Speaker 1: This is cut to It with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm a little John and this
Speaker 1: is cut to it. Good do it, Good do Let's
Speaker 1: getting down to do it. Good do it. We asked
Speaker 1: the questions you always want to know, but no one
Speaker 1: ever asked, let's cut to it. You heard them about it,
Speaker 1: then we're about to let you know. It's all we
Speaker 1: got that. We gotta get this cut to it podcast.
Speaker 1: Good morning, Steve, afternoon. And it depends on when. It
Speaker 1: depends on where you are geographically. Let's not limit our
Speaker 1: folks just to the United States. Were trying to do
Speaker 1: this thing. We gotta get international, international, different zip voice
Speaker 1: sound internationally in another country that the voiceover do they
Speaker 1: do a voiceover? You want the truth or you want
Speaker 1: the lie? I want the lie? Oh Man. A matter
Speaker 1: of fact, speaking of lies, UM, I remember like two
Speaker 1: or three years ago, right after right after you it retired, men,
Speaker 1: you started taking some some boxing lessons and we were
Speaker 1: fresh you, we were working, we were working out, and
Speaker 1: I probably told myself a lot that uh I was,
Speaker 1: I was in shape, but it was real tough, and
Speaker 1: it got us into good conditioning and you know, built
Speaker 1: up some mass and all that stuff. But one thing
Speaker 1: I remember us talking about was it's starting to build
Speaker 1: up that competitive spin. We literally had to stop whole turkey.
Speaker 1: We really had the shot because you were starting to
Speaker 1: get back into almost football. So we started working out.
Speaker 1: That was It was about a year after I was
Speaker 1: done playing. I retired. I had a full year. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to work out, and I told him I
Speaker 1: didn't want to work out. And because of around January February,
Speaker 1: late February is always in my career where I would
Speaker 1: start slowly start working out, and so my body was
Speaker 1: starting to get you so like, hey, this round. There's
Speaker 1: times and I started boxing, I felt and you can tell.
Speaker 1: And in the first time, I, oh, man, I was
Speaker 1: out of shape. And the second and third time I started,
Speaker 1: you was over there like and I'm over there, like
Speaker 1: let's go. And I started like getting into it, and
Speaker 1: my body started waking up and my body said this
Speaker 1: to me, Oh, I know time, this is, I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with it. I love this time. And I can't even
Speaker 1: tell my language how I was talking was starting to change.
Speaker 1: My wife has always telling me, I know when football
Speaker 1: seasons back up because you start cursing a little bit more, slipping,
Speaker 1: the slip of the tongue, and I just started to
Speaker 1: feel my body started. I used to have goose bunks
Speaker 1: going in there. I started to feel like looking forward,
Speaker 1: we're looking forward this ball time. This is this is
Speaker 1: aging eighty nine time where it started to build that
Speaker 1: persona of that anger. And even though it's a completely
Speaker 1: different sport, it didn't matter. My body said I know
Speaker 1: this time, and I'm ready for this time. And I
Speaker 1: have been hybrid nating and I am ready. And I
Speaker 1: started and we had to stop because I was like, man,
Speaker 1: this isn't good. And I can feel myself kind of
Speaker 1: asking what I mean, I could I'm possible. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. I still got the wiggle on the hips, okay.
Speaker 1: And we had to stop and and it's it's real silly,
Speaker 1: and somebody would be like, yeah, whatever, it really happened,
Speaker 1: and I had to and and I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: sixteen years of what I was training my mind and
Speaker 1: body to how to respond to there. It literally I
Speaker 1: was creating seasons within my body. It's just just football season.
Speaker 1: We need to get ready for football season sixteen years
Speaker 1: of mid February, pretty much right after Valentine's Day, I
Speaker 1: would start working out with my trainer and that's when
Speaker 1: we started, right after our bowling event for the Foundation,
Speaker 1: and that's when I started to feel. So it lasted
Speaker 1: probably about a month or two and I said, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta stop this because I was really starting to
Speaker 1: get that itch. But what's crazy is I didn't want
Speaker 1: that itch. So would you say, you're just you just
Speaker 1: mentally have that in YouTube where when you now, I don't.
Speaker 1: Over time it faded at that point in time. It's
Speaker 1: more of a mental thing to where you being a
Speaker 1: professional athlete, you're just I guess ingrained or you're just
Speaker 1: it's just it's just in you. Well that's where it called,
Speaker 1: you know, mastering your craft, and so it mastering your craft.
Speaker 1: It's not just learning how to run a go route,
Speaker 1: running how to beat beat press coverage or beat or
Speaker 1: runner slant. It's all so the psychological part of it.
Speaker 1: It is the new or holistic meaning everything you know
Speaker 1: you're pro in the mental yet so playing on the
Speaker 1: football field, reacting is just sometimes you can just rely
Speaker 1: on your shoulders down. Mitch means that athleticism my god
Speaker 1: given talent. And then there's the shoulders above that you
Speaker 1: have to always sharpen and always have to be uh
Speaker 1: grinding through and processing. That is all year long that
Speaker 1: you're always doing. And I realized that that I had
Speaker 1: started to start to spark the waste that the shoulders
Speaker 1: down part, and then the shoulders up was saying, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: we ain't supposed to be doing this. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like the little It's like the good guy on the
Speaker 1: shoulders and the other guy. Yeah, eat that dope nut.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be so delicious. Smith good, Smithy, Bastmithy, eat
Speaker 1: that doughnut. Bassman is like, you're gonna earl in boxing tomorrow, right,
Speaker 1: And I earled in boxing right, So you know. So
Speaker 1: that part is good and and good and bad. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that that that happened. Yeah, I mean and we number one,
Speaker 1: you left a brother hanging. I ain't gonna forget that
Speaker 1: because I'm just showing. I show up and I think
Speaker 1: you text me He's like, Bro, I'm done, and I'm
Speaker 1: And we had that conversation before that you were thinking
Speaker 1: about coming back, but I'm thinking you just talking now.
Speaker 1: This brother was done, like done, done, stopped like I
Speaker 1: think I went maybe two or three more weeks and
Speaker 1: then you were literally done. You had to just shut
Speaker 1: it down. I literally had to stop. I had to
Speaker 1: stop working out after not working out completely for a year.
Speaker 1: Like when I say not working out, I mean not
Speaker 1: working like this brother really was thinking about coming back.
Speaker 1: I started, I thought, I started like when I was
Speaker 1: pulling up the hair on my forearms and the back
Speaker 1: of my next started crawling up like it would when
Speaker 1: they were sitting singing the national and they singing for
Speaker 1: me when they sung the national anthem. The next time
Speaker 1: was putting in my mouth piece, putting in my helmet,
Speaker 1: kick ass time, knocking on the and I was getting
Speaker 1: that feeling right like, this is not a good feeling.
Speaker 1: I tried. That was only I had the cold turkey right.
Speaker 1: I had to stop. So, ladies and gentlemen, I almost
Speaker 1: brought Steve Smith out of retirement that close you did,
Speaker 1: so holds our guest. Today coming up on the cut
Speaker 1: to a podcast, We've got Odessa Jenkins, the CEO of
Speaker 1: the Women's National Football Conference, a former NFL coaching intern
Speaker 1: with the Atlanta Falcons, and she's a two time USA
Speaker 1: national Women's football champion Odessa Jenkins coming up on cut
Speaker 1: to a podcast. I'm jittery, I'm excited. It's like game day.
Speaker 1: I can't even. I can't even. Don't don't be. Don't
Speaker 1: get caught at a lot of scrimmage when that quick
Speaker 1: jam come up on you. Oh no, I'm you're talking
Speaker 1: to two hundred plus touchdowns in my career. I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't get jam. What's on you? Yeah? About five
Speaker 1: hundred folks. Well, Osa, you've done all that, You've done
Speaker 1: all this, called all these touchdowns right now, you're about
Speaker 1: to get iced up. It's our second where we have
Speaker 1: a series of questions. They may or may not have
Speaker 1: follow up. It just depends on how we feel and
Speaker 1: how you answer and how you answer absolutely, and so
Speaker 1: we'll get it right to us. So smart ahead and
Speaker 1: give her the first one. This tells me a lot
Speaker 1: about you, old Dessa, lets me know your character and
Speaker 1: also can I rocks with you long term? Favorite movie
Speaker 1: of all time? M hm mm hmm works, gum, we've
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, I'm going Forced Gump And why is
Speaker 1: because I think it goes through um so much adversity
Speaker 1: and because of where I come from. I was born
Speaker 1: into adversity and and have learned to transition it. I
Speaker 1: think into fuel. And I think it goes through telling,
Speaker 1: you know, Bubba's story, because not just forces story is
Speaker 1: bubba story, is Jenny's story. It's the story of a
Speaker 1: black man, a white woman who suffered abuse to a
Speaker 1: black or a white man who was disabled. Like it
Speaker 1: just goes to the story of a mother and her child.
Speaker 1: So I just think it goes through a lot of
Speaker 1: different things that a lot of the world can relate to.
Speaker 1: But more than anything, it it's about somebody who refused
Speaker 1: to stop competing. M hm, well, I love that and WHI.
Speaker 1: I always like asking someone, if you really want to
Speaker 1: know someone, ask them what their favorite movie is and
Speaker 1: why quick story. I had a button in the locker
Speaker 1: room one time. I cannot say his name because then
Speaker 1: I would lose all respect that I basically pained him
Speaker 1: on our podcast, but he said, I said, man, what
Speaker 1: it was when Narnia was coming out? Memory Narnia was
Speaker 1: out and uh, I said, man, what do you think?
Speaker 1: He said, Man? That lion he was a beast like
Speaker 1: can go the jungle bro. It's a symbolism of Jesus,
Speaker 1: but it's basically a symbolism of God and all he
Speaker 1: took it is man. That line was a beast smooth
Speaker 1: overs in. I don't ask him for a reference of
Speaker 1: any movies ever. Again. Manifest himself into things that that
Speaker 1: so that people can understand it. Right, But this dude
Speaker 1: totally missed it. This is a pretty good one, and
Speaker 1: this is gonna throw you off track, but I love
Speaker 1: it and I can't wait to hear from me because
Speaker 1: you sound so well rounded, just the way he gave
Speaker 1: us an answer FM forced cump. You're heading off to
Speaker 1: a desert island. Don't worry about why you're heading off.
Speaker 1: Just roll with me. You're heading off to a desert island.
Speaker 1: What do you pack? And why are those items essential?
Speaker 1: I pack a knife, okay, pocket knife for like a switchblade?
Speaker 1: Um a pocket knife? I pack? I pack a pocket knife.
Speaker 1: Are you dead? Keep going? I pack uh a pot?
Speaker 1: Um so something that allows me to collect water. I'm
Speaker 1: a show that I'm like skinning an all clad pot,
Speaker 1: like a good a good Williams Sonoma. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not as rich as Hue, So that was a privilege,
Speaker 1: and that was a privilege desert Like, Hey, they're good.
Speaker 1: Pause bro listen, no stick. You ain't got no margarine
Speaker 1: out there saying everybody's non sticking. I'm rocking with your dads.
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing, listen, you know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: some gotta buy something the whole water in and then
Speaker 1: something to start fire with, and definitely some good reading materials.
Speaker 1: So I'm it's it's crazy because I'm e collected with that.
Speaker 1: So I either go with a Bible or a sports illustrated.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling. I don't know if I want to, like
Speaker 1: depends on the day. Yeah, so yeah, but definitely something
Speaker 1: to read. But that's what I would going with. So
Speaker 1: it's just a duffel bag or carry on, Um, it
Speaker 1: is a Duffel bag. Good, okay, all right, we go
Speaker 1: with that one last one guilty pleasure? What's your guilty pleasure?
Speaker 1: No one knows that you you know you enjoyed partaking
Speaker 1: on as far as food that you know. It's a
Speaker 1: Friday night. Ain't nobody looking. You had a great week,
Speaker 1: you you you didn't have any cheap days, and you're
Speaker 1: just sitting there. You're going You're going there, You're gonna
Speaker 1: refrigerate or the close at the snack bag you like
Speaker 1: I need one of these honey bun. You know. So
Speaker 1: I grew up in watts Is how central. We used
Speaker 1: to go to the corner store and they had penny candy. Now,
Speaker 1: might be aging myself. Yeah, you get the candy ladies.
Speaker 1: Her name is Ethel. He's my mom's best friend. It's
Speaker 1: it's always a relative to Yeah. So you go there
Speaker 1: and you get your candy, but the honey bun and
Speaker 1: thrown it in the microwave for ten seconds. Your microwave
Speaker 1: was it a dial where you turn it clockwise or
Speaker 1: to the numbers, like you know you had just got
Speaker 1: not it ain't just got just got not um maybe
Speaker 1: back in the day. But I got a really nice
Speaker 1: microwave now and I and I eat it with a
Speaker 1: fork to make it seem like I'm feeling I'm made
Speaker 1: it in like you now, I'm privileged plastic Oh no
Speaker 1: silverware from William and said, no, look at you. You're
Speaker 1: gonna make fun to me. Let's get into it. Where
Speaker 1: are you from and what is the place you call
Speaker 1: your hometown? Yeah, I'm from South central Los Angeles, so California.
Speaker 1: So I grew up mostly on ninety nine in San Pedro.
Speaker 1: We spent most of our time there, but we moved
Speaker 1: around a lot. I lived everywhere around San Pedro. Basically
Speaker 1: we've lived in every I lived in every South Central
Speaker 1: housing apartment, so I lived in Nickinson Gardens, all of them,
Speaker 1: the Pj's, um, you know, so Perro Courts, the Jordan Downs. Um.
Speaker 1: We spent a lot of time. So I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time all over the city. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: south Central l As is my hometown. What did you
Speaker 1: experience uh growing up in South Central I you know,
Speaker 1: everybody sees it differently. I had a great childhood. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, a lot of adversity, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people who who loved me. Room where I am today.
Speaker 1: I think that my parents saw something special to me.
Speaker 1: My dad was a contractor, so he did construction work.
Speaker 1: Didn't graduate, you know, elementary school. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: think he went to the fourth grade. My mom um
Speaker 1: was a hustle like. He always worked two and three jobs,
Speaker 1: and my my mom and dad were always into something, uh,
Speaker 1: trying to bring home money. I come from a big
Speaker 1: family and so we had a lot of loss, a
Speaker 1: lot of tragedy. So my grandmother has ten children, eight
Speaker 1: girls and two boys. My sister has ten children um
Speaker 1: eight girls, eight boys and two girls. My mother has four,
Speaker 1: So we have a couple of hundred. We got a
Speaker 1: lot of people in my family. It's a gigantic grandmother
Speaker 1: had On my mom's side, my mom is one of thirteen.
Speaker 1: Oh and each one of them has had so me
Speaker 1: between my my mom, myself, and my children is sixty
Speaker 1: five of us. Goodness gracious. And my mom was the
Speaker 1: oldest of ten. My mom was the oldest of ten
Speaker 1: and she had four in our own and uh, like
Speaker 1: I said, so growing up, I saw I lost my
Speaker 1: my my oldest brother was murdered in um to gang violence,
Speaker 1: and so that was that was really tough. I recently
Speaker 1: lost a nephew too, similar, So I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of loss, but saw a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: gang My family has done a really great job. Now
Speaker 1: we got kids graduating college, going on and traveling the world,
Speaker 1: starting companies. On the phone with senior, I don't know,
Speaker 1: life is life is good. How did those things that
Speaker 1: you experience growing up, how did they shape you and
Speaker 1: more importantly impact your your view on the world today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that going through so first, having a big
Speaker 1: family as you need. You come from a big family,
Speaker 1: so you know, um, you learn really fast, especially as
Speaker 1: one of the younger kids, to kind of suck it up.
Speaker 1: You know, when you fall down off of something, there
Speaker 1: ain't marry nobody they're saying, oh, you know, let's go
Speaker 1: all get It's like, hey, you need to get up
Speaker 1: so we can keep this thing moving. Um. So I
Speaker 1: think growing up and being one of the younger members
Speaker 1: of the family, the youngest of my immediate family, I
Speaker 1: learned really early that, um, you shouldn't be looking for
Speaker 1: anybody to pick you up. UM. You you got to
Speaker 1: do your part. You have to pull your weight, um.
Speaker 1: And that that has helped me. I think through everything
Speaker 1: that I've seen as an adult. You know, I'm in
Speaker 1: women's tackle football, and so it's a market where a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, there's no money, there's no interest.
Speaker 1: You know, women shouldn't be playing this game. This game
Speaker 1: doesn't belong to women in that way. And I think
Speaker 1: that the skin that I've developed to be able to
Speaker 1: walk in the rooms and have conversations with people who
Speaker 1: might not see a woman in that way because of
Speaker 1: some of the ways that my family groomed me, um
Speaker 1: to to not look for anybody to pick me up. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I come from a very loving family as well.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of love to give every I've
Speaker 1: never met a stranger. Everybody I meet is a part
Speaker 1: of my family until you prove otherwise. Um. And then
Speaker 1: we were also ballers, we were achievers. Um as the
Speaker 1: only girl running around with a bunch of cousins and brothers,
Speaker 1: Um I had the ball or sit out. There wasn't
Speaker 1: any Hey, We're gonna let her play because she's the
Speaker 1: only girl and she's a smart though. You either tope
Speaker 1: the rock or you keep playing with us. You can
Speaker 1: either shoot the ball or be the PG, or you
Speaker 1: can't follow us. So I think also growing up with
Speaker 1: a group of guys and my cousins and my brothers
Speaker 1: who made me reach their standard, help me be a
Speaker 1: really good athlete as well, pull your own way and
Speaker 1: suck it up does not sound very encouraging. However, that
Speaker 1: that encouraged you, and it gave you your sense and
Speaker 1: your purpose. But some people don't see that as characters.
Speaker 1: Some people see that is knocking down and not being encouraging.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I'm asking to just let's hover
Speaker 1: then that because I don't be especially being a dad, right.
Speaker 1: And my and my wife is from an area she's
Speaker 1: from Utah, She's from an area where, um, she believes
Speaker 1: in sometimes debating with our children, and I believe in
Speaker 1: dictatorship with our children. And so that is a healthy
Speaker 1: balance because there are times where if I didn't miss
Speaker 1: the tour out of muck some things up. But then
Speaker 1: there's times where she's like, dang baby, all right, we
Speaker 1: probably should have just told him, yeah, And so that's
Speaker 1: why I'm just kind of like, I'm I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: there because I mean, you said something that's that I
Speaker 1: I just want to sit on. Like, how was that
Speaker 1: encouraging for you when you were told either pull your
Speaker 1: weight or sitting on the bench, And sitting on the
Speaker 1: bench means you ain't playing right, You're not you're not
Speaker 1: in it's not your time, I think. So I think
Speaker 1: it was pretty simple for my parents in the village
Speaker 1: around me, because there's there was all. There's also this
Speaker 1: concept in my family, and this still exists today. So
Speaker 1: some things are old school and some things are just
Speaker 1: about the tradition and values of your family. One of
Speaker 1: the traditions and values of my family is that we
Speaker 1: have a village, right so I you know, Um, even
Speaker 1: today as a grown adult, if I walk in the
Speaker 1: room with my aunts, I'm speaking, I'm yes, ma'am, I'm no, ma'am.
Speaker 1: I don't curse in front of him. If I do
Speaker 1: it a slip up and I'm looking full back hand
Speaker 1: or something crazy like that. But it's just that's just
Speaker 1: the way we're raised. So I think something some things
Speaker 1: about culture that you want to keep perpetuating, and then
Speaker 1: other things. You're right, like the world has changed for children.
Speaker 1: They have information at the at the palm of their
Speaker 1: hands that we would never think about. When I wanted
Speaker 1: to learn the possibilities of the world for the first
Speaker 1: half of my life, I had to go pick up
Speaker 1: a dictionary or I had to go ask an a
Speaker 1: dough So I just think that the possibilities of the children.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have to evolve in your parenting, but
Speaker 1: there are still traditions that you have to keep. So
Speaker 1: I go back to this. It was pretty simple for
Speaker 1: my mom and dad. Um. I think that they believe
Speaker 1: that you rear children, um in the ways that you
Speaker 1: want them to be, not in the way that you are,
Speaker 1: and the ways that they wanted us to be as
Speaker 1: they wanted they want, especially um as a black woman
Speaker 1: growing up in the in America. My parents grew up
Speaker 1: in the gym pro South, so they taught me based
Speaker 1: on their perspective. Right. We live in the city in
Speaker 1: l A, but that was their perspective. So the things
Speaker 1: they never wanted me to do is to not have
Speaker 1: to They never wanted me to beg They never wanted
Speaker 1: me to have to rely on some one for when
Speaker 1: my next dollar or where my next meal was gonna
Speaker 1: come from. So I had to build. They had to
Speaker 1: help me build up callasis right in my mind, and
Speaker 1: had to help me go through experiences and learn the
Speaker 1: hard way. So when the world brought me a challenge,
Speaker 1: if I didn't win, I didn't back down. So I
Speaker 1: think they were just trying to teach me. And that's
Speaker 1: what I learned, at least that's what I gained from it.
Speaker 1: So that, um, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps,
Speaker 1: figure it out on your own, learn how to take
Speaker 1: a loss, um, so that you learn how to win. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think they taught us through a bunch of ways. Um.
Speaker 1: Someone was it through study, someone was it through learning?
Speaker 1: Habits and other was through learn through stories that they
Speaker 1: told us. So I think that that worked for my
Speaker 1: family and continues to work for my family in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways because it's tradition. But I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that you are raising children the same way you did
Speaker 1: thirty years ago that you do today. Let's take a
Speaker 1: little break and come back to you about two or
Speaker 1: three minutes. Yeah. I love cut to It, and I
Speaker 1: love it even more when you download us and subscribe,
Speaker 1: and you can follow us on social media too, Smithie,
Speaker 1: where where at? And that's at cut to It on Instagram?
Speaker 1: What about Twitter? At? Cut to It Facebook? Cut to
Speaker 1: It featuring Steve Smith se what about online? And you
Speaker 1: can follow us at cut to It podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where you can buy merchant and you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: us wherever you listen to podcasts. I got all my
Speaker 1: answers questions. Um, yeah, I got all my questions answered.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm here for. A brother, cut to a
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com. Playing football with the boys in the league,
Speaker 1: growing up in middle school, where your coach told you
Speaker 1: that you had to quit because there was no place
Speaker 1: for you to play in high school. Now the word
Speaker 1: I highlighted and I've just been sitting on for the
Speaker 1: last couple of days, prepping for this is no place.
Speaker 1: And as a dad of one daughter and then I
Speaker 1: was as a father of four and two three boys,
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine someone else telling my children that you
Speaker 1: you don't have a place here. M what was going
Speaker 1: when you heard that? How did that sit with you?
Speaker 1: And and now hearing that so many years later, walk
Speaker 1: us through that. Yeah, it's still a chip on my
Speaker 1: shoulder that I carried today. Um. And and unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a story that a lot of girls
Speaker 1: and women are still being told by their coaches, fathers, brothers, sisters, moms. Um.
Speaker 1: But for me, sports was the one is I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say was. But at that time in my life, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I was about thirteen, I lost my brother
Speaker 1: a couple of years before. My family had been through
Speaker 1: a lot. My parents were on the voyage, on the
Speaker 1: verge of the divorce. Um. Sports was my refuge. Football
Speaker 1: was the place that I was going to on a
Speaker 1: consistent basis, UM to be outside of my mind and
Speaker 1: inside of my heart. And I was on fire for it. Um.
Speaker 1: It was my safe space at the time, and that
Speaker 1: that family that I had with the boys who were
Speaker 1: on my team was so important to me, and my
Speaker 1: coaches were so important to me. So for my coach,
Speaker 1: who I trusted, who I believed, who told me I
Speaker 1: was exceptional. You know, I was a running back, so
Speaker 1: he he it broke my heart. I don't know how
Speaker 1: else to put it. To have him come to me
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you're great. You you you you, you
Speaker 1: know the boys are getting bigger. Um, there is no
Speaker 1: option for you. And if you want to be a
Speaker 1: serious athlete, which he knew I wanted to be, he
Speaker 1: limited my options and he said, here are your options.
Speaker 1: And it was one of the few times in life
Speaker 1: where I let somebody else give me the options. Um,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't see past the people who influenced me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a huge lesson, particularly for women,
Speaker 1: because the world guide so much of who we are
Speaker 1: and how we're supposed to be in dress, and who
Speaker 1: we love and all those things. And so I think
Speaker 1: that it was heartbreaking. So I went on and I
Speaker 1: carried a fire probably into basketball. Um. I carried a
Speaker 1: little bit of anger in the way I played ball.
Speaker 1: If you watch me play, UM, I played a lot
Speaker 1: like a dB out there or running back out there
Speaker 1: going to the hoop, like I had all of that
Speaker 1: same fire that I carried from from middle school to
Speaker 1: high school and to college playing basketball. And so in
Speaker 1: that moment, I felt heartbreak. UM. I felt like the
Speaker 1: world was telling me what my possibilities were as a
Speaker 1: woman and I and I like it. I really I
Speaker 1: really didn't like it. I will say that frankly, that
Speaker 1: coach was just making the right decision for me. Right.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to college. I wanted college to
Speaker 1: be paid for UM, and so focusing on basketball helped
Speaker 1: me get that. For me, it was the right path.
Speaker 1: But at the time, UM, I think that the way
Speaker 1: I think now is if you have somebody who you
Speaker 1: think is exceptional, maybe I wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 1: play running back at the varsity level. Maybe I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to um even playing high school. Who knows,
Speaker 1: But I think totally eliminating that that was a possibility
Speaker 1: for me period, for somebody I trusted meant that I
Speaker 1: shouldn't even try. And that that's where I think the
Speaker 1: miss was, like, you don't even try to do this
Speaker 1: because the path doesn't exist just because you come to
Speaker 1: a forking roads that's telling you to go left or
Speaker 1: go right? Well, how soft is the is the dirt
Speaker 1: in the middle, or to continue to go straight right?
Speaker 1: Like how is this brick in front of me? Or what? Uh?
Speaker 1: So I think that that and and you know, the
Speaker 1: world happens exactly the way it's supposed to. But I
Speaker 1: think if you want to be a creator, if you
Speaker 1: want to advance something, then sometimes you gotta go against
Speaker 1: the grain. And I think we should do more encouraging,
Speaker 1: particularly our girls, um to make pass for themselves. And
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I use it as a chip.
Speaker 1: And now I got this league that I'm developing and
Speaker 1: creating opportunities for other women. So it worked out, But
Speaker 1: I would have loved for somebody to challenge me, to
Speaker 1: challenge the system at that time. What would you tell
Speaker 1: yourself back then to maybe stand up to those coaches
Speaker 1: or just kind of say hey, I want to place
Speaker 1: or to create that space for you. If I could
Speaker 1: have went back and done that again, would have winning
Speaker 1: tried out for our freshman football team at bell Flower
Speaker 1: High School? Oh hold on, hole, you could have played
Speaker 1: exactly Bell Flowers still Google right now, let's give the
Speaker 1: world a context, compare them to Cincinnati Bengals. Oh, doctor
Speaker 1: was like that, don't do the buccanmunes like that. We
Speaker 1: weren't that bad. We weren't. We weren't Arizona Cardinals bad.
Speaker 1: We were before fits. I mean, which Arizona car are
Speaker 1: you're talking about when they was in Arizona or I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out when you say bell Flower, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I'm like, I just debunked our wholes story
Speaker 1: right there. Team bell Flowers stank. I put it like this,
Speaker 1: When bell Flower has a good team, they got a
Speaker 1: good team, it's a shocker when they don't bell Flower.
Speaker 1: This is how bad bell Flowers. You either play at
Speaker 1: night or during the day. If you cannot play at
Speaker 1: night is because gang affiliated or your team is awful.
Speaker 1: But most of the time, even at night, when it's
Speaker 1: a big game and it's game affiliated, they just have
Speaker 1: a ton of police. I don't think bell Flower had
Speaker 1: a night game. Bell Flower is an offsite teak game
Speaker 1: for a big school. How about that. Just keep talking
Speaker 1: about my team, my school, and my in my line
Speaker 1: though you you I detect no lies, you are not.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, um, like I could have I
Speaker 1: could have played in Actually you could have. No, they're
Speaker 1: gonna three years later playing a UM playing at will
Speaker 1: in high school, which was in the same division. So
Speaker 1: she she was alignment and so it was a little
Speaker 1: different for her. But I definitely could have got could
Speaker 1: have got a couple of years in on jav for sure.
Speaker 1: How was your support system through all of this? What
Speaker 1: did they ingrain in you? What? How did they hold
Speaker 1: your hand? And what were those dialogues like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: nothing was more important than going to college to my mom,
Speaker 1: like she going and getting a college education. She knew,
Speaker 1: she had the foresight that sports was going to equal
Speaker 1: in education. Education was going to equal a good job,
Speaker 1: seeing more of the world, and then the possibilities were endless.
Speaker 1: So for my mom, she was she was all about listening.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a great athlete, you're a great ballplayer,
Speaker 1: focused on that. So she wanted me to focus on back.
Speaker 1: I think she actually liked seeing me play basketball too,
Speaker 1: so that was her preference. Um, So when I got home,
Speaker 1: there were no um, you know, cry on my shoulder.
Speaker 1: It's just like I told her before, there was really
Speaker 1: no cry on my shoulder. It was either hey, are
Speaker 1: you gonna listen to them and not play football, or
Speaker 1: are you gonna focus on basketball. Whichever one you're going
Speaker 1: to do, you need to go be exceptional at it. Um.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of love for basketball, so I
Speaker 1: saw um. You know, at the time, I had friends
Speaker 1: who were going off to college who were older than me,
Speaker 1: and so I really saw that path and focused on
Speaker 1: that path. And then I had a cousin. His name
Speaker 1: is Lonnie, and he was on his way um to college.
Speaker 1: He played It's crazy. He played volleyball at Lock. This
Speaker 1: dude got a volleyball scholarship. This is yeah, at Lock
Speaker 1: High School. He got alleyball. My mom and dad, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he got a volleyball scholarship. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: j look, I don't care what these people are saying.
Speaker 1: You can ball. You go focus on basketball. And that
Speaker 1: dude end up coming to like every one of my
Speaker 1: games all through high school, all through when you were
Speaker 1: playing basketball. Now, where is your heart? I know you
Speaker 1: possibly like our You're over there peeking over at football practice,
Speaker 1: like going, man, that could be me. I dug one
Speaker 1: in the basketball one. I jumped when I decided that
Speaker 1: that was the focus. I jumped on and I completely
Speaker 1: focused on getting a Division one basketball scholarship. That was
Speaker 1: the goal, and I didn't look back until I signed
Speaker 1: my letter of intent. The first thing I did on
Speaker 1: my visit was go to the football It was so weird,
Speaker 1: um um, on my visit to the college and they
Speaker 1: were showing me all this stuff, the locker room and everything,
Speaker 1: and I just was obsessed and it was It retriggered
Speaker 1: my love um for for football. Um. I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: what I would have done if I would have went
Speaker 1: to a big old powerhouse as He's football school, I
Speaker 1: probably would have not been able to focus at all basketball. Um.
Speaker 1: But that's what changed for me. And so I think
Speaker 1: I played, you know, my seasons of basketball. But I
Speaker 1: immediately met this guy named David Kellogg. He was an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and he played dB. He was a dB uh
Speaker 1: for the football team. In a couple of years into
Speaker 1: my college career, he was like, Oh, Jay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start I'm gonna start a women's football league. Oh. He
Speaker 1: started telling me that. He was like people, right, He's like,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm telling you, when you've done with basketball,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start this league. It's gonna be hot. Girls
Speaker 1: are gonna play. It's gonna be eight on age. You're gone.
Speaker 1: He whispering, breath stink, no team, whispering sweet nothing. And
Speaker 1: she over there, she taking it all in too giddy.
Speaker 1: I was kitty so to dream. Oh he's so hard dreaming. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got this bridge. Now it's over. They call it
Speaker 1: over at the pond. Don't worry about that. It's not
Speaker 1: over at the pond. I got the I got the
Speaker 1: title to it. Man, it ain't in my pocket. I
Speaker 1: got the time to give me a hundred dollars and
Speaker 1: it's yours. She was like, do you accept everything in
Speaker 1: my pocket right now? Can I lay away? Do you
Speaker 1: take bikes? I gotta bike. So so David Kelaw comes
Speaker 1: in and tells you about this women's football team that
Speaker 1: he that he wants to start. So what's your what's
Speaker 1: your reaction? Does that start to spur up your It
Speaker 1: sounds like it starts to spur up that level of
Speaker 1: football again. And how did you transition into that? It
Speaker 1: was wild because yes, so David, and David was actually
Speaker 1: the best friend of my college boyfriend, right so um,
Speaker 1: And now that y'all made me think about this, every
Speaker 1: guy every dated back in the day. Um, we're all
Speaker 1: football players. So there was something I was trying. I
Speaker 1: was trying to stay close to the game and every
Speaker 1: way I couldn't. Um, you can kiss, but I just
Speaker 1: want your cliques. Poor guys like they they really didn't
Speaker 1: they really they had no chance, but um, but they
Speaker 1: can ballow. Like heading into my senior year, he completely
Speaker 1: tore up my focus at basketball because he stood up this,
Speaker 1: he went and did it. It was just eight on
Speaker 1: eight women's football, tackle football, and he had all the
Speaker 1: little teams around all of the little cities. It was
Speaker 1: like six teams and it was all of these athletes,
Speaker 1: girls from the soccer team, from the intramural teams, and
Speaker 1: David mess around and put me at running back at
Speaker 1: one of the on one of these teams, and I was,
Speaker 1: I was, I could not there wasn't. I was so
Speaker 1: overloaded with um, happiness and fulfillment. UM the idea because
Speaker 1: it was the first time I played football with women,
Speaker 1: and I never thought of the concept like, yo, I
Speaker 1: don't have to play against boys. I can actually play
Speaker 1: with girls, which was always my preference, like play against
Speaker 1: other women. And so um, we ended up doing that
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and once I got a
Speaker 1: taste of that, I never looked back. We hear people say, man,
Speaker 1: we want equal opportunity, we want this, we want that,
Speaker 1: But what does really equal opportunity from Odess's perspective really mean.
Speaker 1: I don't have a dream of women playing in the NFL.
Speaker 1: I have a dream of the w NFC UM standing alone,
Speaker 1: UM having an opportunity to bring in sponsorship dollars, build
Speaker 1: a strong revenue stream, UM work with universities and colleges
Speaker 1: and the men UM to build a pipeline for girls
Speaker 1: to play football against other girls. So if me equity
Speaker 1: looks like developing a professional women's tackle football league UM
Speaker 1: that has it's uh support from professional men's football, but
Speaker 1: that we will wake up and no girl will ever
Speaker 1: be told that her time in football is over because
Speaker 1: no opportunity exists for her. And see that is an
Speaker 1: answer that I love. You want other women to have
Speaker 1: that opportunity, that not to hear what you heard, which
Speaker 1: is you have no place. Because this world is big
Speaker 1: enough with the right leadership in every area, right and
Speaker 1: we're just talking about football. With the right leadership, there's
Speaker 1: enough football fields to go around, there's enough footballs to
Speaker 1: go around and there's enough cliques and listen, it sounds
Speaker 1: like there's enough bodies that want to get punished, like
Speaker 1: the game of football is right, and who are willing
Speaker 1: to put themselves through it. Yea. And also to just personally,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you guys are looking and with
Speaker 1: with with the pandemic and all all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it'll be good as Steve Smith uh senior
Speaker 1: Um comes along. We you know, whatever stuff you guys
Speaker 1: have havn't going on, email us and we'll give you
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars um. And then my foundation will also
Speaker 1: do a thousand dollars just just to say, you know.
Speaker 1: And and the reason I say all of that is
Speaker 1: I can't fix all of the issues, but if if
Speaker 1: you get enough of enough people that's right behind y'all,
Speaker 1: that that's where it counts. And so that you know,
Speaker 1: So just hearing your answering and why really encourage me.
Speaker 1: And I loved it because it wasn't a it wasn't
Speaker 1: an extravagant you ask or thought. It was a thought through.
Speaker 1: It was a kiss for me. I believe in that
Speaker 1: there's things that will happen and will exist that I
Speaker 1: can't see, UM, but I've been in I've been at
Speaker 1: this for a decade. This ain't new, right, Like I
Speaker 1: I'm working my ass off to build this. I'm not
Speaker 1: asking for anybody to give me or hand me anything.
Speaker 1: I've been working at it for a decade. So it's
Speaker 1: not like, um, this is happening overnight, or I see
Speaker 1: what's been built over a hundred years and think that
Speaker 1: I can build it into what what I'm asking for
Speaker 1: is that to your point, there are people like you. There.
Speaker 1: There are brands out there, you know, shout out to
Speaker 1: Adidas and Rebel Sports who have already jumped on board
Speaker 1: with us, But there are people, um that could literally
Speaker 1: change the trajectory of the opportunity that women have in
Speaker 1: women's sports. And I think just takes um some unity,
Speaker 1: uh and some support, you know. I think that there's
Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars. Like I was on one
Speaker 1: of I don't know if you have all the sides,
Speaker 1: but there's one of the things that my presentation that
Speaker 1: I always present that says that five hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: has been invested over the last seven years in the
Speaker 1: failed professional men's football leagues. Five million dollars. Ain't lying, girl,
Speaker 1: And what I what I would do with one percent
Speaker 1: of that would blow somebody's mind. I think it's about
Speaker 1: that time, just so I'll take a little breathing. Good,
Speaker 1: it's get down to do it. Hey, Gerard, why did
Speaker 1: you get that T shirt? You mean this thing? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: I got it from cut to a podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys
Speaker 1: at seven or four shot. But yeah, you can go on,
Speaker 1: buy you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts you talked about. This has been your
Speaker 1: job for a decade. What is your job? So today
Speaker 1: I am the chief executive officer of the Women's National
Speaker 1: Football and we are the premier women's tape of football
Speaker 1: league in the country. And we have twenty teams across
Speaker 1: the nations. Where where are these teams? So we're from Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. To Washington State, so Seattle, Denver. We got
Speaker 1: two in California in San Diego and Los Angeles. Were
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. We're in Denver. We're in Nebraska. We're
Speaker 1: in Phoenix, Arizona. We got two in Texas, in both
Speaker 1: Dallas and in Houston. We're in Atlanta, We're in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: We're in North Carolina. We gotta seem mis Charlotte. And
Speaker 1: we got a team in North Florida as well, um
Speaker 1: and uh and a team in Mississippi, Mississippi and Alabama.
Speaker 1: We got we're all in the South. I always educate
Speaker 1: people women of and playing tackle football since nineteen thirty. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and there are several leagues there are about women women
Speaker 1: playing football in the US today. Crazy enough, the w
Speaker 1: NFC is only a year old. And the reason that
Speaker 1: I created the league, Right, I played in I played
Speaker 1: over a twelve year period. Um, I played in different leagues,
Speaker 1: amateur leagues. Hold on, so you played over You had
Speaker 1: a twelve year career playing women's football, various leagues. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: take us through. I want to sit in that because
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you have experienced as a
Speaker 1: woman that's playing let's be honest, semi professional um football.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are afraid to talk what it's real.
Speaker 1: I think if for me, the way I envisioned it, it
Speaker 1: it is that if I want to create things and
Speaker 1: put really if I want help, if I want support,
Speaker 1: if I want sponsors, I gotta keep it real like
Speaker 1: these aren't. There's no smoking mirrors. I actually believe in
Speaker 1: the product of women's tackle football. I believe that if
Speaker 1: you put the best athletes on the field with the
Speaker 1: best products, you're going to get the best women's professional
Speaker 1: sport you've ever seen. No no knock on the w
Speaker 1: n b A or soccer or anything. But when you
Speaker 1: get the top athletes playing football, there ain't nothing like it.
Speaker 1: To your point, um, you know, talking to you about
Speaker 1: my experience. I started playing in Dallas at the time
Speaker 1: for what was the best team in the country and
Speaker 1: ended up winning a national championship with that team. It
Speaker 1: was rough. It was hundred dollars I think eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars we had to I had to come up with
Speaker 1: as a player. Um, to play, I had to pay
Speaker 1: for travel helmet. When was this because don't go very
Speaker 1: well when you just said travel and helmet. This was
Speaker 1: a helmet about two two hundred dollars. And then you
Speaker 1: got a flight, so you pay for your own travel.
Speaker 1: And then our team paid the league to be in
Speaker 1: the league. Oh so you had to pay the play, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the team had to pay the league. We had
Speaker 1: to pay. So that's what the team was. It was like, dude,
Speaker 1: so you paid your eighteen hundred dollars and that helped
Speaker 1: the team to be able to basically say, hey, our
Speaker 1: team is locked in loaded, correct, so you have to
Speaker 1: have so many players, uh to pay that eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars to help facilitate and rent I'm assuming rent um
Speaker 1: facilities or even so, when you pay for your own travel,
Speaker 1: was it a team bus or y'all? Just your car
Speaker 1: proved it. It just depended on where we were going. Right,
Speaker 1: we had to go to Houston, it was a car pool.
Speaker 1: If we had to go to a couple of states over,
Speaker 1: it was a bus. But I'm not talking nice bus.
Speaker 1: I'm talking wasn't a good bus at all. Um. We'd
Speaker 1: be lucky if we had air conditioning at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it was rough. It was rough, And that,
Speaker 1: frankly was my experience in women's tackle football for the
Speaker 1: first uh five or six years of my career. And
Speaker 1: I was being told that that was the best of
Speaker 1: the best. I feel good like everybody seemed to be
Speaker 1: super comfortable with that being the existence for women and
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, Um, I was winning my I think
Speaker 1: it was like my fourth national championship. I'd actually got
Speaker 1: awarded the bill um Wash Diversity Internship and was going
Speaker 1: off to train a camp with the Atlanta Falcons. We
Speaker 1: had just come back from the US because we gotta
Speaker 1: say football. We had just won another gold medal over
Speaker 1: in UM in Canada. And I'm sitting down at training
Speaker 1: camp in Atlanta and I'm seeing all this stuff that
Speaker 1: these men have available to I mean, like grapes, shade
Speaker 1: all around, shade all around. Headed to the locker room
Speaker 1: they you know, oh you know what I want to
Speaker 1: I want a new hoodie. Let me just walk into
Speaker 1: their free Rte Freeman and I got really close free
Speaker 1: walking into the locker rooms like oh what, I want
Speaker 1: some more tights, to get fresh pair of tights and Cleaton,
Speaker 1: Oh let me try different pair of gloves today. It
Speaker 1: was just m discussed that she was hot. I was.
Speaker 1: It was unreal. And the coaches right sitting in nice
Speaker 1: offices and I've been coaching, and you know, I only
Speaker 1: want to It was just it was it was mind blowing,
Speaker 1: um what was available and how well the operation ran,
Speaker 1: and and um some of the mechanisms for making money
Speaker 1: and all these things, and I was soaking it up
Speaker 1: and frankly and my decision in my brain, I was
Speaker 1: making a decision that I wanted to coach at the
Speaker 1: highest level. But at that point I made a decision
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna be a champion to bring this kind
Speaker 1: of experience to women and girls, saying, let's build this
Speaker 1: thing as a business. First. The game is great, but
Speaker 1: if it doesn't stand on the right feet and convince
Speaker 1: people like you to get involved in it, then no,
Speaker 1: it won't advanced to where I wanted to go. I
Speaker 1: want more. I don't want more, I'm creating more. This
Speaker 1: last segment we have coming up is what we call
Speaker 1: a deep three, and really it allows us to take
Speaker 1: a deeper dive, ask some some deeper questions, to go
Speaker 1: beyond who you are underneath your helmet, you know, underneath
Speaker 1: your shoulder pads. So for me to go ahead and
Speaker 1: ask the first question, you've seen always be true to yourself.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a time you were not true to yourself?
Speaker 1: If so, why when I didn't pursue football in high school?
Speaker 1: I think that I allowed the world to define the
Speaker 1: possibilities for me, and that is just not who I am.
Speaker 1: And it was a huge lesson learned from me that
Speaker 1: I haven't had to learn that lesson anymore. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna live in my principle and I'm gonna die in
Speaker 1: my principle. And whether it's right or wrong, or gets
Speaker 1: me what I want or doesn't, UH, it's the way
Speaker 1: I'm going to live. What's the biggest change you hope
Speaker 1: occurs for women football players and athletes in your lifetime.
Speaker 1: I hope to see that women have tackle football, fully clothed,
Speaker 1: fully sponsored um as a full time profession, paid profession
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. I hope to see a clear pipeline
Speaker 1: for girls into the w NFC and professional football in
Speaker 1: my lifetime. And I hope to see one support of
Speaker 1: the NFL of women playing tackle football against women uh.
Speaker 1: In my lifetime. I love food. I love the cook
Speaker 1: My grandmother taught me how to cook and and so
Speaker 1: food is really a big deal for me. It's the
Speaker 1: way I connect um where I have a lot of
Speaker 1: moments with myself. I love fresh ingredients, you know, taking
Speaker 1: taking time off of the stem, right, chopping bazel, all
Speaker 1: that stuff to the point of where I wanted to
Speaker 1: name my daughter whose name Bailey basil Um, but they
Speaker 1: said you go, hey, hey stuff, A good one works,
Speaker 1: is okay? Um? So if you were a dish on tree,
Speaker 1: what would you add or take away? Oh that is
Speaker 1: a good one. Oh I know, girl on the back again,
Speaker 1: if you're swaying right now. Um. If I weren't on tree,
Speaker 1: I would add more sauce because I don't think you
Speaker 1: can have too much sauce. Um. And I would take
Speaker 1: away spice. Okay, what kind of spice though? Is it
Speaker 1: like garlic? I think? Um, I'll say like hotsp it's
Speaker 1: like a like a tabasco or I don't cook, so
Speaker 1: I'm like after um the food hot um like um no,
Speaker 1: So what you know, Kayenne Kayane. Here's the hook line
Speaker 1: of secre So what dish would you be there? I'll
Speaker 1: be macaroni and cheese. I'm complex. It's it's harder to
Speaker 1: put together than it looks. Oh girl, yeah, I'm my
Speaker 1: mom was I'm Lola Jenkins who cooked this? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I think that that's what I would be. I mean
Speaker 1: I think, um, like that could be too much cheese, right.
Speaker 1: So sometimes you gotta be careful and just keep it simple,
Speaker 1: and that's where I take some away. Sometimes I want
Speaker 1: to put all the cheeses in, not just the cheddar.
Speaker 1: I want to do it all. And so I think
Speaker 1: if I had to take something away, it would be
Speaker 1: in this case, your sauce would be your cheese, but
Speaker 1: I'd be mac and cheese. I think it's more complex
Speaker 1: to making it looks, but it's easily consumable. Um it's friendly.
Speaker 1: It's a feel good food, and I think it makes
Speaker 1: you think of the possibilities of the South and family
Speaker 1: and every single kind of people love it. They have
Speaker 1: their own different way of making it, but everybody loves it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just want to take the time and thank you
Speaker 1: for one hearing your story you be transparent and telling
Speaker 1: us all the things, and then also how we can
Speaker 1: help and and what what kind of support and what
Speaker 1: you really need and one we need We need to
Speaker 1: have a person with a sound voice and a sound mind,
Speaker 1: and and you have that, and you have the ability
Speaker 1: to take this where you want to go. But your
Speaker 1: your story speaks for yourself, and so thank you for
Speaker 1: taking that time, Thank you for spending with us. This
Speaker 1: is obviously been my favorite UH interview that I've ever
Speaker 1: done so far, and I've been lucky enough to be
Speaker 1: blessed enough to do a lot of them in my life.
Speaker 1: But this has been special to me as an l
Speaker 1: A guy and frankly is a future Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: speaking um, but no, I think that it's uh, this
Speaker 1: means a lot to me, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: great step in the way towards merging women's tackle football
Speaker 1: with professional means football and and your support means more
Speaker 1: to the sport. And I'm I'm representing all the women
Speaker 1: who have played this game for so long and saying
Speaker 1: w NFC football dot Com on and w NFC at
Speaker 1: at all of the socials. And I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys for heavy having me and allowing me to tell
Speaker 1: the story of women's tackle football. Yeah, that's what sports
Speaker 1: is about. We've had Odessa on here, now, We've had
Speaker 1: Frank Kaminski on here, and just having those guys and
Speaker 1: gals and athletes talk about what sports has allowed them
Speaker 1: to remove themselves from, not removing themselves from reality, but
Speaker 1: just kind of quiet, quieting all of the outside noise
Speaker 1: and focusing and on focusing on something and allowing them
Speaker 1: to be themselves, to live life to the fullest, but
Speaker 1: not escape life, because a lot of times when things
Speaker 1: are going on, people say, I wish I could just escape,
Speaker 1: just having a moment to pause and to be able
Speaker 1: to not deal with those things at the moment, deal
Speaker 1: with them at the appropriate time, but just not on
Speaker 1: the on that sports field. And I really like that
Speaker 1: about her. I really love what she's doing. She has
Speaker 1: such a powerful story, ton of energy. Just all of
Speaker 1: the things that she has brought to the table and
Speaker 1: what she's trying to do moving forward, and it's pretty
Speaker 1: unique and it's different. Um, she's trying to bring football
Speaker 1: to women, but not play sports men against women, But
Speaker 1: she's saying that they want women to have the same
Speaker 1: opportunity to display their athletic talent on a stage that
Speaker 1: one is respected two has the same equal sponsorship and
Speaker 1: equality of equal and efficient equipment, up the standard, up
Speaker 1: the snuff, having a nice uniforms that every other men's
Speaker 1: sport has, having a having a support system to the
Speaker 1: training staff, the travel expenses of a real athletic sport.
Speaker 1: Listening to her is something that was really interesting is
Speaker 1: she was a professional woman playing sports on the side,
Speaker 1: but yet they were high school teams that had more
Speaker 1: and better support and equipment than these grown women who
Speaker 1: some of them are career someone gonna stay at home mom,
Speaker 1: some of them are are CEOs, and yet they're getting
Speaker 1: hand me downs. I don't think that that's about gender.
Speaker 1: I just think that's just about lack of And I
Speaker 1: just think that she's taking a step instead of complaining,
Speaker 1: she said, I want to do something about it, creating
Speaker 1: a path. That was the biggest thing I took from
Speaker 1: that is that she's creating a path. And whether she
Speaker 1: didn't have a path to where she wanted to get
Speaker 1: to when she was younger and and playing football, but
Speaker 1: now creating a path to everything you just said, giving
Speaker 1: women access and giving women a space, um, whether they're
Speaker 1: in high school, whether they're in college. Beyond that, giving
Speaker 1: women a path to where they want to go. And
Speaker 1: so I could have we could have talked to Oh
Speaker 1: that's a force another hour or two hours, just so
Speaker 1: much energy, so much UM. I'm just impressed. He's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite distant cousins, real cousins. Here's one thing though,
Speaker 1: that I think we need to walk away from. That's
Speaker 1: very important. There's somebody's probably gonna listen to this or
Speaker 1: is listening to us say why do women need to
Speaker 1: have the same opportunity as men to play sports? I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this longer hard when she was talking,
Speaker 1: because when she when I gave her a question, she
Speaker 1: answered it in a way that was so profound. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about men or women. Is this you know? I
Speaker 1: use a lot of food analogies. Does it just because
Speaker 1: we don't like or we disagree with that restaurant? Does
Speaker 1: that mean the standard of the way the restaurants should
Speaker 1: be held to health code should change because you don't
Speaker 1: agree with that type of food. You may not agree
Speaker 1: with women playing tackle football, but does that mean they
Speaker 1: have to have less opportunity, unsafe equipment and be literally
Speaker 1: car pool and other teams because you don't think they
Speaker 1: should be playing tag on football. I don't think that's fair.
Speaker 1: I think if we have the same energy to put
Speaker 1: a a dog show on there and and have blue ribbons,
Speaker 1: I think we can muster up a few bucks to
Speaker 1: help these women pursue opportunities pursue a football career if
Speaker 1: they wanted, let them do it. But I see every
Speaker 1: year they have the some dog shows the Westminster and
Speaker 1: I see people parading these dogs around, and some of
Speaker 1: these dogs are more taken care of than some of
Speaker 1: these some of the kids in in in the world.
Speaker 1: So I just I just I just kind of came
Speaker 1: my mind, like, what if we started if we don't
Speaker 1: like something, we started neglecting. Well, I don't like this kid,
Speaker 1: so I'm not I got four kids, but I don't
Speaker 1: like one of them, so I'm just not gonna feed
Speaker 1: this one. This world would be upside down if we
Speaker 1: just started helping people based on our personal opinion of
Speaker 1: the action that they're trying to do. And we need
Speaker 1: to get over ourselves and just start supporting each other.
Speaker 1: That's just one thing that I took away from it,
Speaker 1: and it really opened my eyes. And you know, I think,
Speaker 1: I think it would be really cool to see some
Speaker 1: of these women who want and who desired the opportunity
Speaker 1: in place to play tackle football and other ones play
Speaker 1: tackle football, and let's see how good they can be.
Speaker 1: Because I bet you, I bet anything, there's some women
Speaker 1: out there because doing doing football camps, some of the
Speaker 1: best athletes as a young some of the youngsters that
Speaker 1: I have, some of the best listeners, some of the
Speaker 1: best technicians, some of the best players in some of
Speaker 1: my camps when I was doing it, or girls, they
Speaker 1: were easier to coach because some of the boys knew everything.
Speaker 1: Boys six one, ten years old, six one and his
Speaker 1: daddy played tight end. He wants to play tight end. Boy.
Speaker 1: You got an old lineman body, right, and that just
Speaker 1: so it's just really cool. So that that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the things. So I hope you enjoyed it. If
Speaker 1: you would like to reach out, you like to support
Speaker 1: financially or business inquiries about them more. Some ladies y'all
Speaker 1: here listening. You want to try out, go ahead and
Speaker 1: do it. W in f C Football dot Com. Cut
Speaker 1: to It with Steve Smith Senior. That Is Me is
Speaker 1: a production of Cut to It, LLC, Ball, Told Creative Media,
Speaker 1: The Black Effect, and I Heart Radio. For more podcast
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, Apple
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: From Cut to It, executive producer Steve Smith, singer co
Speaker 1: host Gerard little John, talent and booking manager Joe fe
Speaker 1: She social media manager Peyton Smith from balto Creative Media.
Speaker 1: Cut Too It is produced by Brian Falta Chevitch and
Speaker 1: Meredith Carter with production assistance by Alex Lebrek, production manager
Speaker 1: Sarah Pollock, Theme music by Alex Johnson, Lyrics and vocals
Speaker 1: by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard about it, then we're
Speaker 1: about to let you know. It's all