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Speaker 1: I love.

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Speaker 2: Game presents Conversations with a legend.

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Speaker 1: Around here, we hustle for around here. Around here, we

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Speaker 1: grind for living around here. We hustle for.

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Speaker 3: Ground here around here, and we ground.

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Speaker 2: For a living. Okay, welcome back, LaVar Arrington here with

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Speaker 2: my man, Doc, the good doctor, Doctor Jerome Adams.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on. Hey, good to be here

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Speaker 1: with you.

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Speaker 2: Conversations with a legend. And you're so active, You're you're

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Speaker 2: doing a lot of things. Obviously you're here two different things.

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Speaker 2: You're you're a part of right now. So I want

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Speaker 2: to talk about the Hall Hall of Fame Health. Uh,

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Speaker 2: talk to me a little bit. Let's start there with

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Speaker 2: Hall of Fame Health and what that represents, what's your

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Speaker 2: involvement and and and what that that is all about.

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Speaker 3: Well, just to take it back really quickly, when I

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Speaker 3: would say, in general of the United States, prior to

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Speaker 3: this pandemic that's consumed everything, one of the issues that

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Speaker 3: I highlighted was mental health and substance issues. Am One

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Speaker 3: of the first things I did is Surgeon General was

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Speaker 3: put out an advisory calling on more people to be

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Speaker 3: willing to carry in the lock zone, which is an

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Speaker 3: opioid overdose reversal agent to save lives that was professionally.

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Speaker 3: They're a person dying every eleven minutes of an opioid

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Speaker 3: overdose in this country, epidemic that people aren't paying attention to.

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Speaker 3: Because of the pandemic, that number has gotten worse. Went

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Speaker 3: up to forty percent increase in opioid overdose tests last

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Speaker 3: year for black and brown people.

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Speaker 1: And it impacted me personally.

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Speaker 3: While I was Surgeon General of the United States sitting

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Speaker 3: in the White House, my brother was sitting at a

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Speaker 3: prison cell due to crimes he committed to support his addiction.

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Speaker 3: So mental health has always been important to me. But

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Speaker 3: now I'm working with the Pro Football Hall of Fame

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Speaker 3: to do three things and very quickly, and we can

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Speaker 3: go into a deeper dive on any of them. We

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Speaker 3: want to increase access because a lot of people don't

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Speaker 3: know where to get care. We want to increase affordability

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Speaker 3: because once you know where to go, people can't afford care.

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Speaker 3: And then we also want to lower stigma. We're working

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Speaker 3: with athletes like like like Charles Haley, and I had

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Speaker 3: a great conversation with him just a bit ago.

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Speaker 1: Calvin Johnson. It's one of our ambassadors.

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Speaker 3: You heard his Hall of Fame speech talking about pain

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Speaker 3: and and how he dealt with that, working with those

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Speaker 3: folks to to destigmatize mental health so that people know

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Speaker 3: it's okay not to be okay it's uh.

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Speaker 2: As a former player, that is ginormous, and I commend

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Speaker 2: you for that, and I commend everybody who's doing that

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Speaker 2: because having the access is is tremendous. Having the education

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Speaker 2: is tremendous because what you don't know can hurt you,

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Speaker 2: and it will hurt you. And one thing about us

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Speaker 2: you mentioned Charles Haley. He's a great example. We love

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Speaker 2: self medicating. You know, we get we have dealt with

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Speaker 2: so much and you've endured so much, and you figure

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Speaker 2: out how to still be able to perform because that's

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Speaker 2: your livelihood, that's that's depending on it. That you get

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Speaker 2: caught into the cycle of figuring it out, Yes, how

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Speaker 2: do I self medically?

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Speaker 3: How do I get through life? So there was a

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Speaker 3: study that came out that showed that seventy percent of

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Speaker 3: NFL players reported that they used opioids. Fifty percent of

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Speaker 3: those people who'd used opioids said they misused them because

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Speaker 3: you get into this habit like you said of just

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Speaker 3: dealing with life, chronic pain CTE brain injury that people

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Speaker 3: are dealing with. And then you have people like Charles

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Speaker 3: Haley who's now very open about his bipolar disorder, his anxiety,

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Speaker 3: his depression, and he's not allowed to talk about it

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Speaker 3: in the NFL locker room, or he wasn't back when

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Speaker 3: he was get judged exactly, you get judged and then

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Speaker 3: not call weak. Weak equals liability? Is this player a liability?

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Speaker 3: What do you mean they have mental issues?

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Speaker 1: What?

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Speaker 2: Well you mean they're battling depression? You know, it's like, well,

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Speaker 2: look at depression.

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Speaker 3: I'm in Indianapolis right now, and the combine comes there

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Speaker 3: every single year, so I see it up close more

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Speaker 3: than most people. And how they particularly and I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: call it what it is for black and brown people.

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Speaker 3: They want to look at character flaws. You know, we

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Speaker 3: want to test your educational level, we want to see

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Speaker 3: if you've had mental health issues. We want to see

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Speaker 3: if you've had this, that and the other. And it

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Speaker 3: discourages people from coming forward and saying I have a problem.

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Speaker 3: And so that's why it's so important when you have

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Speaker 3: a Calvin Johnson, someone who everyone looks at and says man,

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Speaker 3: I'd love to be like him. I'd love to have

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Speaker 3: a career like him, saying I was struggling too, and

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Speaker 3: I want to make it normal for people to know,

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Speaker 3: like Naomi Osaka, like Simone Biles, that it's okay not

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Speaker 3: to be okay.

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Speaker 2: And it was a hot button topic that Simone Bows,

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Speaker 2: you know, withdrew from what was taking place and a

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Speaker 2: lot of people looking at it and casting judgments and

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Speaker 2: different things like that.

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Speaker 1: As it's still relatively.

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Speaker 2: New to be open and supportive of these elements at place.

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Speaker 2: So let's let's move on to fund recovery. How does

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Speaker 2: that play a part in this and what exactly is

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Speaker 2: fun recovery because that's a major part of what you

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Speaker 2: have going.

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Speaker 3: On as well well again Hall of Fame Health. What

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Speaker 3: we're doing is we're vetting programs across the country. So

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Speaker 3: let's say you have a family member who needs help.

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Speaker 3: Where you need help, you don't know where to go,

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Speaker 3: and even when you find a place, you don't know

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Speaker 3: if it's a good place or a bad place. We're

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Speaker 3: vetting these places, and neither are the places that the

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Speaker 3: CEOs of Fortune five hundred companies go to. These are

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Speaker 3: places that our Hall of Famers go to. We want

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Speaker 3: to make sure you know where to go. So you

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Speaker 3: can go to hof health dot com and we can

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Speaker 3: connect you with those services, but then you may not

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Speaker 3: be able to afford it. We're negotiating rates sometimes half

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Speaker 3: priced with these top notch institutions, using the brand of

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Speaker 3: the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so that you can

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Speaker 3: afford the care. Funrecovery dot org it's where you can

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Speaker 3: go to get a scholarship if you still can't afford it.

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Speaker 3: Because LaVar you can speak to this better than I can.

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Speaker 3: But it's just shameful how many former athletes out there

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Speaker 3: are living paycheck to paycheck. Even former NFL players can't

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Speaker 3: afford sometimes the discounted care that we're providing, so we

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Speaker 3: want to get them scholarships. You can go to Fundrecovery

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Speaker 3: dot org and you can get a scholarship, or you

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Speaker 3: can donate. Because a lot of your people listening to

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Speaker 3: doing pretty well too, we want them to donate and help.

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Speaker 2: People get care. Indeed makes sense. I mean we are

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Speaker 2: community and support is key. Supporting ourselves, I mean being

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Speaker 2: a part of the Legends community. I actually started this

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Speaker 2: show so that we could have a platform for legendary voices.

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Speaker 1: I believe we're all.

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Speaker 2: Legends in our own our own right, in our own way.

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Speaker 2: So to me, this was super important to get create

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Speaker 2: a platform where we can have these conversations.

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Speaker 3: So, and one of the cool things that I that

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Speaker 3: I've had the experience of learning about from talking to

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Speaker 3: former players is they're regular people.

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Speaker 1: They're regular people.

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Speaker 3: I meet people like you, like I said, Charles, and

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Speaker 3: the conversation I have with Charles Haley will stick with

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Speaker 3: me for the rest of my life. But Calvin Johnson,

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Speaker 3: I took my son to meet him, and I mean,

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Speaker 3: you would have thought that they'd known each other for

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Speaker 3: twenty years either a regular people. And when you start

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Speaker 3: talking about how you grew up and I grew up

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Speaker 3: in the country, When you talk about when I talk

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Speaker 3: about my brother who suffers from substance use disorder, when

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Speaker 3: you talk about the struggles of being a black man

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Speaker 3: and admitting, hey, I may need some help, you talk

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Speaker 3: to these players and it just normalizes a conversation in

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Speaker 3: a way that I think is helpful for everybody out there.

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Speaker 2: Talking with my guide, doctor Jerome Adams, you can go

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Speaker 2: to www. Hof Health dot com or you can go

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Speaker 2: to wwwfund Recovery dot org. All Right, before I let

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Speaker 2: you go, my last question to you is, with as

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Speaker 2: much as you've accomplished in your life and being a

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Speaker 2: surgeon general and just having so much influence, what led

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Speaker 2: directly to football?

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Speaker 1: What led to the Hall of Fame? Well, I'm the

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Speaker 1: run in my family.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So my dad coached high school sports, coach girls basketball,

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Speaker 3: and coach baseball. I've got a brother, two brothers who

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Speaker 3: were over six feet tall. My fifteen year old son

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Speaker 3: is six foot going on six foot one.

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Speaker 1: And taller than me.

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Speaker 3: So I've always loved sports and playing with sports. I

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Speaker 3: think it teaches you a lot that you need to

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Speaker 3: know about life, teamwork, and beyond. And I think that

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Speaker 3: athletes can have an impact well beyond what they do

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Speaker 3: on the field in terms of being positive role models

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Speaker 3: for communities. Every kid out there isn't going to make

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Speaker 3: it to the NFL, isn't going to make it to

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Speaker 3: be an NBA player or MLB player. But if they

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Speaker 3: look at someone like you, I want them to say

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Speaker 3: I want to be like LeVar or not. Because he

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Speaker 3: was a great linebacker for a team that I actually

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Speaker 3: grew up rooting. For I want them to say I

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Speaker 3: want to be like LeVar because he's someone who talks

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Speaker 3: about mental health. He's someone who takes care of his

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Speaker 3: family and his community. That's how you want to be

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Speaker 3: like LeVar.

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Speaker 1: Love that, love that.

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Speaker 2: Well, look here we got doctor Jerome Adams here, the

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Speaker 2: twentieth Surgeon General. I appreciate you taking a little time

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Speaker 2: out for me and doing this interview. It's so important.

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Speaker 2: It's something that's near and dear to my heart. I'll

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Speaker 2: ring that bell anyway I can support you.

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Speaker 3: Let me know absolutely, it's okay not to be Okay,

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Speaker 3: you take care of a broken ankle if you had it.

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Speaker 3: Let's take care of our mental health because if we

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Speaker 3: do that, we'll all.

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Speaker 1: Be in a better place. Ay Man, good to see you.

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Speaker 1: You too, appreciate you.

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Speaker 2: All right, Okay, hey doctor Adams, we'll be right back.

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Speaker 2: This is up on game conversations with the legend. I'm

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Speaker 2: Leavar Arrington. Yeah that's who I am. Don't hit stop yet,

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Speaker 2: you know why because I'm still having a moment. Okay,

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Speaker 2: now we could go, Now we can go