Speaker 1: Welcome to the NFL Legends Podcast, an NFL podcast for
Speaker 1: the players, by the players. Here is your host, fourteen
Speaker 1: year NFL veteran and Hall of Famer As Williams. Hello,
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Legends Podcast. I'm As Williams. As part
Speaker 1: of our Storyteller series, we invite legends to come on
Speaker 1: and tell their stories. Today, we have a legend who
Speaker 1: has reached great heights and business and actual heights as
Speaker 1: he tries to become the first NFL Legend to climb
Speaker 1: each of the seven summits. Please welcome Mark Pattison. Mark,
Speaker 1: may you look like you're ready to play right now?
Speaker 1: You you're ripped up? Now do you have to use
Speaker 1: physical weights? Are you all of this mount climbing and
Speaker 1: keeps your physically the way you look? Well, look, you
Speaker 1: got to like anything, it's preparation meets opportunity right and
Speaker 1: on the football and the gridiron back in the day, Um,
Speaker 1: we didn't just show up right. We had a clear
Speaker 1: path on what we had to do to be able
Speaker 1: to take on I was a wide receiver. I know
Speaker 1: you're a secondary guy and for me to take on
Speaker 1: a guy like you, I had to bulk up and
Speaker 1: for you to go up and you know, hit on
Speaker 1: running backs and take on um blockers and wide receivers.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, had had certain techniques and there's
Speaker 1: really no different from from what I need to do
Speaker 1: to prepare to put myself in the best possible position
Speaker 1: of climbing these mountains. And now you know, as you said,
Speaker 1: I've I've climbed six of the seven highest mountains around
Speaker 1: the world. Have actually been on Denale, which is up
Speaker 1: in Alaska twice. I've some of the Kilman jero Um twice,
Speaker 1: one with Chris Long and his group, the water Boy group. UM.
Speaker 1: So I've been down there twice and now and finally
Speaker 1: on the grand finale, the super Bowl of all these things,
Speaker 1: Mount Average coming up in April April? Do you get
Speaker 1: any anxiety prior to well, Mount Average? I always get butterflies.
Speaker 1: No different than when, yeah, from the game, when you
Speaker 1: and I used to be out there and they blow
Speaker 1: the whistle and you go through warm ups and go
Speaker 1: through all those different things. The same thing happens whenever
Speaker 1: I get up and I'm at the front door of
Speaker 1: that mountain and I'm looking up and it's big and intimidating,
Speaker 1: right and then the whistle blows. In this case, you
Speaker 1: say let's go, and we start getting up and going
Speaker 1: to the mountain. And no mountain is an overnight. I
Speaker 1: mean these are weeks and weeks and weeks on the
Speaker 1: ice and making your way up. But again going back
Speaker 1: to just what do you have to do to get
Speaker 1: to the next play? What do you have to do
Speaker 1: to put that next step in front of you? And
Speaker 1: then as these hazards come up, whether it's a safety
Speaker 1: blitz or whether it's a big gigantic crevass or avalanche,
Speaker 1: you know, you take those on as you go. So
Speaker 1: you see a blitz. How would you describe a side
Speaker 1: of just on a mountain? Well, yeah, I mean serious
Speaker 1: side it, right, I mean I haven't some crazy situations right,
Speaker 1: and a lot of avalanches and going up ice walls
Speaker 1: that are et degree angle, you know, steep where I've
Speaker 1: had people just roll over um and just say I'm
Speaker 1: not going anymore. And then what do you do? And
Speaker 1: it's like a fallen teammate and it's just like what
Speaker 1: do you do in that moment? And this is the
Speaker 1: stakes are a little higher in terms of life and
Speaker 1: death than it is on a football field. But the
Speaker 1: principles are still there in terms of you've got to
Speaker 1: have that mindset and you've gotta keep going. When did
Speaker 1: climbing a mountain become a goal? Well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. And this and about eight years ago,
Speaker 1: I was going through a really difficult time. I was
Speaker 1: I was married to my high school sweetheart or college
Speaker 1: sweetheart for twenty four years, with her for thirty and Um,
Speaker 1: it's just nobody's fault. She's a wonderful person, but it's
Speaker 1: just we we just kind of ran the test of time.
Speaker 1: And it was really heartbreaking for me. I've got my
Speaker 1: daughter here in the studio today, my beautiful daughter, Claudet,
Speaker 1: and um, Trojan, I can't believe that studios and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, having to split the family is really difficult
Speaker 1: on me. And and after a couple of years, I
Speaker 1: just needed something to kind of really fuel and energize me.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to do something athletically great. And obviously
Speaker 1: I couldn't go back and play in the NFL anymore.
Speaker 1: And so being from the Northwest, growing up in Seattle, um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty mountainous. I'm sure you played up there, and
Speaker 1: uh so I just started doing some research and I
Speaker 1: found that no NFL player to ever climb the seven Summits.
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I'm going to be that guy.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really have any grand plans, and I
Speaker 1: was in a pretty low spot in that time, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was just it was really more of a
Speaker 1: place for me to get healed mentally and physically, um, physically,
Speaker 1: more from the standpoint of just not feeling great about myself.
Speaker 1: And um, it's been an amazing journey now eight years later,
Speaker 1: because I went from kind of the figuring out how
Speaker 1: I could accomplish things, and especially on Kilman Joe on
Speaker 1: that first one, which I really didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing, and we got down to summer day and
Speaker 1: it was about seventeen thousand feet. I just quit and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't go. And I sat down and this
Speaker 1: this porter Hue I was climbing with, comes up to me.
Speaker 1: He's jamming some protein bars down my mouth and he
Speaker 1: was kind of give me that flipper, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those right, and and so I finally I kind
Speaker 1: of came around and he got me going. I made
Speaker 1: at the top, I take the sign that's up there
Speaker 1: at eight or nineteen thousand three and thirty three ft
Speaker 1: and as I was coming down, I just burst into
Speaker 1: all these tears and I hadn't cried in about twenty years,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was just a it was a moment.
Speaker 1: It was like happy happiness tears of like this is
Speaker 1: something that I can do. If I can get through
Speaker 1: this metaphorically speaking, I can get through anything. And so
Speaker 1: from that moment at Tom I just like rev me up.
Speaker 1: I got down and then we went on the next one.
Speaker 1: You know, I found myself in a Russia of all places,
Speaker 1: and that's the highest mountain in Europe. And then the
Speaker 1: next year I found myself in Australia and I climbed
Speaker 1: that on and then I went down. You asked me
Speaker 1: earlier about what's the highest peak I've been on? Three
Speaker 1: thousand feet in Argentina. It was amazing. We started with
Speaker 1: twelve people, you know, the twelve people only six mate
Speaker 1: and we're having flying all these people off the mountain
Speaker 1: and these rescue helicopters. Oh yeah, I was serious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's this sickness that you get where your brain
Speaker 1: or your lung swell, and when that happens, it's you know,
Speaker 1: people can die and so you've gotta get people down
Speaker 1: as quick as quickly as you can. And so for
Speaker 1: some reason, my genetics are just have been so far,
Speaker 1: you know, set up where I can go high and
Speaker 1: I have a large lung capacity kind of like a
Speaker 1: lands farmer Strong used to have, you know, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't affect me. Now we'll see how things play on Everest,
Speaker 1: But um, I can only tell you what I know today.
Speaker 1: And then after that I went to to Denally and
Speaker 1: you get back to the like the weights and up
Speaker 1: there there's no assistance to help you to get up
Speaker 1: and down. So I'm carrying a hundred and thirty seven
Speaker 1: pounds up a mountain. If you can imagine that, it's
Speaker 1: a backpack in a sled, hundred and thirty seven pounds
Speaker 1: and you're going up the steepest hills, deep, no crampons,
Speaker 1: ice acs, all these things. You're all roped in, and
Speaker 1: you know, to pull that much weight and to be
Speaker 1: and sleeping on the ice for three weeks and minus
Speaker 1: forty degree weather is challenging. It's tough. It's kind of
Speaker 1: going through those whole two days that we used to
Speaker 1: go through where it's really a test of attrition of
Speaker 1: trying to make it through six weeks two days and
Speaker 1: getting ground and beat up, right, and so it's hard.
Speaker 1: So ultimately I was able to climb that mountain in
Speaker 1: this last January of this year. Um, I was down
Speaker 1: in Antarctica, which is a whole another world. Um Antarctica,
Speaker 1: it's only penguins and that's about it. You know, nothing
Speaker 1: actually breathing down there is around, and I was able
Speaker 1: to to to scale that mountain called Mount Vincent. So
Speaker 1: being an environment, you and I playing football teammates are important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have teammates? Yeah? Yeah, and you should do.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of been one of my things that
Speaker 1: has been frustrating for me because in the NFL, you know,
Speaker 1: we have old different counts. You know, you were a
Speaker 1: phenomenal player, um, and you were at the upper end,
Speaker 1: but even at the lower end, which is probably where
Speaker 1: I was in somewhere, you know, you either make it
Speaker 1: or you don't. Right, if you're part of that fifty
Speaker 1: three man you always have better players, and but there's
Speaker 1: nobody awful, right, And in mountain climbing, in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, there's no there's no barrier of entry. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times. You have people that watch a
Speaker 1: movie right about everyst mountain climbing and they want to
Speaker 1: be that guy, just like some of the fans want
Speaker 1: to be those guys that you or I, but they
Speaker 1: can't actually be out there. So you find yourself with
Speaker 1: those guys and you're tied together through with a rope
Speaker 1: and your life is depending on them. With some of
Speaker 1: those guys, not all of them, some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least with the league, you gotta go through three
Speaker 1: years removed from high school, yeah, before yell is able
Speaker 1: to get drafted. Well, and even at that, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a wild car, right, That's what I'm saying. At
Speaker 1: lea you have some playing the game, yeah, exactly. You're
Speaker 1: tied to some people, yeah, who you've seen no film,
Speaker 1: all no, no, and they they all think, they all
Speaker 1: think that, um, they can make it and they can
Speaker 1: do it, and then you get into these very hairy
Speaker 1: situations and you know, you just they're not prepared. They
Speaker 1: have and we talked about preparation meets opportunity, all these things,
Speaker 1: they haven't done it. You know, on Everest, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a four percent there's a there's a four percent
Speaker 1: um uh risk of when you go up there, that
Speaker 1: you're not coming home otherwise, like this last year, Like
Speaker 1: you know, thirteen fourteen people died last year, right, But
Speaker 1: I was climbed with one of those guys who's still
Speaker 1: sitting up on the top of the the mautwain Are, and
Speaker 1: he did not do the work, he did not do
Speaker 1: the preparation. So I look at a little bit differently,
Speaker 1: Like let's focus on the six percent of the things
Speaker 1: that you can do, Like moved to a town that's
Speaker 1: as six thousand feet, Like go open the mountains every
Speaker 1: every single day, Like make sure you're big and strong,
Speaker 1: you do cross fit, and you you put yourself in
Speaker 1: the best position possible to actually make that thing happen.
Speaker 1: So you come back. I see, you know, my goal
Speaker 1: is to see my daughters and and I want to
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going there to die. I want
Speaker 1: I want to go there, and I want to have
Speaker 1: a successful outcome. So I got to have that kind
Speaker 1: of mindset to start. Do you climb with pictures of
Speaker 1: your g They're on my phone all the time right here, everything,
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you another thing about that. You're right,
Speaker 1: because when you get in the mountains and you're that
Speaker 1: long and that isolated um where there's no cell coverage
Speaker 1: and there's nothing else. You know, what I do have
Speaker 1: is I have memories and I do have my photos
Speaker 1: and and it becomes very important, especially when things get
Speaker 1: very stressful, that I focus on the things that matter
Speaker 1: the most, and the things that matter the most are
Speaker 1: my closest friends, my relationships, my daughters, and without them,
Speaker 1: then what's life? Right? It's all about that at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. Well, you just describe, and as
Speaker 1: other legends are listening, when you say preparation meets opportunity,
Speaker 1: you you got committed to this, Yeah, big time. That's
Speaker 1: some of the challenges sometimes as legends that transition difficulties
Speaker 1: besides just leaving the game, maybe not when you wanted to,
Speaker 1: it's the ability to get committed to something else. And
Speaker 1: you did it with Mom Climb. Well, let me tell
Speaker 1: you about this too. And this is probably the biggest
Speaker 1: lesson that I've learned. And if I could, if I
Speaker 1: can impart this to anybody, I would say, by stepping
Speaker 1: into the fear, it is created the greatest not just
Speaker 1: opportunities like not financial or anything, but just the greatest rewards. Um,
Speaker 1: coming back to me the relationships, how I've grown, how
Speaker 1: I've really had to get introspective about myself, my feelings
Speaker 1: where I want to go get really clear. Um, it's
Speaker 1: helped me be really committed towards something. And and the
Speaker 1: best thing of all this is and this really was
Speaker 1: um brought to my attention when I was asked to
Speaker 1: be in the first class with Chris Long and water
Speaker 1: boys name Boyer and that is this whole thing about
Speaker 1: going down to um Africa, to Tanzania, raising money for
Speaker 1: the people in the Serengetti and the Messiah tribe and
Speaker 1: building water wells. And so I actually a partnered Chimore
Speaker 1: and I partnered together and raised forty seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and built around well, which was really touching to both
Speaker 1: of us because we're the only ones in that group
Speaker 1: that did that. But UM, something that's near and dear
Speaker 1: to my heart. And and as things have gone have
Speaker 1: all played out of now this platform and four in
Speaker 1: thousand people that followed my journey and my daughter, my
Speaker 1: younger daughter who's over in Arizona that we're just talking about,
Speaker 1: has a form of epilepsy and so she has daily
Speaker 1: seizures and so I last year I called the National
Speaker 1: Epilepsy Foundation and they want to partner with me on
Speaker 1: this climb. So my goal is to raise twenty nine,
Speaker 1: which is the height of Mount Everest. And and because
Speaker 1: now I have this platform which I never thought of
Speaker 1: years and years ago, and it was really about initially
Speaker 1: about me just getting out of my punk and giving
Speaker 1: me some direction to go. Um, it is it's just
Speaker 1: you know, become this gift that I can give back
Speaker 1: to her in terms of no money goes directly to
Speaker 1: her or me and my climb or anything, but but
Speaker 1: it goes to National Epilepsy Foundation and just trying trying
Speaker 1: to create more awareness and dollars. So hopefully one day
Speaker 1: she can drive, she can ride a bike, she can
Speaker 1: play monkey bars like all kids. Do you mentioned feelings introspection? Yeah,
Speaker 1: football players, well a lot of time to talk about
Speaker 1: feelings more. Tell me about that. Well, um, I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a place as as as we're going
Speaker 1: through from Little league too, tough high school, college, tough guys, right,
Speaker 1: and it's it's hit them, go crush on me, you know,
Speaker 1: take them out, you know, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And it is. It took me fifty years before I
Speaker 1: figured out the actual fifty the more vulnerable that I
Speaker 1: can become, the actual greater strength I can show because
Speaker 1: just like you you walk in a room, you know
Speaker 1: you carry something right. I know. I now know that
Speaker 1: when I walk in the room, I carry something right.
Speaker 1: And what do you mean, Well, I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1: I guess back in the day, I would have thought
Speaker 1: maybe that guy is going to think I'm a candy
Speaker 1: ask or something right. And and it's just like, the
Speaker 1: more that you share, the more other people have been
Speaker 1: able to open up to me, and the more I've
Speaker 1: been able to And I think my daughters have had
Speaker 1: a big component with that me with me too, because
Speaker 1: they're very sensitive and and they're very communicative, and it's
Speaker 1: really helped me bring out the things that I really
Speaker 1: need to share and I need to communicate and be
Speaker 1: a better listener, you know, and things like that. And
Speaker 1: so again, it is made my life way more rich
Speaker 1: because of my ability to share experiences that have gone
Speaker 1: through which I've been honest and real. Your daughters have
Speaker 1: helped you, Yeah, what was it like becoming vulnerable to
Speaker 1: your daughters as a man? Yeah, what was that like? Well,
Speaker 1: I think they you know, sometimes the student teaches the
Speaker 1: teacher right, and I think the way they've been super
Speaker 1: honest and the way especially with um, well both of
Speaker 1: them have brought something a little bit differently to the table.
Speaker 1: But with my younger daughter who has epilepsy and her
Speaker 1: sister m claudette, who's sitting here, has dealt with it.
Speaker 1: When she's had a grand mall and she's laying there
Speaker 1: and she's in your arms and you don't know if
Speaker 1: she's going to die, and I get a call from
Speaker 1: her roommates and Tucson saying, you know, she just had
Speaker 1: a grandmall seizure. Her eyes rolled back and she's turning blue.
Speaker 1: You know what that does to somebody. And so like
Speaker 1: all this this the cool and the toughness and all
Speaker 1: that stuff kind of goes out the door. And what's
Speaker 1: really important is really what's real. And so that's in
Speaker 1: one sense that that's made me open up more. On
Speaker 1: the other side, with I think Claudette, it's just opened
Speaker 1: my heart and in the way that we can come
Speaker 1: together as a family and make this thing, you know,
Speaker 1: help her in the best possible way. You retired from
Speaker 1: the NFL and received legend status over thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Take us through your journey to business. What type of
Speaker 1: business are you? Well, first of all, I'm executive for
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated, so I'm in a pretty good spy now
Speaker 1: and UM but coming out and I think when I
Speaker 1: say this, and I think you would agree that through
Speaker 1: the Trust and some other programs they have, now it's
Speaker 1: a whole different animal today than it was back when
Speaker 1: we were concerning. Certainly when I was retiring, I had
Speaker 1: no idea what to do, and I was down in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and I just didn't have a sense of
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something great. I just didn't know
Speaker 1: what that was going to be. And I would love
Speaker 1: to say that I retired from the game, but really
Speaker 1: I got thrown out and then and that happens to
Speaker 1: a lot of guys, right, And so now you're in
Speaker 1: this position where you know what you want to do
Speaker 1: is like figure out how do you get to the
Speaker 1: next step. Ultimately I ended up where I started my
Speaker 1: own businesses and marketing UM company. I was I would
Speaker 1: go to Microsoft, I'd go to Amazon, Expedia, companies that
Speaker 1: were really blossoming in the c l area, which we'd
Speaker 1: moved back to, and I was doing all kinds of
Speaker 1: different projects for them. I did a significant amount of
Speaker 1: work for Starbucks UM had a contract for fourteen years there.
Speaker 1: It was pretty lucrative UM And so that just kind
Speaker 1: of led One thing led to another, and it just
Speaker 1: really led me down the path of learning and curiosity
Speaker 1: and and trying to figure things out. And so one
Speaker 1: thing led to another, which then led into the whole
Speaker 1: digital edge and really wanted to have a thirst of
Speaker 1: a knowledge of like work can that go? And how
Speaker 1: can I fit my skill set? And so anyways, I'm
Speaker 1: with a group that we just took over Sports Illustrated.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a media company and it's been going great.
Speaker 1: And before that, I was at scout dot com law
Speaker 1: to people know that for the recruiting college content in
Speaker 1: high school recruiting. So you know, been involved in that
Speaker 1: and it's really exciting to uh, you know, be full
Speaker 1: of life and especially be associated with an iconic brand
Speaker 1: like s I early only your marketing business. Did you
Speaker 1: physically go to these corporations? Yeah? I mean did you
Speaker 1: use relationships? How did you make contact and in roads
Speaker 1: into these corporations? Well, you know, like in Starbucks, I
Speaker 1: just found I ended up you've been to everybody's been
Speaker 1: to a Starbucks and they have those green outdoor market
Speaker 1: umbrellas that you go sit under. I did every single
Speaker 1: market green umbrella for Starbucks for fourteen years um in
Speaker 1: North America, South America and Asia. What do you mean
Speaker 1: you did them? I've manufactured him. So I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to do any of this. I called I've I've
Speaker 1: found out that they're maybe looking for a new vendor.
Speaker 1: I called up Starbucks the front line and said, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for the person that the the person at Starbucks
Speaker 1: that is in charge of ordering all the outdoor market umbrellas,
Speaker 1: didn't even know what one was. I got on the
Speaker 1: phone and said, Hammon, him is Mark, and this is
Speaker 1: what I do, and I can give you and produce
Speaker 1: the best possible green outdoor market umbrella you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And she goes okay, So she said it took me
Speaker 1: two and a half years. Two and a half years
Speaker 1: to get that account by just keeping at it, figuring
Speaker 1: it out. I went overseas. I started a overseas, hired
Speaker 1: two people in Hong Kong that would then help me
Speaker 1: manufact extra things in in China, and then we brought
Speaker 1: them back and put them on big containers and wrought
Speaker 1: them to the East Coast and the West coast. And
Speaker 1: so I had no idea what I was doing. And
Speaker 1: at the time Mark, I don't know, but I did.
Speaker 1: I did before years. Yeah, it's called from how do
Speaker 1: you go to Starbucks, look at umbrella and decide I'm
Speaker 1: going to I will call them not knowing anything. This
Speaker 1: has been the NFL Legends podcast. To provide feedback or
Speaker 1: requested topic for discussion, email us at NFL Legends at
Speaker 1: nfl dot com.