Speaker 1: Strap on the boots and scrape up the knuckles. Hold
Speaker 1: it ahead. He got jacked.
Speaker 2: This is the Big Red Rage presented by santan Ford
Speaker 2: and Gilbert.
Speaker 3: Smurry's gonna score touchdown Slim to the ground by Buddha
Speaker 3: Baker Like a torpedo. He came flying into the backfield.
Speaker 2: The rage is brought to you by santan Ford and
Speaker 2: Gilbert right on the Price right on the corner of
Speaker 2: the Santan two oh two Freeway in val Vista Seek
Speaker 2: your Ticket to Great Seats and by Arizona Cardinals Podcast.
Speaker 2: Visit Azycardinals dot Com, Slash Podcast, A.
Speaker 4: Red Seats, Rising Up, jumbe You, Rising Vision, Flurry Rage,
Speaker 4: Tack it Ober. Here's Paul CALVICI I'm ready. I'm one
Speaker 4: hundred percent ready. I'm telling you I'm ready. And Ron Wookley.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 4: A singular player in Cardinal's history, Pat Tillman was one
Speaker 4: of the most unique people to ever walk amongst us.
Speaker 4: In fact, a statue stands outside the Cardinals stadium for
Speaker 4: all to see, but very few know what's displayed inside
Speaker 4: Cardinals HQ. A very special big Red Rage. We call
Speaker 4: it our Cardinals Folktales Legendary Locker Edition, The story behind
Speaker 4: the saving from an almost certain destruction of Pat Tillman's
Speaker 4: locker back in the day. You know, Cardinals Folktales Wolf
Speaker 4: it's number one in the series, the story and rightfully
Speaker 4: so of Pat Tilman's legendary locker that is now behind
Speaker 4: glass outside the Cardinals Locker room, essentially a museum piece.
Speaker 4: And you also know how what we like to say
Speaker 4: about Cardinals Folktales, this Emmy Award winning series, that you
Speaker 4: can't spell history without the word story. But what about
Speaker 4: the word folktale? What does that mean to you? How
Speaker 4: would you define it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Paully, that is a great question right there, right Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, folk tale, it's got to be a story.
Speaker 1: So it's got to be a story about a human being,
Speaker 1: and it's got to be a story about a human
Speaker 1: being doing legendary things. That, to me, is my definition
Speaker 1: of a folk tale.
Speaker 4: That would definitely define Pat Tillman, someone where football did
Speaker 4: not define Pat Tillman. We both know that. We both
Speaker 4: go back to the days when he was a star
Speaker 4: at ASU and then a Cardinal's draft pick, and to
Speaker 4: this day. Look, we're both asked about Pat Tillman. I
Speaker 4: know you are. And what do you say when people
Speaker 4: ask you about the late great Pat Tillman?
Speaker 1: You know, for the most part, poly, I just say,
Speaker 1: let me tell you a story, because this really defines
Speaker 1: who he is right here. And I tell him the
Speaker 1: story about when I ran into Pat Tillman who was
Speaker 1: walking out of a bowling alley pushing a ten speed
Speaker 1: a bike with him, and I thought it was so weird.
Speaker 1: I said, hey, Pat, what's up man? How you doing?
Speaker 1: You know? And he said hello? And I said, Pat,
Speaker 1: what what you do? Did you ride your bike here?
Speaker 1: And he said to me, yeah, I did. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I said, what do you live around here?
Speaker 1: He said no, I live about ten miles that way.
Speaker 1: I said, you rode your bike here and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm training for a triathlon. I remember that training. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was training for that. And I was like, Tilly,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I mean, you're an NFL player.
Speaker 1: Don't you have enough challenge right there? He said, why
Speaker 1: are you doing that? And he said, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to test myself and challenge myself. That just blew me away, Paul,
Speaker 1: And yet it says so much about Pat.
Speaker 4: It does in fact, all the cardinal strength coaches at
Speaker 4: the time said, no, don't do it. That's counterproductive to
Speaker 4: being a football player. The explosion you need. You don't
Speaker 4: want to run marathons and do triathons. And you know
Speaker 4: what Pat did it. Anyway, Look, if you asked me
Speaker 4: about Pat Tolman, I think of the epitome as someone
Speaker 4: who thought for themselves, right, Yeah, they felt it was
Speaker 4: ultra important to educate yourself in so many different ways.
Speaker 4: He had that insatiable curiosity about him. You know, you
Speaker 4: think about Pat Tillman, not just the football player, but
Speaker 4: the Pat Tillman scholars as someone who had a three
Speaker 4: point nine gpa at ASU. He was always driven by
Speaker 4: seeking knowledge, right, the need to experience life and what
Speaker 4: he got out of his twenty seven years you could
Speaker 4: only hope to get out of a full lifetime compared
Speaker 4: to Pat Tillman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for me, Polly too, it's just I've got
Speaker 1: to bring it back, man, I got to bring it
Speaker 1: back to the white lines, the football field, the grid
Speaker 1: iron and mother grid iron and how tough Pat Tillman
Speaker 1: truly was as a football player. I'm sorry. I know
Speaker 1: what he did and the way he gave his life
Speaker 1: for our country, in service to so many others. But
Speaker 1: for me, the fact that he walked in between those
Speaker 1: white lines as well and endured so much and absorbed
Speaker 1: so much damage while giving damage on the football field,
Speaker 1: to me so impressed with him. That's my number one
Speaker 1: takeaway from Pat.
Speaker 4: He still holds the Cardinals all time record for tackles
Speaker 4: in a season, more than two hundred and twenty tackles
Speaker 4: in a single season. Think about that. This is a
Speaker 4: seventh round pick in nineteen ninety eight. He came out
Speaker 4: as a tweener. He was the Pac twelve Defensive Player
Speaker 4: of the Year at ASU, But where was he supposed
Speaker 4: to play in the NFL? So he lasted to the
Speaker 4: seventh round. Remember his first training camp as a rookie Wolf.
Speaker 4: We were in Flagstaff. He came in, he was held
Speaker 4: bent on making a statement. He was telling him, you
Speaker 4: need this physicality, you need my mentality, and he defied
Speaker 4: the odds. He made the team and then started ten
Speaker 4: to sixteen games as a rookie.
Speaker 1: And then of course his leadership and how he would
Speaker 1: impact others. Paul guys around him were inspired by Pat
Speaker 1: for so many different reasons.
Speaker 4: We know his football career. We know his status as
Speaker 4: an American hero, and we're going to get into all
Speaker 4: that and his entire story, how his legacy really is
Speaker 4: captured in Pat Tillman's legendary locker. When we come back
Speaker 4: on this very special edition, our Cardinals Folktales edition of
Speaker 4: The Big Red Rage presented by Santan Ford in Gilbert
Speaker 4: and welcome back everyone into the Big Red Rage presented
Speaker 4: by Santan Ford and Gilbert. We are Santan Ford, I'm
Speaker 4: Paul Calvic And as we noted off the top, our
Speaker 4: game plan revolves around an encore presentation of Cardinals' folk tales,
Speaker 4: where we like to say it can't spell history without
Speaker 4: the word story. Well, if you were to go from
Speaker 4: the Cardinals radio studio about fifty yards to my left,
Speaker 4: you would ait the Cardinals locker room, and before you enter,
Speaker 4: you would see a locker behind glass, and there's a
Speaker 4: reason why that locker once belonged to Pat Tilman. So
Speaker 4: as we look at the makeup of NFL rosters and
Speaker 4: we see law ung shot players and low round picks
Speaker 4: who might be able to defy the odds, it's hard
Speaker 4: not to think of the greatest Cardinals example of that ever,
Speaker 4: at least to me, Cardinal's seventh round pick in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety eight, Pat Tillman, he was far from a lock
Speaker 4: that year. He is considered a tweener between a linebacker
Speaker 4: and a safety, but he had a plan make the
Speaker 4: coaches take notice. And as someone who covered Pat both
Speaker 4: ASU and the Cardinals, it was impossible not to notice Pat.
Speaker 4: If it wasn't the hair flowing out of the helmet,
Speaker 4: it was just his style of play with total abandon.
Speaker 4: I mean, he didn't just wear pads, he used him.
Speaker 4: So although we might know Pat's story, what's the story
Speaker 4: behind the locker that was seconds away from total demolition?
Speaker 4: Well here's that story, Cardinals' Folltales legendary locker. Every year,
Speaker 4: NFL teams conduct their fight for fifty three. That's the
Speaker 4: size of an NFL roster, fifty three players, and those
Speaker 4: names will always vary year to year, peck week to week.
Speaker 4: But the Arizona Cardinals have a fifty fourth locker and
Speaker 4: that name plate will never change.
Speaker 5: Pat Tilban talk about a guy with a.
Speaker 4: Lot of heart.
Speaker 5: Passion is kind of an important word for me, whether
Speaker 5: it's you know, playing sports, or whether it's you know,
Speaker 5: just living or whatever you're gonna do, you should, in
Speaker 5: my opinion, you should be passionate, maoutter else why do it?
Speaker 6: He was pretty legendary just for being the guy he
Speaker 6: was that being true to himself, challenging people around him,
Speaker 6: you know, never being dull or just taking things for
Speaker 6: granted or being complacent. He was always searching for knowledge.
Speaker 7: I think it was important to save the locker. As
Speaker 7: time goes by, you start to forget about things that
Speaker 7: happened in history. I didn't want Pat to be.
Speaker 4: Forgotten, legendary locker with the forever nameplate Pat Tillman. This
Speaker 4: is Cardinal's Folktales, presented by seventy two sold where we
Speaker 4: go in depth into Cardinals history all time anecdotes through
Speaker 4: the personal recollections and memories of those who lived in
Speaker 4: We hear their words, their voices. My name is Paul
Speaker 4: calvic Up covered the Cardinals since late nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 4: the end of the Buddy Ryan era. I've been the
Speaker 4: Cardinal's sideline reporter since two thousand and five, and as
Speaker 4: I can attest, you may think you know some of
Speaker 4: these folk tale stories, but as I found out, as
Speaker 4: even team historians have found out. We don't like this story,
Speaker 4: this folk tale revolving around the most widely known figure
Speaker 4: in Cardinal's history, Pat Tillman, and how his legendary locker
Speaker 4: was saved with a last second interception from a buzzsaw
Speaker 4: literally by a longtime staffer.
Speaker 7: I didn't really get the idea to kind of preserve
Speaker 7: the locker until two thousand and six. I always put
Speaker 7: it in the back of my head, like, I want
Speaker 7: to save this locker.
Speaker 8: That would be kind of cool.
Speaker 7: And I just didn't know when renovations would take place.
Speaker 7: And I'm sit Mary Munch at Oreganos and they're taking place,
Speaker 7: So I had to do something.
Speaker 9: When you know the cliche, if you cut somebody open,
Speaker 9: they bleed, Cardinal reds.
Speaker 4: That's Almo.
Speaker 9: So it was fitting that, you know, he would be
Speaker 9: the one that has his finger on the pulse of
Speaker 9: that and in the moment immediately recognizes how significant this
Speaker 9: is to preserve.
Speaker 4: Before we get to that locker, the museum piece on
Speaker 4: display showcase for all to see at Cardinals HQ, we
Speaker 4: need to understand Pat Tilman. Notice how we didn't say
Speaker 4: the football player Pat Tillman, because Pat was so much
Speaker 4: more than an athlete Pat Tillman.
Speaker 10: What can I say, just all around good guy, not cocky,
Speaker 10: very soft spoken, like the sing Desperado and liked that
Speaker 10: movie immediately.
Speaker 6: I kind of liked him. Me our long hair, he
Speaker 6: didn't dress nice. He was just such a unique, genuine
Speaker 6: dude that people, you know, weren endeared to him.
Speaker 11: He was a different kind of guy. You know, he
Speaker 11: was a flower child if you will you know. Of course,
Speaker 11: at the time, I didn't have any clue that he
Speaker 11: would go on to to come to hero that he became.
Speaker 11: But you know, he was a different type of dude.
Speaker 11: He would ride his bicycle to practice every day.
Speaker 4: Those are the voices of former Tilman teammates Larry Centers,
Speaker 4: Jake Plummer, and all started by former linebacker Mark Maddox.
Speaker 4: The thing is, if you asked Pat to talk about himself,
Speaker 4: something he seldom did, I'm not sure that football player
Speaker 4: would have made the top three things he'd say about himself.
Speaker 4: To know Pat was to know that Pat was about
Speaker 4: the next achievement, the next challenge, the next curiosity. Longtime
Speaker 4: Cardinals beat writer in Arizona Republic columnists Ken Summers.
Speaker 12: As a player just passionate to the point of borderline.
Speaker 12: Is this guy human? I mean, can a human actually
Speaker 12: play that hard and have such disregard for his body
Speaker 12: and play the game that way? And never? I mean
Speaker 12: there was just one speed, you know, one gear there
Speaker 12: was you know, Steve McGinnis used to say that the
Speaker 12: guy has a switch, not a dial. You know, you
Speaker 12: just flip it on and it's the same, the same speed.
Speaker 4: When Pat put on the pads he used him, he
Speaker 4: was all in. Like everything else he did. Pat never
Speaker 4: did anything half speed, even when the drills were designed
Speaker 4: to be half speed. That was Pat in his first
Speaker 4: NFL training camp as a seventh round tweener, just hit
Speaker 4: anything and everything that moved. I watched it in person.
Speaker 4: I covered that nineteen ninety eight training camp in Flagstaff.
Speaker 4: I watched the decision makers take notice that the guy
Speaker 4: in the football uniform belied the dude in the surfer
Speaker 4: shorts and the flip flops. Here's former Cardinals wide receiver
Speaker 4: Frank Sanders.
Speaker 13: I think Pat probably deserved flip flops and a surfboard
Speaker 13: somewhere in some Oakley shorts. And I had a real
Speaker 13: nice golden hair, and that's it. Like playing football never
Speaker 13: seemed like he should be there until he put on
Speaker 13: his pads.
Speaker 11: They put on his pads.
Speaker 13: A different person showed him.
Speaker 4: I say, you hit pretty hard now, guy, I'm in
Speaker 4: the middle of the field. That balls in on the plate.
Speaker 7: Wow, off comes the helmet of the attendant receiver as
Speaker 7: he gets crushed back there by Pat Tilman.
Speaker 4: Pat Tillman the blade.
Speaker 1: He knocked him right in the helmet with a forearm
Speaker 1: and just slapped that helmet off.
Speaker 11: Even as a rookie, we used to have to call
Speaker 11: him off, you know, some some practices we were, you know,
Speaker 11: just fit up on the guy with the ball. But
Speaker 11: he would come in and demolish the guys, which was
Speaker 11: a really good tactic, and it worked out great for
Speaker 11: him because he got to coach his attention.
Speaker 6: He brought that scene kind of few mentality to the Cardinals.
Speaker 6: I mean, rookie don't hit receivers in Ota days. But
Speaker 6: he would lay some wood on a guy or like
Speaker 6: put an elbow in him and get in fights. And
Speaker 6: he really up the competitiveness during practice where guys didn't
Speaker 6: like him because he would hit you or rough you
Speaker 6: up or do what he whatever he felt he needed
Speaker 6: to work on, and they ended up respecting him because
Speaker 6: it made everybody's level come up. He was a tone setter.
Speaker 4: Let's just say that Pat would routinely exceed the perceived
Speaker 4: practice speed limit. But that's how Pat forged an NFL career.
Speaker 4: That's how Pat made the Cardinals as the two hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty six player taken in the nineteen ninety eight draft.
Speaker 4: How he caught the coach's attention even though he was
Speaker 4: the reigning Pac ten Defensive Player of the Year. But
Speaker 4: at the NFL level, was he still a linebacker? Was
Speaker 4: he fast enough to be a safety? Pad made sure
Speaker 4: none of that mattered, because all he did was turn
Speaker 4: guys into tackling dummies that entire camp, even though it
Speaker 4: landed him in the NFL's version of a coach's time out.
Speaker 4: Former Cardinals head coach Den Stobin.
Speaker 14: And the one I remember was a wide receiver that
Speaker 14: he got in a fight with and entered up having
Speaker 14: to throw them both off the field because they every
Speaker 14: time the play started whether they'd be a fight between
Speaker 14: those two at the end of the play, and so
Speaker 14: I sent them out.
Speaker 4: But as vin Stobin himself would admit later, the Cardinals
Speaker 4: needed that mentality that Pat Tillman brand of physicality and
Speaker 4: fight that tilman too, because remember the Cardinals were still
Speaker 4: in the same division with those Cowboys teams coming off
Speaker 4: Super Bowls and physical East Coast teams from tough towns
Speaker 4: playing bullyball like the Giants and Eagles and Washington once again,
Speaker 4: Former Cardinals quarterback Jake Plummer.
Speaker 6: You look at someone like him who was similar to me.
Speaker 6: We were too small, too slow, not strong enough, not
Speaker 6: smart enough, all these excuses for why we shouldn't be
Speaker 6: there yet. We just you know, we threw that all
Speaker 6: side and said, yeah, we're supposed to be.
Speaker 5: Heretulated me, and I guess he was one of my advocates.
Speaker 4: He was talking me up, So what the hell?
Speaker 1: Where are you all right?
Speaker 4: Thank you, appreciate your help, Jake.
Speaker 5: He said that I gotta give him fifteen percent of
Speaker 5: whatever I get because of his good talk, so it
Speaker 5: might not be much.
Speaker 6: So we had that chip on our shoulder and that confidence,
Speaker 6: that quiet confidence about ourselves and belief in ourselves. So
Speaker 6: we were kindred spirits right away.
Speaker 14: Pat became a football player simply because of will and determination.
Speaker 14: He wasn't really big enough, strong enough, fast enough to
Speaker 14: play in the National Football League, but he willed himself
Speaker 14: to become a good enough football player to overcome those limitations.
Speaker 4: And it's something that Pat had already done plenty of
Speaker 4: define the doubters. A quick personal note, I covered Pat
Speaker 4: during his years at ASU and then his early years
Speaker 4: with the Cardinals. Before that, I'd known of Pat through
Speaker 4: our high school alma mater in high school in South
Speaker 4: San Jose. We were both from the Alminant Valley, which
Speaker 4: you might have seen featured in some of the Pat
Speaker 4: Tillman documentaries. His future father in law was my high
Speaker 4: school baseball coach. We were seven or eight years a
Speaker 4: part or so, and I still remember my dad call
Speaker 4: me during Pat's senior year of high school. Hey, you
Speaker 4: guess what he said? Leland is in this section title game.
Speaker 4: And I cut off my dad. I say, come on, now, Pop,
Speaker 4: have you been drinking more of your red wine again?
Speaker 4: Come on say no, no, no. They've got this Tilman kid.
Speaker 4: He's a running back and nobody can tackle him, and
Speaker 4: he's a better middle linebacker. He's all over the field.
Speaker 4: So when people talk about Pat's ability to inspire and
Speaker 4: lift others, people rightfully cite the fact that the last
Speaker 4: time ASU went to the Rolls Bowl. It was Pat
Speaker 4: Tillman and Jake Plummer. During Pat's rookie year in the
Speaker 4: NFL nineteen ninety eight, the Arizona Cardinals won their first
Speaker 4: playoff game in half a century. And my response is always,
Speaker 4: you know what, though Pat's greatest team achievement was leading
Speaker 4: his high school to a title, goes believe me, the
Speaker 4: degree of difficulty there. Pat's high school hasn't come close
Speaker 4: to winning before or after Pat.
Speaker 14: Both towers so the World Trade Center have been hit
Speaker 14: by aircraft. Both are in flames.
Speaker 5: It's a black smoke coming from both of the towers.
Speaker 1: It's a horrific scene here.
Speaker 12: There are fire crews just screaming into this area from
Speaker 12: every conceivable direction.
Speaker 5: You know, times like this you stop and think about
Speaker 5: just how not only how good we have it, but
Speaker 5: what kind of a system we live under, what freedoms
Speaker 5: were allowed? You know, my great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 5: and a lot of my family has given up, you know,
Speaker 5: has gone and fought in wars. And I really haven't
Speaker 5: done a damn thing as far as laying myself on
Speaker 5: the line like that, And so I have a great
Speaker 5: deal of respect for those that have and what the
Speaker 5: flag stands.
Speaker 4: For the voice of Pat Tillman September twelfth, two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, the day after the horrific events of nine
Speaker 4: to eleven. In fact, on September eleventh, Pat Tilman was
Speaker 4: at the Cardinals facility and he wandered through the media
Speaker 4: area and sat down to watch the news coverage as
Speaker 4: it unfolded. With Cardinals beat writer Darren Rban.
Speaker 15: He was like, what we do playing in the NFL?
Speaker 15: He goes, We're worthless, We're actors. He goes, that means nothing.
Speaker 15: This is this is so much bigger than that.
Speaker 12: There's probably no better time to talk about a guy
Speaker 12: who took nine to one one to heart and made
Speaker 12: a life changing decision based on his feeling something he
Speaker 12: felt he needed to do.
Speaker 16: It was sort of the you know, man bites dog story,
Speaker 16: like this doesn't make any sense. He's right on the
Speaker 16: verge where in discussions with his agent about potentially extending
Speaker 16: his contract and he decided I'm going to walk away
Speaker 16: from this. But you know, it was just six months
Speaker 16: after nine to eleven, and it was only three weeks
Speaker 16: after he got married to Marie, his high school sweetheart,
Speaker 16: and it was about one week after they got back
Speaker 16: from their honeymoon. He joined the Army up in Colorado
Speaker 16: and then went on to become, you know, part of
Speaker 16: the Rangers and one of the leaders.
Speaker 4: Cardinals' owner Michael Bidwell. As Pat had just set a
Speaker 4: team record for tackles in a season, his jersey was
Speaker 4: worn by fans all over town. Plus there was the
Speaker 4: business of football, as Pat was on the verge of
Speaker 4: cashing in on a mega contract and he literally left
Speaker 4: it all behind.
Speaker 12: My reaction was was just I just like, I just
Speaker 12: kind of had this big smiling started laughing to myself,
Speaker 12: like this is completely believable. I Mean, I did not
Speaker 12: expect him to join the army, But as I process it,
Speaker 12: I'd like, yeah, okay, good. Of all the guys in
Speaker 12: professional sports in the world, he's the one who would
Speaker 12: do that.
Speaker 4: Pat would leave that Cardinals locker room to join a
Speaker 4: different team with a different plan, defending his country and
Speaker 4: his former teammates. Remember the reactions like it was yesterday.
Speaker 4: Frank Sanders, Jake Plummer, and former head coach Vince Toben.
Speaker 13: I saw Pat coming out of the building, and I
Speaker 13: was coming in where the players are only going in
Speaker 13: the lower area I was coming into the gates he
Speaker 13: was going out, and say, Pat, are you doing? What's
Speaker 13: up with your contract? He said, Bro, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 13: go to the military. I said what he said, I'm
Speaker 13: gonna go to the army and be arranged with my brother.
Speaker 13: So what you go do? What I want to serve
Speaker 13: my country, That's what I'm gonna do. I say, brother,
Speaker 13: God bless you.
Speaker 6: I just kind of like that sounds like, Pat, what
Speaker 6: can you do? I remember getting a call from Mike Devlin,
Speaker 6: who is my center my rookie year and now is
Speaker 6: a coach with the Cardinals. He said, Hey, you got
Speaker 6: to call Pat's he's about to do something that you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know if he should do this. It's you know,
Speaker 6: he's giving up all this money and giving up the game,
Speaker 6: and I don't know. You should give him a shout.
Speaker 6: And I kind of chuckled because I was like, if
Speaker 6: Pat makes his mind up, he's made this decision and
Speaker 6: his wife hasn't changed his mind, and what good am
Speaker 6: I going to be to go try to change his mind.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to piss him off before he goes
Speaker 6: to fight for our country. I gave him a hug
Speaker 6: and told him I love him. He'd be safe out there, man,
Speaker 6: because there was no change in his mind.
Speaker 14: Well, he's all in. He believed in what he believed
Speaker 14: in and believed it very strongly and acted on what
Speaker 14: he's blased where a lot of people have blafed, but
Speaker 14: they don't act on him. And he did no matter
Speaker 14: what he was doing, whether he's on the field.
Speaker 6: Or not, he believed in himself so much so that
Speaker 6: he did something that no one could fathom he would
Speaker 6: do and go give up millions of dollars to go
Speaker 6: fight for our country. Well, for Pat, it was just life.
Speaker 6: That was what life was about, was doing what you
Speaker 6: believed and living your life.
Speaker 4: And what's amazing is as media friendly as Pat was
Speaker 4: as a player, all the interviews that Pat did when
Speaker 4: he was at ASU and the Cardinals. You can search
Speaker 4: the internet all you want, good luck trying to find
Speaker 4: any interview that Pat did as a soldier. Once again,
Speaker 4: Ken Summer from the Arizona Republic.
Speaker 12: One of the things that really resonated with me was
Speaker 12: his refusal to talk about it ever. It's like, I'm
Speaker 12: not in it for that, I'm not in it for
Speaker 12: the stories. I'm not in it for a future movie
Speaker 12: or to set myself up for business later. I have
Speaker 12: my reasons for doing it. I'm not going to share them.
Speaker 12: They're my reasons.
Speaker 4: So Pat left his Cardinals locker behind for a foot locker.
Speaker 4: One more aspect of a person who could have done
Speaker 4: virtually anything he set his mind to, and quite often
Speaker 4: Pat did just that. Former teammate, a longtime Cardinals staffer,
Speaker 4: Anthony Edwards, on Pat's selfless act.
Speaker 8: To serve that's humility. I choose to serve my country.
Speaker 8: I choose to go disc route instead of this one.
Speaker 8: The more popular vote would be stay where you at,
Speaker 8: continue to do what you're doing. But he didn't feel
Speaker 8: that was enough. That wasn't satisfying to him, so he
Speaker 8: chose the other.
Speaker 4: And that's former Cardinals receiver Anthony Edwards, who said it
Speaker 4: so well in Cardinals' Full Tales that Pat was all
Speaker 4: about service to his team, to his community, to his country.
Speaker 4: I think, like a lot of media members, we walk
Speaker 4: into that Cardinals locker room, you can still hear Pat's laugh,
Speaker 4: you can still picture him with his teammates. And it
Speaker 4: was that locker of Pat's that was spared the wrecking
Speaker 4: ball from the demolition crew in last second dramatic fashion.
Speaker 4: And when we come back, we'll hear how that locker
Speaker 4: saving play, how it unfolded, how Pat's lasting legacy is
Speaker 4: memorialized in other ways as we continue with his encore
Speaker 4: presentation of Cardinals Folktales, Legendary Locker on the Big Red Rage,
Speaker 4: presented by santan Ford and Gilbert. We are santan Ford.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to our special encore presentation of Cardinals Folktales,
Speaker 4: The Legendary Locker Here on the Big Red Rage, presented
Speaker 4: by Santan Ford and Gilbert. We are santan Ford. I'm
Speaker 4: Paul Calvi. Seen if you go to State Farm Stadium,
Speaker 4: you'll see the Pat Tillman Statute. There's Pat Tillman's name
Speaker 4: and number in the Ring of Honor. At Cardinal's headquarters,
Speaker 4: there's Pat's locker. And that's what we're talking about here tonight,
Speaker 4: the legendary locker and last we left you here during
Speaker 4: Cardinals Folktales, Pat Tillman was making that selfless decision to
Speaker 4: leave football and a multi million dollar contract behind to
Speaker 4: serve his country. As we know, Pat lost his life
Speaker 4: in action while serving with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: and not only hit all of us in Arizona heard
Speaker 4: a lot of us vividly remember that April morning, but
Speaker 4: our nation mourned as well, and we pick up the
Speaker 4: story of how Pat's legendary locker still stand today with
Speaker 4: a salute from Tom Cruise at the Espies.
Speaker 17: The news came out of Afghanistan that an athlete turned
Speaker 17: soldier was gone. And when we heard the news on
Speaker 17: that April day, it stopped us all in a long
Speaker 17: and profound silence. And we all know why, because Pat
Speaker 17: Tillman was a transcendent figure in the life of this nation.
Speaker 4: Word of Pat Tillman's death came out early on the
Speaker 4: morning of April twenty second, two thousand and four. Fans
Speaker 4: created memorials at the Cardinals facility and in Pat's hometown
Speaker 4: of San Jose. I remember waiting a line at Sun
Speaker 4: Devil Stadium to pay respects at an impromptum memorial. The
Speaker 4: news hit with the ferocity of a Tilman tackle, and
Speaker 4: it struck owner Michael Bidwell and fullback Larry Centers the
Speaker 4: same way.
Speaker 16: It was a I mean, it was a gut punch.
Speaker 16: It was a to the stomach, and I remember I was.
Speaker 16: I was standing in my closet that day, getting ready
Speaker 16: for work and to head into the office, and my
Speaker 16: phone rang. You know, it sent shivers down my spine
Speaker 16: and we realized it's going to be shocking news to everybody.
Speaker 11: I was in Dallas on the golf course. I was
Speaker 11: playing with a couple of guys who played in the NFL,
Speaker 11: and one of them got a call or a text
Speaker 11: and said, hey, man, Pat's him and just died in Afghanistan.
Speaker 11: It was a jaw dropping moment. I remember exactly where
Speaker 11: I was, like. I'm sure a lot of the teammates
Speaker 11: can tell you exactly what they were when they heard
Speaker 11: the news.
Speaker 4: As news traveled through the Cardinals facility, it reached the
Speaker 4: locker room longtime trainer John Omahandra.
Speaker 18: It weighed on us, impacted us a lot, and that
Speaker 18: started going through my mind a way that we could
Speaker 18: memorialize him or remembering in some fashion in the training room.
Speaker 18: I went down to pr asking him to give me
Speaker 18: a photo of Pat. I took it and had it framed,
Speaker 18: put it up over the tape table.
Speaker 1: So every day.
Speaker 18: Everybody that came in got overseen by Pat, and the
Speaker 18: guys would get up on the table to get taped
Speaker 18: and they could maybe just past thought on trying to
Speaker 18: live up to his standards of toughness and dedication, being
Speaker 18: a warrior, just all the things that Pat was.
Speaker 4: The Tilman player photo that John olmahundro referenced, well, if
Speaker 4: you walk into the training room today, that frame picture
Speaker 4: sits in this same exact spot, just like it did
Speaker 4: days after Pat's death.
Speaker 7: I think there's a wow factor to it. I take
Speaker 7: for an since JJ Watt when he signed with the Cardinals,
Speaker 7: he took a picture in front of it. It means
Speaker 7: something to him. He's very familiar with the story. He's
Speaker 7: involved with the Pat Tillman Foundation.
Speaker 19: I've obviously long been a fan of Pat Tillman. What
Speaker 19: he stood for, who he was, and everything about his
Speaker 19: legacy is unbelievable to me. So to be here, to
Speaker 19: be walking the same halls that he walked and to
Speaker 19: see his locker was special for me.
Speaker 7: It made me feel good to see him, the guy
Speaker 7: of his level, standing in front of that and it
Speaker 7: means something to him.
Speaker 4: That's the voice of Jim o'mahundra, longtime Cardinals broadcast producer
Speaker 4: more than two decades on the job. While his father,
Speaker 4: the aforementioned John Omahundro, spent forty two seasons as a
Speaker 4: Cardinals athletic trainer. A couple of other longtime Cards employees,
Speaker 4: Darren Urban and Dave Pash, give us the scattering report
Speaker 4: on Omo.
Speaker 15: I would paint Jim o'mahundro in this way he works
Speaker 15: for the team, but I feel in a lot of
Speaker 15: ways Cardinals DNA is literally in him.
Speaker 7: So I've been around the Cardinals my entire life. My
Speaker 7: dad was an athletic trainer for the team for forty
Speaker 7: two seasons. I like to say I was negative nine
Speaker 7: when he started with the team, and so I was
Speaker 7: literally born into this organization. I couldn't imagine it any
Speaker 7: other way.
Speaker 3: Cardinal football means so much to him. Outside of the
Speaker 3: Bidwells who grew up with Cardinal football, I can't think
Speaker 3: of anybody who has a closer connection than the Bidwell
Speaker 3: family than the on one Hundro family because of the
Speaker 3: time and the energy that's been spent rooting for the team.
Speaker 4: So when people ask how exactly did the Tilman locker
Speaker 4: end up encased in glass when every other locker is
Speaker 4: no moss, Well glad yes, because remember earlier the story
Speaker 4: that we thought we knew but didn't. Well, here we
Speaker 4: go twenty fifteen. The Cardinals locker room. It's a hard
Speaker 4: hat area, not your typical football helmets, but construction workers.
Speaker 7: It's a day after the Super Bowl, kind of slow
Speaker 7: around the facility. So I come over here to Oreganos.
Speaker 7: Used to get a normal lunch, so I ordered a
Speaker 7: slice and a salad and I'm waiting for the food.
Speaker 7: So I'm scrolling through Twitter. I see a tweet by
Speaker 7: Darren Urban that alerts me to the renovation starting at
Speaker 7: our Tempe facility. So I freak out. There's a photo
Speaker 7: with a destroyed locker on the ground. So I had
Speaker 7: ordered my lunch, it hadn't come yet, and I'm like,
Speaker 7: I got to get out of here. So I throw
Speaker 7: twenty dollars down onto the table and I'm out of there.
Speaker 7: I just run to my car, drive down, get to
Speaker 7: the facility, run through the parking lot, run through the auditorium,
Speaker 7: the weight room, the training room, step into the locker room.
Speaker 7: The carpet is all torn up. The glue from the
Speaker 7: carpet is there and it rips my shoe off my foot.
Speaker 7: So I'm hopping around the corner to see two lockers
Speaker 7: on one wall and about four lockers on the other.
Speaker 7: There's a guy with a saw walking directly for Pat
Speaker 7: Tillman's locker. I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't
Speaker 7: cut that one out. That's Pat Tillman's locker. So that's
Speaker 7: what happened and prevented it from being destroyed.
Speaker 4: And that is quite a series of events. I mean,
Speaker 4: think of how razor thin that margin was. One more stop,
Speaker 4: like perhaps or almost stopping to unglue his shoe, and
Speaker 4: that Tilman locker would have been turned into lumber. That
Speaker 4: got the attention of Cardinals owner Michael Bidwell.
Speaker 16: Found out an hour after it happened that Jim Olmhunter
Speaker 16: was walking through and said, wait, don't touch that. And
Speaker 16: so we're like, okay, we don't know what to do
Speaker 16: with it right now, but we're going to do something.
Speaker 16: And then because we were doing a renovation of the building,
Speaker 16: we look for an area where we could put it,
Speaker 16: and the designers found what I think is a perfect
Speaker 16: entry area right outside the locker room. So it's it's
Speaker 16: a perfect area and it's really a landmark within our
Speaker 16: building and serves as an important reminder for his sacrifice,
Speaker 16: but also his spirit.
Speaker 7: Everybody who goes out to practice field they walk by it.
Speaker 7: Everyone who comes in from the practice field, they walk
Speaker 7: by it. And if you look at the old foot
Speaker 7: front of the locker room, it's literally on the other
Speaker 7: side of the wall, kind of diagonal from where it was,
Speaker 7: and I think that's pretty cool. It's kind of hollow ground.
Speaker 1: In a way.
Speaker 4: Remember it had been over a dozen years since Pat
Speaker 4: had left his locker, so over those years a number
Speaker 4: of other players use that locker.
Speaker 7: Pat's final year in the locker room was two thousand
Speaker 7: and one, so every year after that, I would kind
Speaker 7: of look to see who had that locker, and I'd
Speaker 7: make it a point to go up to him and say, Hey,
Speaker 7: you know who's locker you are sitting in, And they're like,
Speaker 7: who said Pat Tillman. Some of them looked at me
Speaker 7: like I was.
Speaker 3: Nuts, Like what this is Pat's locker?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: Some that come to mind, Gabe Watson, former defensive tackle.
Speaker 20: O Mahandro told me, you share the same locker that
Speaker 20: Pat Tillman had. I'm like, are you serious? You know
Speaker 20: you hear the stories behind them, and there's only a
Speaker 20: few people that can say I shared the same locker.
Speaker 20: It's just honored to just be in any company with them.
Speaker 7: John Fullington was a reserve offensive lineman who was the
Speaker 7: final occupant of Pat's locker, and he was genuinely touched.
Speaker 4: I told him, and.
Speaker 7: He he was just like, I'm honored if he didn't
Speaker 7: know what to say. So, you know, you see guys
Speaker 7: that maybe had that locker, then you see guys that
Speaker 7: in future years will walk past that locker and you
Speaker 7: kind of get the idea of what they might feel
Speaker 7: about it.
Speaker 4: You know, the first time you see Pat's locker on display,
Speaker 4: and as someone who sees it on a daily basis now,
Speaker 4: it is a heck of a first impression that makes
Speaker 4: for a lasting impression. Here's VP and meter relations Mark Dalton,
Speaker 4: followed by former Cardinals Larry Centers and Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 9: When you get to that spot, it's almost a universal reaction.
Speaker 9: People just stop and conversation ceases and they just take
Speaker 9: it in and there's like a solemn moment of reflection,
Speaker 9: which is really cool.
Speaker 11: Keeping his legacy alive. I think that's a big step
Speaker 11: in the right direction. You know, the generations go on,
Speaker 11: and the people, the players come and the players go.
Speaker 11: But to see him immortalize in that way and appreciated
Speaker 11: by the organization, I think that's a really good move
Speaker 11: of the team.
Speaker 8: It's a reminder as a player that's leaving out of
Speaker 8: the locker room going to the practice field, here's someone
Speaker 8: that was dedicated, committed to excellence in whatever he did.
Speaker 8: Just let us do the same thing and take it
Speaker 8: to the field today and be our very best. So
Speaker 8: it comes as a reminder of striving for excellence.
Speaker 7: Each time a guy walks by, they're gonna see Pat
Speaker 7: and his locker there, and remember, you know, hey, you
Speaker 7: could be having a crappy day. You could be complaining
Speaker 7: about little things, and then you see that and you
Speaker 7: check yourself a little bit. Say, Okay, there's thousands upon
Speaker 7: thousands of men and women all over the world serving
Speaker 7: our country, and you know they can't afford to have
Speaker 7: a bad day. We can afford to have a bad day.
Speaker 3: So you've got it pretty good.
Speaker 4: In the NFL, everyone is looking for impact players in
Speaker 4: Cardinals team history, and that is going back more than
Speaker 4: a century. Not a single player on the field and
Speaker 4: off combined is at a bigger impact than Pat Tillman.
Speaker 10: Pat Tillman was all about team and if you can
Speaker 10: walk past that and not get something inside of you turning,
Speaker 10: we got some issues.
Speaker 3: Go back to the whole idea of you know, it's
Speaker 3: not what you say in life, it's what you do.
Speaker 3: And we can all talk, but ultimately it's what we do.
Speaker 3: And I think the lasting legacy of Pat Tillman is
Speaker 3: this is someone who did, who believed in something and
Speaker 3: was willing to risk his life for it.
Speaker 4: That's voice of the Cardinals day pass preceded by former
Speaker 4: Cardinals linebacker Mark Maddox make an impact today When they
Speaker 4: see Pat Tillman's locker, it says, challenge yourself to do
Speaker 4: as much with your life as Pat did in his
Speaker 4: twenty seven years. To me, that's what Pat's locker stands for,
Speaker 4: and that's why it still stands today for all to see.
Speaker 6: To me, when they keep his locker alive and his
Speaker 6: legend alive there, it's telling the players to like live
Speaker 6: your trueness, to be who you are, and like, hey,
Speaker 6: you know, don't go against the grain just because you
Speaker 6: want to go against the grain. But if you have
Speaker 6: a feeling and it's a thought and it's something you believe,
Speaker 6: in and if it's against the grain, do it and
Speaker 6: trust yourself, because Pat was like that.
Speaker 4: And there you have it, Cardinals, Folktales, legendary locker, the
Speaker 4: one locker that will never change nameplates, the same locker
Speaker 4: where we used to witness Pat reclined between practices, taking
Speaker 4: a snooze to refresh for what was next. And that's
Speaker 4: just one tribute to Pat's greatness that seemingly everyone has
Speaker 4: a story. In fact, I'll share a quick one with
Speaker 4: you here. I knew a guy at Asu, went to
Speaker 4: school with him, and he told me years later that
Speaker 4: he was Pat's next door neighbor for a spell. One
Speaker 4: night he got home from work, he pulled into his
Speaker 4: driveway and he couldn't help but notice there's Pat on
Speaker 4: his roof. His buddy of mine gets out of his car.
Speaker 4: He's half stupefied and he yells out, ay, Pat, what
Speaker 4: are you doing on your roof? And Pat looked at him,
Speaker 4: just watching the sunset, dude, just watching the sunset. And
Speaker 4: that was Pat. He took nothing for granted, and he
Speaker 4: inspired others to do the same. But how do you
Speaker 4: convey that, how do you pass that along? How do
Speaker 4: you honor that?
Speaker 18: Well?
Speaker 4: The Cardinals do just that every day by putting Pat's
Speaker 4: locker on display at their training facility. Thanks for joining
Speaker 4: us everyone. I'm Paul KELVC. This has been Cardinals Folktales
Speaker 4: Legendary Locker presented by seventy two Soul. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: You know it's stories like that, and so many people
Speaker 4: have stories regarding Pat Tillman. That's how his legacy lives
Speaker 4: on today. If you go to the Pat Tillman Foundation
Speaker 4: website and they stayed out Pat's life and principles and service,
Speaker 4: that's his true legacy. How Pat's family and friends started
Speaker 4: the Pat Tillman Foundation to carry forward that legacy. If
Speaker 4: you go two days after his passing, it was the
Speaker 4: NFL Draft two thousand and then Commissioner Paul Tagliboo wore
Speaker 4: a black ribbon with Tilman's name on it and a
Speaker 4: helmet pin with his number forty. And there was Paul
Speaker 4: Taglibou while flanked by five Marines in Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 4: and he told the audience quote, Pat Tillman personified the
Speaker 4: best values of Americans and the National Football League. And
Speaker 4: we know Pat's legacy is personified by Pat's Run, which
Speaker 4: is held annually in tamp And when we come back,
Speaker 4: we'll bring back and talk with Ron Wolfley, who covered
Speaker 4: Pat watched all those games from Sun Devil Stadium, both
Speaker 4: ASU and the Cardinals. As we continue with this encore
Speaker 4: presentation of Cardinals Folk Tales Legendary Locker presented by Santan
Speaker 4: four in Gilbert, and welcome back to this very special
Speaker 4: edition of the Big Red Rage, Our Cardinals Folk Tales
Speaker 4: Legendary Locker Edition, all presented by Santan Ford in Gilbert,
Speaker 4: Paul Kelvic, Ron wolf Ley and the story behind the
Speaker 4: saving literally saving Pat Tillman's locker from a certain destruction
Speaker 4: within seconds, wolf we heard the story man of our
Speaker 4: own executive producer, a longtime producer for the Cardinals, Jim
Speaker 4: al Mahandro. He saw a picture posted by Darren Urban
Speaker 4: of the renovation of the Cardinals locker room and he
Speaker 4: just ran a four three forty out of the restaurant
Speaker 4: where he's having lunch, and if he would hit one
Speaker 4: more stoplight, he probably wouldn't be able to make it
Speaker 4: in time back into that locker room to save Pat
Speaker 4: Tillman's locker. And as we say, there's fifty three players
Speaker 4: on an NFL active roster. And then the Cardinals have
Speaker 4: designated their fifty fourth locker where the name plate will
Speaker 4: never change. It is behind glass. And it's quite a
Speaker 4: story as to as it all transpired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Paulie, you know what's incredible you stop and think
Speaker 1: about it, man, the fact that Jim Almahandro would be
Speaker 1: the guy, he would be the guy that would actually
Speaker 1: burst in and save Pat Tillman's locker. You know what
Speaker 1: a historian he is. He's the best game day producer
Speaker 1: on the face of the planet. Yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: this guy is a historian man for Cardinal football and
Speaker 1: the fact that it was him who actually came in
Speaker 1: and stopped them from literally cutting right into that locker
Speaker 1: and everything that has happened to that locker. Since that's
Speaker 1: exactly what a folktale is, man, this is a folk
Speaker 1: tale about a folk tale, legendary acts by human beings.
Speaker 4: You know, players to this day see it for the
Speaker 4: first time and it stops them in their tracks. Yes,
Speaker 4: JJ Watt, most recently when he showed up, he stopped
Speaker 4: that very locker. Dennis Gardek. We've talked to gard Deck
Speaker 4: the Barbarian about it, have we not? Wolts you know,
Speaker 4: he current players, you know, most of them, they're so young,
Speaker 4: they've only read books about Pat Tillman. But it's what
Speaker 4: that locker says to them, and to listen to them
Speaker 4: tell it Wolf. It essentially means, Okay, can you get
Speaker 4: as much out of your life out of your career
Speaker 4: that Pat Tilman did? A guy who was barely drafted
Speaker 4: a seventh rounder and then went on to achieve so much,
Speaker 4: not only in football, but obviously in life itself.
Speaker 1: You know, I love that, Paully. That is a great thought,
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. You know, you think of
Speaker 1: Pat Tillman though the statue, of course, is what I
Speaker 1: think of at State Farm Stadium and the Tilman Tunnel
Speaker 1: at ASU, and you know, just the legendary impact that
Speaker 1: this has had on so many football players and so
Speaker 1: many Americans. The ultimate sacrifice of Pat Tillman and what
Speaker 1: he did for this country and for everyone who serves
Speaker 1: this country, and for his teammates as well. It's truly inspiring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great point about the statue of the Tilman.
Speaker 4: How about the bridge and the Arizona Nevada border named
Speaker 4: after Pat Tillman. The USO Centers worldwide. I know it
Speaker 4: was a couple of years ago. I was like the
Speaker 4: fifth assistant coach for my son's little league team. Right,
Speaker 4: everyone had to introduce themselves and they said, what do
Speaker 4: you do for a living? And okay, and who have
Speaker 4: you interviewed? Who have you interviewed? And I named Larry Fitzgerald,
Speaker 4: Randy Johnson, old timers like Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Lebron James.
Speaker 4: But when I named Pat Tillman, everyone stopped and everyone
Speaker 4: wanted to know more about Pat Tillman. That's how his
Speaker 4: name resonates even today.
Speaker 1: Truly, just an incredible human being. Paully. I know that
Speaker 1: you and I over the years, of course, have talked
Speaker 1: about our relationship just knowing Pat Tillman from time to time,
Speaker 1: and the respect and the regard that we have for
Speaker 1: him can't be measured with human hands.
Speaker 4: When my son was born, actually I bought him a jersey.
Speaker 4: It's the only jersey I've ever purchased for him, and
Speaker 4: it's a Pat Tillman jersey because it's about so much
Speaker 4: more than football. Football did not define Pat as he
Speaker 4: went onto service kind Trina's status now as an American hero,
Speaker 4: I hope everyone enjoyed that Cardinals Folk Tales Legendary Lockers special.
Speaker 4: Thanks Jim Amhandro, Ron Wolfley on Paul KELVC. This has
Speaker 4: been the Big Red Rage presented by santan Ford in Gilbert.
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