This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show.

Up next, a story,

in a way about a song, but so much more. You might know the song I Drive Your Truck by Lee

Bryce, but do you know the story of the man who inspired the song? His name was Jared Monty,

and he was a hero of the highest caliber. Here to tell Jared's story is Paul Monty, and he was a hero of the highest caliber.

Here to tell Jared's story is Paul Monty, his father.

I think his lot in life was to try to bring joy to anybody and everybody that he ever met.

Well, Jared was a very adventurous kid. There wasn't a tree too high for him to climb or a hill.

There wasn't a body of water too wide, too deep for him to cross.

There were certain characteristics in him that became apparent as he grew. We like to talk about his life in terms of three

principles that he lived by, the first of which was to always try your hardest. And this we

noticed with him, whether it was sports or school or anything else that he had to do. He was a kid

that always gave 100% to everything he did. His second principal was to never give up, and that

became also a parent. One of the stories I like to tell regarding that was he was a really,

really good basketball player. He was pretty much the shortest kid in his class,

but he was a heck of a basketball player.

And when he went to middle school,

he tried out for the JV team,

and he was the last one cut from the team.

His fellow players said they were all going to quit because Monty wasn't picked.

And Jared got them together and talked to them and said, hey, you don't quit.

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