THE STRENGTH AFTER

'When The Game Changes, So Does The Meaning Of Winning'
Exclusive Interview with Brian Wallace
Featured in 'Innerviews'
Hosted by Allié McGuire

​Long before multiple sclerosis entered his life, Brian Wallace knew what it meant to fight, first as a University of Michigan football player, and later through a diagnosis that changed everything at just 27 years old. Nearly three decades later, through MS Michigan Man 64, Brian is creating honest conversations about chronic illness, mental health, community, and a different kind of strength: the kind that comes from learning who you are when life asks you to become someone new.

ALLIÉ: Well, right back at you. It was wonderful to meet in person and to continue the dialogue and the relationship as we move forward, both of us being storytellers and hearers and sharers of stories. But today, I want to speak just about you. Brian, before MS, your body had taken you places most people can only imagine, from championship hockey to Michigan football to completing a triathlon. And then you’re diagnosed with a disease capable of making that same once-reliable body unpredictable. Beyond the physical changes, what did MS do to the relationship you had with your own body and the person you believed yourself to be?

BRIAN: Well, like you said, I played a lot of sports growing up, so I was always very strong and very in command of my body. When I was diagnosed, I was 27 years old and five years out of playing in the Rose Bowl. When I got diagnosed with MS, it felt like a part of my life left me because I couldn’t run anymore.

​But I didn’t let that stop me, Allié. I just said, “You know what? Okay, it is what it is. I can’t run, but I’m going to figure out a different way to get the exercise I enjoy.” I got into the gym and found an elliptical where I was able to hold on for balance, and I just kept moving.

The hardest part for me was the mental part. Losing the ability to walk and run, those changes mentally were very, very hard.

​ALLIÉ: Yeah. I can only imagine being at that peak, at the top, and then having to shift so quickly and so suddenly. Let’s talk specifically about football, because I’ve never played, but from what I’ve heard, football teaches you to push through pain, to get back up and to keep going when everything in you wants to stop.

MS can demand almost the opposite. It can force you to rest, to adapt, to ask for help, or to accept that sheer determination can’t always change what your body is doing. After nearly three decades with this disease, has learning when not to keep pushing been one of the hardest lessons of all? Or has it been something else?

BRIAN: It has been a hard lesson because I was brought up and trained playing football to go as hard as you can. You go to failure. Early in my disease, that’s still the way I attacked it. I pushed myself as hard as I possibly could, and I learned that my body was different. It needed a different amount of time to recuperate, so I had to adjust the way I worked out.

It was trial and error. I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years, and there were times when I had to take a break from exercise. I’d take a month or two off just to let my body recuperate. I tried to learn to listen to my body, Allié. If I felt good, I went as hard as I could. But on the days when I wasn’t feeling good, I learned to just rest and take it for what it was. You learn to slow down. I learned to slow down.

ALLIÉ: Yeah. And I can relate to that a thousand percent because there are days I can go out for a run and other days when just walking around the house is about it. As athletes, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Personally, though, I feel I’ve enjoyed the slowing a bit. I used to have just one gear: fast, fast, fast. What about you? Have you found some comfort in giving yourself permission to slow?

BRIAN: Absolutely. I’m 56 years old, and if you went back 10 years, I live in Ohio, I’ve got Lake Erie, I’ve got beautiful sunsets, and I never appreciated that kind of stuff. I didn’t appreciate being out in nature because I was working, doing the regular thing. I had kids and I was raising them.

But as my disease progressed and I lost my ability to work, I had to kind of redefine myself, Allié, and find things that I loved and appreciated, things that occupied my mind. I go up to the lake a lot. I go fishing now. I go up there and just watch sunsets. I slowed my brain down enough to enjoy the small things in life that I missed for the last 20 years.

ALLIÉ: Mm-hmm. In every loss, there’s something to be gained, and I think MS is a very good example of that. You talk openly about attitude and the mental side of living with chronic illness, but I want to go underneath the idea of being a warrior. You’re someone people look to and see strength in.

​So what happens on the days when Brian doesn’t feel strong? When the helmet comes off, when nobody’s watching and attitude alone isn’t enough? Tell us about those days, those harder days.

​BRIAN: I take a lot of time to sit back and think and try to look at my life, where I’ve been and what I’ve done with my MS. I raised two kids who never even knew me before MS. They were born with me having MS, so they grew up learning what it was like to have a father with this disease.

I appreciate the fact that I’ve been able to do that and just keep pushing, day after day, and try to teach people about this disease. When I am having a bad time, I spend a lot of time meditating on my successes and what I have accomplished.

Nobody can take that stuff away, Allié. Nobody can take away the fact that I played in three Rose Bowls and a Gator Bowl, won four Big Ten championships, worked for 20 years for the State of Ohio and raised two kids who are now 27 and 24.

When I’m having a bad time, I think about that. I think about all the success I’ve been able to have with this disease, and I just keep saying, “FU, MS.”

ALLIÉ: I love that. And you’re right, those are things that can’t be taken. MS can take a lot, but it can’t take all the accomplishments we make along the way.

Through MS Michigan Man 64, you’ve spent so much time asking other people to tell you the parts of their MS stories that matter. How many have you done now? Like 50, 60?

BRIAN: I’m over 160 now. Before I joined with Hail Media Group, I had 101 on my own. Since I joined with Hail, I’m up to about 57 or 58, so I’m right around 160.

ALLIÉ: Wow. So that’s 160 lives, 160 stories, 160 windows you’ve been able to look through. You’ve heard about fear, loss, isolation, relationships, mobility, mental health and people rebuilding lives they never expected to have. What have all of those people, perhaps unknowingly at the time, taught you about your own story, Brian?

BRIAN: It doesn’t matter what this disease takes from you. You can always figure out a way to keep going.

I’ve met people who have lost their voice because of this disease, and I see how positive they are. They figure out ways to communicate through AI apps or however they’ve figured out how to still communicate. It’s the resilience people have to keep going and to keep figuring out how to do things. MS takes something away, and they figure out another way.

There’s a guy in Colorado named Jeff. He’s permanently in a wheelchair, and he only has the use of one hand, his left hand. The amount of art this guy can do, the sculpting and drawing, it’s unbelievable. He only has the use of one hand.

I use him as an example all the time. It doesn’t matter what this disease takes. You can still figure it out. He always says MS stands for “My Situation,” and everybody has it. Everybody has MS. Everybody has a situation. You’ve just got to figure it out.

​ALLIÉ: I love that. “My Situation.” Everybody has one.

I have one more question for you today, Brian. You’ve been the football player, the Michigan man, the person diagnosed with MS, the MS warrior, the interviewer and the advocate. You’ve been so many things. But if you take away all the jerseys, all the titles, every diagnosis and every label, who is Brian Wallace now? And what does winning look like today?

​BRIAN: Brian today is a lot different than Brian 30 years ago, before MS, because all of my experiences have led me up to this.

Working in the prison, I got to learn a lot about people. Black, white, Hispanic, it didn’t matter. And with this disease, I learned a lot about people and how you’re treated when you have a chronic disease. I saw other people, whether they were inmates or staff members, who had chronic diseases, and I watched how they were treated.

I noticed there’s such a difference in how people are treated when they have a disability, and it’s sad. I’ve been treated unfairly because of a disability, and I just think it’s wrong.

When I was playing football at Michigan, Allié, I had people who wanted to be around me. They thought I was a big deal and all that. Then I got done playing and got diagnosed with MS. I’m the same person. I’m that same person I was when I was 19 years old. Why are you treating me differently because I got diagnosed with MS? That’s the part that really confuses me about society.

And that’s what I’m trying to do. I want to change that. I want people to be treated the same regardless of whether they’re white, Black, Hispanic or whether they have a disability. We’re all the same. We’re all fighting a fight and just trying to live the best life we can.

You know, I think that in the almost 30 years I’ve been dealing with this disease, Allié, the biggest thing that’s been most frustrating to me is the lack of understanding about what it’s like living with a chronic disease. It’s the ignorance people have about chronic disease. Their family, their friends, the people who are around us all the time, they don’t understand, and they don’t always want to gain that knowledge.

I think that’s the most frustrating part of living with this disease. It’s not very well understood. And that’s why I do what I do with my podcast. It’s just a matter of people listening to us because all of our stories are different. How we handle it is different. How we fight the fight is different.

I just think people need to listen to us so they can understand us a little bit better. ∎

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​Find & follow Brian on Instagram: @msmichiganman64
Tune into his podcast on YouTube: go.awarenowmedia.com/podcast/ms-michigan-man-64