Speaker 1: Welcome back to all the smoke. Man. We got someone.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about this because I grew up a
Speaker 2: forty nine Er fan. My dad grew up a Ram fan,
Speaker 2: and this was the guy on the Rams. They had
Speaker 2: the same hair too, Jack, and they both bald, and
Speaker 2: they both and they both bald now Jackson, I don't
Speaker 2: know if that, if that has anything to do, but
Speaker 2: six time Pro bowler, five time first team All Pro,
Speaker 2: theyre of the Year in eighty six offensive rookie and
Speaker 2: eighty three single season record holder for twenty one hundred
Speaker 2: and five yards, and he was a big back. Jack
Speaker 2: six three two twenty real one. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 2: the legendary Eric Dickerson. Man, I'm decided I had a time.
Speaker 2: I don't really tell my dad too much. If he
Speaker 2: catches the show, he catches the show. But Mike Tyson
Speaker 2: and Eric Dickerson are his two favorite people. So I
Speaker 2: told him, and he couldn't believe it. But so shout
Speaker 2: out to Pops and again, man, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: I tell you hello.
Speaker 2: Definitely, how's life? I know you play a lot of golf.
Speaker 2: What's going on with you these days?
Speaker 3: Look good man? Man, I'm trying to maintain b it's tulping.
Speaker 3: You get old. I tell you, y'all find out one
Speaker 3: day on the way it's good. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: I just came over here from a thing I do
Speaker 3: for the Rams with some kids, a little football camp.
Speaker 3: I do a radio show during the football season, work
Speaker 3: for the team. But you know, life is good. I mean,
Speaker 3: especially still living in LA after all these years.
Speaker 2: Last season sakwon Barkley, you had made some comments. Some
Speaker 2: people say, hey, it's just a competitor and you some
Speaker 2: people took it a different way. He was on the
Speaker 2: heels of the rushing record, and you had some thoughts
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: As you kind of sit.
Speaker 2: Here today, remove from the situation, how do you look
Speaker 2: back on that experience.
Speaker 3: It's funny people making these assumptions and saying things I
Speaker 3: didn't say. So Shady McCoy said something I did not say.
Speaker 3: Pac Man Jones said something I did not say. Matter
Speaker 3: of fact, I kind of you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't get on social media a lot, but I made
Speaker 3: a comment about it, and I saw Shady at the
Speaker 3: Super Bowl and I said, man, let me explain something to you. First,
Speaker 3: of all records or records and I don't think anybody
Speaker 3: wants their record broke.
Speaker 1: Say I.
Speaker 3: I would never hate on another running back. That's just
Speaker 3: not me. I mean, I broke the record in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty four. Oh J did in seventy three. He did
Speaker 3: in fourteen games. I did in fifteen games, one extra game.
Speaker 3: And I've always said that I always give him that
Speaker 3: acknowledgement because he's my favorite player. That's why I played
Speaker 3: the position running back. And I said, if you break
Speaker 3: the record, he breaks it, do I want to break it?
Speaker 1: No? I mean, I'm not excuse me, I'm not no bitch.
Speaker 3: I'm not why. I love the guy that's gonna go like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, we're gonna be doing Chile. Don't break the record.
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 3: I've always said this, if somebody breaks my record, I
Speaker 3: want to be my son. That's it, right, And if
Speaker 3: somebody breaks it, I ain't gonna lose no sleepover. I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean I said it was like it was like
Speaker 3: petty stuff, like I'm hating on him. Like I'm not
Speaker 3: hating I'm pulling for him because when he got to
Speaker 3: the Giants, never got to the Giants. And I kept saying,
Speaker 3: this boy never reached his potential there, and when he
Speaker 3: went to Philly, I say, finally he'll get a chance
Speaker 3: to show what he can really do. So I was
Speaker 3: happy for him. So see, that's just that's the misconception
Speaker 3: of social media and people saying Steph, they really don't
Speaker 3: know anything about because anybody know me. No, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: tell you what I think. My dad said the truth
Speaker 3: and popular something, but it's the truth, and that's just
Speaker 3: the truth.
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm glad you get a chance to
Speaker 1: speak your truth. You mentioned O J.
Speaker 2: Simpson arguably be one of the greatest running backs of
Speaker 2: all time. Did you ever get a chance to meet him?
Speaker 2: Did he ever mentor you in any kind of way?
Speaker 1: Did I meet? That's my guy? Yeah, man, matter face.
Speaker 3: After I first met OJ, when I came to California,
Speaker 3: I got recruited by usc IF. I'm from the smartest
Speaker 3: first time I have on the plane coming my recruiting
Speaker 3: right a small town. Two thousand people came on my
Speaker 3: visits and me and some other kids on the field
Speaker 3: and we saw Oja standing over there because he was
Speaker 3: playing in the Rose Boy They're playing Michigan. I was like, man,
Speaker 3: I want to say something. OJ said, I try to
Speaker 3: get the guy. And I said, man, I gotta go
Speaker 3: say something. And I was shot, but I had to
Speaker 3: and I walked he I say, I'm missus Simpson and
Speaker 3: say how you doing. I said, my name is so
Speaker 3: what you to ask her? Dickerson? I'm from Texas, seely Texas,
Speaker 3: I said the recruiting I said, yes, sir, what position?
Speaker 1: I say, running back? You're my favorite player.
Speaker 3: Tell them I had two thoush and yards twice in
Speaker 3: high school and so yeah, I said, yeah, I said,
Speaker 3: the one day I like to break your record. It's
Speaker 3: a good level. Yeah, good leuvel day, young man. And
Speaker 3: you know, he didn't remember we talked about it. But
Speaker 3: you know, one of my favorite people, OJ, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not with the other other stuff. And I saw
Speaker 3: him about two three months before he passed away. I
Speaker 3: was in Las Vegas. We played golf together when i'd
Speaker 3: go to Vegas. But you know, the OJ that I knew,
Speaker 3: you know, was a really good, funny guy.
Speaker 1: The other stuff, you know, yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 2: You played against a lotted a lot of loaded boxes.
Speaker 2: Some people say you didn't play with the you know,
Speaker 2: never got a chance to play with an elite quarterback.
Speaker 2: Or even offense, and that sort when you look back
Speaker 2: on your career and see what you were able to
Speaker 2: achieve without really a passing game around you, knowing that
Speaker 2: they were keying on you every single game, what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Well, you're right, I played against a lot of eight
Speaker 3: and nine nine in fronts. I mean, it was no fun,
Speaker 3: let me tell you that. But six K block eight,
Speaker 3: you know, six K black nine, it's impossible, and it
Speaker 3: comes to the point you have to make people miss
Speaker 3: and I just can't.
Speaker 1: You can't make up that excuse.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was a big back, I was fast,
Speaker 3: I was you know, I was a track guy. But
Speaker 3: that's just the hand I was dealt.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: People said, oh, he didn't want a Super Bowl and
Speaker 3: I didn't have that kind of team. I mean when
Speaker 3: I when I left the Colts and men left the Rams,
Speaker 3: I want to go to the Redskins because my cousin
Speaker 3: dectmentally was that, Okay, that's where I wanted to go.
Speaker 3: And he called me said, man, okay, sit man, I
Speaker 3: heard we're trying to get you, like I know, he said,
Speaker 3: I know, he said, Man, they didn't let that happen.
Speaker 3: That's too much like right, and they want a super
Speaker 3: Bowl that year. They didn't let it happen.
Speaker 1: Said that Doug Walliams back there, Yeah, Doug was that.
Speaker 1: That was a quarterback that was quote, what do your
Speaker 1: thoughts on?
Speaker 2: Kind of like because you were obviously a superstar of
Speaker 2: your time and but in today's game, stuper tars can
Speaker 2: kind of dictate what the money is where they want
Speaker 2: to go. Back then, you guys didn't really have that
Speaker 2: voice or put the stand on.
Speaker 3: It was stuck. Stuck, I mean stuck. Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 3: When I came out, I was I was the second pick.
Speaker 3: John was the first pick.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: I had a six hundred thousand dollars signing bonus. My
Speaker 3: Saturday was one fifth d and I think John was
Speaker 3: making up a million dollars. But the funny thing was
Speaker 3: when I got traded, I had to give my signing
Speaker 3: bones back to the Rams. Everybody still that when they
Speaker 3: say that, Yeah, so I never really got.
Speaker 1: A signing box from them, and we had to pay
Speaker 1: that money that I get back to them.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to be a forgivable balloon. That's what
Speaker 3: they played, called up forgivable belong. They didn't forgive it
Speaker 3: when I got traded and I probably could have fought.
Speaker 2: It, but I was sold. But they traded you, they
Speaker 2: traded me, and you had to give them money and
Speaker 2: I had I read I never heard no shit.
Speaker 3: Like that, So I gave I had to give their
Speaker 3: money back to them, and it was. It was a
Speaker 3: bad deal with the before the contract that it was.
Speaker 3: The Rams were one of the cheapest team in the league.
Speaker 3: I mean, but did I left playing for him?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Because I had a lot of guys on the team.
Speaker 3: We were close knit football team. We had the offensive line,
Speaker 3: uh that was second to one of the Redskins. We
Speaker 3: didn't have a great quarterback, but we had to run
Speaker 3: a game. And the thing was that we were gonna
Speaker 3: pounce you with the running game. You know, if you
Speaker 3: couldn't stop it, you couldn't stop it.
Speaker 2: And a January twenty twenty two interview with The New
Speaker 2: York Times, you discover us possibly suffering from CTE.
Speaker 1: Where are you at with that? Is that something that's Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, of course, I mean I'm not the same guy.
Speaker 3: I wasn't, like, you know, even after I retired, you know,
Speaker 3: you don't know, I mean, like right now, I got
Speaker 3: I got the own sense of Parkinson's. I gotta take
Speaker 3: a medication for Parkinson's. I'm gonna tell you this. The
Speaker 3: sad thing about this whole deal is that with the NFL,
Speaker 3: and look, I love playing I just love playing football,
Speaker 3: and the NFL makes you hate the NFL where they
Speaker 3: treat the players, especially black players, like a lot of
Speaker 3: you probably never heard you ever heard of race on me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that they said that they raced on the
Speaker 1: black rationed on us. Break that down though, because I
Speaker 1: remember reading about that.
Speaker 3: So what they'll do. What they'll say is, Okay, we
Speaker 3: take the black player and white player. The white player
Speaker 3: was already smart. The black player was not smart already,
Speaker 3: so if he comes down, the white players should get
Speaker 3: paid by the black players shouldn't get because he was
Speaker 3: already dumb.
Speaker 1: Basically, he was already kind of dumb. And this wasn't
Speaker 1: even that long ago though.
Speaker 3: Oh, this was only this was like five years ago.
Speaker 3: And they they said, the OI won't do it again.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like when when we get hurt, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's like like right now, you know, it's
Speaker 3: in the case with them, for for for the Parkinson's
Speaker 3: and c t E. And we all get get so
Speaker 3: many s that get denied. Give a great example, my
Speaker 3: friend Christian a choir, we're just playing. I was teasing
Speaker 3: by it the other day because he got that accent
Speaker 3: and so he's going for a ct E case and
Speaker 3: and the race Norman thing came in saying that, well
Speaker 3: he's Nigerian, so maybe he couldn't speak good any he
Speaker 3: don't understand. I was teaching, I said, I was teaving.
Speaker 3: I said, maybe they're right, but but then that's just
Speaker 3: some of the stuff.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: It's great game, but it's the way they treat the
Speaker 3: black players. Man, it's horrible. I just got to say it. Man,
Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a bad look. And not not everybody,
Speaker 3: but it's just a bad look. It really is.
Speaker 2: I mean, to this day to think that's still the
Speaker 2: I mean, I've to see, we can see what the
Speaker 2: world is going through.
Speaker 1: But to see that kind.
Speaker 2: Of thinking in that thought in twenty twenty and beyond
Speaker 2: is insane.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you
Speaker 3: this question. I can ask a question. Yes, okay, y'all
Speaker 3: have health care, Yes, the life, the life, life and
Speaker 3: family family too, family kids to twenty five capsire, our
Speaker 3: kids and yeah, y'all got a good pension and everything. Okay,
Speaker 3: let me just give you an example. Let me give
Speaker 3: an example for football. Okay, Deacon Jones. Deacon Jones passed
Speaker 3: about ten years ago something like that. So I would
Speaker 3: to see d wait before he was in the hospital
Speaker 3: for it was sick. And if he med and him talk,
Speaker 3: You said, what's your pension? I said, Man, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I say, you could probably be what fifteen hundred a month?
Speaker 3: He said, you know what I get, Eric, I played
Speaker 3: fifteen years. I get two hundred fifty dollars a month.
Speaker 3: That's what I get. Two hundred fifty dollars, say I
Speaker 3: taket so they can have it. We have no health
Speaker 3: care like players like me. I pay for my own
Speaker 3: health care. You have to lead you pay for your
Speaker 3: own healthcare. Now the players have health care five years,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 1: While they're in the league of post career.
Speaker 3: Post career like say, say you retired thirty, You got
Speaker 3: this ship for five years.
Speaker 1: That's it. And it is not your family or nobody else.
Speaker 1: How many years you got to play.
Speaker 3: To good Pincher, you got to play four years and
Speaker 3: three games is five. Yeah, but the Pincher that it's better.
Speaker 3: It's better for the players now. But it's horrible. When
Speaker 3: I say horrible for us, oh man, it's it's seven
Speaker 3: hundred dollars guys who played like fourteen years right now
Speaker 3: and played in my air, like the nineties, eighties and nineties,
Speaker 3: you know, thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 4: Chris Pon Cowrie did a great job. They they went
Speaker 4: back and did it with all the older guys that's
Speaker 4: still alive. But they did it for the older guys.
Speaker 4: They all getting on sure the same assurance we got
Speaker 4: all get the older guys getting in now.
Speaker 1: Man, they switched it up because.
Speaker 3: It is really really sad they're all getting say this,
Speaker 3: and I'm not trying to, you know, make it bad
Speaker 3: like talk about the NFL like it. It's some good
Speaker 3: things they've done, some bad things they've done. I did
Speaker 3: an interview with the white with this white reporter and
Speaker 3: and he says, Eric, you said you probably know I'm white,
Speaker 3: so I can tell you white. Yeah, I'm talking on
Speaker 3: the phone with him. He said, let me tell you.
Speaker 3: This is tell I'm gonna tell you what that not
Speaker 3: what I but I don't know what I've heard and
Speaker 3: what I know as a reporter. I said, okay. He said,
Speaker 3: what's the NFL eighty percent black? I say seven to
Speaker 3: eighty percent black. He said, now let me say this.
Speaker 3: I said, okay. He said, if the NFL was eighty
Speaker 3: percent of white, y'all have great insurance. I would have
Speaker 3: great healthcare.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, I know that. No secret.
Speaker 3: That's just sad to say, though. And he said, he said,
Speaker 3: and that's what he said. He said, isn't that's sad
Speaker 3: I have to say it like that. I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's sad to say it.
Speaker 1: It's the truth.
Speaker 2: I got a question in your time, was it more
Speaker 2: the league or was it more of the good old
Speaker 2: boys club of the owners.
Speaker 1: It's still a good old boys club. Man.
Speaker 3: They didn't have no black owners. They're not having no
Speaker 3: no no. Like I think magic owns. They're not having
Speaker 3: you no black owned. Yeah, I am, you're not having it.
Speaker 3: I got it. I think a couple of you guys
Speaker 3: on football team. Another guy that was trying to buy
Speaker 3: a football team, and he was talking to me about
Speaker 3: I said, let me tell you something. I said, you
Speaker 3: want to me, I said, don't go in there, say
Speaker 3: you're trying to help the players. He said, I said that.
Speaker 3: I said, you screwed up. He said I could tell.
Speaker 3: He said, I could tell I screwed I said, you
Speaker 3: don't say that. You're trying to have to play. It's
Speaker 3: not about the players. It's about the money they can make.
Speaker 3: That's insane.
Speaker 4: They'll give a couple of athletes and rappers like a
Speaker 4: little percentage of the teams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can point take pictures zero zero yeah, zero
Speaker 1: zero one. No full ownership? What nah?
Speaker 2: The good thing to me and I don't wish that.
Speaker 2: I know when that the good old boys, if your generation,
Speaker 2: those guys are passing on.
Speaker 3: Yep, but it's still going. But they passed, they passed
Speaker 3: on their kids, and it's really good that mentality.
Speaker 1: Don't leave. It's still it's still a good old boys situation.
Speaker 4: Silly Texas, seventy miles western Houston. What was football like?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm a lot younger, and you know the
Speaker 4: football was always big? Was I growing up in Texas?
Speaker 4: You know that Friday night life that's really big? Was
Speaker 4: it like that when you was coming up?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, you know football in my little hometown. You
Speaker 3: talking about the town of it was fifty people that
Speaker 3: my graduating class. Shut the whole town down, Shut the
Speaker 3: whole time down. Let's just one to eight. It was two, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was two. A football we won once stayed. My
Speaker 3: senior year, we played Wiley, the wily Wildcats up at
Speaker 3: Baylor Stadium. Matter of fact, Uh, they had won the
Speaker 3: year before and they were all white and we were
Speaker 3: black and white opposedly black, and so I won't forget.
Speaker 3: We were trying to get a place for us to play,
Speaker 3: and they said, we can't blame these black families up
Speaker 3: that far. So we played in wild and I forget
Speaker 3: the first Cup places the conus the N word out there,
Speaker 3: you know, and I laugh, I'm like, these little white
Speaker 3: boys the hell out of them. Yeah, I think forty
Speaker 3: two to twenty with the final score. I still remember,
Speaker 3: don't know how, but we be But man football it's big,
Speaker 3: that's still and that's you know, you know, you know
Speaker 3: Texas football.
Speaker 1: It's no joke. You go to Texas and there's these
Speaker 1: these high school stadiums up ninety million. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: You spoke on something that that I had a lot
Speaker 2: of trouble with in my upbringing, racism, And obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: there are the times now where you could smile and
Speaker 2: laugh at it. But in the in the moment, you
Speaker 2: faced a lot of racism. Uh, can you talk to.
Speaker 1: Us about it? And what what were the some of
Speaker 1: the depths of racism you've seen? Oh? Man, it's it's deep.
Speaker 3: I mean I think about what I've dealt with, but
Speaker 3: I think about like people like Jim Brown and those
Speaker 3: guys that played in that era, the night Train Lane
Speaker 3: and you know, in the baseball Jackie Robinson. That was
Speaker 3: you know, way more, you know than what I dealt with.
Speaker 3: But it was bad, It really was. I mean, you'd
Speaker 3: get the you'd get the letters and the mail. You know,
Speaker 3: you you you you niggas, y'all need to just play
Speaker 3: for free, you know. Yeah, but a bunch of monkeys. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I got them kind of letters. I don't forgive. When
Speaker 3: I went to when I went to Indiana, I got
Speaker 3: a bunch of hate mail from every sins of California,
Speaker 3: you know, because I left, and I didn't want to leave,
Speaker 3: but I you know, money, So anyway, I got a
Speaker 3: lot of hate mail. But the thing I think that
Speaker 3: really put me out with Indianapolis and I didn't want
Speaker 3: to go to indian I'm gonna tell how I tell
Speaker 3: you that I didn't want to go to India. That
Speaker 3: was not my choice. My head coach was there. I
Speaker 3: liked Ron Meyer and he always told me. He said,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll get you paid. I'll make you a
Speaker 3: million that one day when I was in college, you
Speaker 3: said that to me. So I get to Indy. And
Speaker 3: that's by my last year that they fired him. It
Speaker 3: was a bad situation. Ersay was not a good person.
Speaker 3: Jim irsay, I'm not Jimmy was a good person. It's
Speaker 3: old man bobur say. What they did was never forget it.
Speaker 3: And this is where I'm like, I'm done with this place.
Speaker 3: You know, you hang a banner over the state, like
Speaker 3: you know, over the rail. They hung a banner over
Speaker 3: the rail with a picture of a black baby and
Speaker 3: any sitting position with twenty nine with money on one side,
Speaker 3: stack of water melons on the other, fleeting fried chicken,
Speaker 3: and let that stay up there till almost half time
Speaker 3: after halftime. And I never forget the girl I was dating,
Speaker 3: a sister girl and we still were best friends to day,
Speaker 3: named Holly, and I met, you know, after you know
Speaker 3: the game, you meet your girl come down.
Speaker 1: She was crying. Every said, how could you eat? And
Speaker 1: that's your home stadium, that's my home state, that's my
Speaker 1: home state.
Speaker 3: So I could you even play with that? I said,
Speaker 3: you know, you just got to kind of deal with it.
Speaker 3: And I tell the first time I saw a clan
Speaker 3: rally was in Indianapolis, you know, and look.
Speaker 4: They still have it every the dude and the Grand
Speaker 4: Marshall still lives in Indiana really right everywhere.
Speaker 1: And all that.
Speaker 3: That's where they happened. I mean, it was a trip
Speaker 3: to me. I mean, it's just that's a whole different
Speaker 3: world out there. I mean it maybe it changed some,
Speaker 3: but I know what I saw. And you know, the
Speaker 3: thing is funny. It's funny how they want us to
Speaker 3: get over it.
Speaker 1: You know, you're the bigger person. Get to get over
Speaker 1: get over it. I mean, you gotta understand me. I was.
Speaker 3: I was a di was legally adopted by my great
Speaker 3: great art. She was born in nineteen oh four, and
Speaker 3: she did not want me dating no white girls back then.
Speaker 1: They said.
Speaker 3: She said, I'm gonna tell you their Eric said two
Speaker 3: things don't live along in this world. Say on't mother,
Speaker 3: And she was fun I said, what I just see
Speaker 3: it like she said that. She said, dollarsy chase cars
Speaker 3: and niggas rolls and chase white they don't live along
Speaker 3: in this world. She said, I've seen the evil things
Speaker 3: white men do. She said, I've seen it. I see
Speaker 3: them trying father, I see them cutting's private off, sticking.
Speaker 1: That's South.
Speaker 3: You know when you think when you were a kid,
Speaker 3: I'm like that that couldn't happen, you know, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I didn't say I didn't believe it, but it was
Speaker 3: just hard to fathom that. But she had saw those
Speaker 3: kind of things, and you know, the racism thing to
Speaker 3: be just it's just ignorant.
Speaker 4: Did you come across a plug guy named June James
Speaker 4: when he was in.
Speaker 1: For the coach June James. His name was like baby
Speaker 1: June James. I can't remember.
Speaker 4: So he died in a car accident when he was
Speaker 4: playing for the Coats around the time. One of my
Speaker 4: first cousins, uh me and Marcus Bill's first cousin. He
Speaker 4: was our first family member of the player to make
Speaker 4: professional sports. But he was y'all was on the same team,
Speaker 4: was it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: He was on your team? I know we had we
Speaker 3: had a couple players that diamond. One player got shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah he died in a car accident. Really yeah yeah, Man.
Speaker 4: Speak about the booster coach in Texas and all the
Speaker 4: pressure that Clarence Share put on you to go to Texas.
Speaker 1: And I ain't know about Clarence. She got the smartest
Speaker 1: people around. Oh man. Uh yeah.
Speaker 3: They wanted me to go to Texas, A and M
Speaker 3: in the see the Aga town, I mess Aga Town
Speaker 3: and never forget you know, they recruited me heavily, real hard,
Speaker 3: and I committed to them one time. Man, but I
Speaker 3: didn't want to go to an M. I mean I didn't.
Speaker 3: And the reason I didn't want to go to that
Speaker 3: I was a good, good school. My cousin went there
Speaker 3: and played foot bottom and I told them I should
Speaker 3: go there because I liked them at this point. But
Speaker 3: you know, they had them yeale leaders. They had no cheerleaders.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of girls there. I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be on no damn year leaders.
Speaker 1: I want some cheerleaders. So but they made I forget that.
Speaker 3: They came to mind, not him, but they some boosters
Speaker 3: came to my house, never forget it. And my mother,
Speaker 3: my real mom, and my lady who died my great aunt.
Speaker 3: They were in the in the house and said, come in,
Speaker 3: let me talk to you. I said, yes, ma'am. She said,
Speaker 3: let me tell you something. She said, them white folks
Speaker 3: got a briefcase and they were fifty thousand dollars in it.
Speaker 3: So I never seen that much money in my whole life.
Speaker 3: She said, but you don't want to go to this school.
Speaker 3: Don't tell me any taking these people's money. And I
Speaker 3: wasn't just I don't think I want to go there.
Speaker 3: She said, we ain't taking any money, because I mean,
Speaker 3: I got to say my mother she was, She was
Speaker 3: the one who been Tegrian and she really was. And
Speaker 3: I couldn't do that. I just I didn't want to
Speaker 3: go down and.
Speaker 1: Them off of this offer.
Speaker 4: You stepped down the house in west View the white
Speaker 4: party of the white part of Stiling and a few
Speaker 4: had a few head of cattle.
Speaker 1: Guy.
Speaker 4: They giving away Cattley want your now, nobody giving away
Speaker 4: cattle now money.
Speaker 1: That's the money right now. I ain't given them, ain't
Speaker 1: no count. I really want you to do that.
Speaker 4: Man, you originally committed to texting them, didn't committed. Story
Speaker 4: goes They kept the whip. Is it true, you didn't
Speaker 4: go to them because of the school with seven per cent. Guys,
Speaker 4: that's absolutely true. Right, that's absolutely true. Okay, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: That's the truth. I mean I think that, I mean
Speaker 1: that was the right choice. Who would do that? Who
Speaker 1: would do that? All them?
Speaker 2: Boyd that phield slipped the other way. I just would
Speaker 2: have went to school. Fuck the pros straight up. Seventy
Speaker 2: thirty seventy So you kept the whip that and them?
Speaker 2: Are you gonna pass that again?
Speaker 1: Transam? The trans am? Well, let me tell even the
Speaker 1: trains got it? No, I've seen pictures there. It is
Speaker 1: right there, Yes, sir, little hair we're walking out of
Speaker 1: a restaurant there and see what you call the hair
Speaker 1: back then?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know smoking the bandit yeah, t top T
Speaker 3: top t T top.
Speaker 1: No. I don't have that car any more. Matter of fact.
Speaker 3: When I my uh, I think going into my senior year,
Speaker 3: I got a I got a car Vette, and then
Speaker 3: I gave my best friend in that car and ended
Speaker 3: up getting stolen. But how the car did it? You
Speaker 3: know the story? The car came about? So the car
Speaker 3: came about. I used to go down to Houston see
Speaker 3: this car place called Leo Johnigan's it's like looking look
Speaker 3: at the cars and look at that car. Go down
Speaker 3: there like every couple of weeks just to look at it.
Speaker 3: Look look at it was on the showroom floor, showroom floor.
Speaker 3: I know what that feels like, just to look at it.
Speaker 3: And you know, and then they heard, you know, they
Speaker 3: told money my step I'll tell my mother. You know,
Speaker 3: they told my mother that I liked the car. So
Speaker 3: I remember one I think it was like a Friday,
Speaker 3: said Eric. She said, we're gonna drive down to Houston
Speaker 3: with me, your grandmother, them down there to look at
Speaker 3: that car. At that the I mean transnd like, okay,
Speaker 3: so go down.
Speaker 1: What are you seventeen eighteen at this point.
Speaker 3: Seventeen seventeen seventeen. So go down look at it. And
Speaker 3: it's like three white men. My real mother, my adopted mother,
Speaker 3: my grandmother was there, and my grandfather was there. So
Speaker 3: they said take the car and take it for a drive.
Speaker 3: I took the car. I take it for a drive
Speaker 3: to come back and I go to kend of Key's
Speaker 3: basically I'll keep it.
Speaker 1: It's yours, oh ship, really, I'm like, it's my it's yours. Man.
Speaker 1: I was excited color color.
Speaker 3: Gold, the gold transit. Yeah, so what happened is so
Speaker 3: matter of fact, but check it.
Speaker 1: It was. It was. It was such big news.
Speaker 3: Let me see that would say a Friday, Monday morning,
Speaker 3: the n C Double A was.
Speaker 1: At my high school. Guy came to my class. I
Speaker 1: was in. I was in. I was in a lab
Speaker 1: class and never forget it. Let me get them keys.
Speaker 3: I came in like that, knock on the door, and
Speaker 3: the teacher said to him till he said, Eric, this
Speaker 3: guy want to speak to you out here. It's different
Speaker 3: here and people walk on campus. And I said, I
Speaker 3: walked out. He said, yeah, Sam, I'm so and so
Speaker 3: from the n Clack my brother n C Double A,
Speaker 3: and I want to talk to you about your trans am.
Speaker 3: You got, I said, okay, I said, well. He talked
Speaker 3: to my mom. I said, uh, And she told me
Speaker 3: somebody come in by to call you about to call you.
Speaker 3: Tell him call me. So sure enough, I said, They
Speaker 3: got to my address. He said, God, how to go
Speaker 3: to the house.
Speaker 1: She let him.
Speaker 3: I had to go to the office and I talked
Speaker 3: to my mother him come to the house. When I
Speaker 3: got home, they were there. He was he was there
Speaker 3: talking to my mother about the car, and he talked, talked, talk,
Speaker 3: Make a long story short. I saw this man every
Speaker 3: day for about I almost say, almost two months, two
Speaker 3: or three months. Every day even sometime it was he
Speaker 3: came to the house so much that he would eat
Speaker 3: with us. He said, I to eat with us and
Speaker 3: then find out and see him. One day, I said, Mama,
Speaker 3: what happened? He said, I'm gonna see he said, Your
Speaker 3: grandmother say she want to see my grandmother grandfather too.
Speaker 3: Your grandmother told that man, if I see you, well,
Speaker 3: if I see anybody from the n C double A
Speaker 3: again at my house or Eric's mom's house, we're gonna
Speaker 3: sue you at the n C double man.
Speaker 1: That was so I'm again, Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I can tell you what happened when I because
Speaker 3: I didn't find this out to later.
Speaker 1: How the car got paid for?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: I asked my mom?
Speaker 3: I said, Mom said the car and I was in
Speaker 3: the pros. How they caught that car come up? She
Speaker 3: didn't know how the car? I said, no, She say,
Speaker 3: what happened is? She said, your grandmother and them they
Speaker 3: have the money for the car. She rode the check
Speaker 3: row the check and and them gave her the cash
Speaker 3: for it, and they can't go back and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I bought that car.
Speaker 1: You know he got that car. She said, that's how
Speaker 1: the car came about it. Yep. So they were smart.
Speaker 4: They knew what they was doing the art of being
Speaker 4: a big back. You talk about how oh J we
Speaker 4: had a big influence on you, but you had any
Speaker 4: other influences when you talk about big running backs.
Speaker 3: Not really, you know. I liked Earl Camel. Earl was
Speaker 3: he was man, he was, he was a beast. I
Speaker 3: liked writing an Earl play. But my guy, and I
Speaker 3: still say to me the greatest backwards OJ. I just
Speaker 3: love watching him play. That is why I played the
Speaker 3: position running back. I mean I never wanted to wear
Speaker 3: anyone else's number. I didn't I want to make my
Speaker 3: own number. I was like, you know, I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be OJ like that, But as a player, he
Speaker 3: was a guy that I loved watching play. And I
Speaker 3: think I like Jim Brown. I didn't see I didn't
Speaker 3: see Jim. I just saw old highlights. Yeah, yeah, washing
Speaker 3: I saw OJ live. What's your philosophy as a rush?
Speaker 3: Are you do a type of Russia that IM go
Speaker 3: off instinct? Are you playing ahead before you get the ball.
Speaker 3: You know what you're gonna do before. I don't think
Speaker 3: any if a player says that they playing certain things,
Speaker 3: you can plan ahead. But it's hard football because it's
Speaker 3: there's so many moving parts. I mean that game you
Speaker 3: get out there like basketball, man, I mean, I can
Speaker 3: tell you this basketball. I felt I could play basketball.
Speaker 3: I know when I'm playing no pro basketball. When I
Speaker 3: watch y'all guys play, it's amazing how fast it is.
Speaker 3: And you know, like a donkey like boom, I'm like, damn,
Speaker 3: I said, go way up there. People think the same
Speaker 3: thing about football. I was what it happens fast like
Speaker 3: for me, Like I said, I'm gonna say, I can
Speaker 3: kind of look through a play all right. So if
Speaker 3: I'm running, were running talks they tossed right. You start
Speaker 3: watching the defense. And my thing was I was fast,
Speaker 3: so if I could get the defensive linemen and linebackers
Speaker 3: to do this to think started turn their hips, I
Speaker 3: knew my guys to get on them, and I could
Speaker 3: have a lane stretch it cut back. That's about the
Speaker 3: only time because stuff is all instant. It happens when
Speaker 3: you see a guy coming. You make you make a movie.
Speaker 3: You don't think about the move. It's like people if
Speaker 3: somebody asked me they about say Corn Barkley jumping over
Speaker 3: the guy back and said, that's an instinct that he playing.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna jumper. No, it's just it's a reaction. It's
Speaker 3: like if I go up to a punch that you
Speaker 3: you're gonna do that automatically.
Speaker 1: It's just all instinct.
Speaker 4: Talking about the DNA of Texas running backs, say a
Speaker 4: couple of names. Adrian Peterson, Jamal Charles is from my hometown,
Speaker 4: pulled out the sex side of Jamal La Damien Thomas,
Speaker 4: and Earl Campbell is just in the water out there.
Speaker 3: It's in the water in the ap man about ap
Speaker 3: when I was you know, I was, I was in
Speaker 3: the pro. I was out of retired. But I'd hear
Speaker 3: about this kid, ap s man. This guy run just
Speaker 3: like you, Eric, you know, run just like you. And
Speaker 3: I saw him. I like Dann He's a big back.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you he went to my
Speaker 3: second favorite school. Oh you I was. That's why I
Speaker 3: wanted to go to college. Ou so I gotta say
Speaker 3: it my second fractuse. I went to SMU and uh man,
Speaker 3: I just like ap Ap is he was a great
Speaker 3: football player. I like all the guys just named the Danian.
Speaker 3: I mean even though he went to TCU. You know,
Speaker 3: he didn't recruit him, so I don't blame him for that.
Speaker 3: M stayed in Texas. Mab stayed in Texas. Yeah, man,
Speaker 3: we just we just have a lot of great backs
Speaker 3: out of the state of Texas.
Speaker 2: For young kids that don't know the story of the
Speaker 2: Pony Express, you, Craig James, what would you tell them
Speaker 2: about that that team?
Speaker 3: I would tell him, First, look up the thirty for
Speaker 3: thirty incredible success, look at Pony Excess, FIRSUS, and then
Speaker 3: but you know, we had some great football teams. I
Speaker 3: was just talking to one of my my teammates that
Speaker 3: lives here, my best friend, he was my full back.
Speaker 3: I think people look at us, you know, the Pony Express,
Speaker 3: that was part of a man. I'm gonna tell what
Speaker 3: we had. Man, we had a hell of a defense.
Speaker 3: I mean nasty defense. I mean they were dirty, they
Speaker 3: were big, they were fast. We had a lot of
Speaker 3: guys with prom Michael Carter, Russell, Carter, Harvey Armstrong, Blaine Smith,
Speaker 3: Wes Hopkins. We had a hell of a defense. I said,
Speaker 3: that's one thing that people don't realize about. I think
Speaker 3: semb Mustang, but the Pony Express. It came about me
Speaker 3: and Craig James. Both of us got highly recruited, he
Speaker 3: from Stratford Seeley. I didn't think it would work. I
Speaker 3: didn't think it would work. I mean, and Craig was
Speaker 3: a good back.
Speaker 1: He really was.
Speaker 3: And that's one of my best friends still to this day.
Speaker 3: I just talked to him a couple of days ago.
Speaker 3: But it worked out fine. I think it saved my
Speaker 3: career because I didn't, you know, have all the carries,
Speaker 3: you know, as a as a college player like a
Speaker 3: lot of these kids, and you know and say and
Speaker 3: it saved him too.
Speaker 2: So it say any truth that you took a little
Speaker 2: pay cut man, please going uhtle pennies.
Speaker 3: They were giving us no you know back and then
Speaker 3: that wasn't getting no real Let we gets about it.
Speaker 2: So what do you think about obviously the success you
Speaker 2: had in high school and college, what do you think
Speaker 2: what kind of damage could Eric Dickerson have done with
Speaker 2: n I l you already had the transam, it would have.
Speaker 3: Been no transamb ituro have been Billy, thank you, Ben.
Speaker 1: You know, because you're a kids. You want to you
Speaker 1: want to fast what they're doing.
Speaker 4: Now you've seen somebod these recruits, the kids up and
Speaker 4: it's just all thorns laid.
Speaker 1: Out of I'm like, come on, man, I can't.
Speaker 3: It's with farriris and stuff. Man, it's been because I
Speaker 3: think about it. I mean, and I forget this. I
Speaker 3: was the number one recruit in the nation coming out
Speaker 3: of this little time. Oh i'd have been cleaning up.
Speaker 2: I got a question though, because I feel like and
Speaker 2: and I put a lot of thought. I feel like
Speaker 2: this generation gets everything we had to work so hard for.
Speaker 2: To me at a young age, you're naturally going to
Speaker 2: take your foot off the gas at some point as
Speaker 2: far as desire, dedication, focus is it you feel the same.
Speaker 1: Feel the same way. I feel exact same way.
Speaker 3: The thing is is I think about myself when I
Speaker 3: was in c I didn't know how, but I said,
Speaker 3: this is my My daddy passed away when I was
Speaker 3: my junior year. I always said that I wanted my
Speaker 3: mom to have a house like the white people had.
Speaker 3: I want to have cars like the white people had.
Speaker 3: I didn't know how I was going to get that,
Speaker 3: but you know, playing sports was my avenue and I
Speaker 3: didn't know it, you know, really I didn't see it
Speaker 3: like that. But it worked out. And then right, a
Speaker 3: lot of these kids stuff it's given to them so early.
Speaker 3: They don't have. They don't have. They don't know what
Speaker 3: adversity is. They don't know what it's like to not have.
Speaker 3: You know, they got us. They got a room full
Speaker 3: of tennis shoes where I had a pair of school shoes,
Speaker 3: a pair of tennis shoes and the past shoes go
Speaker 3: to church, you know, and that's what you had.
Speaker 1: I want to get out.
Speaker 3: I hid my church shoes one time because I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go to church, and my mom we look
Speaker 3: for us. I put them tennis shoes on, yeah, and
Speaker 3: found them.
Speaker 1: Take your school shoes off, right, take your school shoes off,
Speaker 1: buy your fresh pass shoes.
Speaker 4: You went them to school and playing again in the games,
Speaker 4: and you only had one path.
Speaker 2: But you couldn't wear them outside when you got home
Speaker 2: though I know we couldn't. You can wear them easy,
Speaker 2: barefoot or some other shit. Right after you left left SMU,
Speaker 2: the NCAA sanctioned them with the death penalty for legal
Speaker 2: payment to players, effectively shutting down the program for two years.
Speaker 2: How did that make you feel? Obviously it's so prevalent
Speaker 2: now and really a lot of other schools were doing it.
Speaker 2: They came down really hard on you guys. But looking
Speaker 2: back on that, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3: Funny you say, because you said they put it on.
Speaker 3: Everybody always says that I had something to do with
Speaker 3: me and Craig. We were gone, we were in the program.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you didn't say that we were out of college.
Speaker 3: I think it was wrong. First of all, when which
Speaker 3: first started back in nineteen seventy nine, when I got
Speaker 3: recruited by a senior. The problem was is that Estimate
Speaker 3: was a smaller school, and we had the best recruiting
Speaker 3: class in the nation that year. We had like we
Speaker 3: call the blue chips. We had like twelve chips and
Speaker 3: went and people couldn't understand it. Even though my freshman
Speaker 3: year we struggled. We we I think with five and six,
Speaker 3: then with nine and three, ten and one and ten
Speaker 3: eleven oh one. So all of a sudden we start
Speaker 3: winning other like Texas and then they were pissed. You know,
Speaker 3: you ain't supposed to beat us. You're supposed to beat us,
Speaker 3: and that's what brought the attention to us. We won't forget.
Speaker 3: We beat Texas my sophomore year, we beat them twenty
Speaker 3: to six in Austin. They beat it the hell out
Speaker 3: of us. In my freshman year, beat us thirty six.
Speaker 3: The next year they were number two in the nation.
Speaker 3: We were six and oh there we were six and
Speaker 3: oh but you know that freshman year we got a
Speaker 3: chance to grow. We're going to beat them in Austin.
Speaker 3: Monday morning, the n C double is at school. Ain't
Speaker 3: no way, yep, ain't no way, no way. We had
Speaker 3: to take a soft probation. The next some kind of
Speaker 3: probation we had to. We won the conference, but we
Speaker 3: had to. We couldn't be on television that year. The
Speaker 3: next year we wanted the conference again. And it just
Speaker 3: brought it brought all this attention to a smaller school.
Speaker 3: And that's just how it was back in those days.
Speaker 3: I mean, man, and it was everybody was doing it.
Speaker 3: I mean, we knew whatever the other We know what
Speaker 3: they were getting it. At the end, we knew what
Speaker 3: they were getting in Texas. But it was different because
Speaker 3: it was smaller, smaller school. They don't want the smaller school,
Speaker 3: just like now, they don't want the smaller schools in
Speaker 3: the championship game.
Speaker 2: School big question, maybe the biggest question don't don't was
Speaker 2: your curl wet or.
Speaker 1: Look at that thing right there I signed, is glistening?
Speaker 1: I know you had the head band. No, that was
Speaker 1: Walter with the head band. You don't neck roll glasses
Speaker 1: and goggles in the day. It was it wet or dry?
Speaker 1: It was was it was when I played, it was
Speaker 1: driving the goggles by or tryfocals.
Speaker 3: Bro No, it was just regular glass. Okay, when I
Speaker 3: took them glasses off. One time I tried to prescription
Speaker 3: what description? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tried to play not
Speaker 3: without them. I tried to play with contacts in one game.
Speaker 3: I said, we gonna try to contact and I said,
Speaker 3: we're gonna put that. We have the goggles on the sideline.
Speaker 3: First hit popped out out. I had to go to
Speaker 3: the side and get the god goes back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I couldn't play without him. But the wet curl,
Speaker 1: that was the thing back then. Jerry was like, I said,
Speaker 1: if you have a sweet curl, though curls for the
Speaker 1: girl walk around with a tiler.
Speaker 2: That's how Yeah, that's where my dad ship was he
Speaker 2: used to walk around with the tailer around his neck,
Speaker 2: wouldn't get on his work shirt.
Speaker 1: What was the story behind the neck row.
Speaker 3: The neck ro? You know what the neck row was.
Speaker 3: It was just a look, you know what, it's part
Speaker 3: of my swag. I gotta get I gotta get my
Speaker 3: boy Craig James cred for this. He wore a neckro
Speaker 3: in college. I'm like, I mean high school, Like.
Speaker 1: I like that neckro make you look bigger to you
Speaker 1: was already big too.
Speaker 3: I tried it, you know, they had it. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I can't this thing off tighten up. So I had
Speaker 3: pulled it out, had drilled hole through my past. I
Speaker 3: get tied down, tied down the back, cut my jerrys
Speaker 3: down the middle.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this looks That's how I went. I went
Speaker 1: in the neck ro. Did it? Did it help with
Speaker 1: the collisions and all that? It was strictly.
Speaker 4: We talked a lot about the NBA, how it was
Speaker 4: in the eighties, and we know about how it was
Speaker 4: drugs and a lot of stuff going on when they
Speaker 4: was trying to find their foot and what was the
Speaker 4: thing like in the eighties in the.
Speaker 3: NFL steroids, how the guy's six steroids. I mean, I
Speaker 3: didn't take no steroid, didn't need no steroids. But and
Speaker 3: the thing is, let me tell you something, Man, when
Speaker 3: you hit one of them guys the steroids, I won't forget.
Speaker 3: I hit the guy I can't think his name for
Speaker 3: this New Orleans Saints. I hit him in the thigh
Speaker 3: and it was like hitting this marble table. I hit
Speaker 3: him and I slid down.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like damn.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm thinking I'm tripping really like, man, this
Speaker 3: man is hard. Then I tried to block him. He
Speaker 3: can rush, he's a defense. He got knocked my hands
Speaker 3: passed the quarter. I'm like, oh, this is unnatural. Some
Speaker 3: of the players, I said, you know the Jews, I'm
Speaker 3: like what juice is because you know, I didn't even
Speaker 3: know what steroids was back. I didn't think about steroids. Like,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm like red, I said, man, she hard
Speaker 3: as a rock. Yeah, it was, it was. It was
Speaker 3: really prevalent. They would do that. You see, guys had
Speaker 3: the on some of my teammates.
Speaker 1: They had the locker locker because it wasn't legal at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 3: Right, it was, it was, It wasn't They weren't checking
Speaker 3: for wasn't checking for it. This one guy on the coast,
Speaker 3: I won't say his name, I know and you know
Speaker 3: he was. We played in the Pro Bowl and he
Speaker 3: was offensive lineman. Brother, he's on the juice, but he
Speaker 3: was Reggie White wasn't on the juice. Now, Reggie was strong.
Speaker 3: Never forget it. We ran a draw play, but I
Speaker 3: sat behind the quarterback. Reggie hit this guard hit him,
Speaker 3: picked him up in the air and threw him into me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn, I said, the juice ain't helping.
Speaker 1: Him with.
Speaker 2: Can you elaborate on Reggie White? Obviously, rest in peace?
Speaker 2: One of the greatest of all times. We just don't
Speaker 2: hear enough about his greatness.
Speaker 3: And Reggie White was a great first he's a great
Speaker 3: human being, such a nice guy. But he was a
Speaker 3: he hits you, God, bless you, God bless you. I mean,
Speaker 3: he was. He was a beast man. He was you know,
Speaker 3: her mind kind of reminds me of Reggie White. Was
Speaker 3: Aaron Donald, but Reggie was bigger. Reggie was big. Gray
Speaker 3: had long arms. You know why, nothing on his arms,
Speaker 3: played every down. Was nothing fancy about him. Just a tough,
Speaker 3: real football player. If I tell these young kids. You
Speaker 3: want to look at a defensive lineman, look at Reggie
Speaker 3: White and look at Aaron Donald them too, man, I
Speaker 3: mean Aaron Donald's like a Reggie White type.
Speaker 4: Number two pick in the draft. Talked to us about
Speaker 4: the signing bonus situation.
Speaker 3: My sign and bonus was six hundred thousand dollars. I
Speaker 3: got a six hundred thousand dollars signed bonus. I was
Speaker 3: behind John that way, but it was supposed to be
Speaker 3: a forgivable loan.
Speaker 1: That's how it set up.
Speaker 2: So did they let you know up front with that
Speaker 2: small writing, did you.
Speaker 1: Man, you know, think about it? Didn't know? You know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know absolutely no. I just see them dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see need that You say, you know one hundred thousand? What? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I just signed over six hundred thousand dollars signing
Speaker 3: bonus and I won't forget my agent he said, look,
Speaker 3: it's a it's a don'ta be a forgivable belong You
Speaker 3: ain't have to pay it back. And he said, he said,
Speaker 3: he said, from the next contract, they just you know,
Speaker 3: you don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: What never happened like that?
Speaker 3: So when I got traded to the Colts, and the
Speaker 3: coach gave me a five hundred thousand dollars time. So
Speaker 3: I went from making basically my base salary with the
Speaker 3: with the Rams all together, it was like two two
Speaker 3: fifty on the high. Coach gave me a signed the
Speaker 3: mostly five hundred. They gave me a base salary of
Speaker 3: one point four. Man, I was making some real money then.
Speaker 3: So I took my signing bonus and gave it back
Speaker 3: to the Ram, getting my signing bonus back, which I
Speaker 3: probably shouldn't have, but I was so pissed at them, man,
Speaker 3: And I mean nothing like I said, I mean, I
Speaker 3: like to be a man of my word.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like I was just done with just done
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: You had that multiple times due to disputes with the
Speaker 4: Rams management overpaid. At what point were you playing under
Speaker 4: the rookie deal while being the league's leading Russia? Right,
Speaker 4: I played on a rookie deal.
Speaker 3: Let me see my first in my third year, I
Speaker 3: had I think I had one or two years left
Speaker 3: on my contract. I think maybe one year left. They
Speaker 3: didn't want to redo it. They don't want to redo it,
Speaker 3: and I held out. Then they gave me. Then they
Speaker 3: did redo it, and I made look you know. I
Speaker 3: kept saying, pay me like the quarterbacks. Keep me a
Speaker 3: million five, a million two, I said, even a million dollars. Now,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't would talk to the germ manager, John Shaw.
Speaker 3: I'll never get it. I went and met with him.
Speaker 3: Think about this, How long would it take a start
Speaker 3: player to meet with the general manager football basketball team?
Speaker 1: Like that? Took me weeks to meet with him. Take
Speaker 1: me weeks to meet with him.
Speaker 3: Finally when I met with him, Uh, John, were cool
Speaker 3: today after you know, some years. I met with him
Speaker 3: and I said, John, I said, Man, I said, my
Speaker 3: contract is bad.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: He said, Eric, you know you got a new deal.
Speaker 3: I said, but it ain't no good. I said, y'all
Speaker 3: know it's no good. I said, I'm doing most of
Speaker 3: the doing. Most I'm doing. I'm in the office. So
Speaker 3: and I didn't like to say it, Ja, but I
Speaker 3: did so. Matter of fact, this guy gave him the scenario.
Speaker 3: It's eighty six, I said, I let the league in
Speaker 3: Russian last ye. No you didn't, Walter Payton. He said, well,
Speaker 3: that says his boy. No you didn't, Walter, I said, no,
Speaker 3: I live to at eighteen twenty one. No, I said, yes,
Speaker 3: I did. I left the league, goes get his book.
Speaker 3: I want to kick him in his ass. Oh you did,
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, you I led the league in Russian
Speaker 3: last year. So I said, this is what I do.
Speaker 3: I said, this is how much confidence I had in myself.
Speaker 3: I said, if I have fifteen hundred yards or more,
Speaker 3: you pay me the million five If I don't. If
Speaker 3: I go under that, then I just I said, I
Speaker 3: go year by year. You just got to goat to
Speaker 3: my old contract. He said, no, We're not gonna do
Speaker 3: think about that. I bet on myself playing football. So
Speaker 3: that way, I just knew. I knew it was gonna
Speaker 3: be a bad.
Speaker 1: Deal with him, Walter Payton.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about his greatness, but also I
Speaker 2: want to talk about and is this something you got
Speaker 2: to share? Obviously everything is very public knowledge. What kind
Speaker 2: of money was he making?
Speaker 3: Well, I can tell you when I was, but I
Speaker 3: was playing, I was like the thirty to forties.
Speaker 1: Highest played player at the league thirty yef yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like the thirties I played player in the league.
Speaker 3: Watcher was probably making like eight seventy five nine hundred.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm gonta forget my friend Roy Green receiver
Speaker 3: for the Cardinals. Ro was a great player. And I
Speaker 3: called Russell. I said, man, we're talking about it. I said, man,
Speaker 3: so much money you make? What I said, idn't mean
Speaker 3: to be great case I make six, I say six
Speaker 3: seventy five, Like damn, man, I'm like, no, I don't
Speaker 3: mean it like that. I said, Man, I'm over here
Speaker 3: making two fucking fifty. Man, I said, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It was. It was horrible.
Speaker 3: I mean it really was. But the thing was is
Speaker 3: that they builified me. They made me like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's always funny how we're the greedy athletes, especially the
Speaker 3: black athlete.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I hate to say it, and I just said, white guys,
Speaker 3: they don't have to hold out. If you ever heard
Speaker 3: of a white quarterback have a hold of that, it
Speaker 3: don't have no, it don't. It does not happen. The
Speaker 3: black quarterbacks have to hold lot. And I'm not making
Speaker 3: a race thing. It's just facts. It's all facts, you know, Brothers,
Speaker 3: we have to hold out. Make us look bad with
Speaker 3: especially back then because the media controlled everything. When at
Speaker 3: the Rams, the Rams made me look like I was
Speaker 3: money hungry. I wasn't a team player. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to play hard, all that kind of stuff, which was
Speaker 3: all a bunch of bs. And it's funny how time
Speaker 3: goes on you meet people this Eric, man, you are nothing.
Speaker 1: Like this said, I said, no, but it's a different
Speaker 1: day that.
Speaker 2: I mean, there wasn't these type of platforms, right, So
Speaker 2: what they said was the gospel.
Speaker 3: That was it, and people then people had this, but
Speaker 3: it's in the paper. It's got you got to be
Speaker 3: It's got to be true. You gotta be true because
Speaker 3: I used to say what Trump says. Now I said
Speaker 3: the fake news, I call it fight fake news.
Speaker 1: They line.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, it was a guy named Rick Riley.
Speaker 3: Did you did an article in Sports Illustrated, came to
Speaker 3: my house, stayed in my house, travel with us for
Speaker 3: a week on the team, and Indianapolis wrote a crazy
Speaker 3: article about me, made me seem like I have was
Speaker 3: a psychopath. I I fed my dogs and I had ridwild,
Speaker 3: fed my dog's gun powder, you know, just crazy crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: I called him man, I said, man, what the mm hmm?
Speaker 1: I thought it was good. I told him, man, I
Speaker 1: will whoop your ass. Man. I still like to whoop
Speaker 1: his ads right now. Like I said, what they used
Speaker 1: to be was the word. But back to sweetness. Man,
Speaker 1: Walter was a good guy. Man.
Speaker 3: I won't forget we played them. We played them. I
Speaker 3: think it's my rookie season. And I was Walter Payton fans.
Speaker 1: A little bit older than how many.
Speaker 3: Was about four or five five years older than five
Speaker 3: five years old than me. So I'm a little bit
Speaker 3: older than that. But somewhere around there we playing the Bears,
Speaker 3: and I won't get John Robinson say, look during the
Speaker 3: defense we're in the team meeting. He said, if anybody,
Speaker 3: and this is John Robinson, rookie coach, I'm a rookie.
Speaker 3: He said, any defensive players hit Walter Playton, Peyton Lake,
Speaker 3: take a cheap shot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna find you like what they're gonna find. I
Speaker 1: will play. You're gonna find them like okay, Like damn.
Speaker 1: I respect then, So I didn't.
Speaker 3: I went to meeting, but I want to wait after
Speaker 3: the game the meeting and that day I think I
Speaker 3: had one hundred and forty nine yards in two touchdowns,
Speaker 3: and uh, we beat him. And I walk up to
Speaker 3: him and I put my hand. I gotta I got
Speaker 3: a big picture of me and him in my office,
Speaker 3: and I said Eric Dickerson. He said, I know who
Speaker 3: you are, and I said, Man, I say I'm a fan.
Speaker 3: He said, he said I'm a fan too.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, Barry sunders, Oh, Man, can't nobody run like Bear?
Speaker 1: You can't he like Curly? You know, like man?
Speaker 3: Nothing like him? I mean, I don't think you ever
Speaker 3: seen nobody like you. I mean people say, you know,
Speaker 3: I couldn't.
Speaker 1: Run like Bear. I have everybody out the on stop.
Speaker 1: Nobody could run like Derek carry big bag? I like him.
Speaker 1: How big is he? Forty two fifty?
Speaker 3: He sees about six four by two forty something like that.
Speaker 3: He's bigger than me, bigger than me because.
Speaker 1: Think about that, but not by much though, yeah, not
Speaker 1: about much.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he's a big bag man. I mean when
Speaker 3: I when I met him, like, damn you put them
Speaker 3: and say you put them pads on? You know, it
Speaker 3: takes it up up, you know, a couple of couple
Speaker 3: of levels. I mean, because we played the Lions when
Speaker 3: I was a rookie and I jogged on the field
Speaker 3: by some defensive backs. dB said, damn that like a
Speaker 3: defensive lineman, you know, And I was, I was, I
Speaker 3: was a big backback. Emmy Smith got all the got
Speaker 3: all the records. Man, I love him. Good guy, great guy,
Speaker 3: great player. Imm It was not fast nothing in high
Speaker 3: in college. I never I mean because people say, I
Speaker 3: ain't gonna be that guy said man. I said, he
Speaker 3: runs tough. He a tough player. I kept saying, if
Speaker 3: he gets on the right team, he'd be able to
Speaker 3: do it right.
Speaker 1: He got line and the quarterback god and weapons and ye.
Speaker 2: I don't think people understand how important it is if
Speaker 2: you're a running back to have a line and a quarterback.
Speaker 3: Oh Man, you don't. People don't. People don't really, they
Speaker 3: don't understand. I don't care how great you are. You
Speaker 3: could be the fastest, the biggest, but if you ain't
Speaker 3: got them guys up front, you might get away with
Speaker 3: it and have a quarterback. But if you ain't got
Speaker 3: the guys up front, you ain't going nowhere because you
Speaker 3: gotta stand them guys with that pros too. He had
Speaker 3: all Pro Bowls on the line. That's that that that
Speaker 3: that is their job. And you said that people. People
Speaker 3: don't realize, you know how tough it is when you
Speaker 3: don't have office. When I got the Indie Brother, it was.
Speaker 4: Emmit was good at waiting to them holes come yeah,
Speaker 4: find im gonna hit them hard too.
Speaker 3: What running backs you like today? Most definitely Derrick Henry.
Speaker 3: Like Derrick Henry. I think he's my favoritecause it's a
Speaker 3: big back like me. I like sayque now and I'd
Speaker 3: liked it before. I just thought he never would be
Speaker 3: the guy that he could have been playing with the Giants.
Speaker 3: I love watching him play. He's exciting me think, you know,
Speaker 3: thinking about it, it's not a.
Speaker 4: Lot of back like it was because Bell cow like,
Speaker 4: like I said, they've been doing it by committee.
Speaker 1: Now called we're called called feature backs.
Speaker 3: You know how feature back you gotta you gotta know
Speaker 3: you committed, got the rotation like Ava Kamara not to
Speaker 3: get back, you know. But you know it's just not
Speaker 3: it's not like you can say like you said in
Speaker 3: my area you said, Walter Payton, Marcus Sallam O J Anderson,
Speaker 3: I mean you could just go down the line and
Speaker 3: running back because the team need a running back. Now
Speaker 3: you got to sit down. Well, yeah, but they black committee.
Speaker 3: It's a different era also too.
Speaker 1: Can you speak to the importance of the fullback because
Speaker 1: the fullback is almost not very important.
Speaker 3: I don't see why don't let it know, I mean
Speaker 3: fullback blows open holes for the running back. It's very
Speaker 3: few teams. When I saw San Francisco do it, you know,
Speaker 3: last year and the year before. Man's important. That's that's important.
Speaker 1: Quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let us
Speaker 1: know one album you can listen to with no skips.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know my favorite. I just said this
Speaker 1: the other day. Man, I like him. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: see that when I had to get I had to
Speaker 1: get up. I can see that. But I can see that. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love the camera pants. What song would you play
Speaker 1: over your career mixtape?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What'll be the soundtrack to your mixtape? They call them highlights?
Speaker 3: Oh man, let me think next. I saw I saw
Speaker 3: one that did. It's simply the best that was. They
Speaker 3: had a highlight of me with it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's sweet than anyone.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you a fun one right here. One quarterback,
Speaker 2: one receiver, and one offensive line. And you wish an
Speaker 2: offensive line as a whole, you wish you could have
Speaker 2: played with during your career.
Speaker 3: The Washington Redskins. Oh line line, I did love my
Speaker 3: offensive line, Washington Redskins. Joe Montana, You're not gonna believe
Speaker 3: my receiver. You probably won't.
Speaker 1: He Henryeller, come on, man number eighty, and he had
Speaker 1: a long one too, right.
Speaker 5: I heard Yeller yells, yeah, Henry Henry five dinner against
Speaker 5: that alive, Jesus.
Speaker 1: I love my dad to be there in my mom can.
Speaker 1: I like some of them.
Speaker 3: I likes some old like George Washington.
Speaker 1: I like to see what they're thinking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wooden teeth. Actually they said it was slave teeth,
Speaker 2: slave teeth and book t Washington like that in your
Speaker 2: heyday because you had one of the best. Was there
Speaker 2: any curve you were envoul because this was I mean
Speaker 2: you Deon Sanders, who else, Dominique Wilkins, you guys, we
Speaker 2: got a chance to sit down with all.
Speaker 1: You'll all y'all have a legendary the Lakers. Yeah, like a.
Speaker 2: Bitch, don't call anymore like any curR your your a
Speaker 2: CS curl U my own curve. I'm saying you have
Speaker 2: one of the best effort.
Speaker 1: I take my own. Yeah. Hell yeah, childhood crush. I
Speaker 1: metter too. I knew, I knew it. I said it
Speaker 1: with you. Jackie Crow, funniest teammate you ever had.
Speaker 3: Kind of class. Were the team the coats. Yeah, on
Speaker 3: the Rams, it'd be Geary was Gary. Last thing funny
Speaker 3: is I don't know what. I can't think it's last night.
Speaker 3: It's the defensive back. Crazy funny, crazy funny. Yeah, Gary Green,
Speaker 3: Gary Green.
Speaker 4: If you could see one guess on All the Smoke,
Speaker 4: who would it be? But you have to help us
Speaker 4: get your answer. I means you got to go on
Speaker 4: that that rolodex of yours. You know one guess that's
Speaker 4: call ya go bears.
Speaker 2: Eric Man, we appreciate you again, huge fan in my household,
Speaker 2: and and and all the great things you did on
Speaker 2: the field. Man, We appreciate you sitting down with us
Speaker 2: and best of luck.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you man, Eric.
Speaker 2: You catch us on the All the Smoke YouTube and
Speaker 2: the Draft Kings Network. We'll see y'all next week, sir.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the Punk Brothers. We appreciate you guys
Speaker 2: for having us baby and the guests.
Speaker 3: My guys,