Speaker 1: This is cut to It with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm John and this is cut
Speaker 1: to it. Good do it, Good do it. Let's getting
Speaker 1: down to do it. Good do it. We asked the
Speaker 1: questions you always want to know, but no one ever asked,
Speaker 1: let's cut to it. You ain't heard them about it?
Speaker 1: Then we're about to let you know. It's all. Are
Speaker 1: you ready? Cut to it? Cut to it? I love
Speaker 1: our themes, so man, really, we never really talked about that.
Speaker 1: We got Anthony Hamilton on our track. Man, that's cool,
Speaker 1: it's super cool. But why did you try to sing
Speaker 1: it though? Hey I just felt like that sometimes. Don't
Speaker 1: do that again. No, sorry, I'm not gonna be boxed
Speaker 1: in refresh all in February. You're not boxing me in
Speaker 1: listen what you what? What you did? Not hit? I
Speaker 1: want to box an You ain't hitting nor hater you
Speaker 1: actually yes, because my ears hate to hear that. My
Speaker 1: ears love and the hamblen See what you got on
Speaker 1: your tell you what happened to me? I'm telling you
Speaker 1: there are some times I just sit back and giggle, giggle, giggle,
Speaker 1: grown man giggling. Oh it's it's some giggly stuff out
Speaker 1: there now, all right, all right, so just you know,
Speaker 1: Steve goes out out into the world. I gotta buy
Speaker 1: some stuff, alright, got the honey dudeless. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: driving around Charlotte looking for some some items, and you said, hey,
Speaker 1: we should look at this, and so I go to
Speaker 1: a store. We're gonna buy all right. I sent her
Speaker 1: your do to measuring it fits. Okay, it's on sale.
Speaker 1: It's always a good thing, that my combination if it's
Speaker 1: in sale, boom right as they say, you know in
Speaker 1: the mobster business, by the being by the back. Because
Speaker 1: I was buying the freezer, right, So the gentleman who
Speaker 1: helped me what was his name, um, the guy that
Speaker 1: helped me. No, No, he was actually he was really
Speaker 1: healthy to was extremely helpful. So I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we measure this? I just need I'm getting a freezer,
Speaker 1: um for the garage. I need to see how deep
Speaker 1: the freezer is to see and because you know, looking online,
Speaker 1: you it doesn't really have I mean, you know you
Speaker 1: get measurements, but it really doesn't. You got an eye test, right,
Speaker 1: So I look, okay, perfect I said, all right, I
Speaker 1: gotta load this up in my car, so can we
Speaker 1: just take it out of the box, just be easier. Right,
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, we could do that, take it
Speaker 1: out of the the box. So I pay for it, and
Speaker 1: I pay for it in the area. Got to receive
Speaker 1: the guy uh staples his card on there is Hey,
Speaker 1: if you need anything else, come to me. Absolutely, he
Speaker 1: took care. He was excellent, what a smile. I had
Speaker 1: a great time. He had a great time, and we
Speaker 1: chickchat a little bit. Boom. So mine of my business.
Speaker 1: And this is where it gets interesting. You got the
Speaker 1: little flat bed and so I'm pushing it going through.
Speaker 1: So I got on sweat pants and sweatshirt and hat
Speaker 1: and I'm in public mask ah. So I go. I
Speaker 1: go past the little scanner things that you can scan
Speaker 1: and you know, the ch self checkout, but I pay
Speaker 1: for I got to recede in hand. I know who
Speaker 1: I am, meaning not Steve Smith, but guy individual person.
Speaker 1: I'm black. Let's put the cars on the table. I'm black.
Speaker 1: It's all going there. This woman says, can I help
Speaker 1: you on your way out? On my way out? No,
Speaker 1: And that's how I said it. No. Now when she says,
Speaker 1: can she helps me? She has now stepped in front
Speaker 1: of the flat bed that has this freezer on it?
Speaker 1: Can I help you? What's it? No? Oh? Well, do
Speaker 1: you have a receipt? Mm hmm? I said, I know
Speaker 1: where this is going? I said, yes, m were you
Speaker 1: gonna let me see it? I said, what you didn't ask?
Speaker 1: You said, do I need help? A totally different questions.
Speaker 1: I know what the public school? You toss not killing
Speaker 1: them in the yell department. But she goes, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, not really, but okay, no, not okay,
Speaker 1: and not really. I said, you didn't ask me if
Speaker 1: I paid for it? Or can I see the receipt?
Speaker 1: You said, do I need help? And I didn't need help? Well,
Speaker 1: I was asking the same thing, so you should you
Speaker 1: should know the difference. And in my head, I'm going,
Speaker 1: you should know the difference because help and prace on
Speaker 1: that half of bets are pretty different. H and all,
Speaker 1: so you've already paid for you trying to make your
Speaker 1: way out. She's basically has walked herself in front of
Speaker 1: them and walked. She stopped and said, you know, can
Speaker 1: I help you? I said no, ma'am, I said no,
Speaker 1: we'll let me see the receipt I said, here's the receipts,
Speaker 1: actually trying to prove your purchase as well. She's trying
Speaker 1: to prove your purchase, which is nothing wrong with proving purchase.
Speaker 1: But then now you're mad at me. But because the
Speaker 1: way you asked me was I got I got not
Speaker 1: racially profiled, I just got profiled. Let me see if this,
Speaker 1: let me see if he's telling the truth. Yes, you
Speaker 1: want to hear them still profiling, Yes, you want to hear.
Speaker 1: The best thing about it she never even looked at
Speaker 1: the receipt because the freezer and what it was scanned,
Speaker 1: it's not visible anymore. All the skill numbers were on
Speaker 1: the box that the salesman has. And so now she
Speaker 1: has an attitude with me standing in front of the
Speaker 1: flat bed with a freezer on it. Do you think
Speaker 1: did she think you'd be that bolt to get a
Speaker 1: freezer off the shelf, unboxing, put it on a flat
Speaker 1: bed and just walk smoothed out of this retail established.
Speaker 1: I'd like to use the word waltz, however you want
Speaker 1: jaywalk moon walk? And what what bothered? What bothered me morning?
Speaker 1: You thing is how she approached me as if like
Speaker 1: I was in the wrong, and I understood, she's got
Speaker 1: to do her job. She gotta do a job, but
Speaker 1: don't say can I help you and then tell me
Speaker 1: that helping and let me see the receipt is the
Speaker 1: exact same thing when it's clearly not. And it's just
Speaker 1: like this, she had an attitude with me. We'll have
Speaker 1: a nice day if i'd ran her Scott over with
Speaker 1: that flat bed in that freezer, didn't it be headlines,
Speaker 1: assault with a deadly weapon, or you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be. And I just and what it brought
Speaker 1: it up to me is there's been times that I've
Speaker 1: also looked extremely tacky walking into it into a designer
Speaker 1: purse store to buy something and you got questions, Oh, hey,
Speaker 1: how much can I see that back? Oh yes, it's
Speaker 1: such a Yeah. They love to give you the price first,
Speaker 1: don't they. And here's my problem with the price of
Speaker 1: a person. As in a designers store, you behind the register,
Speaker 1: you are gathering that product to show me your name
Speaker 1: ain't Louis or Tom right, you work for them? And
Speaker 1: I walked in here, so clearly I have some sort
Speaker 1: of but I'm thinking about it, but it's not that
Speaker 1: person's place to make that distinction. No, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: all they know is that's a customer. Yes, now I'm
Speaker 1: a TACKI customer. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't. But
Speaker 1: I've walked in I I'm giving them my out. I've
Speaker 1: walked into a Louis Vauton Gucci store, bron sweatpants, house,
Speaker 1: shoes in the hood, and the hat looking like I
Speaker 1: just strolled out of bed. But to assume that someone
Speaker 1: does not have it, they obviously are pondering them or
Speaker 1: thinking about making that purchase. So why are you gonna
Speaker 1: base off the way they look at least gonna discredit
Speaker 1: or or take away for them thinking about making that purchase.
Speaker 1: Because you know, when you're going those stores, you don't
Speaker 1: go on those stories. You know you're going to that
Speaker 1: store a while in in that places a thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: So when you go on that store, you're going that
Speaker 1: store going if I buy this, I need to make
Speaker 1: sure it's the right choice. Correct. And I went to
Speaker 1: this department store or I went to the store and
Speaker 1: the lady profile man and I literally got out of
Speaker 1: the car, lifted the freezer in the in the trunk
Speaker 1: and drove off and I stopped, you know, and I
Speaker 1: got out the red line process and I got profile.
Speaker 1: And how often that happens, right, Like I've I've been
Speaker 1: plenty of times. I've been the stories and I get
Speaker 1: followed around or I get asked to you much like
Speaker 1: what you just described. I'm walking in the store and
Speaker 1: I asked to see something and they said, oh, well
Speaker 1: this isn't on sale. Well how do you could have
Speaker 1: cash in my pocket? About the whole thing, I've done
Speaker 1: that before, right, So to automatically say, well, as if
Speaker 1: the microaggression is oh, you can't you can't afford, you
Speaker 1: can't be able to afford. It was more than anything.
Speaker 1: That is how she tried to flip it on me,
Speaker 1: as if me, being a little bit apprehensive, was in
Speaker 1: the wrong and she was asking me all the right questions.
Speaker 1: She wasn't asking me all the right questions. Right, Maybe
Speaker 1: I wonder I'm to get dressed to go up in there,
Speaker 1: just like just just put on full suit. Can I
Speaker 1: help you? Know? You cannot help me. I'm looking for
Speaker 1: the I'm looking for the CBS c P A department.
Speaker 1: That's that's how you combat it self identifies something completely
Speaker 1: different identify as a person who's getting everything in here
Speaker 1: for free. That's how we come back profile. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna walk around demanding discounts. I
Speaker 1: think it'll work, all right. Who we got coming up
Speaker 1: on the Cut to A podcast, We've got Ronaldo near Mayah,
Speaker 1: former world record holder in track and field and the hurdles,
Speaker 1: a wide receiver for the San Francisco Forts in the eighties,
Speaker 1: and he's currently a sports agent for athletics managers. Ronaldo
Speaker 1: Nei A Mayah. On the Cut to It podcast, Let's
Speaker 1: Go Here we Go. Near our first segment, Ronaldo is
Speaker 1: called I really Hi, You don't understand how HiPE I
Speaker 1: am to do this? Sit down? Right? So it's gonna
Speaker 1: get out of stuff. It's our version of ice breakers.
Speaker 1: So okay, you know all about this, So I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna wait any longer me to go him and get
Speaker 1: him the first question A right, They're gonna be questions.
Speaker 1: It is an open book test. It is about you,
Speaker 1: so if you fail, it is your fault. Okay, what
Speaker 1: does success look like for you? So success to me,
Speaker 1: it means that, uh, you know, when I'm walking uh
Speaker 1: through the mall, and someone's whispers. That's Ronaldo and m I.
Speaker 1: And the second thing they talked about it is that
Speaker 1: I would say a good guy or a humble guy
Speaker 1: more so than what I did on the field to play.
Speaker 1: So that means that I feel that my mission was
Speaker 1: accomplished because I said earlier, if that's all you're talking about,
Speaker 1: is what I did as an athlete, and I failed
Speaker 1: to actually let people know who I really was, because
Speaker 1: athletes is what I did. It wasn't who I was.
Speaker 1: That if you knew today today was your last day
Speaker 1: of your life, what would you spend it doing. I
Speaker 1: would spend it with my immediate family and my daughter's wife,
Speaker 1: as many of my immediate family, as files with my
Speaker 1: brother and my sister everyone. I would be around everyone
Speaker 1: that I love and that loves me. Mm hmm. I
Speaker 1: like that. All right, Let's get to something a little
Speaker 1: bit less serious. What's in your fridge right now? It's stopped.
Speaker 1: I just got back from the Whole Foods a couple
Speaker 1: of hours ago, so it's uh, lots of fruits and
Speaker 1: berries and salads and uh fresh wild caught fish. Okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, I always want to ask this question, how
Speaker 1: do you know it's fresh cut, fresh caught wild cat fish.
Speaker 1: If if it's in the grocery store, I've been I've
Speaker 1: been debating that with my wife. Sometimes that's just packaging
Speaker 1: because you know, she's misorganic, and you know, I usually
Speaker 1: just buy stuff, and she's like, is it wall caught?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what does that mean? You know, like
Speaker 1: they can say that, but you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: been in a refrigerator freezer before I knew it, so
Speaker 1: I don't know it. Just we're buying labels, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're I didn't sink or no puny times, We're just caught.
Speaker 1: So I go in there and everything. You know, when
Speaker 1: I come home, my wife knows after this many years
Speaker 1: that it's it's organic number one. And she didn't even
Speaker 1: have asked me if it's wild caught, because I just
Speaker 1: look at the sideways, like, yes, you know it is
Speaker 1: because somebody, somebody caught it. Somebody. They now they have
Speaker 1: like fish farms, yeah, fresh fresh farms and all these
Speaker 1: other terms. Yeah, but it's it's it's it's literally just
Speaker 1: like our our vegetables. They go up there and go
Speaker 1: I called James, I'll call it. Let me throwing the
Speaker 1: Ronaldo's refriger. Uh. Do you have any nicknames? Yes? I
Speaker 1: had one up until I became a Niner. My nickname
Speaker 1: was Skeets and uh s k e E T S. Skeets.
Speaker 1: When I was a little kid, you know, the skeet
Speaker 1: at the rifle ranges when they say pull. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: crawled really fast, so that my real name Skeetze within
Speaker 1: the family. And then for years I was Ronaldo Skeets
Speaker 1: near Maya, and they called me Skeets because it was
Speaker 1: less formal than Ronaldo. And then I remember my first
Speaker 1: day signing with the Niners, and two I decided I
Speaker 1: was old enough to be called Ronaldo and get rid
Speaker 1: of the kid name. And I've been Ronaldo ever since.
Speaker 1: So unless you're close to my age or a fan,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even know Skeets. My wife didn't even know
Speaker 1: who Skeets was. Don't. Yeah, we do. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: So as a key, what was your favorite sports team
Speaker 1: in any sport? Wow? I grew up a Jet fan
Speaker 1: Joe Namath, and then I was a it's for weird,
Speaker 1: and I was a Met fan with Tommy aig. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird combination. Usually you're you know, you're
Speaker 1: not a Jet and a Met fan. You're you know,
Speaker 1: you're met in a Giants fan or something. But I
Speaker 1: was met in a Jet fan. I'm from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: so okay, you know where are you from in a
Speaker 1: place you call your hometown. I'm from a little parochial
Speaker 1: town called scotch Plains, New Jersey, which is uh, probably
Speaker 1: forty five minutes south of Manhattankay, Well, tell me the landmark.
Speaker 1: Tell me something that you would identify with north Plainfield,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Nork. Oh yeah, I'm just below Nork, about
Speaker 1: thirty minutes south of York. Alright, so growing up there, Um,
Speaker 1: how did that? How did it shape your perspective on
Speaker 1: the world today? Because you've been through a lot, You've
Speaker 1: seen a lot, You've been through a lot. Um that places.
Speaker 1: Has it started you? Yeah? It was? It was interesting, Steve.
Speaker 1: I was the first black quarterback at my school. I
Speaker 1: was the first black homecoming king at my school. The
Speaker 1: town next to us was Clark and over the weekends,
Speaker 1: our parents forbade us to go over there because there
Speaker 1: was a cool because Klan activity on that way. Um,
Speaker 1: and so you know, team sports kind of insulates you
Speaker 1: from a lot of that because true then and true today.
Speaker 1: As long as you winning, you know, they tolerate whatever
Speaker 1: you might look like. And so I guess I was
Speaker 1: privileged because I had an abundance of talent and was
Speaker 1: doing things that brought attention to my team. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel it within my school. We had probably about people
Speaker 1: in the school and maybe about two plus people of color.
Speaker 1: But yeah, being in the one of the star athletes
Speaker 1: in the school system, you know, you know how that goes.
Speaker 1: I was insulated to some degree, but it was on
Speaker 1: the periphery, so I knew it was around, and you know,
Speaker 1: here we are in you know it's still around. M Now,
Speaker 1: do you go back, you know, to your hometown any
Speaker 1: I see? Um, yes, and no, I haven't been back,
Speaker 1: uh as far as regularly visiting. Both my parents are
Speaker 1: deceased and my parents are buried in my in my
Speaker 1: town Hillside Cemetery. I was just there a week ago
Speaker 1: visiting as they put out the winter wreaths. But that's
Speaker 1: the closest I really get to my hometown. I passed
Speaker 1: through it on the way to New York, you know,
Speaker 1: on on occasion for different events. But most of my
Speaker 1: family immediate families are no longer there summer in playing field,
Speaker 1: but most of them moved out of the states, So
Speaker 1: I don't. I have some friends obviously, and go back
Speaker 1: from my high school reunions and all that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the only connection. Well, um, you know we talked
Speaker 1: about you talk about your parents. Man, Um, you had
Speaker 1: an Earth Sharing event at the age of fourteen. You
Speaker 1: walk us through and tell us what happened. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're a kid and your mom. In this case,
Speaker 1: my mom was sick, and I just thought she was sick.
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand the implications and the severity of cancer.
Speaker 1: My mother suffer through both lung and breast cancer. I
Speaker 1: guess the lung cancer first filtered into with her breast.
Speaker 1: My mother used to smoke cools, and I remember used
Speaker 1: to go into the store to buy here the cools,
Speaker 1: not knowing the effects of it. And you know, watching witnessing,
Speaker 1: you know, one mestech to me, then the second mistec
Speaker 1: to me, and then she's bedridden. I was the oldest
Speaker 1: of three, so I was the closest to her and
Speaker 1: she My mom groom me years in advance, and she
Speaker 1: was sick for about five plus years. And she told
Speaker 1: me how to cook and so. And I was inquisitive
Speaker 1: kid anyway, so I wanted to know all these things.
Speaker 1: And so I was coming home from football practice one
Speaker 1: day in ninth grade ninety three and going to the
Speaker 1: local store that we used to go to just before
Speaker 1: we got home, and some kids I don't even know
Speaker 1: came up to me and said, hey, skeeze, They said,
Speaker 1: your mom is did And I remember that empty, instant
Speaker 1: feeling that I had in my stomach, and I dropped.
Speaker 1: I dropped the cupcakes and whatever I had in my hand.
Speaker 1: And I lived about three blocks from the store, and
Speaker 1: I just ran all the way home. I knew my
Speaker 1: mom had was sick. And I get there and I
Speaker 1: see all these different cars around our home, so I
Speaker 1: knew something is up. And then when I come in,
Speaker 1: I see family members. And then my father takes me
Speaker 1: to my room and tells me what happened and that
Speaker 1: my mother had passed. And my mom those last two years,
Speaker 1: she we had a living nurse because she wanted to
Speaker 1: be with her children, you know, all the way to
Speaker 1: the end. And you know, as a youngster, twelve, thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, fourteen years old, you're still thinking that you
Speaker 1: know mom is going to be there. You don't understand
Speaker 1: death at that point. And so that was my first
Speaker 1: time experiencing it, and as the oldest, I think I
Speaker 1: kind of it was numbed to the pain of the loss.
Speaker 1: And you know, for years used to tell my friends
Speaker 1: when I see them speaking back to their moms, sa,
Speaker 1: hey man, you need to cherish your mom because you
Speaker 1: don't ever want to feel the loss of a mom.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, so I had to grow up
Speaker 1: very quickly at fourteen. You know, my father was working
Speaker 1: and then I was like a surrogate mom to my
Speaker 1: brother who was a year and a half younger, and
Speaker 1: my sister who was five years younger. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: was tough. It was tough, and I grew up fast.
Speaker 1: I mean I had to be really mature my teen
Speaker 1: years at that point. All the way to college. I
Speaker 1: kind of skipped by them. As far as being a teenager,
Speaker 1: I was a young adult. You know, through circumstances. We
Speaker 1: have to take a break and morning anything. We gotta
Speaker 1: pay some bills check. I love cut to it, and
Speaker 1: I love it even more when you download us and
Speaker 1: subscribe and you can follow us on social media to Smithie.
Speaker 1: Where where at that's at? Cut to it on Instagram?
Speaker 1: What about Twitter? At cut to it Facebook? Cut to
Speaker 1: it featuring Steve Smith singr. What about online? And you
Speaker 1: can follow us at cut to It podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where you can buy merch and can subscribe to this
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. I got all my answers questions. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got all my questions answered. That's what I'm here for,
Speaker 1: a brother, cut to a podcast dot com. You played football,
Speaker 1: but obviously you ran a little bit of track. Track
Speaker 1: became my real love, my first love with football, and
Speaker 1: my father introduced me to it. Um, I loved football.
Speaker 1: I became I was. I became quarterback, uh, because we
Speaker 1: had an injury to a quarterback and I could quarterback.
Speaker 1: I was a wide receiver, but we needed a quarterback.
Speaker 1: So that's why I played quarterback. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: would have probably played in college had I graduated a
Speaker 1: little bigger. And I was five nine, maybe five hundred
Speaker 1: fifty five pounds, so can wet as a senior. And
Speaker 1: when I had chosen Maryland, um, they were more of
Speaker 1: a running team at that time, and so I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: there's no need for me to go through trying to
Speaker 1: play football. But yeah, my first love has always been football.
Speaker 1: My father was kind of surprised when I picked going
Speaker 1: to college to run track over football. Um. But then
Speaker 1: as I started, you know, ascending through the ranks internationally
Speaker 1: and globally, um, my father and the rest of my
Speaker 1: family all of a sudden learned the support a track.
Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, No, you glossed over work globally internationally, yes,
Speaker 1: break break that down, because you know we usually talked
Speaker 1: about internationally globally, you know, Steph Michael Lebron. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you're traveling Germany and all these different places as a kid,
Speaker 1: as a yeah, as a teenager, you can't speak the language.
Speaker 1: You know, the food is horrible. Machine guns common this
Speaker 1: country is they have machine guns Poland where you can't
Speaker 1: go out of your hotel without a passport, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very ominous. And uh, I'm sitting up there going
Speaker 1: what I don't even understand these people. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're saying, I don't know what their food is.
Speaker 1: I really just want to go home. I don't I
Speaker 1: felt like one of the uh, what's the rocky one?
Speaker 1: He says, I must break you and That's why I
Speaker 1: felt those foreigners would be looking at us, you know,
Speaker 1: like they had this historic look. The Russians look one
Speaker 1: way all the time, looking like they're looking through you,
Speaker 1: not at you. And uh, I'm like, okay, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's tie these up and get it, get it going.
Speaker 1: But and it was tough being away from home time change,
Speaker 1: understanding commands and their language. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: practice hearing. Only thing. I knew it was two commands,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. The second one was set, and I
Speaker 1: knew it was a gun on the third one, so
Speaker 1: I didn't really care what they said. I watched everybody
Speaker 1: getting the blocks, and then I knew the next one
Speaker 1: was set, and then I was waiting for the gun,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, you had to. So at these track
Speaker 1: meets in different countries, you had to learn the different
Speaker 1: commands in those different different languages. Every country you went to,
Speaker 1: yes you did. And you go to someone and they say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be this command and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that. What are they saying? So well,
Speaker 1: you know the first one, it's always on your marks.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so I know everybody getting the marks.
Speaker 1: And then once we're in our marks, and you know,
Speaker 1: you settle down. I know the next one has to
Speaker 1: be set so yeah, I raised up and then I
Speaker 1: just wait for the gun. You know. A couple of
Speaker 1: times I got tricked a little bit because they would
Speaker 1: be saying, uh, stand up, stand up, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm taking off, you know, like okay, that meant somebody
Speaker 1: wasn't ready or somebody was moving, so they're telling us
Speaker 1: to stand up so we can do it again. But
Speaker 1: I got it down after probably about three races or so.
Speaker 1: But it was always in a different language, so I
Speaker 1: never really tried to learn the language they tell us
Speaker 1: in the in the pre race meeting the night before.
Speaker 1: But I was like, okay, I just listened to the cadence. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're running track at Maryland. When did it become
Speaker 1: international for you? Take take us through that process because
Speaker 1: there and the reason I said, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who just don't know how big track and field
Speaker 1: is and how much of the store. Yeah, when you're
Speaker 1: you're in front of fifty thousand plus in Europe, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was like whoa. I mean, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: putting it bluntly. I was a rock star in Europe
Speaker 1: and unknown in my own country. I was eighteen year
Speaker 1: old year old and ran against the Russian USA meet
Speaker 1: and you know, my first time even in high school,
Speaker 1: the international prep meet at in Champagne. Not Champagne, but
Speaker 1: it was in Chicago and people from all around the world, Australia, everywhere.
Speaker 1: And that was my first taste of running international competition,
Speaker 1: even though it was on US soil um. And then
Speaker 1: when I ran the US versus U S s R
Speaker 1: Meet against the Russians, I was just going into my
Speaker 1: freshman year into my senior in high school. How does
Speaker 1: track we You know you played, you played for the
Speaker 1: same Suri school for the Niners. You've lived, You've lived
Speaker 1: a lot of life. When you go back and think
Speaker 1: about what you were doing at eighteen your country, represent
Speaker 1: your country. And then and then you see what college
Speaker 1: kids are doing in basketball and football, you would assume
Speaker 1: and think that, you know, being on that stage and
Speaker 1: how how glorified highlight hoops on Instagram all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But you're doing some things that you were doing this
Speaker 1: before the Lebron became Lebron. Oh yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so it's so funny. I always tell people because you know,
Speaker 1: all the people always want to know what you did
Speaker 1: at what age. And I always tell everybody that don't
Speaker 1: follow my path because only God knows my path and
Speaker 1: bless me with my gift. Because uh, my high school,
Speaker 1: my ninth grades was in my junior high school, so
Speaker 1: I didn't go to high school until tenth grade. That
Speaker 1: started high school. And in my tenth grade year, I
Speaker 1: was at Hotshot Junior High kick coming to high school,
Speaker 1: and I got hurt during winter track running a shuttle
Speaker 1: hurdle relay ripped the bone, the muscle right off the
Speaker 1: bone and my hamstring and I did not run again
Speaker 1: until spring of junior year. It wasn't until we got
Speaker 1: found the Jets orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed my injury. So
Speaker 1: from tenth grade until springtime junior year was the first
Speaker 1: time I was able to run in high school and
Speaker 1: the first time I ran in high school. That season,
Speaker 1: I tied the state record and around thirteen six hur
Speaker 1: in the hurdles. And then my second year running in
Speaker 1: high school, which is year yeah high hurdle, I broke
Speaker 1: the national record and ran twelve nine coming off of
Speaker 1: the major Yeah yeah, I was five five nine, But
Speaker 1: but I did gymnastics and all that I mean, we
Speaker 1: did cross training before it was officially acknowledged as cross training.
Speaker 1: We did all these different sports. So gymnastics giving me
Speaker 1: core strength and flexibility. I could do a Russian split,
Speaker 1: you know I had. I had a thirty five in
Speaker 1: seeing thirty four and a half inch in seems. So
Speaker 1: I was long legged, short short torso and so that
Speaker 1: was ideal for the hurdles and um, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: had a year and a half in high school and
Speaker 1: then a year and a half I ran thirteen six
Speaker 1: and twelve nine. So I broke the national record and
Speaker 1: broke all these records. And so when I tell people,
Speaker 1: don't use my chronology because it doesn't make sense. You know,
Speaker 1: I ran, check this out. I ran fifteen three in
Speaker 1: ninth grade galloping three step hurdles. Then I got hurt,
Speaker 1: and then I ran thirteen six and twelve nine. So
Speaker 1: I always tell people that's God intervening in my life,
Speaker 1: saying you know, and knowing how badly I wanted it.
Speaker 1: And then my greatest gift, guys, And I tell people
Speaker 1: this all the time. I had this uncanny ability to
Speaker 1: take words and put them into imagery. So my coaches
Speaker 1: were always older than me, and they couldn't do what
Speaker 1: they were asking me to do because they were older
Speaker 1: and they want the athlete that I was. But I
Speaker 1: could take the words and turn them into visual images,
Speaker 1: meditate on those in my head, and either right then,
Speaker 1: within five minutes or the next day, replicate what they
Speaker 1: said exactly, and I can make these adjustments. And they
Speaker 1: used to tell me all the time, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you can do this, but I said, your words
Speaker 1: are images to me. I see it. But I was.
Speaker 1: I loved hurtling. I came alive with hurling. I could sprint,
Speaker 1: but hurling was it just it was a rush that
Speaker 1: I couldn't explain going over something, you know, being imbalanced
Speaker 1: for a few hundreds of a second and still coming
Speaker 1: back down on the other side and continue to run
Speaker 1: and pull away from people. That was man, How did
Speaker 1: you get into hurley? Is it something that a coach
Speaker 1: suggested to you? Is it something that you just saw emulated.
Speaker 1: We had a split rail fence around our home. We
Speaker 1: lived on a corner, and I was always running and
Speaker 1: jumping over the fence, you know, running from my friends,
Speaker 1: my brothers and everybody. And then one day in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: I had the TV on and Rod Millburn was running
Speaker 1: over the hurdles and it's the first time I saw
Speaker 1: something that was similar to what I was doing, and
Speaker 1: it was called the hurdles, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, they actually have an event like this. I
Speaker 1: can do this. And I was just engrossed in it
Speaker 1: and watched his brother just do his thing, and I said,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna do. And then in ninth grade,
Speaker 1: everybody was afraid to hurdle and I was the only
Speaker 1: one that stood up. I'll try it because I had
Speaker 1: done it all the time, so it wasn't something that
Speaker 1: was foreign to me. I didn't know how to do
Speaker 1: it in a actual track environment, but I knew I
Speaker 1: ran and jumped all the time, so I said, I'll
Speaker 1: try that looks like what I do at home. Please
Speaker 1: tell me and describe for us the difference between football
Speaker 1: speed and world class speed. Because you hear tore Hell
Speaker 1: he's world class speed. He was going one miles per hour.
Speaker 1: But football speed and track speed, it's totally different. I feel.
Speaker 1: Track speed is that that speed where you get scared.
Speaker 1: You don't know who it is, so you just take
Speaker 1: off and then when you turn around you realize you
Speaker 1: didn't hit a gear that you've never experienced before. It's
Speaker 1: it's funny you say that to you, because I used
Speaker 1: to tell people when I used to race over hurdles.
Speaker 1: I always told myself while racing, there's no a lot
Speaker 1: that someone was coming to get me, coming to get me,
Speaker 1: and I run like a bat out of hell. I
Speaker 1: was surprised myself. You know that I ran so hard,
Speaker 1: and but yeah, it's I don't mean to insult any
Speaker 1: but but I'm so tired over talk. Let me sit back, saying,
Speaker 1: back in the chair, buckle up, Schmidt, whether it's r
Speaker 1: G three or whoever has world class speed. I said,
Speaker 1: you don't even know what world class speed is. You've
Speaker 1: never even seen it. It would blow your mind if
Speaker 1: you saw world class speed. Football speed is functional speed.
Speaker 1: You're you're quick for ten yards because you do ten
Speaker 1: series of tenure bursts, but you can't sustain that that
Speaker 1: top end speed for sixty seventy meters. And for instance,
Speaker 1: So I list a couple of world class guys Willie Galt,
Speaker 1: James jett Ron Brown. I give Terry kill Uh, James Trapp,
Speaker 1: James Jett James Jette. I'll even put an asterisk by
Speaker 1: Darryl Green during my day because Daryl could run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can run rocket Ishmael remember him. Yeah, everybody else
Speaker 1: is quick. But let me just let me just show
Speaker 1: you something. So for forty yards, right, for forty yards
Speaker 1: in my best day, forty yards, I ran, uh four
Speaker 1: four forty over hurdles yards yards four four over obstacles,
Speaker 1: over obstacles, come hurdles. And I wasn't even the fastest
Speaker 1: guy out there. No though, are you fibbing to me, sir? No?
Speaker 1: Fourth over? So you tell them forty Are you telling
Speaker 1: me that these dudes that go to combine, these young punks,
Speaker 1: these young well young whippers snappers, young, yes, and in shorts,
Speaker 1: spend that in a T shirt and who clicks? Those
Speaker 1: guys are running flying down there, and you telling me
Speaker 1: you a gallivanting Yes, sir, that's will go, will go
Speaker 1: vouch for it. He was a victim of it right
Speaker 1: on his campus. Did you say a victim? Yes, you
Speaker 1: put that smoke dog. Yes. Hey, remember two years ago
Speaker 1: at the super Bowl when U boat ran boat ran
Speaker 1: forty right basically in the street clothes with some flats
Speaker 1: on and he ran four to some flippity flops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just standing there with jeans on to some Jesus sandals,
Speaker 1: you know, Christian Coleman. These guys can run three eight
Speaker 1: b three eight three eight. They can fly. So when
Speaker 1: I tell people, if you want to really see world
Speaker 1: class speak, come to attract me and watch these brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters coming by you. They're picking them up and
Speaker 1: putting them down. The difference is that track guys know
Speaker 1: how to run. Football guys look like they're running fast
Speaker 1: because they've got so much energy going all over the place,
Speaker 1: so much force wasted, wasted, movement wasted. I remember, this
Speaker 1: is no lie. I'm not saying. Nothing you're saying is
Speaker 1: a lot. I just like Joe Montana and Bill Walsh
Speaker 1: had me run five to six yards farther almost every
Speaker 1: route because Joe said it always looked like I wasn't
Speaker 1: running and when he throw the ball, I was gone.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's because I know how to run,
Speaker 1: and when you know how to run, its effortless. He
Speaker 1: was used to seeing all that armed motion and herky
Speaker 1: jerky stuff, and he just thought you were running fast.
Speaker 1: And he's a skeeter. They called me Skeeter hes and
Speaker 1: it looked like you just striding. And I throw the
Speaker 1: ball and it's like four yards behind you, and I go,
Speaker 1: you gotta throw it sooner. Man, You can't wait till
Speaker 1: I get past somebody. I'm gonna get past them. If
Speaker 1: you wait, you can't reach me. You were out running
Speaker 1: Joe Montana's past. Oh yeah, So my ten to twelve
Speaker 1: yard outs had to be fourteen and fifteen at my
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty yard digs had to be twenty four yards. Hey, Cadillac,
Speaker 1: are you Cadillac turning it though? Because when you get going,
Speaker 1: so I ran. Try when you get going, it's gone.
Speaker 1: You can't stop. You can't be pit a pattern. And
Speaker 1: Mr drummer boy, you gotta gotta lack turn, Yeah you do.
Speaker 1: Because they called me noodles because I remember my first year,
Speaker 1: I'd be running so fast, I like blow a tire
Speaker 1: out and fall, you know, and football you gotta have
Speaker 1: a wider base, right, And I like, ruh, we don't
Speaker 1: run like that. We don't run white leg. We run vertically.
Speaker 1: And he says, yeah, but you never you can't turn
Speaker 1: like that because you're running too fast. You're that skateboard,
Speaker 1: hit that rock, hit that rock. So I had to
Speaker 1: learn how to run wider to be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: to control that speed, because if I use my speed,
Speaker 1: it was too much. You know, I just couldn't come
Speaker 1: out of your break. You can't come out of your
Speaker 1: breaking in. That's how, that's how the corner he closes
Speaker 1: on you. But because you have to and when you're
Speaker 1: running that fast, you have to have wasted movement to
Speaker 1: be able to slow down. Because if you don't slow
Speaker 1: down and don't have that wasted movement, you know who's right,
Speaker 1: You know who makes you slow down? It's three syllables,
Speaker 1: A C, we'll make you slow down. They take you
Speaker 1: out the game on a car. You can't put that
Speaker 1: kind of force on a cut. It's gone. You're leaving
Speaker 1: on the ground. So it was so I had to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to slow down so much before I could
Speaker 1: ever do that, which was frustrating because I'm so used
Speaker 1: to just taken off and you've got too much power.
Speaker 1: You can't do that, you blow out everything. I think
Speaker 1: it's about that time, just so we'll take a little breathing.
Speaker 1: Good do good, let's getting down to do it. Good. Hey, Gerard,
Speaker 1: why did you get that T shirt? You mean, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I got it from cut to a podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys
Speaker 1: at seven or four shot. But yeah, you can go on,
Speaker 1: buy you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. Many athletes missed the operat tunity to
Speaker 1: participate in Olympics this year. You've seen you had the
Speaker 1: opportunity in nineteen eighty Olympics in Moscow, you missed it.
Speaker 1: Take us through that process and then I follow up
Speaker 1: after that, because I think it's extremely interesting. The Olympics
Speaker 1: are only every four years, and now now discovering they
Speaker 1: are eighteen to you know, twenty one or something events
Speaker 1: opportunities for track and field that I didn't know about.
Speaker 1: So I was just kind of thinking that I being ignorant,
Speaker 1: which is lack of knowledge. I didn't know that they
Speaker 1: had the opportunity other than what I've seen on the
Speaker 1: Diamond Club, you know, watching that on television. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know that it was so many more opportunities, and
Speaker 1: no matter what level it is to run track, I
Speaker 1: just all assume I assume that they just they just
Speaker 1: practiced four years. They just they just actressive for this
Speaker 1: whole time. Yeah. No, um So, first of all, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you knew this track and field has
Speaker 1: been professional since nineteen eighties. Are It's been the worst
Speaker 1: best known secret in the world. I remember before I
Speaker 1: came to the Niners, I was at the Superstars and
Speaker 1: Dwight Clark was there. There was a year of the
Speaker 1: Catch and Chris Collinsworth was there that they're the ones
Speaker 1: who had a conversation with me about playing football, And
Speaker 1: I remember Chris collins Worth said to me, man, you
Speaker 1: seem like a bright guy. You've got a lot of talent.
Speaker 1: Why are you wasting your time running track? You're not
Speaker 1: making any money. So I said, arrogantly, I said, Chris,
Speaker 1: how much money do you make playing football? He was
Speaker 1: making sixty thousand a year, and I said, I make
Speaker 1: more than you, and he goes, what I go, I
Speaker 1: make more than you. My My Puma contract was a
Speaker 1: k back then, and he's just looking at me. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not as dumb as I look. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't just run around as old for nothing. I do.
Speaker 1: I have sponsors, I get paid. And he's like, what
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I said, but everybody thinks we're a
Speaker 1: one in four year kind of sport. I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm running all around the world, you know, I got
Speaker 1: all these and he's like, wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: So since sport has been been uh professional, and guys
Speaker 1: and some girls have maken seven figures since that time.
Speaker 1: Not everybody only top, you know, but at least it
Speaker 1: was it started to afford itself an avenue comes. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm pissed because they're talking about this boycott and I've
Speaker 1: been busting my hump and my only chance for you know,
Speaker 1: Wheat's boxes and Sports Illustrated covers and potential sponsorship revenue
Speaker 1: is going to be in Olympic games. And now Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter is threatening the boycott. So I'm training because hoping
Speaker 1: that we'll still go. You gotta go to Olympic trials
Speaker 1: because if they don't boycott and you don't go to
Speaker 1: Olympic trials, you're not on the team no matter what.
Speaker 1: So I'm training in Vain. And why is the Olympic
Speaker 1: trials important? Because if they lift the boycott and you
Speaker 1: don't go to Olympic trials, you're not on the team.
Speaker 1: The Olympic Trials to take the top three. So I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, just like you're saying, why are we
Speaker 1: having Olympic trials if we're boycotting. So in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind, I'm thinking, well, maybe we're having the
Speaker 1: trials in case the boycott is lifted in time to
Speaker 1: go that we have field of the team. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be ready on top of that at insulted injury.
Speaker 1: Remember the miracle on ice, Yes, there only and these
Speaker 1: guys that happened the winter of nineteen. So I'm sitting
Speaker 1: after going they let the l winter Olympians go, maybe
Speaker 1: we're don't get to go. They don't let us go. Well, well,
Speaker 1: what do most winter Olympians look like? Hm? And what
Speaker 1: the most summer Olympians stuff? That's all. That's all I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, this
Speaker 1: ain't even right. I know, the sun ain't shining out
Speaker 1: brightly in the wintertime, but got dog, this is blatant.
Speaker 1: You let them go, but don't let us go. So
Speaker 1: now I'm just I'm just distraught. I want, you know,
Speaker 1: I want nothing else to do. And then I already
Speaker 1: know that the Soviet block in the Eastern Bloc countries
Speaker 1: was talking about retaliating in when the Olympic Games have
Speaker 1: been awarded to Los Angeles. So here I am thinking,
Speaker 1: I dug it. I might be training another four years
Speaker 1: for nothing if there's another boycott. So I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can't you know, I gotta do something. So I always
Speaker 1: tell everybody the forty Niners saved my athlete of career
Speaker 1: at that point because in track was not pro the
Speaker 1: money that I was earning I had to have in
Speaker 1: a trust fund. That was the other obstacle I had
Speaker 1: to go through. So all I have money I talked
Speaker 1: about with Puma and all that it had to be
Speaker 1: put in the trust fund I had. I had to
Speaker 1: have my bank trustee okay, receipts, whether it was my
Speaker 1: apartment bills or whatever, it was, card notes, whatever, to
Speaker 1: advance me the money to pay those. I couldn't just
Speaker 1: take the hunt in tars. So that was being regulated
Speaker 1: monitored um. And so when the Niners came about, and
Speaker 1: then Bill Walsh being a fan track fan, knowing that
Speaker 1: if I signed a pro football contract based on the rules,
Speaker 1: They're gonna ban me from track. So Bill Walsh did
Speaker 1: me a favor by guaranteeing me my entire contract. That
Speaker 1: way he said, and he said it bunt me. He says, listen,
Speaker 1: I want you to do well, but if in case
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out here, you'll have some time to
Speaker 1: get on your feet and find a job. And so
Speaker 1: I appreciated him respecting what I was giving up to
Speaker 1: play the game in case it didn't work out, and
Speaker 1: so he guaranteed my entire contract. And so that's that
Speaker 1: saved my athletic career at that time because I had
Speaker 1: just graduated the University of Maryland, and what was most
Speaker 1: college graduates want a job. I wasn't trying to retire.
Speaker 1: I was only years old at the time, but you know,
Speaker 1: there was no real future ahead of me and track
Speaker 1: and feel professionally at that time as I knew it.
Speaker 1: So now I had a asked to play professional football.
Speaker 1: Remember I grew up playing football. I love football. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I can still be an athlete now and still, you know,
Speaker 1: do what I want to do. And so the minute
Speaker 1: I signed, they banned me from track and field, and
Speaker 1: those assholes within a year decided to make the pro
Speaker 1: sport the pro the sport Pro and then then they
Speaker 1: blocked me out and I had to go to court
Speaker 1: for four years fighting them in court to get my reinstatement.
Speaker 1: That was the delay, and you getting back into your
Speaker 1: career wasn't necessarily the football. It was the fact that
Speaker 1: they blocked you from participating. Yeah, because I trained every
Speaker 1: off season. I was ready to go back, and you know,
Speaker 1: the summer of eighty two, like in the off season,
Speaker 1: I was going to run if I could, and uh,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't because I was banned at that time.
Speaker 1: So it was when the at that time, the IF
Speaker 1: International Athletic associated and came to me and said, if
Speaker 1: you drop your lawsuit, we'll let you back in. And
Speaker 1: I was like, it's that simple. Then it cost me
Speaker 1: several hundred thousands of dollars all this time, and all
Speaker 1: you want me to do is dropped the lawsuit. Well,
Speaker 1: they wanted me to drop it because now it was
Speaker 1: costing them money and the money I was making from
Speaker 1: the Niners was helping me fund the lawsuit. So you
Speaker 1: played with the Niners and then you returned back to track.
Speaker 1: How was that transition in terms of preparing your body,
Speaker 1: taking a different type of um wear and tear on
Speaker 1: your body. How was that transition going back to trek.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a good transition because I had to gain
Speaker 1: twenty two pounds to play with the Niners. Remember Steve
Speaker 1: knows this. The Niners were possession passing team when hours
Speaker 1: with them, so everything was ten and twelve yards. You know.
Speaker 1: I was the experiment as far as the long ball,
Speaker 1: and I came into the Niners. I wait, a hundred
Speaker 1: sixty nine pounds, so can wet And Bill Wall said,
Speaker 1: you can't play less than a five pounds what? So
Speaker 1: I had to get out of shape to gain that
Speaker 1: weight because you know, Steve, pounds and pads and camp
Speaker 1: and all that, you're not gonna keep any weight on.
Speaker 1: So I had to be what a nutrition is weekly,
Speaker 1: looking at my my weight, my diet, eating all this crap.
Speaker 1: And you know, I got up to four but I
Speaker 1: lost a lot of my innate quickness. Most people didn't
Speaker 1: see it, but I knew it um and yeah, it
Speaker 1: reshaped my body. And then my first race back in
Speaker 1: six in via Reggio, Italy, I ruptured my achilles tendon
Speaker 1: because I had too much weight running. You know, all
Speaker 1: that force on the back of the heel and like
Speaker 1: the six or seven. Now I wonder to raise believe this,
Speaker 1: I ran and I wanted to raise. I limped across
Speaker 1: the line and I didn't run again. That was it
Speaker 1: one and done. And I had all this money, twenty
Speaker 1: plus thousand dollars a race waiting for me, and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't collect past one race. I was sick. When
Speaker 1: you were running, it was still considered a very isolated
Speaker 1: sport for the individual running. How did you cope with
Speaker 1: performing good and bad m and then only really having
Speaker 1: to go back to your room and it was just you? Like,
Speaker 1: how did you process that alone time? The disappointment that individualized? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the highs and lows? Like, I guess, how was your
Speaker 1: mental health in the top, in the performance, good or bad,
Speaker 1: of each event, being across the world by yourself, from
Speaker 1: your family, from your wife, from your friends, from you know,
Speaker 1: just it's just you, right, So this made me chuckling out,
Speaker 1: got ready to say that I'm gonna say it anyway,
Speaker 1: the line, I don't mean the brag, I don't mean
Speaker 1: the boast. I didn't lose that much, you know that
Speaker 1: often maybe three or four times total. So, but my
Speaker 1: training at home, I trained to break world records. So
Speaker 1: I was. I was breaking world records in practice, and
Speaker 1: I did it enough times. We were I was trained
Speaker 1: in condition. I was like a robot. I guess the
Speaker 1: training condition, and all I had to do was run practice,
Speaker 1: and I was okay, meaning that if I could run
Speaker 1: thirteen flout of better in practice, and at that time,
Speaker 1: no one in the world could run that. But me
Speaker 1: then named too many people going to be at the
Speaker 1: finish line at that time but me, so short of
Speaker 1: me making a mistake, the closest they would be to me,
Speaker 1: probably the first three hurdles, four hurdles, and then I
Speaker 1: would start to separate myself. The times that I did lose,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much that someone was better than me,
Speaker 1: is that I was cocky enough that I wasn't training
Speaker 1: and I was doing a Dwayne Haskins back in that day,
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, not not clubs, hooking up with the college girls,
Speaker 1: you know, having fun and just thinking I'm okay. And
Speaker 1: then I get there and some you know, Greg Fosters
Speaker 1: on his A game, and then I make a mistake
Speaker 1: and then Greg, you know, beast me off the last
Speaker 1: two hurdles. Um, so what I would do. When I
Speaker 1: did lose, it wasn't a very comfortable time. I wasn't
Speaker 1: fun to be around. I wouldn't I wouldn't out at
Speaker 1: the club that night. I wouldn't hanging out with the guy.
Speaker 1: I would be pissed. I mean pissed. I took it personally,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't wait to get back on the track
Speaker 1: to correct the error. So I get on the phone.
Speaker 1: I called my coach, because you know, we didn't bring
Speaker 1: coaches over. You know, they sent us on our way
Speaker 1: and you had to do it yourself. And I called
Speaker 1: my coach and I talked to him. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that that I was trained to do was
Speaker 1: I had to be aware of what I was doing
Speaker 1: over every hurdle, because my coach would always ask me
Speaker 1: when a mistake happened, where did it happen, And if
Speaker 1: I was not in touch with what I was doing,
Speaker 1: he always said that then you can't make a correction
Speaker 1: at some point in the race if you're oblivious to
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Yes, you gotta run fast, but you've
Speaker 1: gotta be aware of what's happening so that you can
Speaker 1: make the adjustment when it happens, you know, So well,
Speaker 1: I'd run a race and my coaches see it and eagle,
Speaker 1: So tell me what happened over number three or number five,
Speaker 1: and I better know what you know what happened, Otherwise
Speaker 1: you're gonna say you don't even know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You're just out there running. You have to have complete
Speaker 1: control of the race. You make a mistake over the
Speaker 1: second hurdle, when can you correct it the fourth hurdle?
Speaker 1: Why third hurdles too fast? It's a second or less.
Speaker 1: You can't. We can't respond that quickly. You can only
Speaker 1: respond by the two hurdles later. So we learned how
Speaker 1: to make those adjustments so that because most people, if
Speaker 1: they make a mistake, they try to make an adjustment
Speaker 1: right now, and then they make another mistake. So we
Speaker 1: we learned, Okay, that was a mistake. Okay, get to
Speaker 1: the hurdle. Now corrected. So he wanted me conscious and
Speaker 1: cognizant of what I was doing at all time. So
Speaker 1: I go back, I get on the phone to him,
Speaker 1: and I could tell him exactly what happened. If if
Speaker 1: someone if it was on ABC Wild with the Sports,
Speaker 1: he'd wait till it came on that weekend and he'd
Speaker 1: match it up to what I was saying, and then,
Speaker 1: you know, we try to make that correction. But most
Speaker 1: of the time, Steve, it was because of my own arrogance.
Speaker 1: You know, I just thought I get to show up
Speaker 1: and these guys are gonna fold like a tent. And
Speaker 1: then every now and then some guy would run really well,
Speaker 1: and then I'd make an untimely mistake. Whatnot. They could
Speaker 1: beat me, but they beat me on that day, Ronaldo.
Speaker 1: The last segment we have is called the Deep three,
Speaker 1: and it's three questions to go beyond who you were
Speaker 1: as a track star, beyond who you were on the
Speaker 1: track or even on the football field. So Smitty and
Speaker 1: give him the first question of Deep three. With all
Speaker 1: the wonderful things that you've been able to do, travel
Speaker 1: all all around the world, um now being an agent
Speaker 1: to some of the world's best track athletes, men and women,
Speaker 1: having a wonderful wife and and and your girls, one
Speaker 1: of them being a surgeon. Are there any regrets that
Speaker 1: you have that when you look back on your life.
Speaker 1: I have yes, Yes, in all honesty, I have one
Speaker 1: regret is that I never had a chance two really
Speaker 1: see what my full potential could have been in the
Speaker 1: hurdle race. And I only say that because I'm reminded constantly,
Speaker 1: you know, with the world record today being broken and
Speaker 1: before all the advanced technology that you know, the lighter hurdles,
Speaker 1: the faster tracks that I didn't have to run on.
Speaker 1: Had things been different, the world could have gotten to
Speaker 1: see what I really could have done in that hurdle race.
Speaker 1: Because I ran twelve ninety three. You know, as a
Speaker 1: as a twenty two year old, I never even the
Speaker 1: world never saw me in my prime, and I just
Speaker 1: wished that, you know, if there weren't for boycotts and
Speaker 1: other things, the world, you know, I could even I
Speaker 1: could have really challenged to see what I could have done.
Speaker 1: I honestly believe and most people agree with me that
Speaker 1: I probably would have run twelve seven something based on
Speaker 1: all the things that are out there. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's my only regret. It's not something that you know,
Speaker 1: you can't change time, but the circumstances of the time,
Speaker 1: I would still do the same thing. I would still
Speaker 1: go on to play pro football because they gave me
Speaker 1: a chance to continue to be a professional athlete and
Speaker 1: get paid as opposed to not getting paid. But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to sport turn pro. You know,
Speaker 1: two years before I went to the Niners, I would
Speaker 1: have never played professional football. But I don't regret that
Speaker 1: because I have a Super Bowl ring, I caught touchdown
Speaker 1: passes from Joe Montana, I had some great lifelong friends
Speaker 1: from the Fort and so and so. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a part of me that I'm I'm proud of. However,
Speaker 1: however long or short, some might you know see it.
Speaker 1: Are there any milestones personally or professionally that are stealing
Speaker 1: your bucket list to achieve milestones? M no, And I'll
Speaker 1: say this, you know, for the record, for the second
Speaker 1: time to outside of my family. I went to the
Speaker 1: University of Maryland because they offered me an athletic scholarship,
Speaker 1: and my ninth grade track coach said, you know, if
Speaker 1: you train hard enough, you might get it, or an
Speaker 1: athletic scholarship to go to college. All that was important
Speaker 1: to me at that time was trying to make my
Speaker 1: parents proud by going to school to get an education.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that track was even a pro sport
Speaker 1: because it wasn't at the time, or whatever, be your
Speaker 1: pro sport, and I wasn't pursuing professional football. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have aspirations at that time. I love book ball,
Speaker 1: but I never saw myself that way. So um no,
Speaker 1: the I'm grateful that the ninth grade math he just
Speaker 1: saw something in me before I did. That sparked whatever
Speaker 1: was inside of me too to be able to tell
Speaker 1: the story today. I've heard this. Well now you don't know,
Speaker 1: but here on cut to it. I talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: I've started running and I've experienced a lot of treadmill
Speaker 1: and this treadmill it's taught me a lot about life,
Speaker 1: more than I've realized. And on one of these one
Speaker 1: of the have a Peloton treadmill. So the guys talk
Speaker 1: and one of my Peloton bike man. So I was
Speaker 1: running and the guy said and training. He said, you're
Speaker 1: gonna hit mountains. He said this, which I've never heard,
Speaker 1: and I've been holding onto it tross. Okay, so you've
Speaker 1: been to the mountain town. But what has been some
Speaker 1: troughs that you've hit that none of the mountaintop experiences
Speaker 1: has been able to teach you the way that the
Speaker 1: truth experience has. The trough was that I learned when
Speaker 1: I in my my second marriage, which was when I
Speaker 1: was coming back and I wasn't number one in the
Speaker 1: world anymore. You know, I got up to number two,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't number one. And one of my greatest
Speaker 1: fears slash insecurities, was what people still like me if
Speaker 1: I wasn't winning. And I remember my wife said, I
Speaker 1: will still love you, m and so that took away
Speaker 1: that troth that you're speaking of, where it took away everything.
Speaker 1: It was those simple things that from the mouth of
Speaker 1: someone who really didn't even know the professional athletic world.
Speaker 1: All that mattered to her is that, you know, she
Speaker 1: would still love me. And I wasn't gonna die if
Speaker 1: I didn't win a race, and I would still beloved.
Speaker 1: And I held onto that, you know, because that meant
Speaker 1: more to me than anything at that particular time, you know,
Speaker 1: not getting ahead of myself thinking I was, you know,
Speaker 1: the great Ronaldo and the m I or world record holder.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter at that point. It meant that when
Speaker 1: I came home, my peace of mind was that I
Speaker 1: was in a loving environment. And that's all that ever
Speaker 1: mattered to me, because um Steve, I never I never
Speaker 1: had to watch TV or even read papers about what
Speaker 1: I did because I lived it, and so when people
Speaker 1: were talking about did you see this, you see that,
Speaker 1: I'd say no, and you didn't see what they wrote
Speaker 1: It was a great article, and I said it didn't
Speaker 1: get it, could never get better better than being there
Speaker 1: when it happened, And they're like what I said. I
Speaker 1: lived every second of it. I was in it. And
Speaker 1: so when the race was over and the euphoria died down,
Speaker 1: I wanted to get back to normal as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: As much as I understood my feet were gout garnering attention.
Speaker 1: I was most comfortable with regular folk, my friends. I
Speaker 1: have friends that are, you know, former professional athlete, but
Speaker 1: my key nucleus of friends just regular folk, regular job people,
Speaker 1: you know, because they kept me grounded. They weren't me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think I was anything special. Yes I
Speaker 1: did something on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't any better than any of them. So they helped
Speaker 1: keep me grounded and kept me, keep me in touch
Speaker 1: with reality, what the world was. And so my few
Speaker 1: seconds of fame, that's all they were to me. You know,
Speaker 1: I lived it. I benefited from them, but bro I
Speaker 1: just always wanted to keep my feet on the ground
Speaker 1: because everybody didn't have that experience, and so I never
Speaker 1: wanted to elevate myself like I was above them or
Speaker 1: better than them. You know, I was one of them.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, you know, your boys, they were
Speaker 1: my boys and they're always gonna be my boys. And
Speaker 1: it didn't matter that I happened to be a world
Speaker 1: record holder or forty niner at the time, I was
Speaker 1: still skeeets to them. And uh so That's that's something
Speaker 1: I've always held onto. It's like, and I get embarrassed
Speaker 1: when people start propping me up that you did this
Speaker 1: and you did that, because I don't like people talking
Speaker 1: about me for an extended period of time. I have
Speaker 1: friends with me and they're not saying anything to them,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, I feel for them because
Speaker 1: somebody's acting like they're invisible. So I you know, I
Speaker 1: was pushed the conversation away and talk about something else
Speaker 1: because I already lived it. You know, I don't need
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need the extra attention anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: thankful what I did. I'm blessed by what I've done.
Speaker 1: I hope that I left my mark on many people,
Speaker 1: not so much the game itself, but how I played it,
Speaker 1: and and now all I'm trying to do right now
Speaker 1: is is paid forward. Have needs kids to understand that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you've been giving a lot today and make it,
Speaker 1: make it count because when it's over, there's no reduce. Well,
Speaker 1: we're not always and the privilege. Likewise, my friend, it's
Speaker 1: an honor. Brother. You are a unique person. You are
Speaker 1: well worth it, you are competent and most of all
Speaker 1: your lovable. I'm Steve Smith Singior, I'm Gerard Little John
Speaker 1: and this is cut to It. Cut to It with
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior. That Is Me is a production of
Speaker 1: Cut to It LLC, Balto Creative Media, The Black Effect
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows from Cut to It.
Speaker 1: Executive producer Steve Smith, singer co host Gerard Little John,
Speaker 1: talent and booking manager Joe Fuscy, Social media team Wesley
Speaker 1: Robinson and John Show from Balto Creative Media. Cut to
Speaker 1: It is produced by Brian Baltaschevitch and Meredith Carter, with
Speaker 1: production assistance by Alex Lebrek. Production Coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme
Speaker 1: music by Alex Johnson, the lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton.
Speaker 1: You ain't heard about it, then we're about to let
Speaker 1: you know. It's all