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 it.
Speaker 1: Let's get down to do it. Good do it. We
Speaker 1: asked the questions you always want to know, but no
Speaker 1: one ever asked, let's cut to it. You ain't heard
Speaker 1: am about it, then we're about to let you know.
Speaker 1: It's all we got on the podcast. Jonathan stewart Man, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cut Too Podcasts. I kind of like this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: cut to it. You've been doing a lot of good stuff, man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Listen. Yeah, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the former teammates listen. They and they also had an
Speaker 1: opinion like why he ain't gonna have me on? Nah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you liar, I said, I know that. I lie. Nah,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about some of other people. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: them one. I just don't. I just don't want to
Speaker 1: flood the panther market because that's easy. Yeah. And it's like,
Speaker 1: oh and then I'll be considered a homer. So I
Speaker 1: gotta just I gotta switch it up. You're very resourceful
Speaker 1: and I try to be. I try to be take
Speaker 1: us down that road to football because a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know you've been overall picked by the Carolina Panthers,
Speaker 1: drafted and injured, has surgery prior to the draft. Now,
Speaker 1: the Panthers had some inside because the guy that did
Speaker 1: your foot world right now, Bob Anderson, who does most
Speaker 1: guys feet, they knew the recovery time. But they thought
Speaker 1: they knew the recovery time. But yet, just like anything else,
Speaker 1: that surgery for some people takes X amount of time.
Speaker 1: For you, particularly, how long did it take you after
Speaker 1: your surgery for you to feel right comfortable enough to
Speaker 1: become the player you ended up becoming Because people don't
Speaker 1: know drafted in April, when you have your surgery March March,
Speaker 1: right before the draft, you didn't become Jonathan Stewart until when.
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't have no time. I had from
Speaker 1: March until the third preseason game. But my rookie March
Speaker 1: so April, well actually April, May, June, July, August. They
Speaker 1: put you in September, October, so probably about December when
Speaker 1: you were and now the weather's change where you were
Speaker 1: expected to start impacting your team as a top fifteen pick.
Speaker 1: So how did you feel getting in the game. March
Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight, I was having surgery before
Speaker 1: my birthday, twenty first birthday, and I was in Eugene, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and I was hearing ESPN telling folks that I was
Speaker 1: a drifter and I have a foot injury, and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a top pick and all these things. And
Speaker 1: I have already committed to go for the draft early
Speaker 1: as a junior. And so you're hearing all these things
Speaker 1: for the first time about what you're not when you've
Speaker 1: been told what you are, what you are, what you know,
Speaker 1: what you could be for the recent time and until
Speaker 1: you got injured, right, and um, you know it was tough,
Speaker 1: you know, mentally, not really sure what to expect, where
Speaker 1: I'm gonna land and all that. And you know, I
Speaker 1: went to Pro Day and when I was at the
Speaker 1: pro day, Um, now you have pro Day not being
Speaker 1: Pro Day, Yeah, yeah, pro Day knowing you cannot perform.
Speaker 1: But I had calm, I had the combine and then
Speaker 1: Pro Day and I didn't have anyone talk to me
Speaker 1: that Pro Day or anything like that. But I did
Speaker 1: have my combine, which Doug Williams. He was there. He
Speaker 1: was with the red Skins or Tampa Bay at the time.
Speaker 1: Tampa he was with Tampa Bay at that time. And
Speaker 1: so I saw him in passing in the hallway and
Speaker 1: he had recognized me. That kind of threw me off,
Speaker 1: like that's get that. I'm like, man, he knows who
Speaker 1: I am. But it's more of yeah, but he hit me.
Speaker 1: He put me into the side, and he had must
Speaker 1: have heard about my situation from the training and all
Speaker 1: that stuff being there, that I wasn't gonna run because
Speaker 1: I had my toe injury and he had what was
Speaker 1: the toe injury? So I had turf toe white skirt
Speaker 1: to such a big issue because you have to as
Speaker 1: a running back, you have to be able to balance
Speaker 1: on the foot. You gotta be able to make cuts.
Speaker 1: So your big toe was just hurting. No, big toe
Speaker 1: ain't working. It's swollen, jammed up, ligaments, torn, all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. Right. Turf toe is not like, oh, I
Speaker 1: hit my foot on the coffee table trying to trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, get the remote. Turf toe is pretty much
Speaker 1: taking your phone, yes, and just having someone just smashing
Speaker 1: a bunch of times and so and and so now
Speaker 1: where your knuckle is and where you know, all of
Speaker 1: that everything in between your knuckle and your fingernail, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much Swiss sheets and swollen buff Yeah. With that's
Speaker 1: your big toe, man, Like, listen, your calves, your hamstrings,
Speaker 1: you're you're blower back that right. That big toe is
Speaker 1: activating all that. It's it makes you lopside it right everything,
Speaker 1: and then you compensate and then that and then you
Speaker 1: compensate because now you're left I has all of the work,
Speaker 1: and it's now doing the work of the left side
Speaker 1: and doing the work of the right side. So a conversation,
Speaker 1: now the left side gets overworked and it potentially start
Speaker 1: causes a strain. So now you gotta muscle strain on
Speaker 1: your left side. You got a non firing right side. Man.
Speaker 1: You you up, you up a creek without a pattern?
Speaker 1: Which is what? Which is? He eventually what I started,
Speaker 1: you know, experiencing Overcolm Satan from my toe. Um. But
Speaker 1: going back combine Doug Williams passing in the hallway, he said, listen,
Speaker 1: if you fast, you're gonna run fast no matter what.
Speaker 1: Go out there and run. I don't care, I said,
Speaker 1: all right, So I called my agent. I said, look,
Speaker 1: I called. I saw Doug run. He said, go out
Speaker 1: there and run. So Doug Trump, Well, my agent is like, well,
Speaker 1: if you feel comfortable run, I'm like all right. So
Speaker 1: I went out there and ran. I did the vertical jump.
Speaker 1: I ran a four or four six so on on
Speaker 1: a jam on a turf toe, turf toe. I was
Speaker 1: run on the side of my foot and then I
Speaker 1: did the vertical jump and I think it was like
Speaker 1: thirty seven and a half jammed turf toe and so
Speaker 1: what what I realized though, is Doug was really telling
Speaker 1: me if you're a dog, you're a dog, go out
Speaker 1: there and like, this is your opportunity. And so I
Speaker 1: think that helped me in the long run absolutely, for
Speaker 1: people fell in love with, for me to go through
Speaker 1: what go through injury and to show what I have.
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer in whatever you're going through, God's
Speaker 1: preper right. And so like I'm hurt, I've been hurt,
Speaker 1: I've gotten through it. I've been hills and all those things.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna spend time, you know, focusing on
Speaker 1: what people are telling me that I'm not. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take that, you know that advice that I got from
Speaker 1: Doug Williams improved to people what I am. Even though
Speaker 1: I am hurt, I'm still a dog. So just let
Speaker 1: me get healthy, right, And so that was my mindset
Speaker 1: during the combine. Pro date comes around at Oregon. I'm
Speaker 1: not even in the vicinity. I'm not even asked to
Speaker 1: come there. It felt weird, like like I was just
Speaker 1: almost kind of like forgotten, right, and then the Panthers
Speaker 1: take me off site to a hotel and I have
Speaker 1: a meeting with the Scott Scotting Department. I didn't think
Speaker 1: nothing of it. Don Gregory besides one team that I
Speaker 1: didn't even meet at the combine, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: took me to the side and yeah whatever, like they
Speaker 1: checked on my my, you know, if I was rehabbing
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Um draft comes around.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, Carolina Panthers called me and I'm drafted. Go
Speaker 1: to O t a s. I didn't even go to
Speaker 1: like a ceremony or jersey hanging or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But because of my upbringing and the simple mindset that
Speaker 1: I had, my expectations were here. Okay from receiving anything,
Speaker 1: but I knew I had to work for whenever my
Speaker 1: time was come, whenever I was able to get on
Speaker 1: the field, I had to be ready. And so O
Speaker 1: T A S. I show up. Now, I remember John Beeson.
Speaker 1: He was coming off of a surgery and all those
Speaker 1: types of things, like he had like a shoulder surgery
Speaker 1: or something, and you know, and and because obviously I
Speaker 1: looked up, you know, players on the team and who
Speaker 1: is who, and you looked up guys. Yeah, damn, that
Speaker 1: was a dummy. I never looked at nobody, but like,
Speaker 1: but I just learned something. But it was my But
Speaker 1: I was excited. I knew I was coming to play
Speaker 1: football with Steve Smith, Julius Peppers, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, Okay, this was up and so John.
Speaker 1: But seeing John in his situation, it kind of like
Speaker 1: took a little bit of pressure off me knowing that
Speaker 1: here's a guy that was drafted first round, that's hurt,
Speaker 1: he's rehabbing. This is how this thing goes. This is
Speaker 1: their off season. I have a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not immediately needed, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: So I go back to college after O T A S.
Speaker 1: Finish up. What I gotta do there because in the league, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to participate with the team out of
Speaker 1: college if your school within the quarter system, it's still
Speaker 1: in in session. Tried the same thing, and so go
Speaker 1: back and then I'm rehabing, um, working out. I get
Speaker 1: back to training and then it's June. Rookies had the
Speaker 1: report early, so I reported, stayed in the holiday in
Speaker 1: and all that stuff or whatever training camp and I
Speaker 1: was finally ready to practice, and so defense was looking
Speaker 1: their chops. Thomas Davis. I remember getting hit in the backfield. Immediately,
Speaker 1: I thought that it was a a gap blitz from
Speaker 1: tv M. He came off the edge. So that's how
Speaker 1: quick I got hit. I thought it was from the middle.
Speaker 1: He came off the edge, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this football thing is really fast NFL and they can
Speaker 1: hit and I'm piste off right now. And the very
Speaker 1: next play, de' angelo was supposed to come in and Skip.
Speaker 1: I looked at Skip. I was like mad, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: stay in there. And the very next play I just
Speaker 1: went crazy and started stiff farming people and just that's
Speaker 1: kind of how that went. And man, so throughout training camp,
Speaker 1: you know, like watching how things were going and all
Speaker 1: that stuff with you know, the team. I started getting
Speaker 1: acclimated to the team, you know, and then preseasons going by.
Speaker 1: I missed the first preseason game, missed the second, the
Speaker 1: second preseason game, the third preseason game, I think we
Speaker 1: played Philly. In Philly, I got in there on the
Speaker 1: very last drive. I gotta carry. I got like a
Speaker 1: draw and it was just like in practice TV. I
Speaker 1: got hit immediately and then Skip took me out. He said, no,
Speaker 1: get out. And I say that because it takes the
Speaker 1: right people right, And I called, I'll beltur to Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I call that like a grace moment for myself
Speaker 1: by having a coach that understood the situation. I'm in
Speaker 1: there with the third stringline. The following game, we played
Speaker 1: the Washington the Washington Redskins washing football team. Well back
Speaker 1: then it was a it was a Redskins. That's when
Speaker 1: things started to get real for me, right and slowing
Speaker 1: down a little bit. Like I remember, like pre game,
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Sean Springs. He was still playing. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: he's still playing sold like you know Jason Taylor then
Speaker 1: uh he was back there. Yeah, you got to see
Speaker 1: football life. So I'm not I'm not talking. He was
Speaker 1: with Washington, he said he was still yeah, but um.
Speaker 1: And so then I had a I had a outside
Speaker 1: you know zone play drawn up, followed Brad Hoover who
Speaker 1: and took it down the sideline, scored and it felt easy.
Speaker 1: And I'm not easy like like cloud, you know, just
Speaker 1: like like whatever. But it's just like what you knew.
Speaker 1: It felt like what I knew. I felt like I
Speaker 1: was in a zone. It felt like I belonged where
Speaker 1: I was, no questions. And then Smitty was the first
Speaker 1: person in the end zone pick me up. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: this man is strong, right, but obese. It was obese
Speaker 1: jump jump for me. But it was just like one
Speaker 1: of those moments where I was like, Okay, I can
Speaker 1: do this right. And then but it still didn't really
Speaker 1: like I still didn't stop you What do you mean
Speaker 1: you belong How does a guy who's drafted over the
Speaker 1: first round, first round pick you got? According to our listeners,
Speaker 1: you got You're getting paid a king's ransom to play
Speaker 1: a child's game, and you're telling me after scoring a
Speaker 1: touchdown it took a touchdown, not being drafted, not flying
Speaker 1: New York, not getting fitted for a suit, not getting
Speaker 1: put on first class from Washington all the way to Charlotte,
Speaker 1: not being picked up, not getting your locker, not signing
Speaker 1: thernarchy contract, not getting pick your jersey, not them fitting
Speaker 1: your helmet in your head, not for you eating in
Speaker 1: the cafeteria, and and Julius Peppers walks past you. Not
Speaker 1: any of that made you feel like you belong until
Speaker 1: you hit a touchdown. How I mean, my expectations, right,
Speaker 1: you know, my expectations weren't settling for getting the helmet
Speaker 1: or getting a jersey. You know, I remember you first,
Speaker 1: and jersey gonna be replaced unless you do something great, right,
Speaker 1: So my expectations was I want to prove to myself
Speaker 1: that I belong here because I just came from a
Speaker 1: real to recovery and a lot of you know, side
Speaker 1: questions as far as is he gonna be okay, is
Speaker 1: he gonna be ready? And all these things, And now
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity where I was successful in the
Speaker 1: beginning stages of me feeling like I belong you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and so and then everything else added
Speaker 1: to it. Like I mean, that was the beginning stage.
Speaker 1: I would say, Monday night football my rookie year was
Speaker 1: the played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Mine and Night football
Speaker 1: home game, and that was the moment where it for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when when me and with me and D'Angelo went ham,
Speaker 1: oh no, no, that was uh, that was I left
Speaker 1: my grandpa passed. Yeah, oh yeah, I remember. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, that was right after thanksgive right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's that's just amazing, right, like the realness of
Speaker 1: what actually transpires behind the lens, right, but what people
Speaker 1: go through, like we out here performing and doing all
Speaker 1: these things and living our dream in real life and
Speaker 1: real life is happening. How do you keep football the focus? Then,
Speaker 1: my injuries is what kept me focused because if it
Speaker 1: was if it wasn't for me that feeling great in
Speaker 1: the mornings or feeling great for practice or feeling great
Speaker 1: in the morning of the game, I wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: that focus to maintain and to get to the point
Speaker 1: to where I can actually perform. And so me being
Speaker 1: injured required me to focus on my injury. What does
Speaker 1: this mean that I can't move my ankle the way
Speaker 1: I used to? You, you know, what do I need
Speaker 1: to do? Right? And not getting the answers right up
Speaker 1: front and having to search and having to wait and
Speaker 1: having to to figure it out and be played mind
Speaker 1: games by the staff at times, right, because that's just
Speaker 1: how Football League like it. It. It pretty much stimulated
Speaker 1: me to just say, Okay, I have this thing that
Speaker 1: I've been blessed with, how can how am I supposed
Speaker 1: to be the steward of this? Right? And and so
Speaker 1: you look at my rookie year. You know, I went
Speaker 1: through what I went through, bounce back whatever, get on
Speaker 1: the planing field, start zone and start getting in the zone.
Speaker 1: Get an ankle injury? Oh man, how much supposed to
Speaker 1: recover from this whatever? So it's just a continuous, you know,
Speaker 1: time of just being stimulated by injury knowing that I
Speaker 1: have to be on the field. So my mind was,
Speaker 1: I want to go and play music. I want to
Speaker 1: go home and just edg out and play video games.
Speaker 1: I want to go and hang out and enjoy the
Speaker 1: fruits of you know, the labor that I've been in,
Speaker 1: you know having right, I think year three it all
Speaker 1: clicked in the sense of mind, body, spirit, right three things.
Speaker 1: Everybody talks about it, but for me, like if my
Speaker 1: body wasn't where it needed to be, that means spiritually
Speaker 1: and mentally. I needed to be on my a game,
Speaker 1: because if my spiritual sense wasn't right, I ain't got
Speaker 1: no everything. I'm up a creek without a path. Right. Mentally,
Speaker 1: I gotta be where wherever I am. Mentally, if I'm
Speaker 1: not there spiritually, my mentals are gonna be on a
Speaker 1: whole different path. So how did you get there? Then
Speaker 1: you have to put in the work. Just like you
Speaker 1: train your body, you work out just like you. I
Speaker 1: want to be the best football player. You go out
Speaker 1: there and catch balls and you run and you do
Speaker 1: your jilly cluts and all that right. Mentally, right, you
Speaker 1: have to stay sharp. So how do what do you?
Speaker 1: What do you do? What are you doing to to
Speaker 1: stay sharp to where you're not feeling the pressure? What
Speaker 1: did you do knowing? What did you do? You study?
Speaker 1: You study, So whenever you study your opponents, you go
Speaker 1: through your When I'm not practicing right, when I'm not.
Speaker 1: But but whenever, whenever you're not doing what you are,
Speaker 1: what you feel like you're supposed to be doing, you
Speaker 1: gotta mentally grasp that right, So you gotta envision yourself
Speaker 1: doing that thing. So playing football, I'm not playing football.
Speaker 1: I need to visualize that and stay on the game
Speaker 1: plans and stay in the classroom and actually take notes
Speaker 1: like I'm taking notes for the first time about the
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We played them the first time, but
Speaker 1: I'm I know exactly who's who, But I still gotta
Speaker 1: take notes and put things down and drop them down
Speaker 1: as if there's as if it's the first time me
Speaker 1: seeing it and experiencing it. So that way I stay
Speaker 1: fresh and still I stay sharp because part of the
Speaker 1: mental thing is I ain't got it no more. I
Speaker 1: probably ain't gonna be able to have it when I'm back,
Speaker 1: or am I gonna be ready? You know, the being
Speaker 1: uncertain because you haven't been on the football field for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks now. So are you telling me
Speaker 1: as you are processing getting ready on the field, you're
Speaker 1: also honing in and learning how you learn how you
Speaker 1: can consume information and hold it, and it'd be part
Speaker 1: of making you good at your crime. I love cut
Speaker 1: to It, and I love it even more when you
Speaker 1: download us and subscribe and you can follow us on
Speaker 1: social media too, Smithie, where where at that's at? Cut
Speaker 1: to It on Instagram? What about Twitter? At? Cut to
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Speaker 1: About online and you can follow us at cut to
Speaker 1: It podcast dot com, where you can buy merch and
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: I got all my answers questions. Uh yeah, I got
Speaker 1: all my questions answered. That's what I'm here for. A brother,
Speaker 1: Cut to a podcast dot com. We've got Arian Foster or,
Speaker 1: four time Pro Bowl running back for the Houston Texans
Speaker 1: and Miami Dolphins. He was first team All Pro in
Speaker 1: t and he holds the Houston Texans franchise records in
Speaker 1: rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. Where are you living these days?
Speaker 1: I'm still out in Houston, man. I got all my
Speaker 1: babies out there, so um, until they until they you know,
Speaker 1: are out on their own and experience in the world,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be there. I gotta foot in there at
Speaker 1: least all right. How has life been for you for
Speaker 1: the last eighteen months? Oh? Man? Well, split with my
Speaker 1: lady and I think that was like one of the
Speaker 1: first times where UH really experienced heartbreak because before I
Speaker 1: think I have been Um, I don understand womanizing, man,
Speaker 1: but like I played the game a lot, right, and
Speaker 1: so this is the first time I was really like
Speaker 1: invested in a family like that. And so, um, long
Speaker 1: story short, Um, you experienced some heartbreak to where it
Speaker 1: was like really informative, and it kind of changed the
Speaker 1: way that I viewed things, kind of changed the way
Speaker 1: I looked at myself and um, you know, in the
Speaker 1: midst of it, just kind of figuring out um uh
Speaker 1: forgiveness and kind of meet people where they're at instead
Speaker 1: of where I expected to be and that that's that's
Speaker 1: been really helpful. So we already started off this way.
Speaker 1: I love asking asking it this way. You know, where
Speaker 1: are you from in the place you call your hometown.
Speaker 1: I grew up at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Um, went to
Speaker 1: high school in San Diego. So I kind of read both.
Speaker 1: Both kind of read me. So I called both home. Okay,
Speaker 1: how would you describe your childhood? Chaotic but um but fun,
Speaker 1: it's chaotic. Elaborate on that if you if you if
Speaker 1: you're there too, Yeah, yeah, So I grew up. I
Speaker 1: mean it's nothing the story that nobody's heard before. But
Speaker 1: I grew been a domestically violent household, uh, group of poverty. Um,
Speaker 1: and so kind of navigating those waters and and trying
Speaker 1: to uh hold onto a dream you have as a kid.
Speaker 1: It gets uh you know, it gets dramatic. There's just
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of moving pieces, UM, a lot
Speaker 1: of emotional baggage you have to work through in your
Speaker 1: loat of years that that you were unable to UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know the family dynamic that comes with
Speaker 1: that as well as being a bread winning your family
Speaker 1: from somebody from first generation wealth to being able to
Speaker 1: manage all of those relationships and the expectations that come
Speaker 1: with that UM friendship. So uh yeah, man, I read
Speaker 1: something my my my research scene gave me that which
Speaker 1: was really good and I want to park on it. Um,
Speaker 1: you raised in an Islamic household? M hm yes, so
Speaker 1: my father and Muslim um I believe was raised Catholic, um.
Speaker 1: But his life. You can't just say that casually and
Speaker 1: they're skied over it like so so so so when
Speaker 1: I when I say, when I say Muslim in the
Speaker 1: house I grew up in, it was, It's not the
Speaker 1: like traditional Eastern Muslim, right, it's more so the americanized
Speaker 1: um fo I through the islam minister ericon, like it
Speaker 1: was that sect of Islam that I grew up underneath,
Speaker 1: which is basically the same thing, except that they are
Speaker 1: a little more um politically active, politically motivated. So like,
Speaker 1: in order to in order to to to be in
Speaker 1: the f O, I like, you have to have a
Speaker 1: very good foundation, and you have to understand your Black history.
Speaker 1: You have to understand uh, your Bible, you have to
Speaker 1: understand your Karan. And I think growing up in that household,
Speaker 1: which obviously I'm not a Muslim anymore, but I grew
Speaker 1: up in that househor of allowed me to um it
Speaker 1: a good root foundation of religion in general, because I
Speaker 1: think if you're if you're born in the Crypt from
Speaker 1: my experience, and if you're born in a Christian home,
Speaker 1: if you're born in a Catholic home, I grew up
Speaker 1: around a lot of Christians and Catholics. Uh, they're not
Speaker 1: really necessarily interested in other religions. Um, but when you
Speaker 1: grow up in that household that I grew up in
Speaker 1: what we are and it's it's more so to understand
Speaker 1: it's also they intersect, right so uh, now to get
Speaker 1: too deep into it, but you can Jesus and Jesus
Speaker 1: in a in a Christian belief is the last prophet
Speaker 1: before God is supposed to have come back in Islam.
Speaker 1: Muhammad is Dad right, um. And Jesus was a prophet
Speaker 1: in in in Islam, and so they view and love
Speaker 1: Jesus like a prophet, but they just don't view him
Speaker 1: as divine like Christians too. And so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of healthy respect and love for a lot of the
Speaker 1: tea us that Jesus brought uh from the perspective of
Speaker 1: a Muslim. And so, like I said, growing up in
Speaker 1: that household, um, it allowed me to kind of get excume,
Speaker 1: allowed me to get it kind of a baseline understanding
Speaker 1: of the world religions, the major world religions, um. And
Speaker 1: so that's kind of how I navigated my theological belief
Speaker 1: system was kind of trying to understand it all um.
Speaker 1: And I mean that journey took me to an attire
Speaker 1: of different place, but I think the root of it
Speaker 1: was was was necessary and not being pigeonholed into this
Speaker 1: is the truth because we say it's the truth, and
Speaker 1: and anything else that you're going against the family, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get. And that's that's kind of when I run
Speaker 1: up into when I went to college. When you go
Speaker 1: to college. Um, this is like pre internet days, real
Speaker 1: internet days, and there was internet, but it wasn't like
Speaker 1: it is today. But this is this is when where
Speaker 1: you were from, Like that was the culture there, Like
Speaker 1: the cultures are kind of melting together internet or who
Speaker 1: who are allows them? Who if you allow them to
Speaker 1: melt together? Yeah? Yeah, I mean that's that's a that's
Speaker 1: a whole difther conversation. But um uh so let me
Speaker 1: let me, let me let me ask you this then,
Speaker 1: because what's funny is, you know, as I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: listening to you and hear you talk, I can also
Speaker 1: see you know, you're always considered a guy who who
Speaker 1: who thought well beyond his years. You always thinking you
Speaker 1: were a thinker. And by the time you're what sixteen
Speaker 1: years old, you have the ability to have a complete,
Speaker 1: well rounded education of black history, a complete education of
Speaker 1: the Muslim culture and then also obviously other cultures as well.
Speaker 1: You're living in um uh Albuquerque, New Mexico. That that
Speaker 1: in itself is a unique dynamic. Um. I mean I
Speaker 1: can imagine feeling out of place and be and and
Speaker 1: and sticking out would be an understatement. Yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of been my experience everywhere I went to be honest,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't anything purposefully, No, you couldn't. It's just
Speaker 1: it's I hate to say that users it's happenstance. And
Speaker 1: I was gonna do you do you run from that
Speaker 1: or do you embrace it? Well? I used to run
Speaker 1: from it. I think when you're a kid and you're
Speaker 1: kind of developing who you are as an individual, you know,
Speaker 1: your people can tell you, you you know, be yourself all
Speaker 1: you want to, but still there's that social pressure to
Speaker 1: to fit in. You wanna have friends, you want to have,
Speaker 1: you want to have ladies, you want to you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And so I think when you're younger
Speaker 1: it's viewed as a liability to your personality, but as
Speaker 1: you grow, what you started learning is it's a it's
Speaker 1: an asset and you use it, is so and so
Speaker 1: I never, I never, I don't like run down to
Speaker 1: I'm grown now, I don't give a ship. But when
Speaker 1: you're when you're growing up, like it's it's harder to
Speaker 1: like like when everybody around you it's Christian, everybody around
Speaker 1: you Christian, and you're must just like that that dude's
Speaker 1: weird though, and it's like you have to defend that
Speaker 1: without even um it's it's not you're not the aggressor,
Speaker 1: but you have to defend it, you know, or else
Speaker 1: or else. It's constant. It's a constant garage. On top
Speaker 1: of that, where I grew up around predominantly um my
Speaker 1: earlier years, I grew up around a lot of like Mexicans,
Speaker 1: a lot of Mexicans. So you the outcast in that
Speaker 1: sense where you're black, and so you gotta defend the
Speaker 1: blackness to all these Mexicans, right, and then you get
Speaker 1: around the brothers and sisters at that age you have
Speaker 1: almost black No, you have my mother, my mother, My
Speaker 1: mother was a Mexican, right, So so I grew up
Speaker 1: let's see, that's that's the type of say but but
Speaker 1: not so then you're not you're not black enough, right
Speaker 1: and so and so it's always fighting that dynamic socially
Speaker 1: until one day I just realized, like fund these people
Speaker 1: like you don't like these people, couln't care less, and
Speaker 1: and that that that in itself is attractive and you're
Speaker 1: unapologetically yourself. That's that's when people come and say, okay,
Speaker 1: cool um, and you know it's just a life lesson
Speaker 1: you have to you have to go through the learn
Speaker 1: I asked my wife, because my wife is my wife
Speaker 1: from Utah, she grew up Mormon. Um, but she's obviously
Speaker 1: married to me with four kids, so she ain't Mormon.
Speaker 1: And I asked her a question to ask you just
Speaker 1: based on being raised one way in living an experience
Speaker 1: in life another way. And so uh so, shout out
Speaker 1: to Angie of giving me this great question. I can't
Speaker 1: I can't take credit for it. Um, But she said, Uh,
Speaker 1: as you've gotten older, have you recognized any patterns or
Speaker 1: ideologies that were passed down from you to you from
Speaker 1: your young age that you catch yourself having a correct
Speaker 1: now that you're older. That's actually a great question. Um.
Speaker 1: I married up, so that's right, that's right gradually. Uh No,
Speaker 1: But um, the reason why that's a great question because
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily applicable to me, but I see it
Speaker 1: everywhere I go. Right. So, my mother friends was like
Speaker 1: she was raised Catholic, and she was she would probably
Speaker 1: consider herself agnostic. Now, um, I don't want to miss
Speaker 1: call moms, but but she was like super raised Catholic
Speaker 1: like back and she I think she's going to fifty nine.
Speaker 1: So like when like I used to do something to
Speaker 1: you know, school, the teacher, she just slap you with
Speaker 1: the rules and hold on, you can't be telling your
Speaker 1: mom year when she was born. Bro, she owned it, man,
Speaker 1: I know she owned it, but she don't want you
Speaker 1: owning it forward though she said, my apologize he was born.
Speaker 1: He was born at eight nine. But but but yeah,
Speaker 1: so she grew up in like like in a Catholic
Speaker 1: system where like they used to like hit them, they
Speaker 1: like they had permission to hit the kids. And so
Speaker 1: like she has residual because she's not a believer anymore
Speaker 1: in that sense. Um, she's unsure about the higher power thing,
Speaker 1: but she's like, uh, she has residual. Like, man, I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of hell, Like she's super afraid of hell. And
Speaker 1: so like sometimes she says it's guilt. And we always,
Speaker 1: you know, we always we joke about it. But the
Speaker 1: one gift that I am extremely grateful that my parents
Speaker 1: gave me, and I always tell people all the time,
Speaker 1: is they gave us the freedom to be ourselves. They
Speaker 1: gave us a foundation of religion, like this is what
Speaker 1: we believe is the truth. But like you're your own person,
Speaker 1: go find it if it brings you back to what
Speaker 1: we believe in, that's amazing. If it doesn't, that's also amazing.
Speaker 1: Be who you are. And they gave us a foundation, um,
Speaker 1: and they taught us how to think and not what
Speaker 1: to think. And that was that was the gym that
Speaker 1: my parents gave me. And they gave me the freedom
Speaker 1: to explore without feeling um shackled by by their belief system.
Speaker 1: Oh man, sometimes I back in my childhood, I used
Speaker 1: I never experienced that because I never had to go
Speaker 1: through It's like, we're praying, if you want to join us,
Speaker 1: join us, Like this is how we pray, this is
Speaker 1: what we believe in. And for years, this is what
Speaker 1: I believed until you know, I've found my own path
Speaker 1: and my own journey. But um, I was very grateful
Speaker 1: for my parents because they never looked at me differently
Speaker 1: throughout my journey. At the end of my theological journey
Speaker 1: to this day, they're just like, as long as you're happy, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's all that. That was the general they gave
Speaker 1: you to me. That's that is the goal. The life
Speaker 1: goal of a parent, you as a father, you as
Speaker 1: a mother, your goal is to have them prepared for
Speaker 1: the world, to live in the world, to be a
Speaker 1: productive member of society when I'm going, when I when
Speaker 1: I'm when I'm dead, if they can human being and
Speaker 1: and be productive and take care of themselves and take
Speaker 1: care of the loved ones like then you did. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that though, because I'm about to throw a
Speaker 1: monkey wrench in there, right, because you know, uh, we've
Speaker 1: all done you know, obviously, me and you. We've done
Speaker 1: football camps. Right. You go those football camps and you
Speaker 1: see little little right right right, little Ray Ray out there.
Speaker 1: Ray Ray ain't nothing but like nine. And you see
Speaker 1: those parents out there screaming and hollering and little Ray
Speaker 1: Ray is gonna take care of me, right. And I
Speaker 1: just know for myself is I've done so many football
Speaker 1: camps or been to games, and I started to see
Speaker 1: those parents who are talking about Ray Ray are talking
Speaker 1: about John. John is gonna make it and leave. He
Speaker 1: gonna take care of his mama. Right. We we look
Speaker 1: at sometimes sports in a way as an outlet. But
Speaker 1: I guess so I'm asking you because I think you're
Speaker 1: a great guest to talk about it. We short change ourselves,
Speaker 1: especially in the lower income community. And I think the
Speaker 1: Lord He's saying that lower income is important to stand
Speaker 1: and saying with color Lord in come. We look for
Speaker 1: our son and daughter to make that opportunity in sports,
Speaker 1: but we don't invest the same energy in the school
Speaker 1: books making sure Lora Ray, little John can read, can write,
Speaker 1: can count. And I'm asking YouTube, gentlemen, why do you
Speaker 1: think that is the reason why we don't invest into
Speaker 1: our children's education is because it's not as um. Our
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and our our communities don't have the infrastructure that
Speaker 1: other communities do, So they don't have the after school programs,
Speaker 1: they don't have the stamp programs as prevalent as they
Speaker 1: do in other communities. UM. And there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of societal structure issues as to why UM. But that's
Speaker 1: like from the outside of perspective. From the inside of perspective,
Speaker 1: which is equally equally important. UM is Minnistererica. I used
Speaker 1: to actually touch on this is like when you look
Speaker 1: at black people in America, they don't there's no natural
Speaker 1: resource that they have here right in order to develop wealth.
Speaker 1: And you talk about why some communities are more poverty
Speaker 1: strictly than others, it's because they have been denied access to, uh,
Speaker 1: having wealth in this country legislatively that you're talking about
Speaker 1: redline and laws, you talk about all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And so he used to talk about how our athletes
Speaker 1: and our entertainers are our natural resource because wherever the
Speaker 1: culture moves is where we move or where where wherever
Speaker 1: we move is where the culture moves. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in entertainment in America, right, and so, uh that has
Speaker 1: kind of been a real outlet in in our communities
Speaker 1: is you can make it like this, you can do
Speaker 1: you can you can be a musician, you can be
Speaker 1: an athlete, you can be an entertainer. And that has
Speaker 1: been a real pathway, especially growing up, like you said,
Speaker 1: a group in l A. You see, you probably know
Speaker 1: a lot of people that that were athletes entertainers that
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote made it. And I think that
Speaker 1: becomes like almost a viable expectation um to at the
Speaker 1: very least, you can pay for your own college, Like
Speaker 1: I don't have to as a parent, pay for your
Speaker 1: own college, right because we're out here struggle there Like
Speaker 1: as a parent, like we're out here struggling, Like you
Speaker 1: can provide for yourself in that manner if you focus
Speaker 1: on your sports and so school is like such a
Speaker 1: long game. Like even if you do get a full
Speaker 1: ride as as a and an academics, the degree in
Speaker 1: which you get like there's no guarantee for a good
Speaker 1: steady job, Like you definitely up your chances, Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, you are. The probability you're getting a better
Speaker 1: job with higher wages is way higher. But it's just
Speaker 1: a more when now mentality, which is which permeates our
Speaker 1: communities and so, like I said, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different variables, but that's just kind of touching the surface
Speaker 1: of it's easy for me, It's easy for It was
Speaker 1: easy for me to say, like do you just gotta grind?
Speaker 1: Like you just gotta get there? You gotta like you
Speaker 1: just gotta you gotta because that's what I did, right, Um.
Speaker 1: But and that that was my mentality to my family
Speaker 1: that I just tell the kids that, like, and it
Speaker 1: was to me irresponsible now as a little older man
Speaker 1: to say those kind of things because when you're leaving
Speaker 1: out contextually everything that I had been privileged to have. Uh,
Speaker 1: And this is one thing I preached my kids all
Speaker 1: the time. It's like you're a privileged like I didn't
Speaker 1: like when I grew up like we used to, like
Speaker 1: my mom used to send this hungry sometimes to bed,
Speaker 1: like we didn't have food, like you guys are you
Speaker 1: guys get to pick, you have options about what you
Speaker 1: have to dinner. There was never options. Whatever it was there,
Speaker 1: that's what we was eating. Like that that's a privilege.
Speaker 1: She these houses, like this is a privilege. I took him.
Speaker 1: I took my daughter, she's eleven years or I took it.
Speaker 1: I took it to like some of the lower income
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and used im like you see this, like this
Speaker 1: is where your dad grew up, Like he grew up
Speaker 1: like this, and she just bewilled. She goes to private school.
Speaker 1: Now she doesn't understand, like she didn't understand that side.
Speaker 1: And so like I'm very make sure she's aware that
Speaker 1: she's privileged. Um not to shame her for her position,
Speaker 1: because it's not her. She was a true perspective of
Speaker 1: both sides. And exactly I'm I'm allowing her to see
Speaker 1: that like what her father has done, um uh to
Speaker 1: help bring this family's financial trajectory into a different place. Um.
Speaker 1: But then but also in doing so, like I said,
Speaker 1: when I was when I was in the league, it
Speaker 1: was more so my mindset was like, yo, you gotta
Speaker 1: go get it. Like I don't hear all these excuses
Speaker 1: like yeah, just bitching like that type of stuff. Right,
Speaker 1: I was never like I was just never aware of
Speaker 1: the issues that they faced on a day to day
Speaker 1: basis that can be debilitating right to where it's like
Speaker 1: if I get a flat tire, I can cause somebody
Speaker 1: up and it's it's fixed and it's no problem. Is
Speaker 1: what it is. A flat tire can ruin somebody's month.
Speaker 1: Flat tie can be the difference between like gas money
Speaker 1: and money when yeah rent man. So when you compile
Speaker 1: like all of the problems that are possibly out there,
Speaker 1: you compile that with all the societal pressures. You compile
Speaker 1: that with with the issues that people face, like all
Speaker 1: the generational trauma. Like you compile all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: it's really easy to uh not have empathy to people
Speaker 1: who are living to check the check, which is the
Speaker 1: majority of America. Right. And so to to to answer
Speaker 1: your question, it's it's you have to uh attack it
Speaker 1: with different mindsets that it's it's a duality, so you
Speaker 1: have to attack it from the micro which is like,
Speaker 1: like I can tell my brother right was was he's struggling, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm and I was like, listen, I don't like
Speaker 1: this current economic system that we live in, but it's
Speaker 1: what we live in. It's what it is. If you
Speaker 1: want to get to where you want to get to
Speaker 1: in this in this society, you have to grind to
Speaker 1: the point where you're isable. You have to do something
Speaker 1: that nobody is willing to do. You have to do
Speaker 1: it day in and day out and be dedicated to
Speaker 1: and it's ugly and it's disgusting, and nobody's balu and
Speaker 1: it's lonely, and you have to be unhappy. Like that's
Speaker 1: what it is. But because if you don't like the
Speaker 1: freedoms and the and the things that you want, they're
Speaker 1: just not gonna be there under this economic system. That's
Speaker 1: the micro right when you look at it from the
Speaker 1: day to day and you and you're really telling people
Speaker 1: how to how to make it in this country or
Speaker 1: in this in the system, um. But when you look
Speaker 1: at it in the macro, uh, that's when the empathy
Speaker 1: starts to come. When you start to throw in all
Speaker 1: of the things that that that that have transpired towards people,
Speaker 1: towards legislatively, all of these things, and all of these
Speaker 1: factors also factor into your individual life. Yes, it's possible
Speaker 1: for you to to to be wealthy in America, but
Speaker 1: the probability of it is very low. It's very low,
Speaker 1: and so you have to understand your place in it. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's very possible, but it's just not probable.
Speaker 1: And so you after being which is lousesing to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, you have to be content
Speaker 1: like with who you are as a human being, which
Speaker 1: is when when when moms and dads and they're struggling,
Speaker 1: or whoever is raising me, they struggling. They work in
Speaker 1: the nine of five, you don't even see them that often.
Speaker 1: They're frustrated. They don't have the time or the energy
Speaker 1: to sit here and emotionally cater to a child like
Speaker 1: like they need it, like they need to write. I
Speaker 1: have that luxury, but not everybody does, and so we
Speaker 1: rely on school systems. We rely on That's why they
Speaker 1: say it takes a village. We rely on a lot
Speaker 1: of other people to help raise our kids. Good do it,
Speaker 1: good do. Let's get down to do it good, Hey,
Speaker 1: Gerard why did you get that T shirt? You? 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. We've got Andre Reid inducted into the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. In Andre Reid and the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 1: went to four consecutive Super Bowls. Andre rinks eighteenth in
Speaker 1: NFL history and total career receptions and fourteenth in NFL
Speaker 1: history and total career touchdown receptions. This process for the
Speaker 1: whole time, I've always you know, UM, back in February
Speaker 1: February two thousand two, I started working with a sports
Speaker 1: psychologists who worked with golfers mainly, and we start doing
Speaker 1: the visitization and UM daily, weekly, monthly, short term, long term,
Speaker 1: and then lifetime goals. And one of my lifetime goals
Speaker 1: I've not marked off yet, it's Hall of Fame. And UM,
Speaker 1: I've always steered away from it because it's so subjective
Speaker 1: and it's a and you should and you should. That's
Speaker 1: that's probably the most important thing for you for you now,
Speaker 1: is that just gotta. But but I'm I know I'm
Speaker 1: doing that, but I also wanna. I actually want to enjoy,
Speaker 1: no matter what the outcome is, the process, because I've
Speaker 1: steered away from it so much that I've almost set
Speaker 1: myself up for to believe that I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not this, I'm not that, but more of anything
Speaker 1: through your journey, Why was it special to be inducted
Speaker 1: in the process and the procedure that made it such
Speaker 1: a special moment for you and your family? That's a
Speaker 1: great question, I think. Uh, it's it's been seven years now,
Speaker 1: I think every year. Uh. And this is just aside
Speaker 1: from how they go about doing things, how the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame selectors and all that kind of stuff, um
Speaker 1: to get to the point where they picked five guys
Speaker 1: that are the guys that they feel are worthy of
Speaker 1: induction and a bust and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I always tell people they're like, well, who do
Speaker 1: you think should be? People ask me who do you
Speaker 1: think should be the next receiver going in? And I go, well,
Speaker 1: I can't really tell you the next one, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you about three or four guys have been
Speaker 1: waiting a while they deserved m Um and the process.
Speaker 1: It took me nine years and I retired number three,
Speaker 1: five and seven yards touchdown catches of all time. And
Speaker 1: it took me nine years. So to your point, Steve,
Speaker 1: the first three or four years I was eligible, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just like, Okay, do you think of it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my year. No matter what my stats say this,
Speaker 1: then I'm a team this that. But it took me
Speaker 1: four years to figure out how they go about doing it.
Speaker 1: And I had to respect that whether the o the
Speaker 1: outcome was yes, this is your year or it's not
Speaker 1: your year. You stepped out on the field, somebody had
Speaker 1: to somebody had to take somebody had to find you
Speaker 1: because you disrupt and you you change games. That's where
Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer to me is and you're in
Speaker 1: that category. You uh, Tory Halt. All the receivers that
Speaker 1: are up now are just like when me Chris, Tim Brown.
Speaker 1: You know Jerry was in his own category, but me,
Speaker 1: Chris and Tim Brown for five years took votes from
Speaker 1: each other for five years. I go in Tim, I
Speaker 1: mean Chris goes in thirteen. I go into fourteen. Tim
Speaker 1: Brown goes in fifteen. So that that that's the process
Speaker 1: that I that I'm trying to get at is that
Speaker 1: they do this regardless of who's saying something for you
Speaker 1: or not. When all forty four of those guys get
Speaker 1: in the room, they're influenced by each other, regardless of
Speaker 1: that's the guy I'm talking about or not. So the
Speaker 1: guy that's gonna be representing you not only has to
Speaker 1: convince the forty four other guys, he really has to
Speaker 1: convince himself that that's I'm in here because this is
Speaker 1: my guy, and everybody, every one of those guys, that's
Speaker 1: my guy I have. I'm on his behalf to make
Speaker 1: sure you guys go. Guys know why he should have
Speaker 1: a bronze bus that the last sixty thou years, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. Everybody who's on the ballot, they don't
Speaker 1: put you on a ballot if they don't think you're
Speaker 1: worthy of it. I don't care how many years you
Speaker 1: played and whatever, if you're not on it. If you're
Speaker 1: on the ballot, you're worth you should be a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer. That's just my that's why we don't have votes.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. They sent me a ballot every year, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who do you think? And I checked people off or whatever,
Speaker 1: that's not going to them writers. Mhm. It's it's not
Speaker 1: gonna influence what they feel and how they go about
Speaker 1: presenting no matter what. So right now, this is your
Speaker 1: first year eligibility, right yeah, okay, so let me tell
Speaker 1: you just what you have. You got the holdovers. So
Speaker 1: you got Tori Hines Ward, Uh, Reggie Wayne. These guys
Speaker 1: have been in it for a while, they've been in
Speaker 1: the finals for a while, and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: it's the same process that me, Tim and Chris Carter
Speaker 1: went through. So sooner or later, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: start breaking these get breaking everybody up. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: to start breaking everybody up. And then once one goes
Speaker 1: and boom boom boom boom boom, it all beat and
Speaker 1: effect almost it would be a dominant effect. So and
Speaker 1: then I always look at it. You look at errors, right,
Speaker 1: you look at errors. When they get in that room,
Speaker 1: they're gonna look at what error they played in, what
Speaker 1: type of game was it in that error? And that's
Speaker 1: maybe maybe one guy thinks of it that way, and
Speaker 1: maybe three other voters think of it a different way.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, but they put all you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna put all you in a category, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: look at the error, and they're gonna look at numbers,
Speaker 1: are gonna look at play all, they're gonna look at
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But it's the one guy that says
Speaker 1: something that the other four guys or other five guys
Speaker 1: how many it is, doesn't say. So whoever is gonna
Speaker 1: be presenting you to the voters and the writers, he's
Speaker 1: got to be on his game, and he's got to
Speaker 1: say something about you and none of these other three
Speaker 1: guys got hmm, that's gonna be the difference you're gonna
Speaker 1: get in. But what can he say about you? The
Speaker 1: same guy said something about me nine years and erupt.
Speaker 1: Did you say the same thing every time? I mean,
Speaker 1: let's reshuffle the deck, bro, you know. I mean like,
Speaker 1: did you say something year four that you didn't say,
Speaker 1: oh you're six? Or what? How did you go about
Speaker 1: doing that same movie script? And every uh we saw
Speaker 1: this movie? I started, Hey, I started writing stuff down,
Speaker 1: said hey, you start, you start? You started meeting? Hey,
Speaker 1: what we got this week? What we got this ship? No? No, no, no, Andrew,
Speaker 1: you had to google your own state. You had to
Speaker 1: google your own stats. No, no, it's not so, I
Speaker 1: think you know of the it's such a it's it's
Speaker 1: a dumb it's a dumb excuse my my friends as
Speaker 1: a dumbass process. It is because if you were an
Speaker 1: impactful player and you showed up every game and you played,
Speaker 1: there should be no question. But that's not how they work.
Speaker 1: They don't work like that in that room on Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: the day before Super Bowl. They don't work like that.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be you're you're you're gonna be
Speaker 1: going against those guys. That's the bottom line. When when
Speaker 1: you got that jacket to make it all worthwhile, then
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. Man. I wouldn't say it changed
Speaker 1: my life. It just it just put a stamp. It
Speaker 1: put the stamp of approve on what I did. Everybody
Speaker 1: else can think this and think that whatever they wanted.
Speaker 1: But this jacket means that you were great at something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people weren't. A lot of people
Speaker 1: weren't great at m That's what it means. And it
Speaker 1: just ain't any old jacket. You ain't gonna go down
Speaker 1: here to North Room to get one of the fact,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. So once that happens for you will
Speaker 1: you be different, of course, but all the people around you,
Speaker 1: family friends, somebody had said something to you when you
Speaker 1: were in high school, somebody said something to you, and
Speaker 1: popcorn or whatever. That's that's the things you think about.
Speaker 1: That all flashed before my eyes the minute I got
Speaker 1: that call, m h. And it's it's a feeling that
Speaker 1: that I'll never ever be able to describe for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, like really describe it, because at that moment, man,
Speaker 1: I just had like an out of body experience and
Speaker 1: it was and I mean I thought about a lot
Speaker 1: of people, thought about my dad because my my dad
Speaker 1: wasn't there. He wasn't there in triment day. He wasn't
Speaker 1: there to see it. So those are the emotions you it.
Speaker 1: And I'm in aquarius. I'm a very emotional person anyway,
Speaker 1: So it um. It really put in perspective not only
Speaker 1: you as a player, for you as a person, mhm,
Speaker 1: you as a person. Man. That's the most important thing
Speaker 1: is what's in here. They can take a lot of
Speaker 1: things from me. They can't take that. That's hard to
Speaker 1: get from somebody, especially if they don't want to give
Speaker 1: it to you. It's hard to get. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a and I sometimes when I'm alone, I think about
Speaker 1: it and believe it or not, just it tears me
Speaker 1: up because it is there's something you dream about. You know,
Speaker 1: you're getting a they have the Gold Jacket lunch and
Speaker 1: and you're in a you're at the hall. You're in
Speaker 1: this room and there's no media. Nobody's allowed in this room.
Speaker 1: Not either. If a fly got in the room, they're
Speaker 1: kicking his ass. Now. Yeah, and it's a room with
Speaker 1: the greatest players ever, a hundred of us in that room.
Speaker 1: And we just talked, and it's uh, it's beyond any
Speaker 1: fraternity you can imagine being in. So you you're I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to you being a part of our fraternity.
Speaker 1: Brother Shure, Hey, you just sucked me up. Picture, didn't
Speaker 1: I felt like I was there the boys over here
Speaker 1: talking about right. I just put a glass on the
Speaker 1: on the door right there, that's gonna listen, yep. It's uh.
Speaker 1: I mean when you listen to Jim Brown talk, mhmm,
Speaker 1: you can't help but listen to that man, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a heck of experience. Man, You'll never forget it
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. Next to your kids being born,
Speaker 1: it's a close second. Mm hm, did you guys get that?
Speaker 1: It's a close second. I know, man, Andre appreciate you
Speaker 1: sharing that. I mean, that was a That was a
Speaker 1: picture that I don't know that anyone else could paint probably,
Speaker 1: but you to be able to elaborate on that. And uh,
Speaker 1: I know I speak for Smithie. Um, that was really
Speaker 1: really cool. That was really cool. Yeah, yeah, I uh,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys having me on I respect Uh.
Speaker 1: You know Steve so much as a player as a person.
Speaker 1: Every time I see him, we always laugh about things.
Speaker 1: I'm sure next time I see him gonna laugh about
Speaker 1: a few things. But he is a not only the
Speaker 1: consummate pro he was, but every time he stepped out
Speaker 1: on the field, you're you're gonna get your best from
Speaker 1: from eighty nine and he he showed that every single Sunday. Um.
Speaker 1: He was a credit to the game, um, a credit
Speaker 1: to himself, his family, and again, I can't wait for
Speaker 1: him to be like that. So they took an old
Speaker 1: picture and did that. I'm not trying to be funny,
Speaker 1: but I'm just asking like, pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty good. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is the one you get. It's made a resin
Speaker 1: so this will last forty thousand years and the one
Speaker 1: in Canton is bronze. So it's like sight So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't mind me ask you, where
Speaker 1: do you put that? Like, I mean, I know for
Speaker 1: the show you got it right there, but yeah, putting
Speaker 1: I have downstairs. I put it on that just a
Speaker 1: mantle by itself, you know, not not calling you out,
Speaker 1: but you ever kind of walked down the hall and
Speaker 1: you know you're having a peek atam or no, not
Speaker 1: peek at them. It's like you you forgetty there and
Speaker 1: you think so you think it's a true like hey,
Speaker 1: hey hey, oh no, that's just me. That's just me. Hey.
Speaker 1: You walk down to look at it and you go,
Speaker 1: who is that? They didn't have to go back and
Speaker 1: you have to go back and look again and make sure.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's coming, brother, I mean my you know,
Speaker 1: guys like John Randall and and guys that already been
Speaker 1: in the hall three or four years before I was there. Like,
Speaker 1: just has to have patience, you know. Patience is a virtue.
Speaker 1: It's really hard. But Dad taught me that it's hard
Speaker 1: to have patient, especially in this world. It's hard to
Speaker 1: be a patient person because everybody wants it right now,
Speaker 1: give that now, now, now, now now. Patience is a
Speaker 1: virtue man. And when that patient that pays off, it
Speaker 1: was all worth it. It's all worth it. You are
Speaker 1: a unique person, you are well worth it, you are competent,
Speaker 1: and most of all, you're lovable. I'm Steve Smith Singer,
Speaker 1: I'm Gerald Little John and this is cut to It.
Speaker 1: Cut to It was d smith Singer. That Is Me
Speaker 1: is a production of Cut to It, LLC, Baltol 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 app,
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 in booking manager Joe Fusci,
Speaker 1: Social media team Wesley Robinson and John Show from Balto
Speaker 1: Creative Media. Cut to It is produced by Brian Balta
Speaker 1: Chevitch and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by Alex Lebrec.
Speaker 1: Production Coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics
Speaker 1: and vocals by Anthony Hamilton's if you ain't heard about it,
Speaker 1: then without to let you know it's all, it's all