Speaker 1: Come Back Stories is a production I've Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone to another episode of come Back Stories.
Speaker 2: I'm one of your co hosts. My name is Darren Waller.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by my friend, my guy, my brother, Donnie Starkins. Donnie,
Speaker 2: how you doing, man?
Speaker 3: Feeling great, man, Solwa's a good day when we get
Speaker 3: to jump on the pod.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I'm super excited about the guests that we have on today,
Speaker 2: a man whose name is a household name as far
Speaker 2: as in the NFL world, you don't see any breaking
Speaker 2: news happen without this man's name attached to it most times.
Speaker 2: But we're excited to show a human side of the
Speaker 2: man everybody knows is Adam Schefter.
Speaker 4: Adam.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the show, man, Darren, Donnie, nice to be
Speaker 5: with you, and Darren, let me be one of the
Speaker 5: last to officially welcome you to the New York, New
Speaker 5: Jersey area. But nice to see you in our neck
Speaker 5: of the woods here. And I hope it turns out
Speaker 5: to be a tremendous chapter in what has been a
Speaker 5: great career for you so far.
Speaker 4: Oh Man, thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 4: It's a blessing to hear that from you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've known you for a little while now
Speaker 2: got to connect with you a little bit and connect
Speaker 2: with your daughter, and to be able to connect with her.
Speaker 2: It's just just really cool moments. Man, So grateful for
Speaker 2: your time and you willing to come on and talk
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 5: Well, it is my honor. You were incredibly kind to
Speaker 5: my daughter Dylan for a show that she does for
Speaker 5: Nickelodeon each week, Slime Time. And again, my interactions with
Speaker 5: you have been great. I have great respect for everything
Speaker 5: that you've done and everything that you've been through and
Speaker 5: all that you do for people. So anytime you call,
Speaker 5: anytime you message, you know, I'm there for you.
Speaker 4: Man, Thank you.
Speaker 2: But we love to dive right in and we want
Speaker 2: to know as we paint the picture of your story,
Speaker 2: like was what was growing up like for you? Where'd
Speaker 2: you grow up? What was the environment like? What was
Speaker 2: the environment inside of you?
Speaker 4: Like? Take us through that.
Speaker 5: Oh, well, growing up? You know, I grew up in
Speaker 5: a middle class neighborhood on Long Island, the south shore
Speaker 5: of Long Island, right by Jones Beach, a place called
Speaker 5: Belmore JFK or Belmore was the name of the city,
Speaker 5: but Bellore JFK was the name of the high school.
Speaker 5: High school that produced, amongst other luminaries, Amy Fisher, who
Speaker 5: shot Joy Butterfoogo's wife in the face, Steve Levy, the
Speaker 5: great ESPN sports anchor, Michael Coors, the fashion designer, amongst
Speaker 5: many of the people that went to our high school.
Speaker 5: And you know, I grew up as a guy that
Speaker 5: loved sports. I watched everything. I loved reading the newspaper.
Speaker 5: I loved reading the newspaper and finding little pieces of
Speaker 5: information to tell my father when he got home from work. Oh, Dad,
Speaker 5: you're not gonna believe this. The Knicks might trade for
Speaker 5: this guy. Oh the Yankees might sign this guy. Oh
Speaker 5: the Jets are gonna hire this coach. Like I love
Speaker 5: that stuff. I never thought I could make a living
Speaker 5: doing it. Honestly, I thought, Okay, I'm going to go
Speaker 5: to law school or business school. You know, my parents
Speaker 5: had a five and dime type store on Long Island.
Speaker 5: Maybe I'd worked there. And I went to the University
Speaker 5: of Michigan and in September nineteen eighty five, is a freshman,
Speaker 5: I wanted to get into this fraternity and I didn't
Speaker 5: get in. And when I didn't get in, I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: I got to do something to keep busy. So I
Speaker 5: went down to the football office to see if they
Speaker 5: needed somebody to pick up jockstraps and hand out water bottles,
Speaker 5: and they didn't need anybody. And so went to the
Speaker 5: basketball office to see if they needed somebody, and they
Speaker 5: didn't need anybody. And so when I got rejected from
Speaker 5: the fraternity, the football office and the basketball office like, well,
Speaker 5: I don't even know what I'm gonna do. You know what,
Speaker 5: let me volunteer for the student newspaper. And literally that's
Speaker 5: how this started. And if the fraternity had ended an
Speaker 5: imitation to me that freshman year, there were about fifty
Speaker 5: guys going out for about ten spots. I think I
Speaker 5: would have been very happy just being in the fraternity,
Speaker 5: being one of the guys hanging out with the ladies.
Speaker 5: Like I never would have gone to the newspaper, and
Speaker 5: I never would have gone to this business. It would
Speaker 5: have been something that would have been beyond my wildest dreams.
Speaker 5: And so this was born at a rejection. This was
Speaker 5: born out of people telling you no. And what I've
Speaker 5: come to learn is there are a lot of people
Speaker 5: in a lot of walks of life every time somebody
Speaker 5: tells you no, that just creates an opportunity for you
Speaker 5: somewhere else, and it's up to you to take advantage
Speaker 5: of that. Now. I never would have known that as
Speaker 5: an eighteen year old freshman at the University of Michigan
Speaker 5: in December of nineteen eighty five. But you learned these
Speaker 5: things over time, and then you work hard to make
Speaker 5: the most of it. And that, to answer your question
Speaker 5: in a roundabout way, is basically the start of this
Speaker 5: and kind of where I came from growing up in
Speaker 5: belmore Long Island, going to school at Michigan, and winding
Speaker 5: up doing this.
Speaker 2: It sounds very clear that you had a dream from
Speaker 2: the start and ended up living that dream out. And
Speaker 2: you talked about some rejection along the way that could
Speaker 2: have easily deterred you from wanting to achieve your goal.
Speaker 2: Was there was there any thing like growing up, like
Speaker 2: when you were in school, that that you had struggles
Speaker 2: with that early on could have deterred you, Like for me,
Speaker 2: it was I dealt with like not being black enough,
Speaker 2: insecurities of just kind of who I was on the inside.
Speaker 2: Was there any type of pain or confusion that you
Speaker 2: dealt with as a as a young man.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, honestly, you mentioned a dream like you
Speaker 5: know I had. I didn't have a dream like this
Speaker 5: was this is so far beyond my dreams, you know.
Speaker 5: And I think back to my childhood and you know,
Speaker 5: my grandfather who I was very close with, you know,
Speaker 5: he told me that I was making a mistake going
Speaker 5: to college, that I should just come to work for
Speaker 5: the family business. And you know, it was a case
Speaker 5: where again, this is so far beyond anything that I
Speaker 5: could have imagined. You know. The adversity that that happens
Speaker 5: along the way is all the rejection that comes your
Speaker 5: way and trying to pivot from that and figure out
Speaker 5: what you could do. Like I didn't go to Michigan
Speaker 5: with the goal to work for the student newspaper. That
Speaker 5: wasn't what I set out to do. It just kind
Speaker 5: of happened. And even then I spent a couple of years,
Speaker 5: you know, on the student newspaper. Like wait, wait, there
Speaker 5: are people that do this for a living. I had
Speaker 5: no idea, Like I thought, it'll sound strange, but I's
Speaker 5: that these were jobs that other people did, like that
Speaker 5: you weren't good enough for them, so that other people
Speaker 5: would do them. And what I came to realize is
Speaker 5: that people can do anything they want if they set
Speaker 5: their mind to it. You know, if they want to
Speaker 5: become the President of the United States, go work to
Speaker 5: make that happen. You want to become a center or
Speaker 5: a congress person, go make work to make that. You
Speaker 5: want to make it to the NFL very hard. Some
Speaker 5: people are kindacholetically blessed, like myself, but you work hard
Speaker 5: and you do your best. I actually now think, in hindsight,
Speaker 5: knowing what I know, that had the Michigan football team
Speaker 5: or basketball team giving me a job back in the day,
Speaker 5: I think that I might have made my way in
Speaker 5: that particular field. I don't know what I would have done,
Speaker 5: whether it would have been as as a great equipment manager,
Speaker 5: somebody that was a director of operation. I have no idea.
Speaker 5: But I was placed to the newspaper by accident, through default,
Speaker 5: and then just tried to make the most of it.
Speaker 5: And so when you asked for the setbacks, and you know,
Speaker 5: the opposite, like it was all that like. I had
Speaker 5: so many rejection letters when I was trying to get
Speaker 5: a full time job at a Michigan It took me
Speaker 5: two years to get a job, and I always tell
Speaker 5: people there was a bar on the Michigan campus called
Speaker 5: Dominic's that would give you a drink for every rejection
Speaker 5: letter you had. I tell people, I forget about a drink.
Speaker 5: I could have owned the bar if I wanted. That's
Speaker 5: how the projection letter I had.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you painting that perspective and just how you
Speaker 3: grew up. And I'm going back to where you would
Speaker 3: read your those little like the possible transactions, like if
Speaker 3: that's where your eye went to. I was thinking back
Speaker 3: to where my eye went and it was always like
Speaker 3: statistics and the you know, the top ten batting leaders.
Speaker 3: I was at college baseball player, so I was fascinated
Speaker 3: with the newspaper, but it was more around standings and statistics.
Speaker 3: But yours was actually in these possibilities of transactions. Looking back,
Speaker 3: like where do you think that came from? And that
Speaker 3: that was where your focus was.
Speaker 5: Well, I did love sports, I mean there's no doubt
Speaker 5: about that. Like I used to watch and listen to
Speaker 5: every pitch of every Yankees game, you know, I'd watch
Speaker 5: all the football games. I mean I was I was
Speaker 5: a sports junkie. That that's where it came from I
Speaker 5: couldn't get enough sports as a kid, but you to
Speaker 5: read the newspaper. I don't know, It's just something that
Speaker 5: I loved it. It transported me to a world that
Speaker 5: I really got a lot out of that that it
Speaker 5: just I don't know what it was, you know, I
Speaker 5: it was something. Everybody's got hobbies, everybody's got days, everybody's
Speaker 5: got something they love. Some people love music, some people
Speaker 5: love movies. I love sports. So the more I could
Speaker 5: immerse myself in that world, whether it was reading the
Speaker 5: newspaper or watching TV or listening to the radio, the
Speaker 5: more I would do and the happier I was. So
Speaker 5: that that's all that that was, and it again turned
Speaker 5: out to be my professional calling, though I had no
Speaker 5: idea that that would be the case.
Speaker 3: That's so cool that you painted that picture, because you know,
Speaker 3: and you said, transported you to a world of possibility.
Speaker 3: And it's almost like the possibility was the possibility of
Speaker 3: the trade or the transaction that was going to happen.
Speaker 3: And for many people, I think they have this gift.
Speaker 3: They have these passions when they're younger, and as they
Speaker 3: get older, they lose those passions because society says we
Speaker 3: need to do this, We need to be this job
Speaker 3: title to be successful, and oftentimes it's parents and it's
Speaker 3: the upbringing that says you need to go be a doctor,
Speaker 3: you need to go be a lawyer, and then we
Speaker 3: forget and we lose our gifts, and many people get
Speaker 3: to the top of the ladder and they end up
Speaker 3: realizing that they're leaning up against the wrong wall. They
Speaker 3: have all the success, but they're miserable. And it's just
Speaker 3: so cool that it's the setbacks and the rejections that
Speaker 3: actually led you to this point, because it is all
Speaker 3: about perspective and how it's not the actual event that happens,
Speaker 3: it's the meaning that we attached to it. And I'm
Speaker 3: so grateful that you were able to I was able
Speaker 3: to hear that story, and others are going to be
Speaker 3: able to hear that that is what led you to
Speaker 3: what you get to do today. It's just really cool
Speaker 3: to hear.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, here's the thing. I never considered myself
Speaker 5: overly intelligent or articulate or gifted in anyone area. But
Speaker 5: the one thing that I was I was driven, and
Speaker 5: I was ambitious and I was determined, like I wanted
Speaker 5: to be a sports reporter in the worst way. Once
Speaker 5: I got a taste of it, like it mattered so
Speaker 5: much to me that at the age of twenty three,
Speaker 5: I'm sending applications all across the country and wherever a
Speaker 5: newspaper called to offer me a job, whether it was
Speaker 5: South Dakota or Georgia or Louisiana, I was gonna go,
Speaker 5: Like it didn't matter. I was leaving my family, I
Speaker 5: was leaving my friends. I was going wherever they offered
Speaker 5: me a job, And it just happened to be that
Speaker 5: it was Denver, Colorado. They called and offered me a job,
Speaker 5: and I flew out there at the age of twenty three,
Speaker 5: really didn't know very many people at all, and started
Speaker 5: a new life where I began writing for the Rocky
Speaker 5: Mountain News, which is now basically out of business, and
Speaker 5: their assignment to me was as a general assignment reporter,
Speaker 5: and I got to do a lot of stuff with
Speaker 5: the University of Colorado and the Denver Broncos and again,
Speaker 5: more accidents, more craziness. Right when Colorado was awarded a
Speaker 5: baseball team, a Major League Baseball franchise in the early
Speaker 5: nineteen nineties, I went to the newspaper and begged them
Speaker 5: to let me cover the Colorado Rockies, and they hired
Speaker 5: this experienced baseball writer by the name of Tracy ringles Bey,
Speaker 5: who was a legendary baseball writer, and he wanted to
Speaker 5: cover the beat, and he wanted to bring in one
Speaker 5: of the people that he knew as an established baseball
Speaker 5: writer named Jack Eckin, And so there was no room.
Speaker 5: So I couldn't cover the baseball team. I couldn't do
Speaker 5: what I wanted. I was forced forced to stick on
Speaker 5: the football beat and cover the Broncos. And so I
Speaker 5: covered the Broncos there for almost sixteen years. And I
Speaker 5: tell people I went to the University of Michigan undergrad,
Speaker 5: I went to Northwestern Grad School, and then I got
Speaker 5: my masters in football from the Denver Broncos. Because I
Speaker 5: just hung around that building for almost sixteen years, dealing
Speaker 5: with the players, the coaches, the front office people, and
Speaker 5: you learned what was acceptable and what wasn't, and what
Speaker 5: worked and what didn't, and what people were good with
Speaker 5: and what they were and you know, I was I'm
Speaker 5: grateful to the time that the Rocky Mountain News and
Speaker 5: the Denver Post gave me being around the NFL, and
Speaker 5: again like I said, didn't sit out to do it,
Speaker 5: was stuck doing it, and it led to where it did.
Speaker 5: All this is pretty accidental.
Speaker 2: This is this is amazing because I feel like what
Speaker 2: you're saying is as long as you have a love
Speaker 2: and a hunger for your craft and the process of
Speaker 2: that craft, as opposed to the results or where you
Speaker 2: may end up or a job being exactly the way
Speaker 2: that you wanted, doors are going to open for you.
Speaker 2: Like you just showed up with passion, like I love
Speaker 2: to do this. I'll do this wherever it takes me,
Speaker 2: whatever the role is, whatever they're paying me, I'll take
Speaker 2: it as opposed to having demands or thinking like oh
Speaker 2: I got to make this much or I need to
Speaker 2: be riding here, I need to be But you're showing
Speaker 2: up and these opportunities just happen to fall in your
Speaker 2: lap because the love and the passion is there. And
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people may have that backwards,
Speaker 2: like in the year like twenty twenty three, they want
Speaker 2: things to be great when the time that they show up,
Speaker 2: as opposed to allowing the process to take time, allowing
Speaker 2: me to develop, allowing situations in doors to open for
Speaker 2: me at the perfect time that they should, and my
Speaker 2: skills and my character will be developed enough for me
Speaker 2: to succeed in these roles that come.
Speaker 4: But people don't necessarily get that.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, Jarren, think about your NFL journey and
Speaker 5: your just a unique journey, right, But you think about it, right.
Speaker 5: You didn't come into the league right away and light
Speaker 5: the league on fire. Right, It didn't happen. And there
Speaker 5: aren't a lot of people that just step in and
Speaker 5: dominate their profession right away. It takes time, it takes training,
Speaker 5: it takes work, right, Like, so I spent sixteen years
Speaker 5: in Denver learning how to be around a football team,
Speaker 5: you know, becoming a newsman, and that's the education. And
Speaker 5: by the way, the way I felt was if I
Speaker 5: had covered the Denver Broncos for the Rocky Mountain News
Speaker 5: and then the Denver Post for the rest of my career,
Speaker 5: I was good with that. Like, I loved it. It
Speaker 5: was great. Now it evolved into a job eventually at
Speaker 5: NFL Network for five years, which led to a job
Speaker 5: at ESPN, where I've been since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5: So it's over almost fourteen years now. It feels like
Speaker 5: a lifetime. So I think The point is is that
Speaker 5: people might have an idea of what they think they
Speaker 5: want to do, but the idea is just to do
Speaker 5: good work with whatever it is that you're doing, give
Speaker 5: people your all and let's see where it goes. You
Speaker 5: don't know where it's going to go. Like people may
Speaker 5: sit out to become a doctor and may become I
Speaker 5: don't know, like a medical expert on TV. Things happen.
Speaker 5: You can't lock yourself in. You just have to work hard,
Speaker 5: do good work, and then you see where that goes.
Speaker 4: Adam, how do you?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 3: I wanted to I know we have a limited amount
Speaker 3: of time and maybe we'll have to get you back
Speaker 3: on for a round two, but with and one of
Speaker 3: the things I wanted to do acknowledge you for is
Speaker 3: beyond like being you know, ahead of the game and
Speaker 3: breaking the news, is just there's a way that you
Speaker 3: your communication style and how clearly you articulate things, and
Speaker 3: that obviously comes with just being in the work for
Speaker 3: so long that you've been doing, but so one I
Speaker 3: wanted to acknowledge you for that because as I watch
Speaker 3: you on TV or hear you, I'm like, he's so
Speaker 3: clear and concise on the things that he's saying like
Speaker 3: he knows what he's talking about. But I also just
Speaker 3: wanted to ask you, like with with the hustle and
Speaker 3: the bustle and how hard you grind, how do you
Speaker 3: find balance? And what does balance look like for you
Speaker 3: in your life today?
Speaker 5: Well, first and foremost, thank you for the con words,
Speaker 5: And I would say this that you know, I think
Speaker 5: that being in newspapers trained me to think efficiently and
Speaker 5: train me to think in a way not to be
Speaker 5: worthy and to her bos. So you're always thinking you know, what, where, when, how, why?
Speaker 5: Like bam in a fentence, and that training to write
Speaker 5: a strong lead in a short amount of time became
Speaker 5: so ingrained in my thinking from all the writing that
Speaker 5: all I do now is I'm just doing it in
Speaker 5: a verbal way on television. So when a text comes
Speaker 5: in that Darren Waller's traded to the New York Giants,
Speaker 5: I can quickly just formulate that in my mind and
Speaker 5: be like moments ago, the Las Vegas Raiders trade Darn
Speaker 5: Waller the New York Giants for a third rem whatever
Speaker 5: it was, and it just my brain has been trained
Speaker 5: and wired that way from newspapers. Now, as for the balance,
Speaker 5: my brain isn't wired as well as it should be.
Speaker 5: I think, I think everybody in any line of work
Speaker 5: struggles with that to a certain extent. You do the
Speaker 5: best you can, but you can't dine in all areas
Speaker 5: all the time. If you give more time to your
Speaker 5: professional career, there's no way that your personal career can't
Speaker 5: suffer some If you give all your time to your
Speaker 5: personal life, there's no way to your professional career. The
Speaker 5: trick is to find that balance, and it's different for everybody.
Speaker 5: Some people five for different things. Everybody's got different goals
Speaker 5: in life. It's all about what makes you happy. I
Speaker 5: know that, you know, it's important for me to be
Speaker 5: around my family and my daughter, my son, my five
Speaker 5: dogs that we have. You know, I love that. But
Speaker 5: it's also there are times when work is busy, and
Speaker 5: you know, I have a friend who's very successful. I
Speaker 5: was with him this week and telling me about how
Speaker 5: his wife was really getting on him for not being
Speaker 5: present at all times. And I'm like, oh, I've heard
Speaker 5: that many times. You know, many times, And I'll bet
Speaker 5: you that we are hardly in the minority of people
Speaker 5: who have heard that. People who are passionate, dedicated, committed
Speaker 5: to their jobs probably carry it with them a lot
Speaker 5: of the time. And so while you're sitting there having
Speaker 5: dinner with a boyfriend or a girlfriend a spouse, now
Speaker 5: you're thinking, have I gotta check on this, or what's
Speaker 5: going on with that? Or how am I going to
Speaker 5: handle the situation? And that's just natural because that's what
Speaker 5: it takes sometimes, and so people don't always love that,
Speaker 5: but reality is your brain's all over the place. I
Speaker 5: try my best to have a balanced life, and I
Speaker 5: think I often do, but I'm sure that sometimes I
Speaker 5: fall short, just because that's the way it is, right, Like,
Speaker 5: you just can't be all things to all peop people
Speaker 5: at all times. It is very hard to do that
Speaker 5: in all areas.
Speaker 4: That's a fact, man.
Speaker 2: I'm interested how since that you've grown such a large
Speaker 2: profile and following and everybody knows who you are and
Speaker 2: everybody can tweet at you or comment on your posts, Like,
Speaker 2: was there what was it like adjusting to that? Was
Speaker 2: there a lot of pressures you're putting on yourself? Was
Speaker 2: there anxiety to perform? What kind of things were you
Speaker 2: dealing with when things kind of blew beyond your wildest dreams?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I do think it's an adjustment. It's a blessing
Speaker 5: and it's a burden. It's both right, and I think,
Speaker 5: much like when you're a professional athlete, Darren, you just
Speaker 5: have to just do the best job you can focus
Speaker 5: on that and try your best to tune out the noise, right,
Speaker 5: And so I think I think I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 5: I'm probably not perfect at it. I rare read comments.
Speaker 5: I really just try to avoid it. Of course, I'm
Speaker 5: human every now and then. You know, you see some things,
Speaker 5: some things you're proud of, some things bother you because
Speaker 5: you're human, But overall, you know, I know, you know
Speaker 5: the work that I put in, I know the level
Speaker 5: of fairness I try to have, and people don't understand
Speaker 5: always know everything that goes into every situation, and so
Speaker 5: you just do the best you can. I've done this
Speaker 5: job now for thirty three years. Thirty three years, and
Speaker 5: the job has changed quite a bit over that time,
Speaker 5: from the time when I was a newspaper reporter and
Speaker 5: the news cycle was really twenty four hours. You know,
Speaker 5: the stories would run the newspaper and then they show
Speaker 5: up and you look and then there wouldn't be stories
Speaker 5: again until the newspaper showed up on your doorstep the
Speaker 5: next day, and now you know, the news cycle is
Speaker 5: less than twenty four Just anytime you post on Twitter
Speaker 5: or Instagram or threads or whatever it may be, it's
Speaker 5: just everything is faster, quicker, more sudden, more people scrutinizing everything.
Speaker 5: It's it's a tougher, more critical world where people, you know,
Speaker 5: everybody's a critic and everybody has something to say. And
Speaker 5: you know, I wish we lived in a world that
Speaker 5: was a little bit more positive and a little less negative,
Speaker 5: but this is how it is. Right Like, people are
Speaker 5: going to rip the New York Giants if they don't win,
Speaker 5: and they're going to praise them when they do it.
Speaker 5: It's just it's kind of how it goes. That's the
Speaker 5: world we live in.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit? I know we've
Speaker 3: got a limited amount of time again, and I think
Speaker 3: an important part of your story is the story of
Speaker 3: Joseph Myo And for those that don't know that story,
Speaker 3: can you can you let us in and let the
Speaker 3: listeners in a little bit about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my wife always married to a man by the
Speaker 5: name of Joe Mayo and they obviously he lost his
Speaker 5: life on nine to eleven. He worked for Canter Fitzgerald
Speaker 5: and he was one of three thousand plus people who
Speaker 5: perished that day. And it was a day, you know,
Speaker 5: the most memorable day in my lifetime, the most memorable
Speaker 5: day in a lot of people's lifetimes. And it's hard
Speaker 5: to imagine. I shudder to think that there would be
Speaker 5: a day that would be more memorable than that day.
Speaker 5: I hope it never occurs. You know, my wife when
Speaker 5: she lost her husband, she had a one year old son.
Speaker 5: They just bought a house a month before he died,
Speaker 5: and she was left to raise their son, Devin, on
Speaker 5: her own. And I married Sharry about six years later,
Speaker 5: and I moved into the house that her and Joseph bought,
Speaker 5: and I helped raise the son that her and Joseph
Speaker 5: helped raise, and I basically stepped into his life. And
Speaker 5: so I don't know. In the fifteenth anniversary of nine
Speaker 5: to eleven, ESPN had asked me to do a piece,
Speaker 5: or I had asked on the tenth anniversary. I think
Speaker 5: it was I volunteer at ESPN. I'm like, hey, if
Speaker 5: you want to do a piece, I would do a
Speaker 5: piece on my wife late husband and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know, We'll say. You know, nobody expressed any
Speaker 5: great interest in it. I got it, you know, Like
Speaker 5: I said, there are a lot of families that were
Speaker 5: impacted that day. For some reason, on the fifteenth anniversary,
Speaker 5: one of the ESPN producers came through me was like,
Speaker 5: I think we'd like to do that on Joe my
Speaker 5: great Now. I didn't even know what form it would take,
Speaker 5: and I worked with a producer at ESPN, Dominique, who
Speaker 5: did a great job, and we put together a story
Speaker 5: that was on Joe. And what was amazing was you're upset,
Speaker 5: and right when I got upset, my phone blew up
Speaker 5: and it was like all kinds of people from all
Speaker 5: walks of life, entertainment, politics, people were touched and moved
Speaker 5: by Joe's story, which you can just google it, you know,
Speaker 5: Adam Shefter or Joe Mayo's story on ESPN. And so
Speaker 5: somebody said, well, you should write a book about it,
Speaker 5: and I was like, yeah, I don't know want to
Speaker 5: write a book. But I did write a book. I
Speaker 5: enlisted the help of a guy that I knew, a
Speaker 5: great writer from Sports Illustrated, Michael Rosenberg, who went to
Speaker 5: the University of Michigan, and Michael helped me through it
Speaker 5: and we called the Demand I never met a memoir
Speaker 5: and it was a book about Joe and me stepping
Speaker 5: into his life. And that's basically the story. You know, listen,
Speaker 5: Like I said, you know that event was enormous to everybody.
Speaker 5: It feels felt even more enormous on the East Coast.
Speaker 5: I was living in Denver when it happened. But you know,
Speaker 5: my parents' best friend perish that day. I had fraternity
Speaker 5: brothers to perish that day. My wife lest her husband
Speaker 5: that day. The people that I call in law has
Speaker 5: lost their son that day. You know, it's hard to
Speaker 5: be from the East Coast and not know somebody who
Speaker 5: lost somebody that day who was impacted. And it's just
Speaker 5: a way to honor and remember and let people know
Speaker 5: a little bit about the life of Joe Mayo. And
Speaker 5: like I said, there were a lot of people, great
Speaker 5: people who tragedy lost their lives that day.
Speaker 2: What do you think you learned about yourself in that
Speaker 2: process of building your marriage? But also you know, stepping
Speaker 2: into the place that she felt like her previous husband
Speaker 2: was in, like you served and helped care for a
Speaker 2: son that wasn't yours. Like, what do you feel like
Speaker 2: you learned the most or grew in the most through
Speaker 2: that season.
Speaker 5: I think we're learning all the time, to be honest,
Speaker 5: you know, it's not a simple easy thing. I learned
Speaker 5: at that time that I think that marriage comes along
Speaker 5: with a lot, but when you tack on the added circumstances, uh,
Speaker 5: there's even more layers to it. And so it's hard.
Speaker 5: And and like I said, you know, I said in
Speaker 5: the book like that, we still have pictures of Joe
Speaker 5: that hang in our house. You know, it was his house.
Speaker 5: We live in that house, and I've just tried to
Speaker 5: honor him and respect him and tried to look out
Speaker 5: for his family, to do my part to look out
Speaker 5: for the people that he loved the most. It's, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's it's a very strange thing. Like
Speaker 5: I said, I'm not the only one who's lived this
Speaker 5: kind of life and stepped into these set of circumstances.
Speaker 5: I have other people that have done the same. I
Speaker 5: can't tell you specific what did I learn. I learned
Speaker 5: it it's not always easy. I learned it's hard. I
Speaker 5: learned you can't replace that person. I learned that person
Speaker 5: lives on even though they're God. I learned that you
Speaker 5: can't be that person, and all you can do is
Speaker 5: the best you can. I mean, like, I don't know
Speaker 5: all these little petty little things that I learned, I
Speaker 5: don't know what they amount to, but you know, you
Speaker 5: just you know, it's such a sad thing, you know,
Speaker 5: to Today's the is the anniversary of Joe's parents, and uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I texted them this morning to wish them
Speaker 5: a happy Eniwver. And you know, our family is unique
Speaker 5: because our kids have three sets of grandparents. They have
Speaker 5: Joe's parents and my wife's parents and my parents, and
Speaker 5: I have two sets of in laws. I consider them
Speaker 5: in laws, and so it's there's a lot of unusual
Speaker 5: family structures in the world we live in today, and
Speaker 5: that's our version of our unusual Fisch structure.
Speaker 2: There's a beautiful lesson of selflessness in that, because I
Speaker 2: feel like a lot of men may want a situation
Speaker 2: that is perfectly suitable to them, or something that you
Speaker 2: know they would dream of. But here you are being
Speaker 2: presented with a beautiful situation with a beautiful woman and
Speaker 2: an amazing marriage with some extra things attached to it.
Speaker 2: And essentially you have a choice of like, you know,
Speaker 2: this isn't what I intended on, but I can. I
Speaker 2: can still show up and focus on the beauty and
Speaker 2: gratitude of the situation. And I feel like you've done
Speaker 2: that your entire life, through your your journey as a
Speaker 2: reporter too, and it just spills over and these lessons
Speaker 2: that we learned just there's no boundaries to where they
Speaker 2: can go in our life. They are character and who
Speaker 2: we are and who we're growing into. It goes into
Speaker 2: everything that we do. And it's cool to see you
Speaker 2: have such a such an angle and a perspective on
Speaker 2: that situation and you willing to share that with people.
Speaker 4: Man, I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 5: Well, I appreciate that. It's like I say, it's everybody's
Speaker 5: got a story, and that just happens to be our story.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can take us out, Adam and just share
Speaker 3: with us. Like when you hear the word come back,
Speaker 3: what does that mean to you?
Speaker 5: It means everybody in any walk of life is going
Speaker 5: to have setbacks, no matter who you are, no matter
Speaker 5: what you do, And every single person's gonna have a setback,
Speaker 5: and every person is gonna have a chance to repeatedly
Speaker 5: come back because there are enough bad days in this
Speaker 5: world you get a chance to come back from them.
Speaker 5: There's enough rejection this world, you get a chance to
Speaker 5: come back from that. There is enough negativity and setbacks
Speaker 5: that everybody continually has the chance to come back from something.
Speaker 5: And it's up to them to choose whether they want
Speaker 5: to do that and how fast they want to put
Speaker 5: it into motion. They just want to accept it and
Speaker 5: be defeated and crushed by it. And the people who
Speaker 5: have shown the brightest, like Darren and I'm sure you Donnie,
Speaker 5: they've taken those setbacks and they've pushed ahead, and they
Speaker 5: pushed forward. They pushed through the setbacks so that they
Speaker 5: could have the type of glorious comebacks that deserve to
Speaker 5: be highlighted.
Speaker 4: That's so well said, man. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: I know you got to run and catch a flight,
Speaker 2: and you've been so gracious to carve out this window
Speaker 2: of time first man. So we really appreciate you, and
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to seeing you around this season and
Speaker 2: everywhere you travel. Everywhere you go, man, I just hope
Speaker 2: it's safe travels and wish you nothing but peace and success.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. Donnie, thank you
Speaker 5: for having me. Darren, thank you. Hey, I'm in the
Speaker 5: New York area. Darren, you need anything, you can make
Speaker 5: a call.
Speaker 4: Here, Yes, sir, we'll do man. Thank you, Adam, appreciate
Speaker 4: your time.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys. Have a great day.
Speaker 2: And I just want to thank everybody for joining us
Speaker 2: for another episode of come Back Stories as well. Hope
Speaker 2: you keep downloading us wherever you get podcasts. Tell your friends,
Speaker 2: tell your relatives, tell them to keep coming back because
Speaker 2: we're going to keep coming back. You know us in
Speaker 2: our DNA and check us out on Inflection Network on
Speaker 2: YouTube as well, and we will catch you guys next week.
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