This is an IHeart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, a story from Jack Marucci.

Jack is the director of performance in Louisiana State University's athletic department,

but also the founder of Marucci Sports, a company known for its baseball bat.

Here's Jack with a story of how his company came to be.

Let's get into it.

You know, we're from a coal mining town, pretty humble beginnings.

We're from a pretty immigrant family.

My mom was 11 when she came from Spain.

And my grandfather is from Italy.

So we're half Spanish, half Italian. And that was the makeup of most of the people we grew up with. Everybody was pretty ethnic. You know, we went to the Italian church and St. Teresa's. We thought that's how it was everywhere.

So my mom, her dad came over to be a coal miner.

And we went back to see her where she grew up.

It was like, it was like San Diego.

I'm going, why would your dad leave this place?

They lived right by the ocean.

But I guess times were so bad.

They had a civil war.

The economy was bad and the war was breaking out. This was like

in the early 40s. But her dad comes over here right before the war, and he's trying to save

money to bring the family up, but he can't get back and forth. So my mom didn't see him until

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