Matthew Mazzoni:
CLASS OF 1983
Irondale High SchoolClass of 1983
New brighton, MN
Matthew's Story
Ok, looking back now I have no doubt whatsoever I was the quietest, most introverted, and maybe insecure kid in the Irondale class of 83. I also don't have any trouble thinking that more than a few of our teachers cursed my name on a daily because I could tune them out in two seconds flat...sorry, some were just boring. Curiously, I wouldn't know until 30 years later that I was technically what is now defined as ADHD - Inattentive Type...that explained some things.
So my years after Irondale:
I went to Anoka-Ramsey CC for a year, but school was still not my thing at the time. So I joined the Navy and went to boot camp in January 1985 (I went from -17 below in MN to 72 in San Diego in one day - a clear win in my books). The United States Navy was my life - for 24 years. That entailed among other things, 3 years in Hawaii, 2 years in Japan, a year on the Greek island of Crete, and I'm one of very few people who has been on a ship transiting around the Horn of South America. I've been to the Virgin Islands, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, Bali, Hong Kong, Bahrain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jebel Ali, Jordan, Italy, and underway on ship for 66 days straight without seeing a hint of land. I've done more pub crawls then I care to remember...some I still can't quite remember. In any case, I retired as a Chief Petty Officer in January 2009. Now, I would have gone back to MN in a heartbeat - I missed the seasons. However, with a wife born and raised in San Diego who has also tenure as a teacher (teaching first grade literally one classroom over from where she went to Kindergarden) - coming back was not an option. We have a condo South of San Diego that has a view of the ocean, so it is what it is and I'm not complaining at this point. Please remember I came home as a veteran - some came home as combat veterans, some have not come home..
After retiring from the Navy and some post-retirement goof off time - I went back to school. I used the Post-9/11 GI Bill down to the last dollar to earn a B.S. in Biology from San Diego State University (went from a 2.2 Anoka-Ramsey CC GPA to a 3.64 GPA, cum laude, Phi Kappa Phi). The bigger plan was to get my teach...Expand for more
ing credential and teach at the high school level. However, I had to do a teacher observation at the high school that is within 3-iron range of my condo, and I quickly realized it was not a viable option. In short, the kid who graduated Irondale in 83 doesn't live here anymore. I'm a Navy Chief...I am extremely proficient at salty Navy verbage and I will pull no punches, and I would be seeing just how far kids cell phones could be thrown out of a classroom.
So I pivoted. I became a personal trainer. Yes, I was a non-working out slug in high school - no doubt, and it took some time to finally pull my head out of my ass. I quit chewing tobacco when I was 27 in Japan, along with figuring out to eat healthy and starting to workout. But persistence pays off. At my last station I had an open challenge to all 34 of my sailors that if they could beat my physical fitness test score they could get a day off - no one could. The onset of COVID, whatever the hell that was or came from, pretty much cratered the whole personal training thing. However, I had no tolerance for staying on employment for any length of time.
Sometimes you don't need to find something to do - it finds you. After two months bored as s___ on unemployment I happened to walk into a bike shop I'd been going to for 12 years. Two minutes into a conversation with the the owner he offers me a job there that has since reconnected me to cycling which I've been doing since 87. So now I sell bikes; road, triathlon and the occasional mtn bike. I do not mean Huffy. The last triathlon bike I sold was $27,000. We specialize in high end bikes.
What else do I do? Cycling obviously...in my mind if you are not active in the sport...you are unqualified to sell it to others. The other big thing I do is Spartan obstacle course races - my last race was 13 miles, 6400 feet of climbing and 50 obstacles...it is a matter of just embracing the suck. I've done about 35 races total. I do them because you have a schedule laid out of races...that is what drives me to go out and train.
So that is me more or less.
If you are coming to San Diego and have questions on who/what/why/were when locally - hit me up any time.
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