Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: time a former Son's player who you might remember as
Speaker 1: t Rex. More video in just a moment, but this
Speaker 1: is Rex Chapman's mug shot and we are learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about the charge up the charge? Where did
Speaker 1: your desire to own guns come from? I have a disease.
Speaker 1: That's the only disease. You can go to jail four
Speaker 1: if you ever accidentally killer man, It's never the same.
Speaker 1: I went to visit and I was there for twenty
Speaker 1: seven months. A lot of things changed from them, and
Speaker 1: like I said, with our structure came instruction. Jay, you
Speaker 1: had an accident. Stop stop man. Welcome to Charges. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Rex Chapman. Today we speak with former NBA
Speaker 1: All Star and my longtime friend, Jason Williams. Jason is
Speaker 1: a mental giant, but his reputation unfortunately precedes him a
Speaker 1: career in life on top as a professional athlete itself
Speaker 1: is a blessing, but in an instant it can all
Speaker 1: be taken away. He is a man who would make
Speaker 1: backpage headlines during his career as a New Jersey Net
Speaker 1: but in retirement, as when he made a splash onto
Speaker 1: the front page, he has committed the worst mistake a
Speaker 1: person can make, costing someone else their life, albeit accidentally.
Speaker 1: What is not known is the slew of tragedies he
Speaker 1: faced throughout his childhood and how he put his family
Speaker 1: onto his broad shoulders time and time again through trials
Speaker 1: in court and tribulations with addiction. The road has been long,
Speaker 1: but Jason is a testament of resilience and I'm proud
Speaker 1: to have him on to tell his story of rebounding
Speaker 1: in life and for others today this his charges. Jason,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. We've known each other for a
Speaker 1: long time and I love you, my man. Just wanted
Speaker 1: to get that out of the way. I feel like
Speaker 1: people know pieces of your story, and you've told me
Speaker 1: that you're ready to talk, so let's talk. When was
Speaker 1: it clear to you that basketball was gonna be that
Speaker 1: thing for you? What age were you and how did
Speaker 1: change your life? I believe it or not, Rex, she
Speaker 1: you was recruited and uh, you know everybody heard the
Speaker 1: Rex Shapman out of New York. We got a lot
Speaker 1: of people that played and in that area we had
Speaker 1: Derek Coleman, Cherry Mills. Uh, we had Moses story. Uh,
Speaker 1: we had Kenny Anderson, Anderson everybody. Yeah, we had everybody,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh so I never got invited. It was
Speaker 1: a guy named Tom Kachowski. You remember him, like he
Speaker 1: was the guy who wrote down if you get four
Speaker 1: stars or three stars or five stars and then right,
Speaker 1: and that's what how college was recruited you. If you
Speaker 1: got a three stars, you were going to the to
Speaker 1: five star or four star. He was going Division one,
Speaker 1: five star, you was going into the Big East. So
Speaker 1: I would kind of manipulate him and said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: once he changed that four to five and uh he said, well,
Speaker 1: I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: you in the ABC camp. Remember that Sunny VI Carol.
Speaker 1: I went up there and I was an invite owner.
Speaker 1: I think it was a hundred people to get invited.
Speaker 1: I was a hundred and three. Now, Derrick Coleman was
Speaker 1: up there. Your buddy was up there. What you tell
Speaker 1: us funny story about him? A little later h J. R.
Speaker 1: Reid Um. So he came in as a rookie, as
Speaker 1: a senior or sophomore, and I was a senior and
Speaker 1: I just said, you know what, I'm gonna let it
Speaker 1: have it here. You know, I'm just going I'm gonna play.
Speaker 1: I'm a hoop boy. They had some orange uniforms and
Speaker 1: gave us free sneakers. First time I ever got free sneakers.
Speaker 1: So I went down to this camp and I had
Speaker 1: a move that goes behind the back and and just
Speaker 1: lay it up and I must have averaged third five points.
Speaker 1: And I was just remember it was like the movies.
Speaker 1: Everybody run into the phone and I had not one.
Speaker 1: I did have a letter, uh, and no disrespect to anybody.
Speaker 1: It was from Davidson. And I was like, where is Davidson?
Speaker 1: And then this is how ignorant I was. After I
Speaker 1: started getting letters. I always wanted to go to u
Speaker 1: c l A. Because I went to high school Kareem
Speaker 1: at bul Jabal and I was like, Wow, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to u c l A. Until I found out
Speaker 1: and it wasn't on University of corner of Alexington Avenue.
Speaker 1: That's what it didn't stand for c l A. Right,
Speaker 1: I thought it was in Halem. I thought all these
Speaker 1: schools was in Halem. So I ended up saying, heck no,
Speaker 1: you know, I cannot go to all U c l A.
Speaker 1: Because I can't leave my parents. So at this point, um,
Speaker 1: when I got home, there was a hundred letters and
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, I got something here. I
Speaker 1: go home to show it to my daddy. And my
Speaker 1: daddy never forgot. He asked you questions how much you're
Speaker 1: going to us? And then even though I went from
Speaker 1: never starting a high school game to starting my senior year,
Speaker 1: I knew there was only two place I was gonna go,
Speaker 1: Seton Hall or I was gonna go to St. John's
Speaker 1: because they were close to each other. And I never
Speaker 1: want to leave my parents. Because, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: I say it on your show, I say it to
Speaker 1: my teammates and my staff all the time. I watched
Speaker 1: The Women as a kid and The Exorcist, and I
Speaker 1: slept in my parents bad to I was fourteen. I
Speaker 1: was scared to death. You know. My dad used to say,
Speaker 1: damn boy, when your feet stick off the bed more
Speaker 1: than I do. You're trying to leave your mama, bad
Speaker 1: ain't you? You know he's from the Deep South, doc guy,
Speaker 1: you know. But the movie scared the hell out of me.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't that. It was that so much things
Speaker 1: happened to my sisters that I would never leave the
Speaker 1: house to go to a camp without my dad. I've
Speaker 1: known Jason Williams for three decades, and he has always
Speaker 1: been the kindest man. I want to ask you all
Speaker 1: to try to leave your preconceived notions at the door
Speaker 1: for this interview. Whether at St. John's, briefly in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: blossoming in New Jersey, or after his career as a broadcaster,
Speaker 1: Jason was always the biggest personality in the room, with
Speaker 1: a heart to match. For someone in the spotlight of
Speaker 1: as many major networks as Jason was for so long,
Speaker 1: it's a minor miracle that more people were not aware
Speaker 1: of what he had to overcome to get to the top.
Speaker 1: Maybe if the public knew what you're about to hear,
Speaker 1: things may have ended up differently in the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion, even after a court of law charged him
Speaker 1: with reckless manslaughter. I try to never behave as though
Speaker 1: I've walked a mile in a man's shoes unless I'm
Speaker 1: willing to walk beside them and hear their story from
Speaker 1: its origin. For portions of this podcast list, her discretion
Speaker 1: is advised so real quick I grew up on the
Speaker 1: Lower East Side of Manhattan. I came home. I was
Speaker 1: about thirteen and a half years old. Uh. I was
Speaker 1: staying with my sister at the time. We would only
Speaker 1: live building. The building depend on how if I missed curfew.
Speaker 1: That means when the lights went on outside, I could
Speaker 1: always run over to her house and she would tell
Speaker 1: a lot to my dad that I was over there.
Speaker 1: But this time it was an awakening. I got out
Speaker 1: the elevator, I saw tremendous amount of blood. I looked
Speaker 1: down the hallway and the blood got thicker and thicker,
Speaker 1: and it led until my sister's apartment when I went
Speaker 1: into them. My sister six ft one, she's about a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pounds. She was a model, a supermodel.
Speaker 1: And UH. A guy named Sergio, who I did not
Speaker 1: know at the time. I found out his name later,
Speaker 1: had stabbed seventeen times. That beat over the face with
Speaker 1: a hammer in the bathtub in front of a two
Speaker 1: year old son, e J and Uh. That was just
Speaker 1: the start of it. Of course, we couldn't find Sir
Speaker 1: Joy at that time. My sister was rushed to the
Speaker 1: hospital where she received the blood transfusion. They didn't give
Speaker 1: it much pain for her face. Uh, they gave it
Speaker 1: more pain for her stab rooms was a seventeen and
Speaker 1: she got hooked on morphine. But doing that blood transfusion.
Speaker 1: I can't prove this, but hopefully this is the reason
Speaker 1: because I've never seen my sister do drugs prior. She
Speaker 1: came home and we had to take down all the
Speaker 1: mirrors out of our house because her face was deformed.
Speaker 1: She caught the A virus. He was the first woman
Speaker 1: in New York City to catch it. It was something
Speaker 1: like if you thought COVID was bad, uh, you times
Speaker 1: that by a hundred. And when people don't know what
Speaker 1: is going on, they became very, very panic and panic situations.
Speaker 1: I remember going to Bellevue Hospitals. I now never forgive
Speaker 1: Bellevue Hospital, um for having my sister come to appointments,
Speaker 1: uh doing the service elevators. I never forgive my mother,
Speaker 1: who I loved the death, who was dearly departed three
Speaker 1: years ago, for each feeding my sister and a has
Speaker 1: Matt suit. Um, you had to have a has Matt
Speaker 1: suit on. That's something I never got over. And I
Speaker 1: loved my mother. I never did that. I stayed with
Speaker 1: my sister all during visiting hours, and then I would
Speaker 1: walk home, which was about a two mile walk from
Speaker 1: Street to the Lower east Side every single night. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I stopped at Saint Theresa's and pray for She was
Speaker 1: my best friend. She was the cool sister that will
Speaker 1: pull up in uh new Cadillac and Junior High School
Speaker 1: and say she being the passenger side. And all the
Speaker 1: kids that you know used to bullet meal or make
Speaker 1: fun of me because I wasn't dressed the right way
Speaker 1: because at that time my mother and father split up
Speaker 1: and I was living in Henry Street Settlement, which was
Speaker 1: a homeless shelterough. So I wore one pair of cut
Speaker 1: off jeans the school with a bomb on. So how
Speaker 1: ridiculous did that look in February? But I looked real
Speaker 1: cool when I got in the car and fourteen or
Speaker 1: thirteen uh and started driving away. So um, but that's
Speaker 1: about as good as it gets because we know people
Speaker 1: rex who have HIV uh now they just went straight
Speaker 1: to AIGs. Then she was my best friend. We had
Speaker 1: plans together. Uh. She gave us back then it was
Speaker 1: a milkshake thing, uh, and it was it took man
Speaker 1: about five scoops and it took the biggest spoon that
Speaker 1: chopped this thing up and it was a lumps and
Speaker 1: you had to give it to her four times. But
Speaker 1: she went from a hundred and thirty pounds to forty
Speaker 1: one pounds when she died in his five of maybe
Speaker 1: six months. Um, that was sad to see. Uh. My
Speaker 1: sister sissy, who her name is Laura, but we called
Speaker 1: the cissy try to ease the pain, came over and
Speaker 1: started hanging out with her. And if you hang out
Speaker 1: in the barbershop long enough, you're gonna get a haircut.
Speaker 1: So my sister started using drugs with her intravenously, and
Speaker 1: because Sergio decided to come in and rob my sister
Speaker 1: and beat her like the way he beat her. I
Speaker 1: lost two sisters to the age virus. And like I said,
Speaker 1: it is not like where you can live with stuff
Speaker 1: like this for twenty years, twenty five years. Um, this
Speaker 1: is something that kills you. In six months, my sister
Speaker 1: had a son named e Jane. My sister Laura had
Speaker 1: a son named Monique. I was getting ready to go
Speaker 1: to college and a couple of years, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: a difficult situation for my family. Then right away I
Speaker 1: have a sister named Roseanne, who was so beautiful like
Speaker 1: my hogany and you know she was just beautiful. She
Speaker 1: married an alcoholic, which we were not happy with. Um.
Speaker 1: I actually pulled him around back and told him I
Speaker 1: was not happy with him married my sister. Uh. He
Speaker 1: told me very nicely, because that's the mold I'm in. Rex.
Speaker 1: You play with me. I'm nicest guy in the world,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to my family and my friends,
Speaker 1: it's for real, especially my sister. So um, he asked me,
Speaker 1: and okay me. Uh. Six months later he came up
Speaker 1: and had a bad day, took a shotgun out and
Speaker 1: blew my sister head off, and then uh shot himself.
Speaker 1: I had another brother who was struggling with alcohol abuse
Speaker 1: run into a wall that said welcome to South Carolina
Speaker 1: on ninety five. Uh. So I've had and I don't
Speaker 1: tell any of this for shock value. I just know
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of business in addiction. UM. Myself,
Speaker 1: I'm an alcoholic UM, and I have a disease that
Speaker 1: tells me I don't have a disease. So at any
Speaker 1: given moment, I can end up in an institution, I
Speaker 1: can end up death, I can end up in jail.
Speaker 1: And you know what's messed up, X, I have a disease.
Speaker 1: That's the only disease you can go to jail for,
Speaker 1: right if you're an attic, you can end up in
Speaker 1: jail because you're an attict. Well, Rex, I end up
Speaker 1: raising my sister's children, who I legally adopted, And it's
Speaker 1: nothing like trying to get a eleven year old girl
Speaker 1: up to go to school and an eight year old boy.
Speaker 1: And you're pretty familiar with New York. So I had
Speaker 1: to wake up one little boy at five o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning and then take him all the way from
Speaker 1: New uh Queens to New York, drop him off of St. Anthony's,
Speaker 1: and then get back up, wake rewake my daughter. And
Speaker 1: when they at that ease and kind of getting into
Speaker 1: the attitude and you know, they want to hear a
Speaker 1: situation and you know, man natural, I was eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: so um yeah, I took them to school and um
Speaker 1: then after school, I had to go to school. So
Speaker 1: after I finished school, I would have to go pick
Speaker 1: them up one of Manhattan, one of Queen's. Then I
Speaker 1: would have to bring him to Luke CORNERSECA who understood this,
Speaker 1: and uh, they became ball boys and ball girls and
Speaker 1: you know, doing stuff like that around the gym. Then
Speaker 1: I had to practice. Then I had to go home
Speaker 1: help them with their homework, do homework. And not to
Speaker 1: call this no saint, but you know I played for St.
Speaker 1: John's University. You played for Kentucky. That's all nice. You
Speaker 1: gotta guys got a great program. But you're not in
Speaker 1: New York City. You know, you're the You're the colle
Speaker 1: tip of town. You know what I'm saying. So right now,
Speaker 1: New York had a lot of places to go, a
Speaker 1: lot of people today had the most famous university in
Speaker 1: the world. I'm trying to get that done. And only
Speaker 1: actorl aid I'll take for the rest of my life
Speaker 1: is that after four years of college, my kids miss
Speaker 1: five days of school and I got my degree and
Speaker 1: I was able to be drafted in the first round,
Speaker 1: which is a whole new story. I hope you touched
Speaker 1: on about draft day. I want to ask you something.
Speaker 1: You've had so much tragedy in your life, but even
Speaker 1: at that young age taking care of your brother sister,
Speaker 1: you know you're sisters kids. You've obviously always cared about people. Um,
Speaker 1: how did you manage all of that? Being on your shoulders.
Speaker 1: I know sometimes you probably didn't manage it um as
Speaker 1: well as you would have liked to. But you're such
Speaker 1: a caring person and you you wear your emotion on
Speaker 1: your sleeve. Where does that come from? Well, I think
Speaker 1: it came from my mother and father splitting up the
Speaker 1: whole time. I had a tragedy with my uncle did
Speaker 1: something very terrible to me when you were seven years old? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was seven years old, he got us drunk
Speaker 1: and he really hurt me physically. Uh, and my cousin.
Speaker 1: But you know, I never forget good and him making
Speaker 1: me drink two glasses of liquor and get into the
Speaker 1: house and was hung over as a you know, seven
Speaker 1: eight year old, and I knew I was in trouble
Speaker 1: when I slept on. Uh. We had a room in
Speaker 1: South Carolina, was the regular room that we had a
Speaker 1: good room where furniture was at the plastic on it.
Speaker 1: If you were in that room, you're in trouble because
Speaker 1: my grandmama let nobody use that room. You know, that
Speaker 1: room was for rehearsal for the choir when they're none
Speaker 1: singing behind so um. She told me that it was
Speaker 1: her son who did it that if I was to
Speaker 1: tell anybody that my daddy would probably get upset and
Speaker 1: kill his brother. And so that was something that I
Speaker 1: had to live with and it was a little bit
Speaker 1: of chip on my shoulder. But you know what, Rex,
Speaker 1: if you asked me how I raised these children, it
Speaker 1: was a family. We have a family that we make
Speaker 1: how the tragedy, We tell good stories. We get around
Speaker 1: and we tell the good, the bad and body My
Speaker 1: family could tell a story. And it was just like
Speaker 1: it's the next person up, and I was the next
Speaker 1: person up, and I was about to let them go
Speaker 1: to force the care. So I, you know, I took
Speaker 1: them on and it was just like nothing. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: With the pick in a draft, the Phoenix start elect
Speaker 1: Jason Williams from Thanks John Univers, you heard the round
Speaker 1: of a blog. Jason william are quite his basketball at
Speaker 1: Saint John Jain a power forward. The question on Jason
Speaker 1: Williams was how is this condition? He had an injury foot.
Speaker 1: They had to place a pen in his foot surgically.
Speaker 1: This was a man who might have been a lottery
Speaker 1: pick without that injury to his foot and getting a
Speaker 1: pin in the foot. Let me just tell you something
Speaker 1: about draft nights that you played there. You remember back.
Speaker 1: I didn't go to the to the Madison Square Guard
Speaker 1: of Rex. I went to Coach Corner Sector's office and
Speaker 1: I would look back. This is the funny story. My
Speaker 1: mother and father would sit back before me, behind me.
Speaker 1: Now my dad is a really dark skinned black guy
Speaker 1: with really white eyes. My mother is white, and I
Speaker 1: would look my My agent told my dad said, look,
Speaker 1: he didn't go anywhere from five to twenty five. All
Speaker 1: my dad heard was he going number five. So I
Speaker 1: broke my leg. I broke my Footmall senior year. So
Speaker 1: when number five came the Miami heat, my father jumped up, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was like goes to Mark Kessler and my
Speaker 1: dad was like still clapping. I was like, Dad, that
Speaker 1: ain't be and he and she said, don't worrybody, you'll
Speaker 1: be next. This went on. We got the number ten,
Speaker 1: don't worry by the son, you'll be next. We got
Speaker 1: the number seventeen was the Knicks, so I he knew
Speaker 1: I was going there playing at St. John's in New York.
Speaker 1: So the number seventeenth pick came on and said New
Speaker 1: York's pick Jim Right, Rod Moust off. So my dad
Speaker 1: was like, so I did a double take, right, I
Speaker 1: said that it's gonna be all right. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: all right. Now look back again. He looked at my
Speaker 1: mom and said, babble this something that's gonna had me
Speaker 1: laying bridge the rest of my life. So so I
Speaker 1: know this is gonna get a little tricky. I try
Speaker 1: to let this die down, but hell, they keep losing
Speaker 1: my luggage and Phoenix anyway, so I gotta send it
Speaker 1: without them knowing. You noticed, uh story, Rex, but a
Speaker 1: lot of your listeners might not know. Um. I was
Speaker 1: a young man, probably a couple of years younger over
Speaker 1: circumstances than than what my age really was. I was
Speaker 1: very immature. But I knew on the twenty second pick
Speaker 1: I was going to the nets because they called and said, well,
Speaker 1: this reed said I'm picking you. So it was at
Speaker 1: the twenty first pick at this time, and you know,
Speaker 1: back then that was a big deal because they thought
Speaker 1: they were getting a lottery pick. Who was hurt that
Speaker 1: can they can wait for and they had twenty thousand
Speaker 1: people in the stadium. I didn't know that because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't paying attention. I didn't know where Phoenix was, and
Speaker 1: I damn sure wasn't going there. So they said, the
Speaker 1: number twenty one pick goes to Phoenix Suns and I'm
Speaker 1: just having a conversation with coach Connor SCA and they said,
Speaker 1: Jason Williams, and we ain't even here because we won't
Speaker 1: pay an attention. And then they put a microphone in
Speaker 1: my face. They said, hey, Jason, what do you think
Speaker 1: about going to the Phoenix Suns. I said, go on, well,
Speaker 1: I say, ain't going to Phoenix. I got the next pick.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Philadelphia. They said, no, you got drafted
Speaker 1: by Phoenix and culture trying to shake me and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to Phoenix. I said, ain't not not
Speaker 1: there but some red neck pickup driving the teeth in
Speaker 1: their mouth, having sons of bitches, and the whole stadium
Speaker 1: was like and I was like, and that's that. And
Speaker 1: then at twelve o'clock that night, the governor put on
Speaker 1: a state of emergency that I was a racist. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know my mom was right, but I
Speaker 1: was just not going. And I went there, and I
Speaker 1: never forget Jerry Colangelo giving me an old Raggy Ltd.
Speaker 1: And giving subjects a battas a night, hell night, brand
Speaker 1: new Cadillac. So I took the car up into the
Speaker 1: parking lot up in the on the mall and I
Speaker 1: smashed it up and I put it back down and
Speaker 1: I said, I bet you I get a car like
Speaker 1: them all. And uh. The next day I went outside
Speaker 1: and they had one of them little grand damns, you
Speaker 1: remember them, little party act. It was three times more
Speaker 1: than that. Barnaby Jones called and and on the sticker
Speaker 1: on the window and said, maybe the other car was
Speaker 1: too big. This might help him. So I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: boy you going into what I had to do and
Speaker 1: destroy their officers. But they end up trading me to
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia seventy six is And I just made that
Speaker 1: long story to tell you that subjects A Battles called
Speaker 1: me and said, man, it was thirty year anniversary. And
Speaker 1: I just like you, glad. Did you like that cold
Speaker 1: money in Philadelphia? Because one for you, I'll be out
Speaker 1: the league. That's right. Um, you got so many interests.
Speaker 1: You're just fascinating, so much emotional intelligence. JA I gotta ask,
Speaker 1: did you love basketball or do you play? Because you
Speaker 1: were sized and athleticism. That's a good question, right, at times.
Speaker 1: I love. My dad got me my CDL license when
Speaker 1: you can sign off on it. But then in two
Speaker 1: thousand I had to retake the test side CDL that's
Speaker 1: commercial drivers license has Matt we My dad had a
Speaker 1: trucking company. He had a gas station and construct your company.
Speaker 1: So I build most of my friends their homes, um
Speaker 1: their foundations, and they take it from there. But you
Speaker 1: people don't know this Rex that every morning I had
Speaker 1: to wake up at four forty four, my dad had come.
Speaker 1: We had a big farms, about seven animals. I had
Speaker 1: to feed up and it was pretty much now I
Speaker 1: know why. He'd be like, Jake, count them goats, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, God, the goots right, and then be like,
Speaker 1: I mean one to eighteen. I make up a number
Speaker 1: right there. I try to remember what happened two days ago,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, eighty four hen, like you're a
Speaker 1: damn lie. He said they had a kid. That's what
Speaker 1: you call a little goat. Last night he gonna count
Speaker 1: them again, and I'll be like, hell, what eighty four one?
Speaker 1: It's fine, But you can't never talk like that my dad,
Speaker 1: because um, my dad wants put some lad in my
Speaker 1: brother for drinking because he didn't tolerate drinking. Put a
Speaker 1: little twenty two and is behind. But um, he did
Speaker 1: that because he knew I needed accountability to get up
Speaker 1: in the morning. My dad knew I had to stay busy.
Speaker 1: And what happened to me in my life, Rex is
Speaker 1: that when I lose my structure, soon came destruction. So
Speaker 1: even to today, if I don't get up in the
Speaker 1: morning and get to the weight room, I don't get
Speaker 1: up in the morning and get myself together, I'm a
Speaker 1: hot mess and it doesn't work. It never changes, you know.
Speaker 1: My dad knews that. He used to say, let me
Speaker 1: tell you something about your son, Barbara. He said, that's
Speaker 1: something bit reflicted. She needs to stay busy. The way
Speaker 1: that Jason has overcome and persevered. I mean, my goodness, wow,
Speaker 1: taking blow after blow and coming out on the other
Speaker 1: side from such a young age as all inspiring in hindsight.
Speaker 1: His selflessness was his greatest asset, but may have been
Speaker 1: as achilles heel as well. He give and give, but
Speaker 1: how much was left for himself and his craft? His will, efforts,
Speaker 1: and desire carried him to a sea of riches, but
Speaker 1: the shallow end of his eternal pool was draining dangerously
Speaker 1: low to the bottom. You know, you were so crucial
Speaker 1: to your team winning your averaging thirteen and thirteen and
Speaker 1: an All Star. You signed a big deal for you know,
Speaker 1: ninety million dollars. I want the listeners to know how
Speaker 1: important it was to have a guy like you who
Speaker 1: was great at what you did, and how did your
Speaker 1: life change when you signed that deal. Well, I was
Speaker 1: doing pretty good before. I was building a nice house.
Speaker 1: My dad built me a mega house. You probably go
Speaker 1: on cribs and find it, but he built it himself.
Speaker 1: What it did was i'mna quite honest. It probably took
Speaker 1: the fire out of me um a little bit. And
Speaker 1: but the one of what it does do Rex, You
Speaker 1: know that because it happened to you the whole time,
Speaker 1: because color of your skin. And then you came out
Speaker 1: playing and use such a high lottery pick. Theres so
Speaker 1: much hopes for I came in backing up Derrick Coleman
Speaker 1: and being the backup and coming and out play those guys,
Speaker 1: and you can get the headlines. But it's a difference
Speaker 1: whout the rabbit got the gun right. It's a difference
Speaker 1: when you know it's no fun when the rabbit got
Speaker 1: the guns. So when you is the man who's supposed
Speaker 1: to win, now you're taking the winds and the losses,
Speaker 1: but you know everybody expect you to win and get
Speaker 1: these numbers. It seemed like everybody was focusing more on
Speaker 1: me in the pre game the other teams, and it
Speaker 1: was tougher and tougher, and they was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: keep them offensive. Off the board had three or four
Speaker 1: people checking me out. I think what hurt me the
Speaker 1: most was when we had the all the lockout season
Speaker 1: and we came back and nobody was ready. Well I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready, you know. I was still like hemn being
Speaker 1: no season and I'm gonna do what I do best.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm coming on with three o'clock in the morning. Um.
Speaker 1: And I thought that I could move out of the
Speaker 1: way of us, you know, Stephon Marbury who uh steff
Speaker 1: On Malbury. Uh, you know he had this big old
Speaker 1: head and I planned to go up and Mutumbo knocked
Speaker 1: him into my knee and the first year, first year,
Speaker 1: first year, sixteen games in the contract and broke my
Speaker 1: leg and I never really played again. I tried to
Speaker 1: make a comeback three years later, and then you conversate
Speaker 1: on one leg and your break the fifth metal TOSSU
Speaker 1: which gets no blood, and the other. But as far
Speaker 1: as making the money, it's more important to keep in
Speaker 1: the locker room. What happened was we had a good
Speaker 1: locker room until we got certain people. See, I had
Speaker 1: one of these owners. God blessed him. He died, but
Speaker 1: he had the idea that, you know, trainee Sam Casale,
Speaker 1: who you know is great in the locker room, to
Speaker 1: step on Marlbury. Um. And me and Marlbury didn't get along.
Speaker 1: We didn't see eye to eye and he didn't see
Speaker 1: eye eye with a lot of teammates, and it just
Speaker 1: brought the morale now for me. My um. But uh,
Speaker 1: I just thought that was it, and it just I
Speaker 1: loved well. I love basketball. You asked me a question
Speaker 1: that I love playing. I love construction and driving trunk more.
Speaker 1: But I loved when we won, and I loved when
Speaker 1: I was in the meadowlands and had those fans. Matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I had a season ticket. All the season
Speaker 1: ticket holders was allowed to come to my house once
Speaker 1: a year, which was about five thousand, and I get
Speaker 1: the norm and hang out. I love the camaraderie. I
Speaker 1: love seeing people smile and feel good actually playing the game.
Speaker 1: You really had to poke the bear uh to get
Speaker 1: me going. So I played hard every day. And because
Speaker 1: hustle is the talent I tell these kids all the day.
Speaker 1: You know, hell, you know no bigger talent than diving
Speaker 1: on lo balls, grabbing offensive rebounds, which I think I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody has broken that record. And um and
Speaker 1: and just going out and and taking charges, and nothing
Speaker 1: worse or nothing better than grabbing the offensive rebound and
Speaker 1: throw it back to Sam and he missing it, and
Speaker 1: go and get another one, throw it back to Sam
Speaker 1: and then he make it and and he makes all
Speaker 1: the rest, you know. And I love that when just
Speaker 1: love making people feel good. But when you get some
Speaker 1: bad apples on the team, you know that, when you
Speaker 1: get some dudes on the team. And I was this guy.
Speaker 1: I was always the enforcer in the locker roo. I'm
Speaker 1: be like looking at man, you say thank you for
Speaker 1: the person picking up the tower, you say thank you
Speaker 1: for the to the ball boys, and you quit moping
Speaker 1: around here because you're making twenty million dollars. Look, when
Speaker 1: we had to strike, I paid every single person that
Speaker 1: worked in the in the meadowlands so all these people
Speaker 1: are serving popcorn union workers all that I paid. You know,
Speaker 1: I paid them because they were missing for the games.
Speaker 1: You know these other guys that come in and you know,
Speaker 1: reach over at the popcorn makeup and just snack some
Speaker 1: popcorn out their hand. Not all these guys, just one idiot.
Speaker 1: Uh and Uh, I said, hey man, he gotta pay
Speaker 1: for that popcorn. When you get back, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna get up and pay for it. Was literally times.
Speaker 1: Then I will stop and called time out when I've
Speaker 1: seen it and make him go into the room and
Speaker 1: get some money and paid them. So that's the kind
Speaker 1: of program I ran there. Um and it was good
Speaker 1: when we had good people. You know, Jason, you if
Speaker 1: I had one word, if somebody said, you know, describe
Speaker 1: Jason Williams to me as a basketball player, my uh
Speaker 1: answer is always relentless. You were just relentless and that's
Speaker 1: what made you such a great teammate. You. So you've
Speaker 1: broken your leg and at this point you've talked with
Speaker 1: the doctors you try to make a comeback. Uh, you've
Speaker 1: kind of decided it's not gonna happen. Did there come
Speaker 1: a point where you thought your life was spiraling out
Speaker 1: of control. You know what happened. I went to school
Speaker 1: at St. John's University. I got remember degree and I
Speaker 1: used it right away. It was communications and liberal hearts.
Speaker 1: I jumped right into NBC and I was Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: and uh, what's the guys straight hand before straight hand?
Speaker 1: And all these guys didn't that stuff. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: on NBC and I was making it fun and I
Speaker 1: never gave stats. I love it when Shaquille and all
Speaker 1: these guys got up there go, well, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: eighteen point seven rebounds. Who the hell knows how many
Speaker 1: gonna get eighteen point seven? And that the viewer care
Speaker 1: if you don't want to hear about, you know, a
Speaker 1: funny story like we've been telling tonight. Right, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you who're gonna win the damn game, And neither
Speaker 1: kid anybody on that panel. Right. So I kept lively
Speaker 1: and we were number one. Man, we were number one
Speaker 1: at that time. When you start playing bad, don't you
Speaker 1: notice disrect you start getting more and more people around you.
Speaker 1: You know, misery loves company. Yeah, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, the core people like the wrong rutledges and
Speaker 1: uh my brother and the George Patters and the Daniel Shays.
Speaker 1: All the guys that were close to me would say, hey,
Speaker 1: j it's eleven thirty. We got one tomorrow, we got
Speaker 1: a game. Time to go, you know, finish that up.
Speaker 1: And then I look around. You see a pretty girl,
Speaker 1: you see something and be like then, but then you
Speaker 1: see a whole bunch of other guys and they'll come
Speaker 1: over to you, send you a drinking and say, hey man,
Speaker 1: you ain't got to go. You're doing what you do.
Speaker 1: The team sucks, you know, And then all the sunnen
Speaker 1: you get a bigger group of people hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: and your core people leave. Now you don't know that
Speaker 1: team of people that's around you. Now they have a
Speaker 1: group of people around them rex now before and they
Speaker 1: have a group. So before you know what, you're sitting
Speaker 1: up in the club and you with thirty people you
Speaker 1: don't know, and your core group is gone. And then
Speaker 1: all the sudden, you got some people crea because they
Speaker 1: got a plan. They create drama in the club. And
Speaker 1: then when big guy comes over and he tries to
Speaker 1: put it out so he could move up in status,
Speaker 1: uh and beside and before you knew it, you're lost.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened to me. I became lost, and
Speaker 1: it was because at this point I was crying in
Speaker 1: my milk. At that point, I'm crying in my milk
Speaker 1: now when I get sad. Before I was crying in
Speaker 1: about a Scotch And that's dangerous. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you have a house for the people and a lot
Speaker 1: of things gonna go wrong. And I think the biggest
Speaker 1: thing that happened to me was I got too big
Speaker 1: for my bridges. First of all, Um, I started trusting
Speaker 1: in everyone else instead of trusting in God first and
Speaker 1: then trusting in my core people. And like I said,
Speaker 1: with our structure came instruction, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be Hollywood hell with that. And I
Speaker 1: had the best job as the highest paid guy. He
Speaker 1: was on the way to win an enemy. UH rememby
Speaker 1: thirty one and then uh I had I had an
Speaker 1: accident that I recklessly caused and and recklessly ran away
Speaker 1: from and and I had to uh and I'm deeply
Speaker 1: sorry to Mr Kristaphi and his family, and I had
Speaker 1: to go. I went to prison and I was there
Speaker 1: for twenty seven months, and uh, a lot of things
Speaker 1: changed from then. Let me ask this, where did your
Speaker 1: desire to own guns come from? Look, I'm from Kentucky,
Speaker 1: so I know gun culture. Um, but you're a guy
Speaker 1: from New York with a construction background. How did all
Speaker 1: these guns end up at your house? Well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you two things, and it's honest truth. First of all,
Speaker 1: I had skeep machines. If you watch MTV crib, you
Speaker 1: know I had skeep machines. I grew up in South
Speaker 1: Carolina for a while, so we would do you know,
Speaker 1: clay shootings. So all the guns in my house, you know, shotguns,
Speaker 1: So they were all for clay machines. Uh. The problem
Speaker 1: I had was leaving them uh locked at times, and
Speaker 1: the trusting people to put them back. What happened that
Speaker 1: night there was a shell in the gun. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna blame it. It was my gun. I own it. Uh,
Speaker 1: I did not mean to. I did not know Mr
Speaker 1: can stop feeds in the room. The gun went off,
Speaker 1: hit him and killed him in called nine one. I
Speaker 1: panic ran away. It's something that's going to follow me
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. But it's and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry your use of alcohol has gotten you into a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble. Obviously, alcohol and guns don't fix that's
Speaker 1: gotten you where you are today. But where you go
Speaker 1: from today, how you handle the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: it's entirely in your hands, and you're gonna choose your
Speaker 1: own path. So with regard to these matters, on the
Speaker 1: charge of hindering apprehension, which is the third degree crime,
Speaker 1: on the charge of tampering with that with witnesses, which
Speaker 1: is also a third degree crime. On each of those matters,
Speaker 1: of the be a five year term in state prison.
Speaker 1: On the count the fourth degree account of aggravating assaulted,
Speaker 1: it will be an eighteen month term eighteen months to
Speaker 1: be served without parole. The council will run concurring to
Speaker 1: each other. So it's a net aggravate term of five
Speaker 1: years in state prison eighteen months to be served without parole.
Speaker 1: To my family, please for give me for the pain
Speaker 1: that I cause to you my children. Did you deserve
Speaker 1: a better father, son, brother than I have been? Judge
Speaker 1: Coleman and the Christopher family. Not a bad man, but
Speaker 1: I actually active battling on right fourteen. I will work
Speaker 1: endlessly to prove myself to continue to help others and
Speaker 1: again make positive contributions and our society. That's who I
Speaker 1: am and that's who I want my daughter to be
Speaker 1: proud of. When you get a wrong group of people
Speaker 1: around you, Rex, and this happens to a lot of
Speaker 1: NFL guys and a lot of guys who an NBA,
Speaker 1: who have a posse. When you don't have your original
Speaker 1: posse no more who know that you can do what
Speaker 1: you can do and gonna tell you the way it is.
Speaker 1: You start owning guns because nobody's gonna rob us in
Speaker 1: the club. Rex, We're spending money, we got more security,
Speaker 1: more bouncers. They're gonna make sure you're gonna be all right,
Speaker 1: and nobody wants that publicity. Plus I'm from New York City.
Speaker 1: I can handle myself. Everybody in the city that we'll
Speaker 1: do something like that has the much most respect for me. Um.
Speaker 1: It becomes where you hold guns because you're hanging out
Speaker 1: with people who know your intimate secrets right, and you
Speaker 1: because your secrets right. So you have a gun and
Speaker 1: you're just letting them know you see this, you know,
Speaker 1: and it ain't for you know, uh t bone or
Speaker 1: salve or Anthony to come take your money. It's for
Speaker 1: the inner group going, Hey, man, you been not telling
Speaker 1: nobody what time we were out do and what we
Speaker 1: was doing, and bet not tell about that goat and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know all these kind of craziness um
Speaker 1: and that and not be honest with you. That's the
Speaker 1: true answer. And that's why athletes carry guns. We don't
Speaker 1: carry guns. Who the hell are we you We're gonna
Speaker 1: shoot our way out the club. It's just for the
Speaker 1: inner circle that we don't trust that tell us how
Speaker 1: good we are. And no, damn, well my daddy say this,
Speaker 1: love many trust ifew pat of your own damn canoe nice?
Speaker 1: I love your dad. I've never met him. Uh. They
Speaker 1: sound like an unbelievable man. Hey, to share this stuff
Speaker 1: is huge. Um. I've heard you talk about the people
Speaker 1: around you and your behavior the night of the shooting,
Speaker 1: and I've heard you say you acted like a coward.
Speaker 1: But now that you're sober, clean, you've had all this time,
Speaker 1: do you even feel like that was you? Or was
Speaker 1: that some other version of yourself where you're just broken
Speaker 1: at this point? Uh, you know want something when you
Speaker 1: hear this and you just see nothing and you see
Speaker 1: somebody hit the ground, You're like, your first is to
Speaker 1: protect yourself, I guess, and me run. I never remember this,
Speaker 1: jumping in the swimming pool, coming back button naked and
Speaker 1: you know, but I remember watching not in less than
Speaker 1: ten seconds, calling and I remember coming back. Everybody's trying
Speaker 1: to tell a story, like probably including myself. I think
Speaker 1: I was selfish. I think um, if I was with
Speaker 1: the right crew, it was Ron Rutledge, my brother, any
Speaker 1: one of the group that helped me get to where
Speaker 1: I am, Danny Mizelle's, uh Joe and Mike Kaiser. I
Speaker 1: would have been in a situation where he said, Jay,
Speaker 1: you had an accident. Stop stop man. What happens is
Speaker 1: you just panic. You're going to shock And if you
Speaker 1: ever accidentally killing man, it's never the same. You know,
Speaker 1: you're taking something from everything he got and everything he's
Speaker 1: gonna app And sometimes when I'm having a real good time,
Speaker 1: I just stopped laughing and I love to laugh, and
Speaker 1: I go, damn, I did something that could have been avoidable.
Speaker 1: I was reckless. Jay. You said you think about the
Speaker 1: accident and the mistake every day. At the time, you said,
Speaker 1: you've gone to Mr Chris stuff he's grave more than
Speaker 1: your own father's. Uh. Do you think the weight of
Speaker 1: that mistake led to probably even more alcohol abuse or
Speaker 1: do you think once you've crossed a certain point with drinking,
Speaker 1: you were just an alcoholic and someone who like me
Speaker 1: would be in recovery for the rest of your life. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's the ripple effect. It's the effect that
Speaker 1: when you get out of jail, you said, look, I
Speaker 1: paid my debt to society, I'm out, NBA, you will
Speaker 1: help me. Uh. Not that you needed resources, but you
Speaker 1: want to get back with the camaraderie, that's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: And people go, oh, I can't touch you night, Gonna
Speaker 1: need a little time. Well it's been twenty years later,
Speaker 1: and about five years ago now the NBA letters partner
Speaker 1: up with them, uh to have a center where we
Speaker 1: can help people in anxiety, depression and drugs and alcohol
Speaker 1: and um, that's where I'm at right now. Jason Williams
Speaker 1: alcohol once controlled every aspect of his life. However, for
Speaker 1: the last twenty seven months that's no longer been the case.
Speaker 1: Williams battled alcoholism for years. He came down to Palm
Speaker 1: Beach County for treatment and to get help through the
Speaker 1: advice of his friend Charles Oakley. Now he's helping others.
Speaker 1: For fifty three year old Jason William this is just
Speaker 1: another day at the office, his office. You see, it's
Speaker 1: actually a rehabilitation program which uses adventure sports to joke
Speaker 1: addicts out at their bad head. Be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I'm very, very good through the grace of God and
Speaker 1: getting people better. Probably the highest in the country, jumping
Speaker 1: out of airplanes, uh, scuba diving with our therapists and psychiatrists.
Speaker 1: With us, we do nineteen different crazy outdoor activities and
Speaker 1: then boom, we go right into our treatment. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're out from six o'clock in the morning until eight
Speaker 1: o'clock at night. And people exhaust, they lose weight, they
Speaker 1: gain muscle, build self esteem, breakdown barriers. It's like no
Speaker 1: other program in the country that does this. And I
Speaker 1: have to be there seven days a week, so it
Speaker 1: keeps me accountable. But be honest between me and you, Rex,
Speaker 1: what it does is it deflects. For right now, it
Speaker 1: keeps my mind off for the awful things that I
Speaker 1: have done. And guess when I get home, I'm so
Speaker 1: tired that I go to sleep and then tomorrow, Rinch
Speaker 1: Wash repeat every day, Rinch Ross repeat. But like I said,
Speaker 1: it's about the program that people say, well, Jason stuck
Speaker 1: down there. You know, we get the toughest cases. And uh,
Speaker 1: because I'm a warning on example, how many people have
Speaker 1: been through the things that I've been through, So you know,
Speaker 1: not only with our psychiatrists and our coaches and all
Speaker 1: the people. Look, look we got your man Mike Jaminski
Speaker 1: down here, and right now, he came down and he's
Speaker 1: on one year sober, and much as he wanted to
Speaker 1: be on this show today he goes, look, I'm teaching
Speaker 1: that one of the two class. And you know he
Speaker 1: told me three months ago he says, I found my calling,
Speaker 1: you know. So as much as he's on CBS, man
Speaker 1: Mike is working down here with us. Um, we have
Speaker 1: had some of them, you know, and we don't get
Speaker 1: the easy cases because it's hard to get somebody who
Speaker 1: hasn't hit their rock bottom. You know. It's easy when
Speaker 1: we get the guy that says, well, I'm down there
Speaker 1: for d w I and the judge said, look, he
Speaker 1: ain't there for sixty days calling me You're going to
Speaker 1: jail right. Uh. But when you get somebody who has
Speaker 1: an endless amount of resources. You have to be very
Speaker 1: clever to find something to leverage them with um and
Speaker 1: most of the time is finding their purpose. And that's
Speaker 1: where the skills life. You know, your skills, ability and
Speaker 1: going this way, and the and and the the abilities
Speaker 1: of the world are going. You know this way, the
Speaker 1: needs of the world. Skills and ability going this way,
Speaker 1: and the needs of the world going this way. That's
Speaker 1: your purpose. My purpose is getting up every morning help
Speaker 1: with somebody. When did you know you were gonna do this?
Speaker 1: I didn't because you know what happened. I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to treatment. So you know it took Charles Oakley UH
Speaker 1: and Curtis Martin. Now they came up to a cabin.
Speaker 1: And you know how the brothers are right. The brothers
Speaker 1: buy a range Rover and it ain't for a range Rover,
Speaker 1: you know. They buy a range Rover and put white
Speaker 1: interior in it. So oak brings up to this. I
Speaker 1: bought it, uh from Jennifer Lopez and her husband. I
Speaker 1: bought a cabin on the top of the hill, and
Speaker 1: I had the resentments four in the Big book, you know,
Speaker 1: f everybody you know, and I'm a lift here read
Speaker 1: watering on the on and the hell with everybody. And
Speaker 1: after sixteen days it was like red rum. I was
Speaker 1: drinking a gall on the liquor. You know, you came
Speaker 1: in there looked like the shining. So they came up
Speaker 1: to do an intervention along with with Chris Mother. They
Speaker 1: never want to leave Chris House and Chris Heron and
Speaker 1: all these guys that have helped me. But when Oakley
Speaker 1: came up, you know, he came up with something behind
Speaker 1: his back because he was mad. Because when you get
Speaker 1: out of this white interior, brand new Alexis, he was
Speaker 1: on clay and mud, right, and now you know he's
Speaker 1: on dirty his truck Arraine droping that meant to be dirty? Uh.
Speaker 1: And then we go inside with Curtis and Curtis, I
Speaker 1: give you, Jane, you know what you got to do.
Speaker 1: What would Jesus do? Right? And I will watch him.
Speaker 1: He's in front of me. Look over my shoulder. Now
Speaker 1: from being in prison, somebody look over your shoulder, You
Speaker 1: look back, you know. So I look back and and
Speaker 1: Oka put something behind his back. I said, what the
Speaker 1: hell he got by his back? Now I'm drunk, I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. They're doing an intervention I'm drinking the gall
Speaker 1: of the moonshine. I'm really drunk. So the next time
Speaker 1: he did it and looked over his shoulder, I looked
Speaker 1: back and hit it again. I didn't deva take and
Speaker 1: Oak had illuminum back and he said, look, man, you're
Speaker 1: going to treatment. And Curtis was like, what would Jesus do?
Speaker 1: And what would Jesus do? Had a lot less on
Speaker 1: me then with when Oak with this big baseball back
Speaker 1: looming them back, so I said I I'll go. And
Speaker 1: he had a cop like you know, like like Reggie,
Speaker 1: you know, Bucky. Then Greg Nettles, you know he's ready
Speaker 1: hit me. Um, and they got me down the treatment
Speaker 1: and I never forget asking Oak, was you really gonna
Speaker 1: hit me with that baseball back? He said all day long?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, have you ever hit anybody with
Speaker 1: looming the baseball back? Because I want to know how
Speaker 1: you gauge that? Is it a full swing? It's a
Speaker 1: little tap? You know? What was the games? He said? Jason,
Speaker 1: I was gonna hit your ass until you got in
Speaker 1: the truck and we got you the Florida. I went
Speaker 1: down and after thirty days, see I go again. Jason,
Speaker 1: me and Jason coming back, going I'm out, let's go
Speaker 1: give me a job, you know, let's let's have fun
Speaker 1: back on television, and that anybody said, huh, man, you
Speaker 1: gotta go back. And I went back, and you know,
Speaker 1: I volunteered out a couple of places and didn't have
Speaker 1: the energy that I needed and didn't have the outdoor
Speaker 1: venture therapy and because that stuff builds his steam and
Speaker 1: it loses weight, and you know, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: a tremendous program that I end up saying, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stay here for a year. And now it's six
Speaker 1: years later and rebound and still going strong. And you
Speaker 1: know what happens rex Sometimes you get in the knucklehead. Man.
Speaker 1: I got some knuckleheads that come in, especially the players.
Speaker 1: You know, God, you know it's hard for a player
Speaker 1: to come in because we're taught out to surrender. Man.
Speaker 1: Oh man, ain't got no problem. Man. I smoke a
Speaker 1: little reef forever at once, oh while, you know, and
Speaker 1: then I go, okay, man, pe in this cup and
Speaker 1: the light up like a Christmas tree, you know, and
Speaker 1: then you go look man, and then they're go okay, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: I had that one night and this and that, and
Speaker 1: then you three days later you see everybody wearing the
Speaker 1: Rebound shirt, which means more to me, or as much
Speaker 1: to me as them getting better, because that means that
Speaker 1: they released the stigma. And once you release the stigma
Speaker 1: and you wear this shirt, that means right now you
Speaker 1: be hold accountable right because you went down there. See
Speaker 1: a lot of players don't want to go down there
Speaker 1: because they're still rather bag you know, wine, and you know,
Speaker 1: don't let nobody know. People are gonna look at you go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: didn't you just get help? Hell no, I'm not serving you.
Speaker 1: Hey no, I'm not giving you no money even to
Speaker 1: get your ass back to Jason. And I love it
Speaker 1: with old grandmothers call me about their kids and they go, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't toell this boy. You better get your ass
Speaker 1: back to Jason. They don't even know the name of
Speaker 1: the program. You better go see Jason. You know. So
Speaker 1: I take a lot of pride in what we do, man,
Speaker 1: And you've been down to visit a few times as
Speaker 1: observer and something that you know, always helping, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of where we both have come. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to do your show. I'd be quite
Speaker 1: honest with you, I'm very uncomfortable doing these shows. But
Speaker 1: for you, Rex, you know, all in for you because
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. You know, um and one
Speaker 1: and for like one year, Man, he was hitting it.
Speaker 1: We that guy founding you're doing talks, you were knocking
Speaker 1: it out the park. And uh, every time I see you, Man,
Speaker 1: you just light up. And you don't know how much
Speaker 1: that makes me feel. Brother, that you light up every
Speaker 1: time that you see me, and that makes me feel very,
Speaker 1: very very special. I love you, bro, And you gotta
Speaker 1: know this, Jay, you light the world up. Everybody that
Speaker 1: knows you, everybody that's come in contact with you. You're
Speaker 1: Tony Kornheiser said at once about me. But I think
Speaker 1: about it. When I think about you, You're incandescent. Your
Speaker 1: light can't be put out. And you do bring joy
Speaker 1: your helping so many people down there, for instance. And
Speaker 1: you tell Mike that that I said this. I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to Mike Jiminski in a couple of years, but
Speaker 1: a mutual friend of ours I bumped into in an
Speaker 1: airport about eighteen months ago and I said, Hey, have
Speaker 1: you talked to g Man? He said, g Man is
Speaker 1: not doing real well. Rex, I said, really, I had
Speaker 1: no idea, and then I followed up with a couple
Speaker 1: of friends and then lo and behold, I talked to
Speaker 1: you a few weeks ago, and he's down there with you,
Speaker 1: and I am so proud. I'm so happy that because
Speaker 1: you know, hey, Mike's older. Mike's older, and it does
Speaker 1: there's a stigma that goes, you know, with asking for help,
Speaker 1: and so you tell him. I'm proud of him. I
Speaker 1: love him to death. You keep doing what you're doing, man, Jay.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for joining me, telling us
Speaker 1: about your work and recovery and be unwilling to own
Speaker 1: your own mistakes and your actions and to try to
Speaker 1: make sure you help other people. I want you to
Speaker 1: know my door is always open to you, brother, and
Speaker 1: I love you. Thank you. I love you, brother. Be well,
Speaker 1: God bless charges selling no run Nians with the law
Speaker 1: charges super least send the tennis and ball ass and
Speaker 1: charges the celebrity gank forlorums. Charges we came along with
Speaker 1: from living lawless charges selling no run Nians with the
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Speaker 1: and charges the celebrity gank. Forums and Charge we came
Speaker 1: along with from living Lawless. Charge Charges is created by
Speaker 1: Portlay and Control Media. It's produced by DV Podcasts in
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