.

Yeah.

I mean, he had a stroke soon after.

And I'm just gratefu that we got him when we got him.

David I can't tell you how many times I've been watching, a documentary on a musician.

And, a lot of them talk about the regret of not owning their material.

Right.

You own One Shining Moment.

I do.

Was this something that you were conscious of when it comes to your material very early on?

If CBS came along at that tim and said, here's $100,000, kid, buy some pizza and give us a song.

I woul have considered it, certainly.

But I had other wiser friends who said, you've got something special here.

Be very careful with it.

It's uniquely yours.

And you need to honor and respect that which I did.

One Shining Moment is a reminder that glory isn't just about winning the trophy, but about giving everything you have.

Maximum effort.

Let the chips fall where they fall.

What's your favorite part?

You know that you always did your best.

It's the, in the second verse.

Win or lose You always did your best Because inside you knew... Why does that resonate with you?

It is because, that's what you do.

Do your best, do your best and everything fall in place.

If you do your best, you can't do any better.

It may not be good enough, but it's your best.

So I know that I did my best.

It's like I'm now 78 years old.

I now know that I can't dunk the basketball anymore.

But I can try.

You can try, ...is more than a contest It's more... if you go back to that man 40 years ago and tell him what those two napkins were about to become.

What would you say?

I would probably say to this guy, it's been sort of a crooked road up to now.

Hang on.

Trust yourself.

And that's what I did.

Because inside you knew that One Shining Moment you reach for the sky.

One Shining Moment you knew One Shining Moment you're willing to try One Shining Moment you knew Stepping into a ring with a point to prove.

Sitting at a keyboard trying to capture magic.

On the surfac they don't look anything alike.

But beneath, they are driven by the exact same instinct.

Taking raw emotion and channeling it into a craft until it becomes something powerful.

Ayden Mosher showed us that when you carry a brother's memory into the cage, your fight isn't just about winning.

It's about honoring what you've lost.

And for David Barrett, well he proved that when you find just the right key, a single shining moment can last forever.

Thanks for watching Beyond the Score.

I'm Al Martin.

Be easy, people.

Beyond the Score is supported in part by Capital Insurance Services offering comprehensive personal and commercial insurance, including medical professional liability to Lansing and throughout Michigan since 1980.

More resources and information about offerings at capitalinsurance.com