Speaker 1: Welcome to the NFL Legends Podcast, an NFL podcast for
Speaker 1: the players, by the players. Here is your host, fourteen
Speaker 1: year NFL veteran and Hall of Famer Anius Williams. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to the NFL Legends Podcast. I'm a Nias Williams.
Speaker 1: Our guest today's NFL Legend defensive tackle Langston Mueller, who
Speaker 1: is the host of his own podcast, everybody listening in
Speaker 1: It's called but in Guts. I'm gonna say it again,
Speaker 1: but in Guts, not but in Nuts, but in Guts,
Speaker 1: which focuses on the big men of the NFL and
Speaker 1: specific challenges they face as legends. Welcome Langston Man. It's
Speaker 1: it's great to be here, Anias, and it's great to
Speaker 1: talk button gut. I mean it's a it's is a great,
Speaker 1: great deal and uh it's gonna be fun. Man. You
Speaker 1: have a you have a smile, You have a gracious smile.
Speaker 1: You also have the voice. I know you're doing a
Speaker 1: podcast in how much television have you done? Well? My
Speaker 1: daddy was in radio, and uh, you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of got the gift of having a face for radio,
Speaker 1: as folks like to say a lot of times, so
Speaker 1: I get some of that guy given voice talent from him,
Speaker 1: and uh, I guess the rest will just attribute to
Speaker 1: my sweet mother. So um, you know, having the the
Speaker 1: ability to grow up around a teacher and and somebody
Speaker 1: was in broadcast. It kind of helped me get onto
Speaker 1: this path of being a podcaster and trying to be
Speaker 1: creative and come up with these ideas. I want to start, well,
Speaker 1: why you started a podcast specifically for the big guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the big things is, you know, um, you
Speaker 1: can't have a football game without lineman. You always hear about,
Speaker 1: you know, winning in the trenches with offense and defensive linement,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times the star guys that guys
Speaker 1: who get to take their helmet off for for the
Speaker 1: touchdowns are for the other things are usually the skinny
Speaker 1: guys and so um, for me, the biggest thing was
Speaker 1: just talking about how all of this is kind of
Speaker 1: tied in being a football guy, because, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody has a story if you've made it
Speaker 1: to elite level football, playing in college or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but for the most of us, we've been big our
Speaker 1: entire life. So you know, trying to figure out and
Speaker 1: talk about that that Moniker of being a big guy
Speaker 1: and what that meant like somebody. For myself, I was
Speaker 1: like a hundred fifty pounds in the third grade, and
Speaker 1: as long as we had that backdrop of football, you
Speaker 1: know you're good, you're not you're not an obest kid,
Speaker 1: or you know you're doing something positive. But without football,
Speaker 1: somebody would look at you and probably say what they
Speaker 1: said to my mother, the doctor said that they're like,
Speaker 1: we gotta do something about this. So I was still
Speaker 1: trying to I had those baseball dreams at that time.
Speaker 1: But my mom, God bless her, she took me to
Speaker 1: go get ice cream after the doctor said, man, we
Speaker 1: gotta get this boy to lose some weight. In the
Speaker 1: third grade win a hundred fifty pounds. So everybody we
Speaker 1: kind of talked to in this series are any of
Speaker 1: the guys we you've ever been in the locker room with.
Speaker 1: They kind of had similar stories about being taller than everybody,
Speaker 1: are bigger than everybody, but beyond all that, being extremely
Speaker 1: talented athletically and trying to figure out how they fit
Speaker 1: into the world. So you know, for a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: they take that medium, they take their bodies and they
Speaker 1: go into uh playing football, and it takes them a
Speaker 1: really far place. And what we also wanted to cover
Speaker 1: in our Button Got series was, uh, the challenges for
Speaker 1: guys afterwards, you know, losing the week because there's so
Speaker 1: much food and reward and different things tied in with football. Um,
Speaker 1: you know when it needs Winns would pick off. You know,
Speaker 1: all these guys in the NFL. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if he had five interceptions. That quarterback who threw
Speaker 1: those five interceptions, he would get a bag of burgers
Speaker 1: or a pizza or something, and food and rewards and
Speaker 1: all these different things were always tied in, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of highlight a lot of that and
Speaker 1: get into kind of some of the psychology of those things.
Speaker 1: Like you brought up something that I hadn't anticipated talking about,
Speaker 1: and it's the psychological dynamics are being big when it
Speaker 1: comes down to the game of football. You get, you
Speaker 1: get accolades for it. Just as you said it. How
Speaker 1: would you share with those who are bigger and societists
Speaker 1: saying something is wrong if you're bigger, right, particularly with
Speaker 1: ladies and with men, the big guys that played the
Speaker 1: great game in the National Football League, it's an honor
Speaker 1: to be big. What's the psychological challenges you could speak
Speaker 1: to for those that don't play football and a big well,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is confident, um. You know, especially
Speaker 1: in the world we live in now, it is very visceral.
Speaker 1: Everybody sees the highlights and we call that social media Instagram.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever puts their low lights on there um. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of times when you see that that
Speaker 1: guy who is you know, uh six five, you know,
Speaker 1: two eight pounds and he has the timbercent body fat
Speaker 1: and you're like, man, I played in the NFL. I
Speaker 1: think maybe Andre Wadsworth was maybe the only due to
Speaker 1: ever was chisel like that, and that was just kind
Speaker 1: of God given you didn't you know you you you
Speaker 1: really get to you don't get to see those type
Speaker 1: of things. So for a lot of folks, if if
Speaker 1: they're not the typical guy on the chart and the
Speaker 1: doctors office stage, they start to look at it. Now,
Speaker 1: there is health consequences for a lot of those things.
Speaker 1: And I grew up in the South and so with that, um,
Speaker 1: that was one of the things we also want to
Speaker 1: touch on because there is a lot of obesity, diabetes,
Speaker 1: a lot of these things that are weight related that
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, especially football guys, have to deal
Speaker 1: with and we're not immune to those just because we
Speaker 1: play in the NFL. A lot of guys we interviewed,
Speaker 1: like like Kendall Simmons for example, was a guy who
Speaker 1: played for Pittsburgh for many years and Kendall didn't find
Speaker 1: out he was a diabetic till he was in the NFL.
Speaker 1: And you talk about you know, performance and different things
Speaker 1: like that. Um, it's all the things we touch on
Speaker 1: within that. But for a lot of folks, especially women included,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a big deal body image. UM, A
Speaker 1: lot of guys we interviewed myself as well, we have
Speaker 1: daughters and so being bigger guys, you know, we we
Speaker 1: still feed and you kind of see I got a
Speaker 1: double chuck, all right, I still so how do we
Speaker 1: how do we try to change that dynamic for our children.
Speaker 1: We we kind of touched on all of that within
Speaker 1: the theories and it has just been really interesting to
Speaker 1: dive into that that psychology. It's been interesting seeing ledger
Speaker 1: Is after they left the game. One of my teammates
Speaker 1: who's done broadcasting at the collegiate level Ed Cunningham and
Speaker 1: Ed probably was over three hundred pounds when I played
Speaker 1: with the man. When I saw him later a few
Speaker 1: years later and he was out of the game as
Speaker 1: a legend, Ed looked like he could play strong safety.
Speaker 1: So so that dynamics. I just want to stick with
Speaker 1: this weight, just maybe a little longer because it's still
Speaker 1: it's such a challenge, right, and we're gonna talk about it.
Speaker 1: So how do you know when you help it? Like
Speaker 1: Ed gets down? He's small, But how does a bigger
Speaker 1: person know when their health Then I guess, well, and
Speaker 1: that's the that's another thing we kind of find out
Speaker 1: because for you with think going into it, it it would
Speaker 1: be a number on the scale for a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: and that does have something tied into it. We're talking
Speaker 1: about weight goals and different things, but for a lot
Speaker 1: of guys, this functionality. Uh, some of these guys played
Speaker 1: at the higher end of three hundred, closer to three
Speaker 1: semi fives. So he put some paths on them. These
Speaker 1: dudes at the pregame. It might be four d pounds
Speaker 1: on any given Sunday, but still out there running on
Speaker 1: their toes like their deers and all those different things.
Speaker 1: So they gotta figure out what's their ideal way for them?
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna be. They've been off the charts their
Speaker 1: entire life, So trying to figure out maybe being under
Speaker 1: three D is not realistic. But having my body fat right,
Speaker 1: having my blood pressure right, having my A one C
Speaker 1: numbers if I'm diabetic, all those different things. So that
Speaker 1: was the other interesting thing talking to guys. And if
Speaker 1: we know anything about football, dudes, is we all know stats,
Speaker 1: we all watch numbers, we all pay attention to something
Speaker 1: that's stat related, and there's no difference when we're talking
Speaker 1: about our bodies. Talking about self scouting, Uh, if I'm
Speaker 1: if I'm a zone corner, I know better than to
Speaker 1: try to lock somebody up man the man who can
Speaker 1: beat me. But it's the same way with your own self.
Speaker 1: You gotta skeelf scout and know your own self. As
Speaker 1: far as when it comes to to your diet and
Speaker 1: changing that diet, it sweets as your deal. You gotta
Speaker 1: figure out some way to get that sweet tooth off you.
Speaker 1: If it's fried foods, you gotta get the air frier,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta do something. So I think the
Speaker 1: biggest thing for a lot of guys that having kind
Speaker 1: of that soberer moment. And we all had this as
Speaker 1: a football player, like when we were totally going to
Speaker 1: commit and say I'm gonna go all the way with football,
Speaker 1: whether it be in college, high school, and once you
Speaker 1: made that commitment, you didn't deviate. And I think it's
Speaker 1: the same way when it comes to really getting serious
Speaker 1: about not just going after your weight, but the entire
Speaker 1: holistic type of deal, because there is a lot of
Speaker 1: mental stuff tied into this. And um, you know, for
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who were super successful playing football,
Speaker 1: they were bigger. Um of course you were making money,
Speaker 1: you have fame and all of those things. But without football,
Speaker 1: people just kind of look at you like a big dude.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't have a lot of your
Speaker 1: confidence starts to win with a lot of guys, and
Speaker 1: we see it affect in other things family life, and
Speaker 1: so that's the other thing we try to tackle within
Speaker 1: this deal is guys getting more confidence, guys talking about
Speaker 1: having just control over things and and this is something
Speaker 1: that ultimately we all as high achievers, we like to
Speaker 1: have a sense of control. And that's and that's the
Speaker 1: thing I think a lot of guys are are figuring
Speaker 1: out through this whole series and and understanding how they
Speaker 1: really have control over their weight and their the image.
Speaker 1: When did you get the mental shift after becoming a
Speaker 1: legend when you were at the eating you were eating,
Speaker 1: and when did you start thinking, Okay, I'm no longer
Speaker 1: playing and I have to be mindful when I now eat.
Speaker 1: What was that conscious interrupt I just I know this
Speaker 1: is gonna help so many people, Langston. I just have
Speaker 1: a passion. And as this podcast and started to hear
Speaker 1: how you've the challenges and the guys you've talked with,
Speaker 1: how that shift has taken place. Well, for me, it's
Speaker 1: um a couple of things for me, And this has
Speaker 1: been a couple of kind of uh salient moments in
Speaker 1: my life. Where my father passed away earlier on. He
Speaker 1: was a bigger guy. Uh he played some football a
Speaker 1: little bit, but you know, high school hero of that
Speaker 1: type of stuff. But afterwards, I've always known my my
Speaker 1: old man to be a bigger guy. But he passed
Speaker 1: away earlier on in my college career because of congested
Speaker 1: heart failure. UM, a lot of that with my my cardropathy,
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that going on with COVID,
Speaker 1: some of the things that's left over. So for him,
Speaker 1: he was a fit guy, was always working out. Work
Speaker 1: was never a thing that that hurt him or he
Speaker 1: was afraid of. But I saw this, you know guy
Speaker 1: in essence, you know, his heart just gave out on
Speaker 1: him because of him being a bigger dude and never
Speaker 1: really ultimately getting that weight down. The other thing that
Speaker 1: was really sobering for me with him was there was
Speaker 1: opportunities for us to, you know, try to do some
Speaker 1: different things with maybe a heart transplant, different things like that.
Speaker 1: But because my dad was over three hundred pounds, they're
Speaker 1: not even gonna put you on the transplants until you're
Speaker 1: two seventy five. So if your heart is already at capacity,
Speaker 1: you can fall dead at any moment. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the catch twenty two. The thing the workout
Speaker 1: or the are the stuff that might save you is
Speaker 1: the thing that might actually kill you. But that didn't
Speaker 1: stop my dad from eating not as healthy as he
Speaker 1: could have been in that moment, the same way with
Speaker 1: my mom. But also just to tie it into football,
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, Norman Ham is a guy who grew
Speaker 1: up played in the Saints. He passed away as a
Speaker 1: guy I used to pay attention to UM all the time,
Speaker 1: Chester him because Blackling a lot of these different guys
Speaker 1: who are tied into South Carolina, UM, guys who were
Speaker 1: my heroes, even some of the guys we try to interview,
Speaker 1: guys I played against in college, Jared Lorenzen, who is
Speaker 1: the hefty lefty who again had his own battles of
Speaker 1: being a bigger quarterback but never really being able to
Speaker 1: lose the weight to save himself in essence. And so
Speaker 1: it's really sobering to hear those things, to see those things,
Speaker 1: but to also, you know, look around in my my
Speaker 1: my other brothers and and folks in the NFL and
Speaker 1: seeing their weight lost journey already and being inspired by that.
Speaker 1: So that's the same thing, the same thing that inspired
Speaker 1: me to want to get out there and try to
Speaker 1: compete and play football. Those are some of the things
Speaker 1: that I keep in my mind when it talks about
Speaker 1: you know, do I reach for those cookies at night?
Speaker 1: Are are any of those things that I try to
Speaker 1: make uh Am, I am I presented with a choice
Speaker 1: to make a bad choice or a good choice. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing. We've all made great choices to get
Speaker 1: to play football. To be legends, and those those skill
Speaker 1: sets don't the minutes, we just kind of forget that
Speaker 1: superpower of choice and and skill afterwards, because we are successful,
Speaker 1: we have money. Who's gonna tell us no? And so
Speaker 1: that's why you know, your family life is important, you know,
Speaker 1: making sure your spouses and your kids all having all
Speaker 1: those things hold you accountable as if all helps and
Speaker 1: and every little bit accounts for all of us. Because again,
Speaker 1: for a lot of big guys, it could be you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody dropped that of a heart attack at forty two,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna say, oh, man, he he died. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he died early. They're gonna look and say, no,
Speaker 1: he was a big dude, and he was a ticking
Speaker 1: time ball. So and that's the thing. We got to
Speaker 1: be responsible for what ultimately we put into our bodies
Speaker 1: is on the way. Any suggestions as relates to New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions for guys who wants to make a difference
Speaker 1: with their weight right today, Man, you don't have to
Speaker 1: you don't have to wait. And that's that's the other
Speaker 1: thing we get. We don't even have to look at
Speaker 1: a counter or sometimes we can just close our eyes
Speaker 1: and feel the man, it feels winter time, so either
Speaker 1: I'm in the playoffs or I'm getting ready for the
Speaker 1: next season or springtime, so I gotta be in priming
Speaker 1: myself up for this type of deal. We all know,
Speaker 1: we kind of all have that saying kind of calendar,
Speaker 1: a clock in our brain and we never really lose that.
Speaker 1: So not to say that we need to go back
Speaker 1: to training camp mode or different things, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it is just being aware, uh, starting off with
Speaker 1: what you put into your body. We're big guys. We've
Speaker 1: been consumers our whole life. You know, everything we've ever
Speaker 1: done has been extra. The coach there, you're gonna run
Speaker 1: eight half gassers, somebody gonna run four and more after that.
Speaker 1: And so the same thing happens when we go eat,
Speaker 1: or when it came to relationships, or when it came
Speaker 1: to drinking and all these different so we know when
Speaker 1: it goes down that road. And this is where food
Speaker 1: gets really I like this word insidious. It gets really
Speaker 1: insidious for a lot of the big guys because you know,
Speaker 1: we can close our eyes and and kill thirty wings
Speaker 1: sometimes or you know, all these different things, so you're
Speaker 1: not as a coach used to tell me you're not
Speaker 1: getting all that weight eating Brussels sprouts and rock you
Speaker 1: out there eating the bad stuff. So first thing is
Speaker 1: self scouting, shaking in on yourself, seeing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: what your habits are. A lot of times it's film study.
Speaker 1: We go through the day on on autopilot a lot
Speaker 1: of times and don't realize, Um, you know I start
Speaker 1: my in and off with a coffee and a doughnut. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe you just eliminate some of those things can help
Speaker 1: going to sleep, especially with a lot of hormonal different things.
Speaker 1: For a lot of us guys, we get cranky, and
Speaker 1: you know you talk about brain injuries. Sleep is some
Speaker 1: of the best stuff that we can do for ourselves
Speaker 1: and having consistent sleep. So I think if guys start
Speaker 1: doing that, watching what they kind of intake, give yourself,
Speaker 1: maybe a week or two. The holiday times might be
Speaker 1: a little you know, exacerbated, what your menu might be
Speaker 1: like because you know mom is bringing the stuff in,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna Friday at Turkey or whatever it is
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. But ultimately putting up game plan together,
Speaker 1: because that's something we all understand, game planning, having a plan,
Speaker 1: but also having the ability to adapt and change those
Speaker 1: plans because you know the Neils. I played for the
Speaker 1: Cardinals too, man like, we had the best games in
Speaker 1: the world. Sometimes and get punched in the mouth, You're like,
Speaker 1: what different, I'm not gonna be vegan this one. I
Speaker 1: gotta be. I gotta be in the vegan reserves. I
Speaker 1: only gonna be vegan Tuesday and Thursdays or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the biggest thing with that. But
Speaker 1: also understanding going to this idea of self scouting is
Speaker 1: that you gotta know your body. So everybody's injuries are different.
Speaker 1: Everybody likes something different. Some guys never want to touch
Speaker 1: weights again. Some guys get into really love and running.
Speaker 1: Some guys love to do the old kind of cocoon
Speaker 1: workout in the pool with all the old folks and
Speaker 1: all that different stuff. Whatever it is. Try out a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff and see what works for you and
Speaker 1: ultimately have fun with this stuff, because that's why you
Speaker 1: eventually started playing football, because it was fun, started competing,
Speaker 1: and that's sounded the same things. In our Button Guts series.
Speaker 1: One of the guys that we talked to, uh Cold
Speaker 1: cublic Um. All these guys do the peloton stuff. They
Speaker 1: got this thing called the Buns of Anarchy, and all
Speaker 1: these guys working remotely. Everybody's at home, but they all
Speaker 1: made a commitment to get on on Saturday mornings, are
Speaker 1: Friday evenings or whatever, and they all do a group
Speaker 1: ride virtually together. And so it's that same football stuff
Speaker 1: of competing. And you see tons and tons of guys
Speaker 1: on their Damien Woodie, all these old, big, old football
Speaker 1: guys still out there spinning it out on these peloton bikes.
Speaker 1: So combat fishing is something. But also I mean, guys
Speaker 1: know what they can do. Uh, and they're they're closer
Speaker 1: to their goal of being on a healthier path than
Speaker 1: they think they are. That's good. Let's shift into your
Speaker 1: broadcast career first. Let's talk You talked about your dad
Speaker 1: and his influence a jazz DJ as well. Is that correct? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of did a little bit of everything. My
Speaker 1: old man. He was you know, always had it in
Speaker 1: his mind that he wanted to be in radio, had
Speaker 1: that it was a big guy, had that big voice,
Speaker 1: but kind of like football, would go anywhere to get
Speaker 1: that opportunity to be on the radio, whether it be
Speaker 1: a UM, you know, a country station or working on
Speaker 1: talk radio. I mean he was, I mean, at one
Speaker 1: time he was. He was a black man who had
Speaker 1: the number one country radio show in the state of
Speaker 1: South Carolina. So that's kind of like a unicorn really,
Speaker 1: So that just goes to the goals to say, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I love country music. You know, Charlie Pride,
Speaker 1: Darius Rucker, all those guys, South Carolina guys. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. So I think ultimately, you know, see
Speaker 1: and my dad kind of do the broadcast and stuff
Speaker 1: gave me the opportunity to understand that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not just pigeonholed is just to being a football
Speaker 1: guy or just being a uh maybe a hip hop guy.
Speaker 1: You I mean, whatever you're interested in, it will come
Speaker 1: across in the broadcast, and that's where people you know,
Speaker 1: you can't think authenticity with a lot of folks. So
Speaker 1: for me that was a great, great thing. But also
Speaker 1: to see the biggest thing for me, especially in my
Speaker 1: next kind of career doing podcast, is that you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta write this stuff out, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: edit this stuff. And that's the thing what we talk
Speaker 1: about when I go into the schools and speak with kids.
Speaker 1: Is that you know, everybody thinks they're gonna play football
Speaker 1: and that's probably not going right, but everybody has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to build the skills up of reading, writing, and speaking,
Speaker 1: and those are the things I saw and my dad
Speaker 1: made it cool to be well spoken, well written, have
Speaker 1: somebody read your copy, have compelling copy, all those different things,
Speaker 1: because ultimately that's what you did as a football player.
Speaker 1: You just did that in a in a movement and
Speaker 1: kind of out there with your body. So that was
Speaker 1: that was the cool thing. And then you know, you
Speaker 1: back it up with my mom who was a teacher.
Speaker 1: You know, God bless all teachers across the world, man,
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, if they can get anybody to
Speaker 1: sit still and pay attention, especially big guys who are
Speaker 1: hungry and classrooms, you know, if it takes a special
Speaker 1: skill set to do that. So I was very very
Speaker 1: lucky in that set. And you mentioned righting that's kind
Speaker 1: of like a lost art for some of our millennial generation. Z.
Speaker 1: So you're still you're encouraging them to write. And when
Speaker 1: you see just write, your thoughts are what are your suggestions.
Speaker 1: I'm a great proponent of journaling. I'm a great proponent
Speaker 1: of morning pages. I talked to another former NFL legend,
Speaker 1: Joe Holly, who played with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had
Speaker 1: a phenomenal blog, Man Van Dog Blog where once he
Speaker 1: retired he traveled around, but he talked about how really
Speaker 1: journaling every day helped him in his transition. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing we tell kids is one there's not very
Speaker 1: people who actually put pen to paper and write, let
Speaker 1: alone right in curses sometimes. I don't know the last
Speaker 1: time you ever routined cursing and showed it like some
Speaker 1: kids like they look at Dore like, what is you know?
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of cool because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: as much as I used to get teas for not
Speaker 1: being able to write as a as a student, you know,
Speaker 1: to be the one that's still out there writing thank
Speaker 1: you notes and do those different things, he can set
Speaker 1: you apart. But also I just think for a lot
Speaker 1: of guys transitioning wise, that ability to journal, and especially
Speaker 1: to do it I guess in the morning or times
Speaker 1: when you're stressed, is such a great outlet. I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of guys, exercise is another great tool
Speaker 1: to to download some of those stresses and different things.
Speaker 1: But we know, just like with our phones, if we
Speaker 1: uploaded in and we let that battery wig a little
Speaker 1: bit too much, the functionality is just gonna fry itself
Speaker 1: right after a while. Another great thing for us is gratitude.
Speaker 1: We love gratitude journals because you know, no matter what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world, we all still love. I mean,
Speaker 1: for the most of us, we're living in America, We're healthy,
Speaker 1: we got lights on, we gotta internet connection. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're we're really really fortunate, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: we miss out on that when we're comparing ourselves on
Speaker 1: social media and different things in life. There's a question,
Speaker 1: did you advantage of the broadcast boot camp or any
Speaker 1: other programs the NFL off of the players and legends. Absolutely, man,
Speaker 1: I had to. Yeah, I remember because it was great
Speaker 1: to see so many guys that I used to play
Speaker 1: with seeing them kind of doing the same thing, shopping
Speaker 1: in their skill set of you know, whether it was
Speaker 1: the broadcast boot camp being in front of the camera,
Speaker 1: are just the journalism boot camp because again there's more
Speaker 1: than you know, there's tons of opportunity and there's only
Speaker 1: gonna get to be one of Nidius William who gets
Speaker 1: to be on TV. There's only gonna be so many
Speaker 1: pretty faces on there. But there's guys who can do copy.
Speaker 1: There's guys who are really smart and witty. You think
Speaker 1: about somebody like a Spice. Adams are Anthony Adams who
Speaker 1: just does tremendous amounts of content. But he's coming up
Speaker 1: with these ideas and executing them and doing them all himself.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times, you know, the broadcast boot
Speaker 1: camps and a lot of the things that the NFL
Speaker 1: uh former players and the players uh deal. It really helped,
Speaker 1: you know, put you on the path and also met
Speaker 1: a lot of great coaches because again not to I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the Legends podcast, but we're not afraid of
Speaker 1: getting coaching. And that's the thing for us to be elite.
Speaker 1: And you see this in any field, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: Fortune five hundred company or a guy who has a
Speaker 1: really great marriage. You know, you ask those people, you know,
Speaker 1: how you doing it, and the more you do that
Speaker 1: you can mimic that success. So um, I'm really thankful
Speaker 1: for all those programs, that transition program I'm probably I'm
Speaker 1: probably one of those folks that when when when y'all
Speaker 1: put out stuff in the in the springtime and the wintertime.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh and again, you just mad you last time, man,
Speaker 1: you know, but that's that's what it's there for. And
Speaker 1: we have to extract those resources and use it because
Speaker 1: it does help us out and give us direction. How
Speaker 1: has it been reconnected back in the University of South
Speaker 1: Carolina and doing your broadcast, What has that been like?
Speaker 1: It's been phenomenal. Um. I was I was joking around
Speaker 1: with some people and told people like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: my daddy was in broadcasting, and I never really thought
Speaker 1: about broadcasting, but when I kind of fell into it,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a fish in the water.
Speaker 1: But you know, getting getting to be able to cover
Speaker 1: my team, the team I played for my state school, Um,
Speaker 1: just gave me a little bit more care. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I learned from, you know, one
Speaker 1: of my mentors, Coach Holzels, trust, care, commitment and whatever
Speaker 1: it is you do. I mean, I could be trusted
Speaker 1: to be on time and I was gonna know my
Speaker 1: stuff and I was committed to South Carolina, but I
Speaker 1: really cared about those guys because maybe it was ten
Speaker 1: fifteen year difference but does all look like my little brother.
Speaker 1: So you know, hearing those stories and hearing oh man,
Speaker 1: I remember that I'm from that same back room you're from.
Speaker 1: We used to come down there and beat y'all. Are
Speaker 1: y'all used to come beat us? And having that connectivity
Speaker 1: allow me to not only do my job better, but
Speaker 1: also to develop a relationship and give a lot of
Speaker 1: that wisdom to those guys and tell them, you know,
Speaker 1: I played in the NFL. I fooled them for about
Speaker 1: seven years until there a lot of I couldn't playing anymore.
Speaker 1: And so you know, giving that wisdom. You know, it's
Speaker 1: cool to have all these experiences, but man, unless I
Speaker 1: share it, and you notice, unless I can kind of
Speaker 1: tell it to somebody else, I'm just I mean, I'm wasted.
Speaker 1: I'm wasting all wasting all the trials and tribulations because
Speaker 1: somebody else can learn from that and they don't have
Speaker 1: to step on those cracks that I made. What are
Speaker 1: the challenges being back home? It's one thing to go
Speaker 1: do your broadcasts a broad and someone else, right, are
Speaker 1: their dual challenges being back on the campus and being
Speaker 1: back home? H For me, the challenge was just um
Speaker 1: focusing on what it is I wanted to go after
Speaker 1: because I was home and that name, that NFL stuff
Speaker 1: was still fresh, So there was a lot of hey,
Speaker 1: can you you want to do this? Or has you
Speaker 1: thought about that? And that's the other thing. Every opportunity
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be your opportunity. You know, again going back
Speaker 1: to the football adage, you know if you uh run
Speaker 1: stopping d n you know, not to say you're not
Speaker 1: gonna go out there and try to make some place,
Speaker 1: but you're not gonna go out there and and cover
Speaker 1: somebody as a as a cornerback. That's just not That's
Speaker 1: not how you're gonna help the team, and that's not
Speaker 1: how you're gonna help yourself. So figuring out what I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do, even though I had a wealth
Speaker 1: of opportunities, wealth of folks reaching out to me, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was just great to get back there and connect.
Speaker 1: But through also it gave me kind of the freedom
Speaker 1: to start writing the children's books and coming up with
Speaker 1: these different ideas and showing the guys that you know,
Speaker 1: your options aren't only just being um, you know, a
Speaker 1: broadcaster and a coach that is pretty much your only
Speaker 1: Now you can you can be a podcast creator, you
Speaker 1: can be a writer, you can be an illustrator. All
Speaker 1: those things that used to interest you along with football,
Speaker 1: you can go back and revive those interests now because
Speaker 1: you've got the time to do it. The guys that
Speaker 1: you've had on your podcast Linkston particularly legends, do the
Speaker 1: majority of them know about the benefits that are available?
Speaker 1: What's the help benefits now? What's changes released the new
Speaker 1: collective bargaining agreement? Do guys know about these things? Absolutely? Um,
Speaker 1: you know it's always changing with the new collective Bargaining Agreement.
Speaker 1: But one thing that we know for sure is that
Speaker 1: the locker room, whether it be in person or virtual,
Speaker 1: our network is really really powerful and so as great
Speaker 1: as the NFL does a job of sharing the information
Speaker 1: and let you know about your Cobra plan and all
Speaker 1: these different things, and you have this opportunity to get
Speaker 1: your colon screening and all these different things. A lot
Speaker 1: of times guys are just busy living their lives, and
Speaker 1: you know how it is when stuff is going on
Speaker 1: in the world, you think it's like right here on
Speaker 1: your head and you can't see past that. So for
Speaker 1: a lot of guys, um, you know, sharing that information
Speaker 1: with each other. I just had a conversation with a
Speaker 1: guy today. Um, you know, he was a pretty successful
Speaker 1: defensive alignment. He made a good substantial amount of money,
Speaker 1: but he was unaware of the Gene Upshaw reimbursement plan.
Speaker 1: And now again he hasn't gotten to the point where
Speaker 1: he needs to start tapping into that. But I just
Speaker 1: know for him that's going to be a phenomenal thing
Speaker 1: because he also has children and kids, and so we know,
Speaker 1: no matter how rich you are, you know kids, cause
Speaker 1: whether it's healthcare, braces, you know, all those different things.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of opportunities and a lot
Speaker 1: of things for us out there that will help us
Speaker 1: in our transition. We just gotta keep having those dialogues
Speaker 1: between each other and reading those emails. Correct, do you
Speaker 1: find a lot of them connected with the Legends community.
Speaker 1: Connected with the Legends community? Social media? Big deal? Um,
Speaker 1: of course, you guys have a presence on there, and
Speaker 1: so seeing the information group chats these you know what's
Speaker 1: that chats? You know, it's all just the chat room
Speaker 1: to me, But you know that's that's the cool thing
Speaker 1: is that guys will always share that information and say,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you're taking the care of this
Speaker 1: or you know, same way with the coach man, go
Speaker 1: see so and so because he got my forty time right.
Speaker 1: And it's the same way with this call. Call so
Speaker 1: and so at the benefits office. They can help you
Speaker 1: out with these things. So again, I think that again
Speaker 1: is one of our strongest resourcess each other and sharing
Speaker 1: that information. For sure, I want to close out defensive
Speaker 1: Lineman writing a children's book, a children's books, want to
Speaker 1: understand a trilogy? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So to talk
Speaker 1: about that man. So our first book was called Just
Speaker 1: the Chicken Uh University of South Carolina. Our mascot is
Speaker 1: the game Cockets, a glorified chicken. So that story in
Speaker 1: itself is about a chicken that doesn't realize he's cocky
Speaker 1: the mascot. So he goes around and compares himself to
Speaker 1: all the other mascots in the SEC and he realized
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to be like the alligator, or doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be like the elephant, or he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like the tigers, the Missouri or l s
Speaker 1: U Tigers. He's fine with who he is, but until
Speaker 1: he surrounds himself with other chickens will be like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's not the way to go. Comparing yourself is
Speaker 1: gonna you know, that's just gonna leave you short. And
Speaker 1: so that was our first book. Our second book it's
Speaker 1: called just a Chicken Little uh. And so at South Carolina,
Speaker 1: keeping with that theme, you know, we kind of think
Speaker 1: there's a chicken curse and that we're doomed. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: just when things are going right, you know, the other
Speaker 1: shoe is gonna drop. And there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who kind of have that same sentiment of life. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, um, you know who you are. A
Speaker 1: lot of times people think, man, my life has been
Speaker 1: going really good, something bad is gonna happen. The sky
Speaker 1: is gonna follow me at any point, And no, that's
Speaker 1: not the case. Good and bad happens at all the time. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that's another one of the things we wanted
Speaker 1: to create. And so our third book in this kind
Speaker 1: of trilogy is going to be called EU Still was
Speaker 1: a Rooster that doesn't cruel anymore, And it's pretty much
Speaker 1: about the older statesman, the older game cock, coming back
Speaker 1: and telling one of the younger game cocks who had
Speaker 1: a little bit success was kind of resting on his
Speaker 1: laurels that man, it's gonna say, the sun is gonna
Speaker 1: set on you sooner than later. So you know it's
Speaker 1: your journey to go out there to pass the baton,
Speaker 1: because that's the biggest thing talking about the legends, you know,
Speaker 1: is this ability to pass the baton and do it
Speaker 1: an efficient manner. That's the same way I think about
Speaker 1: for my children, I think about it for anybody I
Speaker 1: connect with, is that the sooner I can give you
Speaker 1: the information and the mistakes and everything that I know,
Speaker 1: so you get it and you internalize it. The faster
Speaker 1: we can speed up this progression, you can go a
Speaker 1: lot further. And so you know, it's always in it
Speaker 1: about the exchange. So it's been really exciting to work
Speaker 1: on those books. Um No, I can't draw. Just me
Speaker 1: and my buddy, my former teammates. We work on the
Speaker 1: words and and all the educational components behind it. But
Speaker 1: we partnered up with a with a guy Kevin Roche,
Speaker 1: who works for ESPN as a Carolina guy, So we
Speaker 1: had a really good time just being creative and coming
Speaker 1: up with these ideas and of course sharing these books
Speaker 1: and showing kids that it's more possible for you to
Speaker 1: write this book and publish a book than it is
Speaker 1: for you to play in the NFL and be successful
Speaker 1: at it. So maybe this is your ticket as opposed
Speaker 1: to trying to be you know, a Nidius Williams or
Speaker 1: something like that. So you play for lou Holts, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: So you gotta give us a couple of lou holtz Is.
Speaker 1: I've heard so many people tell that God, man, give
Speaker 1: us just a couple of give me two of we
Speaker 1: we're gonna do rapid fire. Now give me a couple
Speaker 1: of holes. Okay, Um, I can uh man. So many stories,
Speaker 1: so many stories. Uh. One story, um, is a Lou
Speaker 1: Holtz deal where one of our quarterbacks his name he
Speaker 1: was He was a coach's son and he was a
Speaker 1: walk on and he was on the team. And then
Speaker 1: one of the first years lou Holtz was there. Uh,
Speaker 1: the quarterback would always overthrow the wide receivers and the
Speaker 1: coach stop. Coach Holt stop practice and said, hey, hey, Kimry,
Speaker 1: you want to run forty yards for nothing. It's like, no, sir,
Speaker 1: we don't overthrew there. So again that was loose deals
Speaker 1: that he was. So he was so sharp, tongue sharp,
Speaker 1: witted and just had it all together. Now now obviously
Speaker 1: you know he had you know, thirty or forty plus
Speaker 1: years and days and so many different guys. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: louis phenomenal. Another one of great Leuism's is if you
Speaker 1: want a frame, get a dog. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like not And that takes at home with me because
Speaker 1: that's the second my moms like, you know, you're my baby.
Speaker 1: You can you can hate me all you want, but
Speaker 1: you're always gonna come home. And that's kind of the
Speaker 1: same way with Luke, and it's kind of the messoge
Speaker 1: behind his madness was that lou wouldn't make it so
Speaker 1: hard on you your freshman and sophomore year. When I
Speaker 1: say hard, I mean discipline. And that's the last thing
Speaker 1: you think eighteen ninety year old alpha males or they
Speaker 1: think they're alpha males, are higher achievers then recruited being
Speaker 1: courted by other universities, other grown men to have somebody
Speaker 1: just tell you know, five minutes is five minutes early
Speaker 1: is on time, and on time is late and late
Speaker 1: as unheard of, and you know, things like that, giving
Speaker 1: me um, you know, just a personal kind of mission
Speaker 1: statement you know, talking about trustcar and commitment. Like I
Speaker 1: didn't think I'd pick up those type of things unless
Speaker 1: I went into the army, But I got that playing
Speaker 1: football holes and so those first couple of years are
Speaker 1: really really tough, and like, man, I wanted to transfer.
Speaker 1: I didn't come in for this. I came in for
Speaker 1: the you know, to win some games, and oh, man,
Speaker 1: we're not winning the football game. Oh this is really
Speaker 1: really hard. But later on in life it was the
Speaker 1: thing that got me through, you know, making a fifty
Speaker 1: three man roster when you're by yourself, are you know
Speaker 1: when my mom passes away, understanding certain things that you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's up to me to be responsible for these
Speaker 1: things now. So everything that he touted and propped up
Speaker 1: and showed in his books, that's what he gave us
Speaker 1: every day. And the biggest thing I always tell people is, man,
Speaker 1: I just wish I was writing more. I wish I
Speaker 1: remembered more, because every day with Lou Holtz was a
Speaker 1: fortune five hundred see sweet Sweet Sea level executive meeting
Speaker 1: that a lot of times you just forget how lucky
Speaker 1: you are to be there, and by the time you
Speaker 1: figure out how lucky you are, it's over for you.
Speaker 1: So that's the great thing with having a guy like
Speaker 1: Lou Holtz and still being able to reach out to him,
Speaker 1: but also reaching out to some of my past brothers
Speaker 1: and in college that you get to hear and share
Speaker 1: those stories like we do with the Legends. As I close,
Speaker 1: I want to end with where people can connect with you,
Speaker 1: your podcast, social media, where to get the book us. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: everything we have is on our our website athletes and
Speaker 1: Artists dot net. It's Athletes and Artists dot net. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the cool thing with with technology I learned
Speaker 1: this with with just hanging around the kids is that
Speaker 1: you know, we put everything with our hashtag on it.
Speaker 1: So our our podcast hashtag button gut on any medium Instagram,
Speaker 1: Twitter or whatever, you can pretty much find that. Uh
Speaker 1: you know it used to be the tic tac toe
Speaker 1: symbol for us is now a search engine tool that
Speaker 1: that all the kids and everybody uses, so they can
Speaker 1: find anything by using the hashtag button gut just a chicken,
Speaker 1: Just a chicken, little hashtag um athletes and artists and
Speaker 1: so we're on all of these mediums, and uh, we
Speaker 1: try to make sure we get as much attention as
Speaker 1: we can buy by retweeting and sharing all this stuff
Speaker 1: and going on great podcasts like this and links and
Speaker 1: this has been amazing. Thanks for joining us. The bestage
Speaker 1: you have to come and keep up the great word.
Speaker 1: Almost almost have tears man, the work that you're doing.
Speaker 1: This has been fantastic. Links to greatly appreciate it. Keep
Speaker 1: up the great work man. Thank you Mart. This has
Speaker 1: been the NFL Legends podcast. To provide feedback or request
Speaker 1: a topic for discussion, email us at NFL Legends at
Speaker 1: NFL dot com