Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to Renee all day. I am here
Speaker 1: with hayden Hurst. How you doing today? I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you having me the hell of a name. I
Speaker 1: feel like having the name hayden Hurst kind of already
Speaker 1: like set you up for success. Had to be some
Speaker 1: sort of procles, let alone in two sports at that
Speaker 1: that's insane. We'll get into some of that stuff, but
Speaker 1: I want to talk some fashion with you first and foremost,
Speaker 1: because you've really, you know, you've really brought back the
Speaker 1: crop top for men. Thank you. Yes, by the way,
Speaker 1: what went into you know, figuring out that was gonna
Speaker 1: be a look that you could pull off. Not an
Speaker 1: easy look to do, but you do it with grace. Well,
Speaker 1: it started off as something pretty innocent. I just sweat
Speaker 1: a lot by nature. Okay, So my jersey and like
Speaker 1: training camp and stuff gets like soaked. So when I run,
Speaker 1: it hits my gloves and my gloves get all wet.
Speaker 1: So rolled it up. But you know, I had to
Speaker 1: work my ass off in the weight room and get
Speaker 1: a six pack because I can't be can't be chunky
Speaker 1: out there. So listen, that's what I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: because it as a woman, it's near impossible to buy
Speaker 1: a shirt that's not a crop top, correct. I don't
Speaker 1: know that. I love the crop top for me. It's
Speaker 1: great for you, but I don't want to worry about
Speaker 1: six pack abs. I mean, it just depends on the person.
Speaker 1: You gotta like sit up straight or like, if I
Speaker 1: know when to be out walking somewhere, I can do it.
Speaker 1: If I got to sit down, maybe crop tops not
Speaker 1: the choice. That's how I like in the stretch line,
Speaker 1: when I'm like hunched over and they're taking pictures, I'm like,
Speaker 1: let me, let me stand up a little bit. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the crop top is prevalent everywhere. You're making it
Speaker 1: popular for men. What is a fashion look that you hate?
Speaker 1: M I'm not a big fan of like the designer
Speaker 1: stuff that literally just has like name brand name all
Speaker 1: over the stuff. I think it just looks kind of
Speaker 1: corny and goofy to me. It's not my taste. But
Speaker 1: where do you stand on the high waisted pant? Hate it?
Speaker 1: You do? I knew it. Guys don't like the high
Speaker 1: waisted pants. It's women do because we're like great, I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about anything. But it just looks
Speaker 1: like there's weggies going on, just tough and now it's
Speaker 1: it provides a long butt cheek, right, which maybe we
Speaker 1: don't need it right, and it looks kind of a
Speaker 1: long but she gets kind of goofy. I know I'm
Speaker 1: riding it out because I do appreciate I've had a child,
Speaker 1: so I will take the high waisted pant. But I
Speaker 1: get the perspective of maybe not loving it so much.
Speaker 1: Um okay, so your energy on and off the field
Speaker 1: is infectious. How do you kind of keep on the
Speaker 1: up and ups? That's just who I am. I know it.
Speaker 1: Maybe sometimes it seems like it's it might be you know,
Speaker 1: acted or something like that, but I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just when I get on the football field and I
Speaker 1: put my helmet on, I just flip a switch. I'd
Speaker 1: become a maniac. And I try to be that guy
Speaker 1: that people feed off of and go to for the
Speaker 1: energy just because I love it. For me, It's like
Speaker 1: when I scrap on the pads and my last name
Speaker 1: is on the jersey, like I'm going to war, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'll take whoever wants to go with me.
Speaker 1: That's just my personality. You ever blow out your voice
Speaker 1: out there yelling. Actually last week. Last week I got
Speaker 1: home and was a little raspy, and my girlfriend was like, you, like,
Speaker 1: what does that? A little lemon in a tea or something?
Speaker 1: Listen it up. You've spoken a lot about what it
Speaker 1: means for you to be here in Cincinnati, to be
Speaker 1: playing for the Bengals, to be here in this city.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about that. I mean,
Speaker 1: for a guy that has been in so many different cities,
Speaker 1: what is it about Cincinnati feels so special to you?
Speaker 1: Just this organization and how Zach kind of has you know,
Speaker 1: from the top down, how's it running? The culture is infectious,
Speaker 1: you know. Just you want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: You want to be a part of that locker room.
Speaker 1: There's great guys around here. Cultures like that, don't you know.
Speaker 1: There are a few and far between in the NFL.
Speaker 1: It's hard to find something like that. I love it here.
Speaker 1: I get to be myself. I'm happy. I'm a much
Speaker 1: happier person than I've been in the past. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: I can stick around for a little while because you know,
Speaker 1: me and my family love it here. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I mean people people love you. My family was very
Speaker 1: excited when I told them I was interviewing you today.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, yes, that's our guy. Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: we talked before about you being a double professional athlete.
Speaker 1: Of course, being a drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, playing
Speaker 1: in the MLB, then making your way back to football
Speaker 1: into the NFL. To my civilian ass, I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, look at this guy. Go Like, as a kid,
Speaker 1: for you to imagine being able to achieve those things,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into, you know, the downside of what
Speaker 1: went into that as well, but just as a kid, like,
Speaker 1: imagine you'd have the opportunity to be an athlete and
Speaker 1: an excel at that level in two different sports. It's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I mean I never really
Speaker 1: focused on much else but sports. You know, I just
Speaker 1: sit in the back of my mind. I'm sure every
Speaker 1: kid when they're growing up, they're like, I want to
Speaker 1: be a professional this, this. But I just had like
Speaker 1: this belief in myself because I always knew that I
Speaker 1: was better. I was gonna make it work, just kind
Speaker 1: of how my brain's wired, Like if I have my
Speaker 1: mindset on something, I'm gonna make it happen. And I
Speaker 1: just knew. At the time, I thought I was gonna
Speaker 1: be baseball, but you know, life kind of made me
Speaker 1: pivot a little bit and ended up being football. But
Speaker 1: I got blessed with athleticism, and you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make the most of it. So I was watching
Speaker 1: on your foundation's website the video that you guys have
Speaker 1: on there with your family and your You're talking about
Speaker 1: all the things that you guys went through. I lasered in.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, did you only play football in
Speaker 1: high school for one season? One season? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: kind of got convinced to play because when I was
Speaker 1: in high school and I threw the ball like ninety
Speaker 1: six miles an hour. So I was like, you're going
Speaker 1: to pitch in the big leagues. Don't get hurt playing football.
Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, well I won't play football then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it was my junior year. My head
Speaker 1: baseball coach was like the wider or the quarterback coach
Speaker 1: for our high school team, and he was like, we're
Speaker 1: thin at receiver. We need a lot of help because
Speaker 1: just come out and see if you like it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I can do that. And I
Speaker 1: played one year high school football, and I mean I
Speaker 1: got offers from like Tennessee, Florida, Florida State, Miami and
Speaker 1: stupid and me I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go play baseball.
Speaker 1: I have these like head coaches talking to me. Didn't
Speaker 1: play my senior year and then ended up coming full
Speaker 1: circle and walked on South Carolina. That's so crazy. What
Speaker 1: an insane journey. Okay, So now to get into I
Speaker 1: know you've been very vocal about this stuff, and I
Speaker 1: applaud you for for being so vocal as a man,
Speaker 1: as an athlete to be able to let people know
Speaker 1: things you've been through. But yeah, just kind of walk
Speaker 1: me through some of that stuff of you know, finding out,
Speaker 1: you know, baseball is not going to be the movement
Speaker 1: and all the things that went into that, I mean
Speaker 1: the physical aspects of things that were going down to
Speaker 1: that to how that you know, really affected you mentally
Speaker 1: as you were making the pivot to figure out what
Speaker 1: life was even going to hold for you. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I said, when I was in high school, I mean
Speaker 1: I alternated, you know, it was baseball, football, baseball, football.
Speaker 1: Then I started specializing in baseball. I got drafted by
Speaker 1: the Pirates and I mean, baseball is always really easy.
Speaker 1: I just picked the ball up and through it past guys.
Speaker 1: Knew I was better when I got to I was
Speaker 1: down in Bradenton with the minor league team. My first
Speaker 1: season was good. Then I came back for like fall
Speaker 1: instructional league, and I just started overthinking it was weird.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting what's called the yips. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I couldn't even like feel the ball in my hand.
Speaker 1: I was erratic with my control, kind of like you
Speaker 1: like numbness in your hands. Yeah, I had like panic
Speaker 1: attacks on them. Now I'm just going to get away.
Speaker 1: It was awful. And then didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: deal with it because I was, you know, immature nineteen
Speaker 1: year old. And then off the field just spiral, you know,
Speaker 1: because I was embarrassed. I mean, I was my family's
Speaker 1: golden ticket in my mind, and you know, I had
Speaker 1: baseball kind of ripped away from me. So you know,
Speaker 1: I unfortunately reached for a bottle, pills, whatever I could
Speaker 1: get my hands on. Ye kind of put myself in
Speaker 1: a downward spiral. But you know, in twenty fifteen, it
Speaker 1: was mature enough to make the decision that I need
Speaker 1: to kind of make a change what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I walked away from baseball, walked on at South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that stuff follows you, and one night decided
Speaker 1: I tried to cut my wrists and went through all
Speaker 1: that and tried to take my own life. And it
Speaker 1: was really I mean, obviously I would never wish that
Speaker 1: upon my worst enemy, but it was kind of the
Speaker 1: best thing that ever happened to me, because when I
Speaker 1: woke up in the hospital, you know, I was handcuffed
Speaker 1: to a gurney, you know, without a shirt on, you know,
Speaker 1: covered in my own blood, and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: sat there, I was by myself, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be here much longer if you
Speaker 1: keep down this path, but like you need to make
Speaker 1: a complete one eighty on what you're doing. So for me,
Speaker 1: I kind of made that promise to myself, you know,
Speaker 1: and in that room, I was like, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do this again. Yeah, And I really just poured
Speaker 1: myself into football. It just became a maniac. I worked
Speaker 1: out like two or three times a day. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: There's even some of my buddies at the time they're like,
Speaker 1: now we thought you were you know, a kiss ass
Speaker 1: just going in there. But for me it was just
Speaker 1: a mental release. Yeah yeah, so again kind of the
Speaker 1: best of the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1: What like, what was that build back like for you
Speaker 1: to go from being on that hospital gurney to like
Speaker 1: your mental state, your physical state to being like I
Speaker 1: got to snap out of this and physically get myself
Speaker 1: back mentally like what we're some of those steps that
Speaker 1: you had to take to to get to feeling good.
Speaker 1: It was really hard, um because you know, not many
Speaker 1: people go through that that path in life that I
Speaker 1: unfortunately had to go through, UM, so you really have
Speaker 1: to almost reinvent yourself and fall in love with yourself again.
Speaker 1: So I think it was hard because I felt, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was me against the world. I felt like
Speaker 1: I was by myself, even though even my family was there.
Speaker 1: But unless you go through something like that or have
Speaker 1: a family member that goes through it, it's hard to
Speaker 1: really wrap your brain around taking your own life or
Speaker 1: someone fathoming taking their own life. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: it was really me against the world, and I just
Speaker 1: got to kind of reinvent who Hayden Hurst was. I
Speaker 1: got to fall in love with myself and really understand
Speaker 1: who I was as a person. So yeah, it sucked,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of beautiful at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy how things like that happened. You hit that
Speaker 1: rock bottom, and it's like, how do you get back
Speaker 1: to where you are? And like, thank God to be
Speaker 1: you know, offered that other chance at life to come
Speaker 1: out and do it. And I mean look at you go,
Speaker 1: like what an inspiration to so many people. What's your
Speaker 1: advice to somebody that might be going through something like that?
Speaker 1: For one, never make permanent decisions on temporary feelings. My
Speaker 1: sister told me that, you know, when I was going
Speaker 1: through it. That's one thing that kind of resonates with
Speaker 1: me and I try to tell people. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is just taking a day to time, you know.
Speaker 1: That's what I do today, you know, and in my life,
Speaker 1: my day to day life, you know, I try not
Speaker 1: to look too far forward or too far back. I'm
Speaker 1: really just trying to live hour to hour, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to be the best man, the best boyfriend, the
Speaker 1: best brother son. You know that I can be in
Speaker 1: that hour and then you know, figure it out from there.
Speaker 1: Are there other protocols that you think should maybe be
Speaker 1: in place to help athletes on the mental side of things.
Speaker 1: Do you think that we're doing enough to to really
Speaker 1: give athletes and resources that they need. I think in
Speaker 1: the last few years, it's definitely the tides have turned
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, when I first got in
Speaker 1: the league, probably what five years ago, it was more
Speaker 1: of a taboo topic. Yeah, let's talk about it. But
Speaker 1: you know, the more people that come out and start
Speaker 1: talking about it, share their stories, the more people that
Speaker 1: relate to it. You know, when I when I get
Speaker 1: out there and I you know, give a speech or
Speaker 1: like tell my story, the coolest thing is when people
Speaker 1: come up to me and they're like, you know, my
Speaker 1: sister went through this, my mom struggles with this, my
Speaker 1: dad's an alcoholic. Because like I can relate to all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had all that stuff in my family. I've seen
Speaker 1: it firsthand. So that's that's cooler than anybody coming up
Speaker 1: to me and telling me how good I did for
Speaker 1: their fantasy for right, Yeah, yeah, well, hey man, congratulations
Speaker 1: to you. And again, I mean I think just for
Speaker 1: to be able to use your platform and use time
Speaker 1: to speak about that stuff. I know it's never easy
Speaker 1: to talk about that stuff and keep rehashing that stuff,
Speaker 1: but I know that it does obviously help so many
Speaker 1: people that could be going through a similar thing. Um,
Speaker 1: which led to you creating your foundation. Right, tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about your foundation. Yeah. We started it
Speaker 1: when I got drapped by the Ravens in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: You know, it's me and my mom, my dad, and
Speaker 1: my sister helps a little bit too. You know, she's
Speaker 1: a vet in Atlanta, so she's got her own stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she'll help wherever she can. Um, But it's really my mom.
Speaker 1: You know, she's she's the rock star. Looks like she
Speaker 1: runs a tight ship. Yes, she's very, very type a details.
Speaker 1: She makes sure that the rest of us are too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I kind of I told them, I want
Speaker 1: you guys to retire. We're going to start a foundation.
Speaker 1: It's going to focus on you know, mental health and
Speaker 1: adolescent suicide prevention. Yeah. And you know, whatever city that
Speaker 1: I've been in or played in, you know, Columbia, I
Speaker 1: did some stuff in Atlanta, did a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in Baltimore and then Jacksonville, our hometown. We try to
Speaker 1: just do like little events to raise money wherever we can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just because I know, if you can tool kids at
Speaker 1: the young age, you know, because unfortunately, things happen in life.
Speaker 1: It happens everybody. We all go through traumas and stuff happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you can better tool kids to deal with
Speaker 1: it down the road, you know, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: age target work. Yeah, going after right now, if hayden
Speaker 1: Hurst today, we're talking to hayden Hurst, you know many
Speaker 1: years ago, what would you say, take a step back
Speaker 1: and appreciate it. Man, I was a different person when
Speaker 1: I was younger, so yeah, we all were right crazy,
Speaker 1: we're all different people. I mean when you think of
Speaker 1: like a year ago to five years ago, ten years ago,
Speaker 1: we all grow when mature and her resources change and
Speaker 1: life changes. It's like trying to trying to adapt with
Speaker 1: it all. Absolutely, I would just take it a day
Speaker 1: at a time, you know, be the best person you
Speaker 1: can be. Your choices have consequences. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I ten eleven years ago the
Speaker 1: hayden Hurst that was compared to the hayden Hurst that is.
Speaker 1: It's just I'm very proud of myself. Yeah, where I've gotten.
Speaker 1: I think we all are. Ye. Yeah, hats off to you.
Speaker 1: Um okay. On the other side of things, what are
Speaker 1: you into, like off the field, what's next for you
Speaker 1: outside of football? That is a topic that I've been
Speaker 1: discussing with many people, just trying to figure it out
Speaker 1: because with all the responsibilities that come you know, Monday
Speaker 1: through Saturday, obviously on Sunday as well with football, it's
Speaker 1: hard to focus on other stuff, you know, the grueling,
Speaker 1: you know, demands of football throughout the week or tough.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me because I'm so present in
Speaker 1: what I'm doing to really be like, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to do this when I retire, So I really
Speaker 1: I'm big on my family, I'm big on you know,
Speaker 1: my personal time, and I'm really I'm not sure, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe some sort of coaching, you know, just because I
Speaker 1: do kind of get joy from helping people. That is
Speaker 1: like my thing, I guess, And obviously football has done
Speaker 1: wonderful things, so it'd be cool to stay around the
Speaker 1: game a little bit. Yeah, but I don't know. I
Speaker 1: really don't know. Time will tell, yes, but not. I mean,
Speaker 1: you got plenty of time, so absolutely, or we can
Speaker 1: all just calm down, we'll get there. When we get there,
Speaker 1: I will listen Hayden, thank you so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time. I appreciate it. And again thanks for being
Speaker 1: so vocal about mental health stuff. I appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, it's been renee all day with Hayden Hurst. Y'all,