Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: time a former Sons player who you might remember as
Speaker 1: t Rex. More video in just a moment, but this
Speaker 1: is Rex Chapman's mug Shaun and we are learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about the charge ups and Chargeman, tell me
Speaker 1: about the p D suspension. You suspended four games. Listen.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to make an excuse for it. But
Speaker 1: the next year in training camp they tested me. I
Speaker 1: get popped and it's like he rolls the window down
Speaker 1: and as the windows rolling down, he's rapping. He's reaching
Speaker 1: for his glove box. There's no way of fixing it.
Speaker 1: It's like once you lose it, you can't get it back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Charges. I'm your host Rex Chapman. Today
Speaker 1: on the show, we have to quell Jackson, a man
Speaker 1: who made himself into a great pro He was a
Speaker 1: legend in college as a two time All American and
Speaker 1: a stand out in the brutal game of professional football,
Speaker 1: a captain and someone who I think most guys would
Speaker 1: want with them in the trenches, and then almost out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, a few events happened that we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: and Diquell was out of the NFL and looking around
Speaker 1: wondering just what happened and what is happening to him
Speaker 1: and his brain? This his charges Quell, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for being here and welcome to the show Man, Rex,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I can't say it enough. This
Speaker 1: is a topic that needs to be discussed and I'm
Speaker 1: happy you've created that platform to do so. Well. You know,
Speaker 1: I've wanted to talk to a football player for some
Speaker 1: time now. Um, obviously I played college basketball. Many of
Speaker 1: my friends were played on the on the football team.
Speaker 1: You know, we lifted in the same facility back then.
Speaker 1: They would you know, come up and poke me, my
Speaker 1: little chick. And it definitely had At Maryland, we definitely
Speaker 1: was really close with the basketball team as well, and
Speaker 1: uh we were playing the summer and things like that.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know it was fun that those days
Speaker 1: were fun. Yeah, to that point though, guys in college
Speaker 1: you know, not basketball players, but college football players. If
Speaker 1: you play four or five years of college football and
Speaker 1: you're getting the same kind of brain trauma over and
Speaker 1: over and over, right, I mean, at some point, isn't
Speaker 1: that something that has to be addressed with the n
Speaker 1: C Double A. And because I mean, you guys, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to get out of college and not have
Speaker 1: you know, insurance and retirement and stuff when you played basketball,
Speaker 1: ran track or it's just a different sport. You know,
Speaker 1: your sport is very, very different, and it's just hard
Speaker 1: for me to you know, not everybody gets to go
Speaker 1: on and play like yourself. So that I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I think there's some stuff that that's got to be
Speaker 1: done at some point. Yeah, no, I agree, because I
Speaker 1: remember when. I don't specifically remember the year, but Corey
Speaker 1: Stringer is a name that stands out to me. He
Speaker 1: played for the Minnesota Vikings. He was a guy who
Speaker 1: died from heat heat exhaustion in the NFL, And immediately
Speaker 1: the NFL adopted this rule where they were over hire
Speaker 1: people just to have water buckets and ice towels to
Speaker 1: make sure no one overheated and also to make sure,
Speaker 1: you know, guys were getting the proper properly hydrated, getting fluids.
Speaker 1: And it was just a huge shift. And now you
Speaker 1: talk about the collegiate game with the young, you know,
Speaker 1: college athletes playing football, well, in the NFL, they have
Speaker 1: this thing called what is it They take care of
Speaker 1: their players at a different rate than that college man.
Speaker 1: When I was in college, there was no rules. There
Speaker 1: was no rules to say you can't hit this many times.
Speaker 1: We can, we can play as long as we want.
Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of these guys are being
Speaker 1: let go and that having issues five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: nineteen years later that never manifested at such a young age.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had buddies who played the game, and
Speaker 1: you know, whether they were twenty two or twenty five,
Speaker 1: a lot of these issues don't manifest into you a
Speaker 1: lot a lot older. And at that point, if you
Speaker 1: hadn't played in the NFL and you hadn't made an
Speaker 1: exorbitant amount of money, you can take care of yourself
Speaker 1: from a health standpoint. But there's a lot of guys
Speaker 1: from the collegiate game that are struggling right now. And
Speaker 1: I think the NFL has to get with the n
Speaker 1: C double A to bridge that gap between you know,
Speaker 1: what's happening in the NFL and what's happening at the
Speaker 1: collegiate level. For sure, I'm with you. Uh, let's start here,
Speaker 1: let's go back with the love of the game. You know,
Speaker 1: tell me this where'd you grow up and how did
Speaker 1: football enter your life? Yeah? Yeah, So I'm from a
Speaker 1: small city in Florida called Largo, And I tell you what,
Speaker 1: it's so small. My mother used to say, you better
Speaker 1: tell me who you're crushing on because it could be
Speaker 1: your cousin. That's how that that that's how small the
Speaker 1: community was, you know, and and a couple of times
Speaker 1: she was right. You know, I'm from Kentucky, a right. So,
Speaker 1: so my my love for football started at a very
Speaker 1: young age. Rex, Like I was that kid. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Florida, so Tampa Bay the Bucks were my
Speaker 1: favorite team, and I used to I remember back in
Speaker 1: the day they had these like plastic uniforms with plastic
Speaker 1: helmet and show the pass and I would remember sleeping
Speaker 1: in it to the point I wanted to go to
Speaker 1: school in this football uniform. So my love for the
Speaker 1: game started when I was probably like five years old.
Speaker 1: And I started playing organized football when I was seven
Speaker 1: and I never missed a year. And so, uh, my uncle,
Speaker 1: my uncle Charles, he was a huge influence in my life.
Speaker 1: He was a military guy. So the way I would
Speaker 1: get disciplined when I was younger was if I didn't
Speaker 1: take out the trash or do dishes or you know,
Speaker 1: messed up in school for whatever reason. He would take
Speaker 1: me out and we called his run the Kumba. He
Speaker 1: would find the biggest field possibly could fine and we
Speaker 1: would run around this field. In every corner. We would
Speaker 1: either do sit ups or push ups or jumping jack's.
Speaker 1: He would work my ass out, you hear me. It's
Speaker 1: basically it's coaching. You were getting coached from a really
Speaker 1: young age because we're all punished by doing more right
Speaker 1: in sports. Right. So so when I started playing organized football,
Speaker 1: it was it became easy, you know, And I just
Speaker 1: I loved the game so much. And I was a
Speaker 1: part of that old culture that we call it the
Speaker 1: what do you call it? I forget? This is a
Speaker 1: drill where two guys you lay on your back and
Speaker 1: you just oh yeah, something like Oklahoma's Oklahoma Oklahoma, the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma the Oklahoma drill. So I grew up in that culture, man,
Speaker 1: and I loved it at the time. You know, I
Speaker 1: absolutely loved it. And see I hated it. I thought
Speaker 1: I was a football player and everything I realized I
Speaker 1: liked hitting. I didn't like getting hit. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: I got a funny story. So for me, I thought
Speaker 1: I loved the game, but I was right there in
Speaker 1: line with you didn't want When I realized when I
Speaker 1: got hit for the first time, I boo who cried,
Speaker 1: I threw my helmet, showed up pass I'm done with this.
Speaker 1: But that uncle who I told you about, that would
Speaker 1: take me out running and and push ups and sit ups.
Speaker 1: He was my coach, so I could not quit. So
Speaker 1: my first three years there was a guy named Cornelius Thomas.
Speaker 1: We're still friends to this day. He was the biggest,
Speaker 1: baddest young dude that played on our team. And every
Speaker 1: day we would hit. My uncle would make me go
Speaker 1: against Cornelius Thomas and I would boo who cried? And
Speaker 1: boo who cried? And one day, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: One day I got fed up. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not taking this anymore. And I won that battle and
Speaker 1: we fought right after that. But at that moment, a
Speaker 1: light bulb went off, as if I can be the aggressor,
Speaker 1: the collision won't hurt as much, and it just a
Speaker 1: light switch went off and I was was hooked from
Speaker 1: the very beginning. But what age was that, this was
Speaker 1: probably nine, a ten nine is a blessing. If that's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do with your life, that is a
Speaker 1: blessing to get that mindset at that age. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just and it was. It was a great teacher because
Speaker 1: I realized I was so competitive, and it taught me
Speaker 1: every day how to bounce back from failure. It was
Speaker 1: every day it was a result of coach telling you
Speaker 1: you did well, you didn't do well. And for a
Speaker 1: young person, I think it's a great tool, especially nowadays,
Speaker 1: to be able to manage failure because that's the real world,
Speaker 1: you know. And my uncle was fantastic at those teaching moments. Man,
Speaker 1: that's terrific. Here on Time Warner Sports Report, my name
Speaker 1: is Eric Keenan wart spilling Raymond James Stadium despite all
Speaker 1: the routing crowd behind us, and I'm now to talk
Speaker 1: about our defensive player of the air player. Accuse you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of great defensive players in high
Speaker 1: school football. They sure fin ellis County. But our defensive
Speaker 1: player here, he's only a junior. He's got a big
Speaker 1: time future and that's seminal linebacker to Quell Jackson. It's
Speaker 1: obvious Jackson possesses those skills and He's hunger to play
Speaker 1: the game is easily noticed. He's the kind of player
Speaker 1: doesn't want to come off and feel anyway, So he's
Speaker 1: he conditions itself to play both both ways. But we
Speaker 1: will never know how much better he would be if
Speaker 1: he's fresh. Every down on defense, the world half defense
Speaker 1: is the reason Seminal went deep into the postseason. Statistically,
Speaker 1: Jackson led Seminal and tackles and tackles for a loss.
Speaker 1: What kind of a player were you in high school?
Speaker 1: I saw in my research you were a three star recruit. Uh,
Speaker 1: and not a lot of guys. You know, with the
Speaker 1: NFL career. You had our three star guys, which I've
Speaker 1: always felt was three star for me. Come on, come on,
Speaker 1: their kids, their kids. Some are gonna grow, some are
Speaker 1: not gonna grow. You know. I blame Tom Limming. I
Speaker 1: blamed Tom. It was it was a publishing that just
Speaker 1: would you know, rank all the guy right right, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget his name. Oh he pissed me off, defenssed
Speaker 1: me off, and uh I did it all play on offense?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was from the time I stepped on
Speaker 1: the field. That is played quarterback and linebacker. And in
Speaker 1: high school I was my freshman year, I played receiver
Speaker 1: and free safety. I'm not fast enough, but I could catch,
Speaker 1: so that that marriage didn't work out all that well.
Speaker 1: So my sophomore year, I transfer high schools and now
Speaker 1: I'm playing quarterback and I'm playing linebacker. I never came
Speaker 1: off the field, and at one point I was the punter,
Speaker 1: you know. I went to punting camps, and oh I
Speaker 1: did it all. Man. I loved the game, man, I
Speaker 1: loved every bit of it, every aspect of the game.
Speaker 1: The quarterback side gave me. It helped me become a
Speaker 1: better linebacker and vice versa. Now we ran the wing
Speaker 1: t I didn't throw the ball a ton, but you
Speaker 1: know it was. I was more in to position the
Speaker 1: leadership at that point, to motivate the guys around me too,
Speaker 1: you know, because I would, you know, talk a little
Speaker 1: trash to him and give them confidence that we can
Speaker 1: beat this team. Because Rerex I went to. I was
Speaker 1: at a predominantly white school, which is fine, but it
Speaker 1: was only like a handful of black guys and we
Speaker 1: were badasses man on the football field. Like those guys, man,
Speaker 1: I still keep in touch with a ton of them.
Speaker 1: But I did it all on the football field. How
Speaker 1: did you end up at Maryland and what made you
Speaker 1: decided to be a Trappist? Yeah? Yeah, So the current
Speaker 1: coach right now at the University of Maryland is a
Speaker 1: guy by the name of Mike Locksley. At the time
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I was a three
Speaker 1: star recruit. No one really recruited me. I would go
Speaker 1: to two camps a year, that was U c F
Speaker 1: and U s F University of Central Florida and University
Speaker 1: of South Florida. And they're a guy named jene Chiswick
Speaker 1: who went on to be the head coach at Arburn.
Speaker 1: He was the first guy to give me a scholarship
Speaker 1: my I think my junior year of high school. And
Speaker 1: then it kind of just snowballed and Maryland was the
Speaker 1: next team in line. Particularly Mike Lochley, he reached out.
Speaker 1: I was living with my grandparents at the time. He
Speaker 1: developed the friendship with them. He made me feel like
Speaker 1: this was my uncle. Now. I could have gone to
Speaker 1: l s U at the time when Nick Saban was there,
Speaker 1: Um NC State, Chuckle Model was there. You know. I
Speaker 1: had a handful of offers, decent d one offers, but Maryland,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I had that connection with Mike Loxley.
Speaker 1: He you had never been to Maryland. I had never
Speaker 1: been on a plane out of high school, and just
Speaker 1: the back and forth. He was honest with me. He
Speaker 1: told me the truth. I wanted to play right away
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to feel like a sense of home.
Speaker 1: And then when I was able to take my visit,
Speaker 1: I was around like minded guys who love football, but
Speaker 1: they also was invested in the school side of it.
Speaker 1: You know. It was more so about talking about both,
Speaker 1: and I can envision myself actually living in my mind
Speaker 1: as a high school. I wanted to be in a
Speaker 1: place where I can potentially live when I'm done playing,
Speaker 1: and it happened. I'm still in the d n V area.
Speaker 1: It was the first year after Ralph Freedan had gotten
Speaker 1: to Maryland and one team games got blown out by
Speaker 1: University of Florida. And uh, when I got here, I
Speaker 1: was CULTI shot man, you know, me coming from a
Speaker 1: small city and coming to this big man tropolitan area.
Speaker 1: It was rough my first year. Man. I remember calling
Speaker 1: the national news is the local news right right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was like I was out of place. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is a different world to me. And luckily I
Speaker 1: have some friendships I created my freshman year was still
Speaker 1: close to this day. They helped me kind of. It
Speaker 1: was a bunch of guys from the South. The guys
Speaker 1: from North Carolina, guy from Texas, another guy from Florida.
Speaker 1: We knew what we were kind of dealing with and
Speaker 1: we helped each other. So um, yeah, it was funny
Speaker 1: how things come full circle, what happened and when that
Speaker 1: led you to your transformation as just this unstoppable defensive force,
Speaker 1: you know what. So there was one school that I
Speaker 1: wanted to offer that I wanted an offer for that
Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted them to offer me, and
Speaker 1: no one else would have had another shot at was
Speaker 1: Florida State was growing up in my town, Florida State
Speaker 1: was like you were king and so we weren't really
Speaker 1: us fans, the Gator fans, and they had offered me.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I can't, I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: do it. I'm a Florida State. Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't do it. Just off of the lads alone,
Speaker 1: I cannot do it. And Florida State never offered me. Man,
Speaker 1: they never offered me. So to answer your question, when
Speaker 1: it really so my sophomore year, I'm a starter and E. J. Henderson,
Speaker 1: the guy who won the Dick Buckets Award at linebacker,
Speaker 1: he had graduated, So now I'm a shooting starter. The
Speaker 1: second game of the season my sophomore year, we're playing
Speaker 1: at Dope Campbell Stadium. We're playing the team that overlooked me.
Speaker 1: And I know all the other linebackers they had recruited
Speaker 1: that are playing. They were They were all good, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, But I thought I was better than
Speaker 1: at least one of them, you know. And the first
Speaker 1: player of the game, Chris Rix, is a quarterback, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like super geek for this game. And first
Speaker 1: player of the game, Rex throws an out out to
Speaker 1: the tight end. I intercepted, I returned for fifty eight yards.
Speaker 1: I scored touchdown. And at that moment Rex, After that game,
Speaker 1: I went on to have like ten plus tackles. I
Speaker 1: blocked the kid, And I remember, I've never felt that
Speaker 1: there's there's moments in your life where you feel like, damn,
Speaker 1: I think I'm better than what I actually then I am.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I'm better and I'm this very humble,
Speaker 1: obedient kid at the time, you know, and uh, the
Speaker 1: confidence just oozed out of me. I knew at that
Speaker 1: moment I could play at the next level. I just
Speaker 1: did it again. Then you could play on Sundays. There
Speaker 1: was no doubt. There was no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1: And my grades started to take a hit after that
Speaker 1: because the focus was shifted. And that's the moment. That's
Speaker 1: the moment that it still gives me chills thinking about it.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful story. It really is the school that
Speaker 1: overlooked you too. All right, let's go, let's go to
Speaker 1: the draft. What do you feel like when you got
Speaker 1: the call? Truth? Man, Oh my gosh, it's hard to
Speaker 1: put it in the words. You know. I was there
Speaker 1: with my family, the people that I love. I didn't
Speaker 1: have this big, massive, you know, watch party anything. I didn't.
Speaker 1: It was too much pressure for me. I wanted people
Speaker 1: that if things didn't work out the way I thought
Speaker 1: they would, if they didn't work out the way I
Speaker 1: thought they would, I wouldn't feel embarrassed in front of
Speaker 1: these people. So it was all my close family and friends,
Speaker 1: and I remember getting the phone call. I thought I
Speaker 1: was gonna go, So I petition to the NFL to
Speaker 1: see where I would get drafted. They told me anywhere
Speaker 1: between late first in the early second round talk to
Speaker 1: some teams. I thought I was going to either Jacksonville
Speaker 1: or Dallas and it didn't happen. And Rex, I tell you,
Speaker 1: I had to remove myself from the room where all
Speaker 1: my family was watching the draft. I was like, I
Speaker 1: have to get away. I broke down, absolutely broke down crying.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, this is too much. So I
Speaker 1: like put my phones up and uh you know, you know,
Speaker 1: entitled little kid at this point, like it's just the
Speaker 1: first round, like relaxed, but in my mind it's everything.
Speaker 1: And uh so I go to the restroom and I'm
Speaker 1: actually using the restroom and I have my phone near
Speaker 1: me and the phone that I have dedicated for NFL exactly,
Speaker 1: So what have you? Goes off? So if you can imagine,
Speaker 1: without me being too detailed, I'm using it back, I'm grabbing,
Speaker 1: you know, both hands are working, and I'm talking to
Speaker 1: a GM And I've never told this story because it's
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to put these guys out,
Speaker 1: but I'm like parts are halfway down and I just
Speaker 1: forget it. Yes, I would love to be a Cleveland Brown,
Speaker 1: Thank you lord, it happened. What you know, It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what pick it is. All I know
Speaker 1: is they called me. It was like, would you love
Speaker 1: to be a Cleveland Brown and Feel Savage? Kudos to
Speaker 1: Feel Savage. That's my guy for taking a chance on
Speaker 1: an undersize linebacker out of a school that didn't win
Speaker 1: a ton of games. And uh yeah, man, it was
Speaker 1: a classic story. Literally with your parts down. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much great. Well, you're you're going into the uh
Speaker 1: was legends this year. So at the time, your time
Speaker 1: there was pretty special. You know, when did you feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a pro. I know what I'm doing out here.
Speaker 1: I feel good and confident and this is what I do.
Speaker 1: So I got two parts of that that answer. The
Speaker 1: first answer when I realized I was a pro was
Speaker 1: when I was injured. I had told my pecks back
Speaker 1: to back years and I remember the guy who drafted
Speaker 1: me Feel Savage approaching me in the hallway once and
Speaker 1: telling me, Hey, if we're here next year, you'll have
Speaker 1: a new deal. And at that time, I was spending
Speaker 1: money that I thought I was gonna get and I
Speaker 1: was just living on the edge man, and not really
Speaker 1: buckling down and I understanding or promise is a promise.
Speaker 1: There's nothing gonna paper here, you know. So that was
Speaker 1: the first moment I realized, wait, this is a business
Speaker 1: and a new you know, he gets fired, A new
Speaker 1: guy comes in, Eric Mangini, and they're like, I don't
Speaker 1: care what the hell they promised you you were. They're
Speaker 1: looking at They're looking at me, and everyone else in
Speaker 1: that locker room is being part of the problem, not
Speaker 1: part of the solution. So, you know, that was the
Speaker 1: first instance I realized like, oh damn, this is different,
Speaker 1: this is different. But the moment I realized on the
Speaker 1: field that I had arrived was a year after those
Speaker 1: two injuries and learned going through that mental just anguish
Speaker 1: of not being where you wanted. They signed me to
Speaker 1: one year deal, and I remember that whole year, I
Speaker 1: was on tear. I was on a scorch Earth just
Speaker 1: tour of just killing people. And it was at practice,
Speaker 1: it was in the games X. I probably didn't have
Speaker 1: any friends that year. Everybody hated me. My teammates hated
Speaker 1: me because I practiced hard. It was like, I have
Speaker 1: one shot and this is a point where I did
Speaker 1: a deep dive. I was at i MG Academy and
Speaker 1: a guy named Trevor Muau, and I was going through
Speaker 1: a divorce at the time. I felt, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have a pre nup. You know, I'm thinking the
Speaker 1: world is crumbling at my fingertips. And this guy, who
Speaker 1: was a sports psychiatrist, he would always hang around the
Speaker 1: guys working out and he wasn't pushy at all. We
Speaker 1: built the rapport and I showed up in his office
Speaker 1: one day and he asked me what I wanted. He
Speaker 1: was like, what do you want? I'm like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean? What what do you He was like, what
Speaker 1: the f do you want? So we made this like
Speaker 1: diagram of everything I needed to do to get to
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of my goals, and my goals was a
Speaker 1: five year contract worth X amount for X amount of dollars.
Speaker 1: And when I tell you, it was the best thing
Speaker 1: that I could have done for myself mentally, because before
Speaker 1: that I had only known how to train my body,
Speaker 1: you know, and this was the first experience of my
Speaker 1: mind being trained. And we developed some techniques and I
Speaker 1: felt unstoppable when that happened. You know. Then you segue
Speaker 1: that spills over to the field and I was on
Speaker 1: this scorch you know, tour of just chopping every killing
Speaker 1: everyone man you know on the field. You know, and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a specific moment, that
Speaker 1: year long was just just unbelievable, just unbelievable how focused
Speaker 1: I was. That's awesome. American football can be unforgiving on
Speaker 1: and off the field. The brutal nature of football and
Speaker 1: regards to contracts, injuries, lifestyles and more is arguably the
Speaker 1: most difficult of any professional athlete. A star today can
Speaker 1: be cut tomorrow, especially if their contract is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what that does to a person? And
Speaker 1: yet the train rolls on. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. Another NFL player, isn't some
Speaker 1: trouble with the law? Cold linebacker to Quell Jackson was
Speaker 1: arrested on Tuesday and charged with assault. How The incident
Speaker 1: happened in Washington, d C. Where Jackson allegedly punched a
Speaker 1: pizza delivery driver in the face and head. The driver
Speaker 1: reportedly told police he was going to use a parking
Speaker 1: space for a minute when Jackson told him to get
Speaker 1: out of his barking spot and then punched him on Monday,
Speaker 1: the Colte said they were disappointed in linebacker to Quell
Speaker 1: Jackson after he was found guilty in a two thousand
Speaker 1: and fifteen assault case. Jackson's sentencing is scheduled for April six.
Speaker 1: He could face up to one and eighty days in
Speaker 1: jail for simple assault. That that sentence could be reduced.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously this is charges we talked about the
Speaker 1: good talk about the bag. You know, tell me about
Speaker 1: what happened in in d C and with the parking
Speaker 1: space at the back of your place. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: was on the hills. I just made my first Pro Bowl,
Speaker 1: you know, I was with Indie, you know, had a
Speaker 1: great year. Um, I intercepted Tom Brady an f C
Speaker 1: Championship game. No talking about the flight gate and you
Speaker 1: know my name is on the top of everyone's lips,
Speaker 1: like I didn't have a care in the world. So
Speaker 1: that incident you're talking about where the Pro Bow was
Speaker 1: in Arizona. My wife and my family we fly back.
Speaker 1: We all go our separate ways. My wife and I
Speaker 1: win d C and she was taking a spin class.
Speaker 1: You know, this was two fifteen. So I picked up
Speaker 1: from spin class and where our apartment is in d C.
Speaker 1: The one one reason I love d C is I
Speaker 1: love the uh I hope I say this word right, anonymity. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like you're exposed to the elements. Right, it's like
Speaker 1: you're just a free bird if you sit at a
Speaker 1: bar or someplace and people don't assume you're an athlete.
Speaker 1: I love that part of it, right. But our condo,
Speaker 1: our parking space was on an alleyway. So if you
Speaker 1: ever been to d C that you street cord or
Speaker 1: area is busy, you know from it's packed to the
Speaker 1: brim from Howard students and people just joined the you know, elements,
Speaker 1: and we deal with a lot of people parking our
Speaker 1: parking space and now we're used to it. So this
Speaker 1: particular day, I picked my wife up from spin class
Speaker 1: and like normal, you know, we're getting ready to park.
Speaker 1: There's a car in our in our parking space. So
Speaker 1: you hit the horn, you know nothing. Usually when you
Speaker 1: hit the horn, you flash the lights. They realize, oh,
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be there. They leave because it's a sign
Speaker 1: that says no trustpassing. And so the guy isn't moving
Speaker 1: and now my wife is in a passion of seat.
Speaker 1: So this is a mistake. I May I got out
Speaker 1: of the car. I get out of the car, his
Speaker 1: windows up. I'm knocking on the window. Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: this is my parking space. You gotta move. He looks
Speaker 1: and just kind of ignored me. And now I'm getting
Speaker 1: I'm getting piste. Now I'm knocking a little harder. Now
Speaker 1: I'm talking a little out of Hey, get that out
Speaker 1: of my parking space. Nothing is happening. He's still looking
Speaker 1: at me, and I'm like, what the heck is going on?
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, out of the blue Brex.
Speaker 1: I can see it. I can put myself in that moment,
Speaker 1: and gives me chills just thinking about it. He rolls
Speaker 1: the window down, and as the windows rolling down, he's grabbing.
Speaker 1: He's reaching for his glove box. And where I'm from,
Speaker 1: how I grew up and you hear things in d
Speaker 1: C that means danger to me. And so when he
Speaker 1: in that he reached I grabbed him, I admitted to
Speaker 1: the corp. I grabbed around his neck, I grabbed his arm,
Speaker 1: like what do you what are you doing with restrained
Speaker 1: him and immediately, which is terrible, my wife is still
Speaker 1: in the car. I run to you street, where as
Speaker 1: a ton of foot traffic cops. I grab a cop.
Speaker 1: I tell him, hey, I got this crazy guy in
Speaker 1: my parking space. He won't leave. Yeah, I thought he
Speaker 1: was reaching for a weapon or something. I grabbed him.
Speaker 1: That was it. We come back, the guys trying to
Speaker 1: pull out of the parking space. He stops him. He
Speaker 1: asked the guy his version of the story, and this
Speaker 1: guy basically said I did everything to him other than
Speaker 1: I mean, it was ridiculous. It was so ridiculous to
Speaker 1: the point where I was like kind of chuckl him,
Speaker 1: like you cannot. I was like, look at me, and
Speaker 1: look at him. If my intentions were to hurt this person,
Speaker 1: I would like to think he would he would be
Speaker 1: on the ground still. So next thing, you know, sir,
Speaker 1: put your hands behind your back. I'm getting cuff. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the cops didn't know, you know. And
Speaker 1: now it's the scene, and now we're in an alleyway.
Speaker 1: This is a you know, a nice neighborhood, you know
Speaker 1: in d c Is and you know, everyone lives among
Speaker 1: each other. And I just remember just having that feeling
Speaker 1: of just like, out of all my years I've avoided
Speaker 1: and tried to be a few steps ahead of any
Speaker 1: never in your life, never been in trouble in my life. Never. Never.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty plus years old. I'm going home. It's not
Speaker 1: a weekend. This is like an eight o'clock on like
Speaker 1: a Tuesday. I'm not drunk, I hadn't had anything to drink.
Speaker 1: I'm as clear headed as I can be. And I
Speaker 1: get arrested trying to park in my parking space. And
Speaker 1: the stories you heard after that was just you know,
Speaker 1: the quail beats up with pizza man, because you know,
Speaker 1: you know, just it was so just not the truth.
Speaker 1: And when I was basically in a situation where I
Speaker 1: thought I was going to be killed potentially, I was
Speaker 1: protecting myself. I take it to trial. I lose the trial.
Speaker 1: The guy was so based on what happened, thought you
Speaker 1: could beat it. Uh, that's why you went to trial, right.
Speaker 1: So the guy tried to sue me for over a
Speaker 1: million dollars over a million dollars, and he refused medical care.
Speaker 1: There was no medical care. So all the things that
Speaker 1: he said that I apparently did, he said I threw
Speaker 1: him over the hood, I kicked him, I did all
Speaker 1: these different things. We lose basically because in d C
Speaker 1: if you admit unwanted touch is considered a simple assault
Speaker 1: a misdemeanor. So I was there was no fine, there
Speaker 1: was no probation or anything like that. The NFL find me,
Speaker 1: I think like ten or fifteen thousand dollars and the
Speaker 1: guy end up getting six figures. Thank goodness, I had
Speaker 1: really great insurance. But the guy collected six figures off
Speaker 1: of And here's the thing. When I was in Indie planing,
Speaker 1: my wife was in d C working, so she dealt
Speaker 1: with a lot of this all the time. And I
Speaker 1: would tell her, do not get out of the car,
Speaker 1: called the police, and I didn't listen to my own
Speaker 1: freaking you know. But it is just an unfortunate event, man,
Speaker 1: And and she was being stalked at her job. Well,
Speaker 1: I can see I can feel the regret in your voice.
Speaker 1: And yeah, man, story, I'm so sorry. You know what.
Speaker 1: I own it. And it's just like you realize on
Speaker 1: the back night of my career when I'm not doing
Speaker 1: anything to throw you know, I'm not doing that to
Speaker 1: Quell Jackson mainly in the NFL and tackled, but he
Speaker 1: won't be seeing any playing time in the next four weeks.
Speaker 1: The Colt linebacker is suspended from the league for violating
Speaker 1: its policy on performance enhancing substances. Now you go through
Speaker 1: the arrest. It's a following season twenty sixteen, I believe. Uh,
Speaker 1: tell me about the p D suspension. You suspended four games? Uh,
Speaker 1: how did that come about? What was happening? Man? I
Speaker 1: invested into my recovery playing a simple I'm a guy
Speaker 1: that I'm a huge on it of growth hormones h
Speaker 1: g H. I think every guy that has an injury
Speaker 1: um that requires surgery should be prescribed a certain a
Speaker 1: healthy dose of growth hormone. Our body produces it at
Speaker 1: the right dosage. It's healthy, it helps repair those broken
Speaker 1: down ligaments, and it's nothing but beneficial if taken right.
Speaker 1: And I was a guy. If you asked anyone whoever
Speaker 1: played with me rex Hell, the quote was like a
Speaker 1: gym er. He would try anything that I thought that
Speaker 1: could help me. And if the line was right here
Speaker 1: in front of me, I was towing the line. You know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to my recovery, because you realize the
Speaker 1: position I played. I played a there was no avoiding contact,
Speaker 1: there was no avoiding the collisions. So I had to
Speaker 1: do what was best for me to provide for my family,
Speaker 1: and when you love something so much, you're willing to
Speaker 1: do anything to to succeed at it. And there was
Speaker 1: another embarrassing moment in my career where it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like how did I let this happen again?
Speaker 1: And it was embarrassing from family, my wife. It was like,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna always have people to say, oh, he
Speaker 1: was only good because he took whatever, and we all
Speaker 1: know there's no magic pill, there's no magic shot, there's
Speaker 1: no magic anything that can make you average to a
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant or Tom Brady or someone like that, that
Speaker 1: there's no such thing. You still have to put in
Speaker 1: the work. I was embarrassed, yes, because I got caught,
Speaker 1: but I knew and that undercurrent of the NFL, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of guys like myself who played the game
Speaker 1: at a with a level of recklessness that you have
Speaker 1: to play also with the gentleman's respect, but you realize
Speaker 1: you have to be able to recover. And that was
Speaker 1: a component that a lot of young guys don't understand.
Speaker 1: And I was heavily invested into that. I'm with you
Speaker 1: if if I could get it shot up. When I
Speaker 1: played I got it shot up. If if if nobody's
Speaker 1: no Overcain, if it was gonna not do no permanent damage,
Speaker 1: I was doing it so And I think what a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't understand is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: job is is so cutthroat. If you're not in you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't if you missed two days, for most players,
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna take your job, and you know, and they're
Speaker 1: probably doing whatever they can do right behind you. So
Speaker 1: it's tough. A lot of people don't understand that little
Speaker 1: nugget of information you just let out because the pressure
Speaker 1: of knowing if you don't perform, they're gonna replace you.
Speaker 1: If you're injured, which everyone who plays a professional sport,
Speaker 1: you're not healthy, you're dealing with something. You know. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on on young people, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're young and you so much as expected of you,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's while I think a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: you know, we train our bodies, but we don't invest
Speaker 1: heavily into the above the shoulders, man in the head
Speaker 1: and the mental side of it, because that's a lot
Speaker 1: of the game is the mental side. So when you
Speaker 1: when it happens, you realize that's it. My career is over.
Speaker 1: When did you first start noticing maybe something is different
Speaker 1: with my brain? Man? You know, that's one of those
Speaker 1: topics where you hear so much throughout the NFL, you
Speaker 1: know the last you know, every year during training camp
Speaker 1: they'll have someone come in and talk about c T
Speaker 1: E and the head trauma. That's the moment to ask
Speaker 1: questions and there's no way of fixing it. It's like,
Speaker 1: once you lose it, you can't get it back. Can
Speaker 1: we find information about how to repair and keep what
Speaker 1: we have? Like? There has to be more to it.
Speaker 1: So it's always been on my mind of how can
Speaker 1: I maintain what I have? And that has to be
Speaker 1: a more positive rhetoric out here in terms of brain
Speaker 1: issues when it comes to professional athletes. So for me,
Speaker 1: it was always on my mind, and even more so
Speaker 1: when I was finished. When you lose that, what do
Speaker 1: you say when you when you play the game for
Speaker 1: so long, you're used to being a team and when
Speaker 1: you know what you know what Steve Nash told me
Speaker 1: one time, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Steve
Speaker 1: he uh we were talking and and you know, I
Speaker 1: had been long retired and he had recently retired, and
Speaker 1: you know he was going through a little you know,
Speaker 1: just a that first year or two being out that
Speaker 1: sort of and I said, how you doing He said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I missed being around the team. He said, also,
Speaker 1: I miss going in every day and with no matter
Speaker 1: what's going on in your life, those two hours you
Speaker 1: can run around running into people, taking out some frustration,
Speaker 1: taking out some aggression. When that's gone, because that's a
Speaker 1: habit since you're five years old, right, and so when
Speaker 1: that's gone and you can't do that anymore, that void
Speaker 1: is gotta be deep. And especially for you guys in
Speaker 1: the sport you play. Yeah, there's a ton of I
Speaker 1: have some friends now that now I'm on the other
Speaker 1: side of things that have been suicidal when they've had
Speaker 1: to that point. They missed that, that brotherhood and that camaraderie,
Speaker 1: and it's all taken away from you like that, and
Speaker 1: now you're thrown about it. Yeah, you don't think about
Speaker 1: no one. It's like having a baby. You can read
Speaker 1: all the books, but you have no idea of how
Speaker 1: to take care of this little baby until this baby arrives.
Speaker 1: And it's similar in a sense where everything is taken away.
Speaker 1: Now you don't know how do you prepare it for?
Speaker 1: You thought you'd prepared for it, but there's no way
Speaker 1: of preparing for just feeling feeling a void, of trying
Speaker 1: to feel a part of something. And for us athletes,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is self driven. I want to
Speaker 1: feel like I'm I'm contributing. And I've had friends who
Speaker 1: were So you're grieving your career, you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: in grief. That's something I had to learn. We all do.
Speaker 1: I think I think we all do um. You know,
Speaker 1: So when did CTE really become something in your life?
Speaker 1: Like did guys talk about it in the locker room?
Speaker 1: Because all that stuff with the lawsuit and the settlement
Speaker 1: and Will Smith movie, when was that While I was
Speaker 1: playing guys, it was taboo. Guys didn't really talk about it,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like you didn't want to just feed
Speaker 1: that negative, that negative rhetoric. You know, Like we really
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it much. But I talked about it
Speaker 1: a ton with my agent. I talked about a ton
Speaker 1: with former guys who were kind of including me in on, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is how we need to take care of ourselves.
Speaker 1: You know, I've actually you know, I live in here
Speaker 1: in d C. And I've met a lot of different people,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually later next month, I'm going to a
Speaker 1: place to specifically address what's could possibly going on in
Speaker 1: my head. Now I don't feel any lingering effects, but
Speaker 1: I want to be proactive on trying to figure out.
Speaker 1: And this is separate from the NFL, because I've had
Speaker 1: it's like a love hate relationship with the NFL. Whatever
Speaker 1: whatever information they get, I want to go toward someone
Speaker 1: completely independent to give me results that doesn't affect a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: You know, It's just I feel more just what have
Speaker 1: So you haven't really had any um, you know, effects
Speaker 1: of it that you can point to or even if
Speaker 1: you can't, do you have and not names? But do
Speaker 1: you have I'm sure you have friends that are going
Speaker 1: through some things. What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: are going through? Um? You know, one of my friends
Speaker 1: had a liver transplant before the age of forty and
Speaker 1: it was I think it was between the he played
Speaker 1: linebacker and the trauma of he was in a culture
Speaker 1: where you self medicated, right and pills, pills, alcohol, um,
Speaker 1: you know, all these different things to cope you know
Speaker 1: and deal with you know, uh, injuries and mental you
Speaker 1: know stress. I saw my buddy on his deathbed and
Speaker 1: that really we didn't think he was gonna make it.
Speaker 1: And now he's three four years of sobriety, doing well,
Speaker 1: it's had two kids. I mean, it was tough to
Speaker 1: see that. It was it was really tough to see
Speaker 1: that man, and and know that hell, we were doing this,
Speaker 1: doing these things together at one point, you know, and
Speaker 1: I and I felt myself going down a dark place.
Speaker 1: And luckily for me, I was still playing and he retired.
Speaker 1: So the things that we talked about just kind of
Speaker 1: just manifested and just you know, winning the overdrive and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a dark time, man, It really
Speaker 1: was a dark time and we went down some It
Speaker 1: was like fun when it was happening, but with you,
Speaker 1: you know it just you know, you want to live
Speaker 1: now we have kids. You want to live for your kids,
Speaker 1: and you want to be here. You want to enjoy life,
Speaker 1: and that enjoyment of life is not the fun that
Speaker 1: I want to go back to. You know, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: That's growth, yeah, man. Yeah. When the lights are the
Speaker 1: brightest and being broadcast around the world on game day,
Speaker 1: you have to succeed or the team will find someone
Speaker 1: that will fill your spot. Sadly, it's the recovery and
Speaker 1: sometimes steps to the extreme that have to be taken
Speaker 1: to ensure you still have your talent and even slot
Speaker 1: on the roster tomorrow. Competition amongst brothers in the league,
Speaker 1: but even against ourselves eternally and internally, is a battle
Speaker 1: that happens behind the scenes. Some handle it better than others,
Speaker 1: but especially in the warlike conditions of the National Football League,
Speaker 1: the effects can be debilitating. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: this word from our sponsors. I know this is a
Speaker 1: tough question and not something that can be summed up
Speaker 1: very quickly, probably, but what do you think the NFL's
Speaker 1: responsibility is in all of this with CTE? What do
Speaker 1: they need to do? Is there anything they can do?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, if they really cared about their athletes,
Speaker 1: state would give us. First of all, the information they
Speaker 1: provide for the players needs to be on par with
Speaker 1: with what's going on. You know this, there's this huge
Speaker 1: undercurrent of just mixed emotions about the NFL and how
Speaker 1: they handled the initial information about CTE and did they
Speaker 1: hold it did they not? You know, I'm friends with
Speaker 1: an owner and I can't name his name. And you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like the NFL has known about it, and
Speaker 1: now of recent we're hearing about, you know, the Will
Speaker 1: Smith movie. You know, we're hearing about you know, we
Speaker 1: have to hear about the junior sayals of the world
Speaker 1: committing suicide. You know, if you ever gonna rad affect you, guys,
Speaker 1: how does that affect you? Guys? You're I mean, we've
Speaker 1: lost some amazing, amazing and talented special people in football,
Speaker 1: you know, especially you know recent and in recent years.
Speaker 1: How does that affect you and your brethren? It's scares
Speaker 1: the ship out of us, man, it scares the ship
Speaker 1: out of us, because you never know, that's probably weekly
Speaker 1: that I have a conversation with my wife if I
Speaker 1: can't remember anything. I'm like hyper sensitive about it is
Speaker 1: just a trend. Like like I'm I'm always thinking about it,
Speaker 1: always thinking about it. So I try to keep myself
Speaker 1: as mentally stimulated as possible. I'm not a big reader.
Speaker 1: I've read so much since the pandemic, you know, It's
Speaker 1: like I have to keep my my brain turning. And
Speaker 1: to answer your question about the NFL and what I
Speaker 1: think they need to do. That needs to be a
Speaker 1: better transitional um effort for guys when you're done, because
Speaker 1: and it's gonna come from a former guy, it has
Speaker 1: to because we have rookie transition. Why don't we have
Speaker 1: veteran transition? Make that only makes sense, right, it only
Speaker 1: makes sense, right. We can be better just to understand
Speaker 1: what you're right there? Right, there's no symposium for that transition,
Speaker 1: and there's different resources you can connect. This is there.
Speaker 1: But if you're going through something, you don't realize you're
Speaker 1: going through something everyone else mandatory as a rookie. It's
Speaker 1: mandatory as rookie, right right, right, I mean that's the
Speaker 1: first step, right, And now you now as that create
Speaker 1: some buzz. Now you have doctors and and sports psychiatrists.
Speaker 1: We have to create this platform of disarming ourselves too
Speaker 1: in order to be better for ourselves. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of guys are weird about seeing a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: Hell like that. I wish I would have seen one
Speaker 1: years ago, you know. So I think the culture is
Speaker 1: slowly changing in terms of how barbaric it used to
Speaker 1: be and how it is now with social media and
Speaker 1: everything like that, that you can't the NFL has to respect,
Speaker 1: you know, with the social change that's going on and
Speaker 1: all these other different platforms these players have. But well,
Speaker 1: how many times would you deliver a hit in a
Speaker 1: game or get hit in the game where you knew
Speaker 1: you should come out for a second, but you didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, because that that was nothing that you as
Speaker 1: did at that point, right. I mean, now they've got
Speaker 1: spotters and they know it's a little different now. But
Speaker 1: I used to watch you guys all the time, and
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you guys aren't hurt on every play, every
Speaker 1: single play. So but I just wonder how many times
Speaker 1: you're out there, and for a player too, if not more,
Speaker 1: you're you don't really remember what's going Yeah that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't even count how many times that's happened, you know,
Speaker 1: Until probably my fifth of six year, you see a
Speaker 1: shift in the NFL of how they address things. You
Speaker 1: mentioned the spotters, and there's this emphasis and push on
Speaker 1: player safety all of a sudden, why, you know, because
Speaker 1: the lawsuits were creeping up, so they have to protect themselves.
Speaker 1: And I remember an instance I was in um this
Speaker 1: is when I knew the league had changed. I was
Speaker 1: playing in Indy and I think we were playing a
Speaker 1: Giant's and I read a play a backside puller was
Speaker 1: pulling and I met him in the hole. I saw
Speaker 1: it coming. All I remember is taking a step. And
Speaker 1: then when I saw the film later, I got hit
Speaker 1: in the temple and I blacked out right and I
Speaker 1: got up and me being the person that I am,
Speaker 1: you know, you come to and all these people are
Speaker 1: looking at you and to ask you all these questions.
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting pissed at them because they think I'm
Speaker 1: they know something. I've been blacked out, But in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not coming out like blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: you know, to ask me all these questions. What's your name?
Speaker 1: Who do you play for? You know? And I at
Speaker 1: that moment I heard some players, a guy named Dere's butler.
Speaker 1: When it happened, they were screaming, come god. I remember
Speaker 1: that vividly. And uh. There was another instance where I
Speaker 1: got my bill wrong and same guy he approached me
Speaker 1: was like, hey, man, you you got one more snap
Speaker 1: and I'm letting the right people know you know you're
Speaker 1: not right. I'm like, no, man, I need this, I
Speaker 1: need this man. You know my money is tied up
Speaker 1: and it's incentive base. You know. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I need this man, and it's a conflict. It's a
Speaker 1: conflict of venturess. And you know, there's some things I've
Speaker 1: done to my body when I was much younger trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, how to survive. And when
Speaker 1: my contract was literally I made money based on if
Speaker 1: I would play on Sunday. If you're available, I give
Speaker 1: I give you, give you a quick story. So I
Speaker 1: had never had shin splint. This is early in my career.
Speaker 1: I never had shin splints before in my life. I
Speaker 1: used to thank people who got shin splints with just
Speaker 1: overreacting and I wake up right until I wake up
Speaker 1: one Sunday morning and my shins are on fire, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell is this? So I knew
Speaker 1: a nurse. I call a nurse. He's like, hey. I
Speaker 1: was like, I need some toward all, I need some
Speaker 1: toward all pills. I need some perkose at And she
Speaker 1: got me both. And when I tell you the worst
Speaker 1: like those are the one of those moments in my
Speaker 1: career where I look back and like, man, you were
Speaker 1: like that was the dumbest thing I could have done,
Speaker 1: but during that time it made the most sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had taken three or four Perkose said, you know
Speaker 1: I had, you know, toward all. You know, toward all.
Speaker 1: You don't feel anything? Hey me and I won't say
Speaker 1: the name, but a teammate of mine late in our career, mum,
Speaker 1: for the last two years, our doctor would give us
Speaker 1: toward all at home before the game, but they wouldn't trust.
Speaker 1: You know, we couldn't do it on the road. So
Speaker 1: we would pack two syringes of toward all and he
Speaker 1: and I would give each other toward all shots before
Speaker 1: the game. Same same. That was my That was my life.
Speaker 1: That was my life. I did it for many years, man,
Speaker 1: just to survive. You know, talk about for a minute,
Speaker 1: the self experiments and things you're doing. You know, why
Speaker 1: you're doing them, and what do you hope comes out
Speaker 1: of them? Yeah? Man, So you know, one of the
Speaker 1: ways I'm trying to help myself and help other people
Speaker 1: that are transition and some of my buddies particularly, is
Speaker 1: to start the podcast The Athletes Unplug. You know, I realized,
Speaker 1: if we can have these conversations with each other and
Speaker 1: we can compare similar stories, you and I it's there utick,
Speaker 1: and you feel like you're wanted, you feel like you're
Speaker 1: part of something. I've never been afraid to Even when
Speaker 1: I was playing Rex, I knew I was on my
Speaker 1: way out sort of because the things that I was,
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, I haven't really talked about this openly,
Speaker 1: but there's this undercurrent of veteran players in the National
Speaker 1: Football League who advised some of these younger guys if
Speaker 1: they're injured, right Like, I had a rocky, you know,
Speaker 1: experience with team doctors. So I've always taken a stance
Speaker 1: of if you're diagnosed with something, go get a second opinion.
Speaker 1: They'll pay for it, they'll fly you out, Go get
Speaker 1: a second opinion. And now I haven't been in the
Speaker 1: locker room in five years, but I'm quite sure this
Speaker 1: element of that culture still exists where they look down
Speaker 1: on you, you know, as a veteran coaching these guys
Speaker 1: of how to take care of their bodies and how
Speaker 1: to be an independent contractor, you know. And I was
Speaker 1: a huge component of that. The older I can put
Speaker 1: because I had saved my money, I had done the
Speaker 1: right things, and if you're gonna kick me out based
Speaker 1: on that then I was okay, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: My fear was I didn't want this young person to
Speaker 1: ever for us to ever cross paths years later into
Speaker 1: and and be mad or resent me for not telling
Speaker 1: him how to manage this business. So I would have
Speaker 1: these conversations with coaches you know you've had. I've been
Speaker 1: put in situations where hey, a guy has a baby.
Speaker 1: You know, Hey, you're the leader. Hey can you just
Speaker 1: training camp? Hey? You know, we really want them to stay.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, what the hell you want me to
Speaker 1: tell him? If you want what I'm gonna tell him,
Speaker 1: you better go see your baby because you gotta live
Speaker 1: with your baby's mother for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: You know I'm not doing that. You know, It's like,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? I'm gonna be the bad
Speaker 1: guy for you, right, That's not happening. It's not happening.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I became a little not that rebellious,
Speaker 1: but I realized, like, man, this it's not all about
Speaker 1: the game. I love it, unequivocally, love it, love everything
Speaker 1: about it, but you know I'm not gonna lose my
Speaker 1: self in it. No, and that it is powerful to share.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are plenty of things that I saw
Speaker 1: going in the locker room that you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: fly today, that I didn't say shit about, you know,
Speaker 1: and that I look back like, man, I uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and you have regrets about that. You know, you're you're
Speaker 1: older than I guess that's just maturity. What do you
Speaker 1: think about the game of football, nolte Quell, What advice
Speaker 1: would you get parents or young people playing the game today? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a great tool for young people. Young
Speaker 1: people playing, I think it's a great tool to teach
Speaker 1: them about how to keep pushing forward and push through fears,
Speaker 1: push through failure. Right, I think it's a great tool
Speaker 1: for that. However, I would suggest any parent that wants
Speaker 1: to put their kid into a contact sport like football. Listen,
Speaker 1: I played eleven years and I'm indifferent. If my son
Speaker 1: wants to play, I can't stop him, but I would
Speaker 1: wait until his later years to throw him into that
Speaker 1: contact spoort. And I think it's a great game, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't want him playing football, I really don't. I
Speaker 1: know the ugly side of it and the pressure of
Speaker 1: that mounts on it, and if you're not built for it,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna last. It could tear you down. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to, you know, make it seem like
Speaker 1: feel sorry for professional athletes. Listen, they make a lot
Speaker 1: of money doing what they love, but it's an exorbitant
Speaker 1: amount of sacrifice that goes into it that everyone pays
Speaker 1: the price and when you're done playing. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot of those different things, but what
Speaker 1: I would tell people do your homework. Do your homework,
Speaker 1: Understand the level of stress and the level of danger
Speaker 1: you're putting your kid through, and you assess it there.
Speaker 1: Because for me, I don't want my son playing. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I love the game of football, but I don't want
Speaker 1: my son playing football. I just don't. I just don't.
Speaker 1: I've been through so many dark days and I don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with that right now. I'm proud that you're
Speaker 1: able to voice this because think about it, you guys
Speaker 1: are the first generation to have this information, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: essentially you're the first generation to have this information as
Speaker 1: young people. Right. Are there any causes, any organizations you
Speaker 1: want to bring attention to the quill? You know, not
Speaker 1: at this moment, but can I bring some attention to
Speaker 1: my podcast as well. Absolutely listen. Um, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: create a platform like you and I to talk about
Speaker 1: everything underneath the sun. You know it's that it's called
Speaker 1: Athletes Unplugged. Uh. That's three things that most people that
Speaker 1: know me know I enjoy doing. I like smoking a cigar.
Speaker 1: I like some red wine, and I love my whiskey.
Speaker 1: And I try to I try to create that platform,
Speaker 1: that space is. I feel like I've had some of
Speaker 1: the most meaningful conversations at my house by the fire
Speaker 1: pit when those three things were involved. Obviously under control,
Speaker 1: but but it's therapeutic. I want people to just experience
Speaker 1: it in and we have fun. We have last we
Speaker 1: talked about real stuff similar to what you're doing. And
Speaker 1: I'm bringing all my friends on the ride with me. Man,
Speaker 1: that's great. I can't wait to check it out. You
Speaker 1: let me know I'll come on any time you want. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough to Quell for being on
Speaker 1: the show, sharing your story with all of us. You
Speaker 1: know we're rooting for you and your health. And if
Speaker 1: there's ever anything I can do, my door is always open.
Speaker 1: Thanks my guy, Rex, I really appreciate it. Man. I
Speaker 1: get to talk to a NBA star. Man. That that's
Speaker 1: great man, So I would love to have you on
Speaker 1: the podcast. We could talk more about anything you want
Speaker 1: to talk about. And I'm here for anything you need
Speaker 1: for me. I'm here for you brother. Thanks man, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Got it Charges Serving no run ins with
Speaker 1: the law charges she Lee send the tenors and balls
Speaker 1: and charges the celebrity gank formals charges we came along
Speaker 1: with from Living Lawless Charges. Serving no runians with the charges,
Speaker 1: Lee send the tenors and balls and charges the celebrity
Speaker 1: gank forlormals charge we came along with from Living Lawless charge.
Speaker 1: Job Charges is created by Portlay and Control Media. It's
Speaker 1: produced by DV Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: or more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit i Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts