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