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Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome back to eyl Hometown Hero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a special Hometown he edition.
Speaker 1: This is a special Hometown Heroes.
Speaker 4: You know, we did a hometowl Hero edition in Houston,
Speaker 4: shout out to Eastown, but we're gonna take it where
Speaker 4: we're from, Greenberg, New York.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the town for real.
Speaker 1: For sure for Greenberg, New York. Very special place.
Speaker 4: So we've actually already had two guests from our hometown radio.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Valve Valencia.
Speaker 4: That was a great episode and we had Simon also one.
Speaker 1: Of the partners in Curlfest.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we were lucky enough to have two people
Speaker 4: that we already grew up and went to high school with.
Speaker 4: So now we got the o G from our neighborhood
Speaker 4: big dog, mister, mister Greg Barnett. So first and foremost,
Speaker 4: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Man, Well, thanks for having me man Pleasures on mine.
Speaker 5: You know, you guys what, I'm excited first podcast I did,
Speaker 5: so I'm doing so you know, let's get it done.
Speaker 4: So yeah, as you guys know, you know, we talk
Speaker 4: about sports entertainment a lot. That's kind of the whole
Speaker 4: theme of the show, and well not the whole theme
Speaker 4: of the show, but a major part of the show
Speaker 4: is the backstories of sports entertainment. So this this interview
Speaker 4: right here is right up Alley. Greg is an NFL agent.
Speaker 4: He does a lot of other things as well. He's
Speaker 4: an entrepreneur, he's a family man. He's involved in AAU
Speaker 4: basketball villa estate investory.
Speaker 1: It was a lot used to actually be a school teacher.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, you enjoyed. Also Jamaican too, So.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know how all Jamaicans ended up in Greenberg,
Speaker 3: right right.
Speaker 5: Right, I was born in the States with the whole family,
Speaker 5: everybody in everybody Jamaican. I got married at Jamaica too.
Speaker 4: Shout out at Jamaica, man, Jamaica. So le guard there.
Speaker 4: That's the agency that you're.
Speaker 5: With, right, correct.
Speaker 4: And you got some some some some high profile clients.
Speaker 4: You got Cayl Fuller who was a pre Pro Bowl last.
Speaker 5: Year Pro Bowler last year Cal Fuller justin.
Speaker 4: Houston, Sean Jones, you had Percy Harvin, the legend.
Speaker 1: He was a client of yours.
Speaker 5: So retired now, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about a lot of different things
Speaker 1: in this episode.
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk about, you know, the journey, uh from
Speaker 4: being an NFL agent and.
Speaker 1: How you got there.
Speaker 4: But before we start, I wanted to kind of give
Speaker 4: a little backstory and I think it's interesting. So you
Speaker 4: started as a school teacher, correct, and but you always
Speaker 4: had a passion for sports. So how did you transition
Speaker 4: from being a school teacher to an NFL agent?
Speaker 1: Like most people went and put that correct?
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting because when I started school teaching, I
Speaker 5: was doing an internship at the same time with a
Speaker 5: guy by the name of Mike Harris out of Philadelphia
Speaker 5: and it was a sports marketing front, and I did.
Speaker 5: I used to, you know, follow him around, drive up
Speaker 5: to Philly from Baltimore, following him around. He was dealing
Speaker 5: with clients back then, and basically he introduced me to
Speaker 5: Joe Siegel, who at that time, you know, was a
Speaker 5: high profile agent. And basically I started off with Joe
Speaker 5: Siegel while I was still teaching. I started off as
Speaker 5: a consult with him and basically worked my way all
Speaker 5: the way up to senior vice president and partner in
Speaker 5: the front.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you started out and if it's that, and
Speaker 6: a lot of times people get the misconception, right, they
Speaker 6: say that those who can't teach.
Speaker 5: Those who can't teach, No, those who can't do teach
Speaker 5: teachers who can't teach, teach gam exactly.
Speaker 3: We've heard that plenty of times.
Speaker 6: But you said that you created your multi marketing like
Speaker 6: firm their gym, right that you have from that position.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, the gym was Athletic Advantages, which is down
Speaker 5: here in Atlanta. And while I started when I was
Speaker 5: a pe teacher, I always thought of like I enjoyed it,
Speaker 5: But of course I didn't enjoy working fas I ain't
Speaker 5: there were things about the PE that I ain't like.
Speaker 5: I ain't like, you know, helping kids with lockers and problems,
Speaker 5: so much like that. So I said, how can I
Speaker 5: still do this and enjoy it? So when I got
Speaker 5: the opportunity, I created my own sports performance gym down
Speaker 5: here in Atlanta called Athletic Advantage. And what that does
Speaker 5: is it trains athletes. It's you know, you could train
Speaker 5: like a pro from the younger youngest age of six
Speaker 5: all the way up to pro athletes. I opened it
Speaker 5: up here in Atlanta because also what I noticed was
Speaker 5: a lot of my Atlanta's a hotbed to athletes in
Speaker 5: the off season, so when they came, when they come here,
Speaker 5: they look for somewhere to train. So a lot of
Speaker 5: my guys was coming here and asked me, Hey, I
Speaker 5: need to work out for two weeks. I'm here, this, that,
Speaker 5: and the other. So that's where I came up with
Speaker 5: the idea, let me just open up my own gym,
Speaker 5: hire some trainers, and my guys can just train in
Speaker 5: my gym.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I mean, like, that's that's like super inspiring because
Speaker 6: a lot of times people think, like, oo, that's just
Speaker 6: gym class.
Speaker 3: That's the gym class.
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, like you're actually plotting something in your head that's bigger.
Speaker 6: I think one of the great advantage is that we
Speaker 6: don't get to take homework home, right, we don't have
Speaker 6: to worry about these statement the tests, and we get
Speaker 6: to have fun. Like our job is just to make
Speaker 6: sure that the kids have fun and they learn. But
Speaker 6: like you said, there's a lot of things that you know,
Speaker 6: we don't like to do. But that's good though, because
Speaker 6: most teachers think like this is it your mindset was like,
Speaker 6: I'm thinking bigger, you.
Speaker 5: Know, and and and I was telling, as I was
Speaker 5: telling Rashad earlier, I have a little saying I go by,
Speaker 5: find a job you love to do, and you'll never
Speaker 5: work a day in your life. That's from me doing
Speaker 5: the uh being a sports agent. I but it was
Speaker 5: also the same concept when I was a pe teacher.
Speaker 5: I loved what I was doing. I loved going to
Speaker 5: work every day.
Speaker 4: So what was the process of actually opening up a
Speaker 4: gym Because a lot of times people have aspirations to
Speaker 4: do things, but they don't even know the blueprints. So
Speaker 4: you just you know, you had a background in sports, obviously.
Speaker 5: Had a background in sport, basically you look for a spot,
Speaker 5: you know, and basically I had to come up because
Speaker 5: I struggled with different concepts. I don't know if I
Speaker 5: wanted to do where everybody was paying for memberships to
Speaker 5: get into the gym, or kind of like the barbershops
Speaker 5: salon syndrome, where you know, you hire a couple of
Speaker 5: trainers and they pay you gym rent and they just
Speaker 5: charged whatever they want to change charge. They have access
Speaker 5: to the gym twenty four hours. So I kind of
Speaker 5: did a mix a couple of When I first opened up,
Speaker 5: I had a couple of trainers who was paying rent,
Speaker 5: but then I also had guys who I just hired
Speaker 5: to teacher classes. So you know, I had most of
Speaker 5: the younger athletes six elementary and middle school. They were
Speaker 5: paying for packages, so they paid for classes, and I
Speaker 5: would have I hired uh trainers who basically trained that
Speaker 5: also had trainers who was renting space that had their
Speaker 5: own clients to come in. So it's just going back
Speaker 5: and forth seen which one was more profitable. So you know,
Speaker 5: different areas is gonna work for different people.
Speaker 4: You had you had some some teams like high school teams.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, a lot of local high school teams in
Speaker 5: Lanta when I first opened up for the first couple
Speaker 5: of years and still do. Uh football, lacrosse, baseball, soccer,
Speaker 5: had some tennis players every sport, some some book like
Speaker 5: the whole teams were coming in book sessions and some
Speaker 5: might just be individual.
Speaker 4: How big is sports in it because we're from New York,
Speaker 4: so you know, growing up, you know we in the sports,
Speaker 4: but it's not like how it is, especially football.
Speaker 5: In the South. It's not like well in the South,
Speaker 5: it's like Jesus Christ and football that's is in the South.
Speaker 5: Like Friday nights, that's where you are. You're at a
Speaker 5: high school football game Saturday, you tailgating. You either at
Speaker 5: the University of Georgia game Georgia Tech, or you're front
Speaker 5: of the TV watching SEC football. This is SEC Land,
Speaker 5: and the Sundays everything shuts down. You either at a
Speaker 5: ball watching NFL game, or you're at the Stayum or
Speaker 5: people just just go to the Mercedes Benz stay here,
Speaker 5: just tailgate and have a TV out there.
Speaker 1: So it's huge.
Speaker 5: It's huge.
Speaker 4: So I'm glad you said that about the SEC because
Speaker 4: I just made me think about something. So it's a
Speaker 4: hot topic in the news lately that California just passed
Speaker 4: a bill it's not official yet, but it's on its
Speaker 4: way to become an official in a couple of years
Speaker 4: where they're going to allow athletes to get endorsed dorsement.
Speaker 4: So we talked about the s C double A before.
Speaker 4: As far as you know, they don't allow you to
Speaker 4: get endorsements. They don't allow you.
Speaker 5: To you know, they want to make all the money themselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what's your what's your as an NFL agent?
Speaker 4: Right right, what's your what's what's your take on the
Speaker 4: n C double A And like, how do you think
Speaker 4: that's going to turn out in the future. They can't
Speaker 4: keep that forever. Like it's a model that's not fixed.
Speaker 1: It broken.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's been working this far. A hope they
Speaker 5: can break it, you know what I mean, that's what
Speaker 5: I'm hoping because they're getting rich. The guys that they're
Speaker 5: they're they're millionaires and they're they're making all the money
Speaker 5: off these athletes. And they say, Okay, they're getting a
Speaker 5: free education. But that's that's not enough. You know, you
Speaker 5: go in. I remember I never forget watching the segment
Speaker 5: the Fab five on thirty thirty now, jen Jehu.
Speaker 3: That was a solid one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Jalen Road is talking about you. I'm sitting there
Speaker 5: trying to get food, but you know, my jersey is
Speaker 5: in the bookstore selling. But yeah, I got to borrow
Speaker 5: money to go get a sandwich. You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: That that hit hard?
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, not for sure, So.
Speaker 5: I hope it changes, you know, I think it will.
Speaker 4: So like for you, for for your clients that that
Speaker 4: you recruit. Uh how how how do you see it
Speaker 4: affect them as far as being n C double Because
Speaker 4: what people don't fully understand, especially for big time college football,
Speaker 4: is that it's a real job. Like it's not like
Speaker 4: you just going to school and just a recreational sport.
Speaker 1: It's a real job. It's hard for people to.
Speaker 4: Fully understand that if they haven't been through it themselves, right,
Speaker 4: Like how strenuous?
Speaker 1: Can you tell? Like how strenuous?
Speaker 4: Because like I said, you're recruiting college kids, so you
Speaker 4: know how strenuous is it?
Speaker 1: And hard is it for a big time college.
Speaker 4: Football player to manage going to sports, family, school all that.
Speaker 5: It's so hard. And you talk to these guys and
Speaker 5: it's interesting because sometimes you see a guy that's just
Speaker 5: foregoing his eligibility to enter the league. And he might
Speaker 5: only be ranked, you know, projected to go maybe fifth, sixth,
Speaker 5: seventh round something like that. But he's leaving because he
Speaker 5: can't handle college anymore. It's just strange. It's like, you know,
Speaker 5: you're up five o'clock in the morning. They own you.
Speaker 5: They basically own you. They do the schedule for you.
Speaker 5: They own you. If you don't love football, you're not
Speaker 5: going to last in college football. You got you have
Speaker 5: to love it. And you talk to these players. And
Speaker 5: I remember talking to a college coach two years ago
Speaker 5: and I was like, you know, why is such and
Speaker 5: such leaving? He said, Man, any chance these guys get
Speaker 5: they leave, you know what I mean. It's just a
Speaker 5: lot on them, you know what I mean. So, and
Speaker 5: that window is so small that you can earn that
Speaker 5: money in the NFL. So you want to go while
Speaker 5: you know you still got you know, you don't have
Speaker 5: too much dread on the times, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So what's the process like?
Speaker 6: Right, So in order to to to be to get it,
Speaker 6: to get a client, right, are you with coaches first
Speaker 6: or do you have to know the family?
Speaker 5: Like, what's the process of getting them. Every situation is different.
Speaker 5: I might have a college coach that might you know, uh,
Speaker 5: be able to recommend me, you know, to somebody I know,
Speaker 5: to somebody that you know, they know needs my services.
Speaker 5: It might be somebody I have a pre existent relationship with,
Speaker 5: just you know, from my home town or something like that.
Speaker 5: But most of the time you got to reach out
Speaker 5: to the kid or his family.
Speaker 3: And that's after they've declared eligibility.
Speaker 5: No, you're allowed to talk to a player as soon
Speaker 5: as he gets in college. But each state, in each
Speaker 5: school has individual law laws, so you know, every every
Speaker 5: situation is different. You know, you got some states and
Speaker 5: some schools that say you can not talk to them
Speaker 5: at all but a certain time of the year, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. Some schools let you talk to them.
Speaker 5: The problem is you cannot, you know, provide any benefit
Speaker 5: for them in school. So you know, you can't take
Speaker 5: them out the launch dinner or anything like that. You know,
Speaker 5: it would be it's like the Reggie Bush deal when
Speaker 5: you considered an inducement for your right. You can't buy
Speaker 5: that you care.
Speaker 1: All, all right.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so in the next segment, we're gonna go
Speaker 4: over some details at the NFL and a lot of
Speaker 4: things that I'm even actually curious to know about, and
Speaker 4: the nitty gritty of contracts and things of that nature.
Speaker 4: All right, So we gotta talk about the beginning too,
Speaker 4: because you know, like I said, this is hometown Heroes
Speaker 4: ed Year and we all come from the same place.
Speaker 4: But a lot of times people we like to give
Speaker 4: hope to people that sometimes you know, don't have hope, right.
Speaker 4: A lot of times, especially where we come from, it's
Speaker 4: like you think that you get a union job, and
Speaker 4: that's like that's it, that's like hitting the lottery, right,
Speaker 4: especially you know, coming from a public school system, a
Speaker 4: lot of times it's not it's not the best, right.
Speaker 4: But me and you have a similar situation where we
Speaker 4: actually went to public school, then we went to private
Speaker 4: school as well, so we saw both sides of the coin.
Speaker 4: We was lucky enough, you know, through athletics and then
Speaker 4: you know, going to college stuff like that. But you
Speaker 4: actually have a very interesting story because when you were
Speaker 4: in public school that we came from, you were in
Speaker 4: an alternative class.
Speaker 5: Right, special short where they used to go.
Speaker 4: So like, how did that, how did that? How did
Speaker 4: that affect you? Because you know a lot of times.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like I said, for people might not
Speaker 4: understand it, but you know there's a lot of stigma
Speaker 4: that comes with that.
Speaker 1: Right So for now, it's like to be an.
Speaker 4: Entrepreneur and to be an NFL agent and to come
Speaker 4: from special education like humble beginnings.
Speaker 1: Like how did how did that? Did that motivate you.
Speaker 5: Or it motivated me? I mean I hated it. You know,
Speaker 5: I hated being in special ed. You know, you got
Speaker 5: picked on sometimes, not really too much because you know,
Speaker 5: that was a pretty big but you know it's funny
Speaker 5: at one Lands, you know, everybody else was switching classes,
Speaker 5: but I was in one class switching death. You know,
Speaker 5: I was in there switching death. You know, everybody from
Speaker 5: Woodlands in that Greenberg area know about the crump classes. Yeah,
Speaker 5: there you go.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And you know I played sports. I played varsity sports, basketball, football,
Speaker 5: ran track and everything.
Speaker 1: But being a.
Speaker 5: Special and having an I E. P. Was so interesting
Speaker 5: And it's funny. I still have those ips at my house.
Speaker 5: It's on a file. And I remember when they used
Speaker 5: to you know, it used to have your goals and
Speaker 5: used to say things like junior college or self employment.
Speaker 5: Things like that those teachers never projected. I was going
Speaker 5: to go to school, you know, college driver, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. But I left there at that time
Speaker 5: when a lot of athletes left Woodlands and went to
Speaker 5: a couple of different private schools. Stepping that, Harvey Hackley,
Speaker 5: Me and a couple of other guys. We went to
Speaker 5: Harvey which was up in Katona, New York. You know
Speaker 5: it was a you know it was okay, uh, prestigious
Speaker 5: private school. And from there I went on to another
Speaker 5: prep school. After that, I did a postgraduate year which
Speaker 5: a lot of people don't know at Milford Academy on Milford, Connecticut.
Speaker 5: From there's where I got my offer to play a
Speaker 5: full scholarship to play football at Morgan State University, which
Speaker 5: is HBCU down in Baltimore, Maryland, which I love the Bears.
Speaker 5: The bear I'm Morgan made as they said.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Another Morgan alone had Valencia.
Speaker 1: Valencia shout out.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think he posted on Twitter. She had this whole postal.
Speaker 6: She had this wild love my HBCU campaign. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: I seen it on your feet, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Shout out to shout out to Baltimore.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I got you know what We actually have a lot
Speaker 4: of similarities because you know who else had an I E.
Speaker 1: P at Woodlands truly.
Speaker 5: Right little right right, and you went to college and
Speaker 5: ball right, and I went to private school.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: You went to prep school right right.
Speaker 1: Same route, same round, we follow the same right.
Speaker 5: So you know, I'm self motivated. I always knew where
Speaker 5: I belong and what I can do. I just needed
Speaker 5: a chance, you know what I mean. That wasn't going
Speaker 5: to let anything hold me down, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And that's one thing I really passed on to my
Speaker 5: two sons right now. You know, you know, don't you
Speaker 5: can do whatever you want to do, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. Don't let them classify you or anything that
Speaker 5: especially as I looked at and remember my mom calling
Speaker 5: it a dumping hole for black students.
Speaker 4: That's what the disproportionately they're placed in there right now.
Speaker 4: It's real because it's like a black hole. And a
Speaker 4: lot of times once you get placed in that in
Speaker 4: that category, it's like you lose you lose self esteem, confidence.
Speaker 4: But me personally, I never looked at like that. I
Speaker 4: just I just always knew that I wasn't interested in
Speaker 4: learning the way that I was being taught. So I
Speaker 4: think that that's probably why I got classified as IE people.
Speaker 4: That's interesting now because it's like obviously people know I'm
Speaker 4: not dumb, like they know, they know I'm intelligent. It's
Speaker 4: just that, you know, at that point in time in
Speaker 4: my life, I just wasn't interested in being taught the
Speaker 4: way that they was teaching. And you you both of
Speaker 4: you guys, and we weren't an educate choice still educated.
Speaker 3: You just realize I'm the only one that graduated from
Speaker 3: lands Man.
Speaker 4: But no, but but it's it's it's it's a real
Speaker 4: conversation though, because it's like, you know, we don't we
Speaker 4: don't fully appreciate like blessings that we have. And it's
Speaker 4: like me and you were fortunate enough to go to
Speaker 4: private school and prep school, but what if we didn't
Speaker 4: get that opportunity, Like you know what I'm saying, what
Speaker 4: if we would have stayed and who knows.
Speaker 1: How life would have been different? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: There's so many kids that are bright, like look at
Speaker 4: your NFL agent, I'm doing, I'm in business, I'm a podcast.
Speaker 4: And it's like obviously we both had i EPs exactly,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, so we're looking for a
Speaker 4: couple of those teachers.
Speaker 5: I just can't.
Speaker 1: I know they're alive.
Speaker 5: I just you know, I just want to talk with them,
Speaker 5: you know, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: It's a real conversation. So I'm glad we actually even
Speaker 4: had that conversation because we got a highlight. You know,
Speaker 4: that's what's wrong with the system. But also we just
Speaker 4: got to get motivation. Just because somebody classifies you as
Speaker 4: something that that's just that's their opinion of you.
Speaker 6: I think what you guys are doing, like and I
Speaker 6: have done, it's inspiring and it's inspiring right. It gives
Speaker 6: kids hop Like, look, I know these dudes, they from
Speaker 6: my community and kids everywhere, like, yo, I can do it.
Speaker 3: This classification doesn't limit me to who I have to
Speaker 3: be in the future. So that's good.
Speaker 1: So what was your experience, HPC.
Speaker 4: I know you're big on HBCUs and it's actually a
Speaker 4: thing of a lot of people talking about athletes now
Speaker 4: just start going to HBCUs, Like, I don't know if
Speaker 4: that's well, listen, because of the funding, what's your what's
Speaker 4: your thoughts.
Speaker 5: Like about my experience or about well, my experience it
Speaker 5: was different. I'm Gonna. It was different, but I loved it.
Speaker 5: I love being around my own I had enough. It
Speaker 5: was the best time of my life to this day.
Speaker 5: You know, going from from white Plans from Greenberg, New York,
Speaker 5: down to Morgan State University and just growing into a
Speaker 5: man man, you know what I mean, everything living off
Speaker 5: campus and just getting around on my own. I just
Speaker 5: I enjoyed it and just being around your own people.
Speaker 5: You know, it was just so much fun, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. And I don't think it's anything different
Speaker 5: from going to thing less from going to the University
Speaker 5: of Mountland. You know what I mean. I don't see
Speaker 5: what some schools are for more than a HBCU. So
Speaker 5: what I know that Stephen A.
Speaker 6: Smith is doing a campaign now where he's trying to
Speaker 6: get people to come back to h HBCUs. What are
Speaker 6: your thoughts, right, top level athletes, it's gonna be very
Speaker 6: gun Yeah, No, top level athletes Zion Zims for example,
Speaker 6: actually choosing a school like a more than State or
Speaker 6: Howard over a Duke.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's gonna be hard to happen right away. Basketball,
Speaker 5: you can pick three guys, three to five guys this
Speaker 5: high school seniors. This may be about three stars, four stars.
Speaker 5: That's like, you know how they rank you the totalest
Speaker 5: five star. It's gonna be hard to get five star athletes.
Speaker 5: As McDonald's all Americans to go to an HBCU.
Speaker 1: We already know that.
Speaker 5: But they're schools that these guys are picking over HBCUs.
Speaker 5: That's not any better athletically or academically. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: not gonna throw any schools under the bus, But if
Speaker 5: you go to a colonial school or those type of schools,
Speaker 5: why not go to HBCU. You know a lot of those,
Speaker 5: a lot of HBCUs are beating those schools. Football is
Speaker 5: gonna be harder because you know you're gonna it's more
Speaker 5: of a team sport where you need a lot of
Speaker 5: pieces to be successful. But you know, I have a
Speaker 5: lot of guys, high school guys that work at work
Speaker 5: out there in my gym, and you know they're up
Speaker 5: there when I hear their their offerers are from like Georgia,
Speaker 5: Southern Firman, Wafford, Tennessee, Chattanooga. I'm like, you know, those
Speaker 5: type schools are equal to HBCUs. Go look at HBCUU.
Speaker 5: You will have the time of your life here. I
Speaker 5: mean everything from the everything from the female. I mean,
Speaker 5: but you know, and like I tell my sons, you know,
Speaker 5: if they're blessed enough to go make pro money doing something,
Speaker 5: that's that's just a blessing. But other than that, go
Speaker 5: to HBCU. Get yourself some friends. You're talking about that
Speaker 5: the other day. Get get yourself some friends, you know,
Speaker 5: Get yourself a group. He's he's majoring in accounting, he's
Speaker 5: majoring in engineer, he's majoring in whatever it may be.
Speaker 5: Form yourself for group. And when y'all get out of there,
Speaker 5: get yourself a business. Start a business. I mean, same
Speaker 5: thing Puffy there. Puffy put a lot, a lot of
Speaker 5: his guys on from Howard.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm hearing about the story of the former
Speaker 5: mayor here in Atlanta, Cassine Reed. He went to Howard,
Speaker 5: you know when he got an office here, a lot
Speaker 5: of his same friends, you know, he put on so
Speaker 5: you know, get to click together and go for it.
Speaker 5: That's what That's what I'm you.
Speaker 1: Know, hoping for.
Speaker 4: That's what you did too. In Baltimore. You was actually
Speaker 4: had a production company. He was doing promotions, jo promotion,
Speaker 4: and he was throwing parties, right we started.
Speaker 5: As I actually I was I was still a student
Speaker 5: and myself and two other of my classmates we started
Speaker 5: a company called Living Life Entertainment. We was throwing hoo
Speaker 5: homecoming parties, shows, we did shows, we did that was
Speaker 5: that was what we did. We was a promotion company
Speaker 5: and we did that from probably about ninety six to
Speaker 5: about about two thousand and two thousand and one. So
Speaker 5: is that your first dive into the business world. Yes.
Speaker 5: Obviously I always say you study education, right and health science.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's where I learned how to hustle. When
Speaker 5: I say hustle, you know legally, I mean, everybody when
Speaker 5: they hear hustling, they think of a negative connotation. Hustle
Speaker 5: is somebody who could get money on any type of level. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And that's when we started, we college students. But shoot,
Speaker 5: sometimes I was getting my refund checked, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, and go throwing that, throwing a party with that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. But that's where I learned
Speaker 5: my business. I got my business foundation from and we
Speaker 5: learned and there was a lot of losses with that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So we learned from that.
Speaker 5: So that was interesting.
Speaker 1: That's dope. That's dope.
Speaker 4: So all right, So now with the NFL, Right, so
Speaker 4: we're gonna talk about the nitty gritty. But I had
Speaker 4: a couple of things that I always had questions about.
Speaker 4: When you hit a franchise tag, Okay, what does that mean?
Speaker 5: Franchise tag? Each team can choose one player that's gonna
Speaker 5: they can franchise tag. That one player is usually gonna
Speaker 5: be one of the top players on their team that's
Speaker 5: getting ready to be a free agent. When they franchise him,
Speaker 5: they got to own his right. They own him and
Speaker 5: the contract is guaranteed for that whole year, but you
Speaker 5: have to pay him an average of the top five
Speaker 5: salaries of his position. But while agents don't like it
Speaker 5: and players don't like it, because if he's the top player,
Speaker 5: is about time for him to hit that big contract
Speaker 5: where he can get that big sign of ball. He's
Speaker 5: a multi year contract, so it really holds him up.
Speaker 5: That is something that's in favor for the teamanchise.
Speaker 6: I think one of the most famous ones, and I'm
Speaker 6: ashamed to admit it, but I'm a I'm a Washington
Speaker 6: fan and this happened with Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 3: Okay, right, where they had to franchise him twice, right,
Speaker 3: can you.
Speaker 5: Can fis the franchisees a player twice?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 6: And so like the last time, it was like either
Speaker 6: we're going to sign this guy to a long term
Speaker 6: deal and give him thirty million, which he never was
Speaker 6: worth it, but oh, we're.
Speaker 5: Gonna have to let him go and they and now
Speaker 5: he's the viks. Correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that so it's two years that you can
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 5: You can do it two years in a row.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 5: Okay, So it is the average of five the top
Speaker 5: five salaries of your at quarterback if you in that
Speaker 5: case with Kirk Cousins. Okay, And it's the cap number.
Speaker 5: It's not the actual what they make. It's the cap number.
Speaker 5: And that's what a lot of people know. It's the cap.
Speaker 5: It's still high enough high money. But what the cap
Speaker 5: number is basically what your amount is that the team
Speaker 5: gets charged per year year contract per that year.
Speaker 4: If they go over the cap, they get penalized for that.
Speaker 4: You can't go over the gap because like in basketball,
Speaker 4: you can go over.
Speaker 5: The baseball you got the luxury. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean? Like Yankees, they just went paid years off
Speaker 5: for the next thirty years. They just say we're going
Speaker 5: over our cap, so football.
Speaker 4: You can't go over to gather, right, Okay, So all right?
Speaker 4: So and then all NFL eight rookies have four year contracts.
Speaker 5: Four year contracts. The first if your first round. The
Speaker 5: team owns the option the fifth for the fifth year.
Speaker 5: So basically, if your first year your if your first round,
Speaker 5: first round, there there's a chance you could possibly be
Speaker 5: there for seven years. You got your four years, they
Speaker 5: optioned the fifth. They franchised after that.
Speaker 1: So all right.
Speaker 4: So one thing I was always curious about because a
Speaker 4: lot of time fans from the outside, they don't fully
Speaker 4: understand how this thing works. Right, So like a Zeke Elliott, right,
Speaker 4: who I think he was in his third year and
Speaker 4: then he he sits out, but they always do it
Speaker 4: the year before the fourth year, right, and.
Speaker 5: Well this case, I mean.
Speaker 1: Third, right, right?
Speaker 5: Third? Sure?
Speaker 4: But yeah, so how does that work as far as
Speaker 4: like a player sitting out an entire season, Like I
Speaker 4: think Le'Veon Bell did that?
Speaker 3: Right? Did that last year?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like as an agent, would you ever recommend your client
Speaker 4: do that? Or how would you feel if your client
Speaker 4: did that?
Speaker 5: Each each situation is different, each situation. Some you're not
Speaker 5: going to lose. Some of you're not going to win,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. Some you gonna have to
Speaker 5: play that year. You know, Le'Veon sat out of here.
Speaker 5: But however, he lost money. You know, he lost money.
Speaker 6: So there's been some recent comments where we watch the
Speaker 6: NBA off season where players are kind of dictating where
Speaker 6: they want to go, and now they's talk of the NFL.
Speaker 3: Put your thoughts on that, right, because we got like,
Speaker 3: even's good.
Speaker 5: I think it's good. I mean I think you know,
Speaker 5: I don't think the player. You know, you don't want
Speaker 5: to every time you get in an argument with the coach,
Speaker 5: trade me. But you know, right now the owners have
Speaker 5: too much power. I mean, I'm hoping this new CBA
Speaker 5: it's more a player friendly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So I like the fact that you know you'll be
Speaker 5: able to trade or demand the trade if you're good
Speaker 5: enough you know, to go on to another situation.
Speaker 4: So one thing we was talking about off came also
Speaker 4: is a lot of time people don't fully understand like
Speaker 4: if you're a top player, I think, like top ten
Speaker 4: draft pick, you can have a Lloyd's of London insurance contract, right,
Speaker 4: and they kind of.
Speaker 5: Like, now you're talking about when you're in college.
Speaker 1: College.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, well actually you can get Lloyds of London
Speaker 5: if you're.
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Speaker 5: Acted probably in the first two to three rounds you
Speaker 5: can get. They'll carry you in college, yes, okay, and
Speaker 5: so that and that's like, and what the this is
Speaker 5: an insurance policy, whereas if you get hurt during that
Speaker 5: senior year, you're gonna get that money. Now, I haven't
Speaker 5: known of anybody who has cashed out on any of
Speaker 5: those yet they got a couple of different from what
Speaker 5: I because that's not my feel I don't sell insurance
Speaker 5: or anything like that. But from what I understand is
Speaker 5: two or three different policies, Like there's a loss of
Speaker 5: value whereas maybe you get hurt in the bowl game
Speaker 5: and you was projected first round but you dropped a third.
Speaker 5: But nobody has been paid on any of those policies yet,
Speaker 5: and it's hard to really say, like to prove that
Speaker 5: your value was long, because no one actually said you
Speaker 5: was going to get drafted in the first round or
Speaker 5: the top ten. So because mel kiper or somebody puts
Speaker 5: that on his page, that's not that. I don't know
Speaker 5: how that's going to stand up in an insurance case.
Speaker 5: I don't know. That's not my field, so you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. But I know a lot of the
Speaker 5: schools are taking these policies out and paying for it
Speaker 5: for the kids, which is good.
Speaker 4: I think the quarterback of USC a few years ago,
Speaker 4: I forget his name, but he had I know he
Speaker 4: had a sizeable Lawyers of London contract.
Speaker 5: Did he cash out?
Speaker 1: Well, he never got he never got.
Speaker 5: Hurt, he never got Well, there's a lot of players
Speaker 5: getting it right now. I haven't heard of any that
Speaker 5: has cashed out yet.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 6: Yeah, in terms of like guys like you said, melkypo
Speaker 6: time and say how much weight do you put in
Speaker 6: what they're saying.
Speaker 3: And when you're looking at an athlete or a potential client,
Speaker 3: I go to.
Speaker 5: Him before I go to them. Now, I usually talk
Speaker 5: to management. In the NFL, those guys are usually the
Speaker 5: mal cop not not bad mouth in them or anything
Speaker 5: like that, but you know, they're there for entertainment most
Speaker 5: of the time, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 5: like to actually talk to the decision makers, those guys
Speaker 5: who really gives me my ins and outs on you know,
Speaker 5: who's worth and who's not to go after where certain
Speaker 5: guys are projected. So that's who you know. And that's
Speaker 5: because I've been in the business for eighteen years now,
Speaker 5: so I have good connections where I can call people
Speaker 5: and they can help me out with them like that.
Speaker 1: So like, how all right, how does draft day work?
Speaker 4: That's another thing because you see sometimes people it's like
Speaker 4: a top ten draft pick and then they drop.
Speaker 1: To like thirty.
Speaker 5: That's the most stressful day.
Speaker 1: And so like what makes somebody rise or.
Speaker 5: It's just like they don't know, they'll know probably leading
Speaker 5: up to the like last the next last couple of days,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I was in the green
Speaker 5: room a couple of times, you know, and it's stressful.
Speaker 5: You know, you'd rather just have your client just watch
Speaker 5: it at home, be honest with you, but you know
Speaker 5: you sitting there. You know, teams teams lie, they lie,
Speaker 5: they tell you they're going to draft the guy next thing,
Speaker 5: you know, they don't, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 5: it's stressful. Different things come up off the field, incidents
Speaker 5: that might hurt a guy and have him drop things.
Speaker 5: They dig they go dig in. They might like your film,
Speaker 5: but then they might find something else, all about your
Speaker 5: drug test that you failed at college. Things like that,
Speaker 5: you know, your brushes with the law, things like that.
Speaker 5: They monitor your social media. They might see some things
Speaker 5: which is social media that they don't like. And those
Speaker 5: are ways that can always drop you.
Speaker 3: And you remember that Nember that happened to the dude
Speaker 3: from an old miss old miss.
Speaker 2: It was like.
Speaker 3: His name.
Speaker 5: Was projected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so surprised.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so all right, So I mean so but you right,
Speaker 4: as an adult that's lived life, that has a family,
Speaker 4: there's a wife, and you experienced different things. But to
Speaker 4: your clients are nineteen and twenty years old, right, So like,
Speaker 4: how is it working with with you know, young men
Speaker 4: that our celebrities overnight and have a bunch of money
Speaker 4: overnight and have people that are like psychologically what is
Speaker 4: your role? Is it more of like a big brother,
Speaker 4: a father figure, all of the above.
Speaker 5: I don't try to be anybody's father, because I'm not
Speaker 5: their father. When I ask these guys to hire me,
Speaker 5: I ask them for their trust. You're hiring me from
Speaker 5: my expertise and my experience, so you are the boss.
Speaker 5: But also I want you to respect me. If you're
Speaker 5: hiring me from my knowledge, respect me. All I can
Speaker 5: do is tell you what I recommend and the consequences
Speaker 5: of it's something. If you're gonna listen to me on that,
Speaker 5: you understand that. So yeah, I would love to be
Speaker 5: a big brother type guy. But every situation is different.
Speaker 5: Some guys don't want that. Some guys just want you
Speaker 5: to do all business. Some guys I'm closer to, some
Speaker 5: guys I'm not that close to. So it's different things.
Speaker 5: Other than the contract that you do, you're helping manage
Speaker 5: these guys' life. I'm helping him transition from a college
Speaker 5: athlete to a professional athlete. You might have a case
Speaker 5: where this guy's living in Atlanta, Georgia his whole life
Speaker 5: and go to school in the University of Georgia be
Speaker 5: gets drafted by the Seattle Seahawks. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Now you're on a whole different part of the country
Speaker 5: and you got to know how to survive. When I
Speaker 5: say survived, like, okay, NFL want you to playbook all
Speaker 5: day long and all that. So who's gonna help you
Speaker 5: go and find somewhere to stay, Who's gonna help you
Speaker 5: transport your vehic your vehicles out there? Who's going to
Speaker 5: help you get set up? And that's what I do.
Speaker 5: That's why I'm on the road a lot. I like
Speaker 5: to be a part of their life as much as
Speaker 5: they allow me to outside of doing their contracts and
Speaker 5: getting their endorsements and things like that. So I help
Speaker 5: them transition from you know, a college student into a professional.
Speaker 5: Like you said, they're bank accounts in some cases go
Speaker 5: from one hundred dollars to three four point million overnight.
Speaker 5: Now I'm not a financial advisor, but in terms of
Speaker 5: doing everything else, I want to help them adapt today.
Speaker 1: So how is it negotiating? All right? So you do contract?
Speaker 1: How is contract negotiating? Is it easy? Because it's pretty
Speaker 1: much straightforward right now?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll tell you what it is right now. In
Speaker 5: NFL their first contract, the money is lotted. But also
Speaker 5: there's the fault language that you got a nego.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 5: The fault language is ways that they can take away
Speaker 5: your guarantees from you. So that's something that you got
Speaker 5: to negotiate. That's something that you have to have in
Speaker 5: there and make sure that the teams aren't putting things
Speaker 5: in their easy ways for them to come and take
Speaker 5: that money from you. You understand that. So you will
Speaker 5: have a contract and you know, okay, he's gonna if
Speaker 5: he gets suspended for head on collision whatever whatever it
Speaker 5: may be, you could take X amount of dollars away
Speaker 5: from it. So that's something that can be negotiated. Aunt
Speaker 5: of money you're gonna get is already there. But the
Speaker 5: ways that you can lose that money, that's why you
Speaker 5: need to have a good agent that knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: So how can what's a few ways that you can
Speaker 1: actually lose? Like, how can you, Oh, you give me.
Speaker 5: An example, how I got okay. Let's say, like I said,
Speaker 5: he's just okay. Maybe you're in jail for over seventy
Speaker 5: two hours, A big difference. Man, Okay, you get charged
Speaker 5: with something, you're there and they keep you for over
Speaker 5: seventy two others that means it's something different. And in
Speaker 5: a regular contract, it might just say okay, if he's arrested,
Speaker 5: he can lose a guarantee, but why not put in there, Okay,
Speaker 5: such and such an hours because he can he can
Speaker 5: you know, urinate in the street and get and put
Speaker 5: it jail and get released on his own recon in
Speaker 5: two three hours. So is that fair for him to
Speaker 5: lose all that? And you know, we know something serious
Speaker 5: if you're there for over seventy jo or something like that.
Speaker 5: So there's different ways you gotta look at that and
Speaker 5: try to get That's something important you said too. A
Speaker 5: lot of times people see contracts, they seem play it.
Speaker 5: It's one hundred million, but the signing BoatUS could be
Speaker 5: sixty nine million. That's the only thing that they're guaranteed
Speaker 5: in the contract. Well they're signing not necessarily because it's
Speaker 5: all you know, you have contracts and it's called you know,
Speaker 5: contracts are guaranteed and something called that size see skill
Speaker 5: injury cap. So just because you see that he's getting
Speaker 5: that that that sign and bo there could be more
Speaker 5: to that that's guaranteed. There might be Okay, perfect example,
Speaker 5: you know Antonio Brown, because they had thirty million, people
Speaker 5: thought that was guaranteed. But as you see, he lost
Speaker 5: that because it's something he did. He just had to
Speaker 5: make that first day right, And you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So everything is not always guaranteed, and sometimes there's things
Speaker 5: more guaranteed than others. You really have to read the
Speaker 5: whole contract for me to tell you. You know, a
Speaker 5: lot of times I get called, say, yo, is that
Speaker 5: all guaranteed? That I just saw such and such a
Speaker 5: sign Like, you know, I don't. I have to read
Speaker 5: the contract because I mean, these contracts is anywhere from
Speaker 5: seventeen pages to Bobby forty fifty pages. So there's so
Speaker 5: many things in there that might you know, trigger you're guaranteed,
Speaker 5: and some things that might not be guaranteed. So you
Speaker 5: just don't know.
Speaker 6: A few years ago, you had one of the biggest
Speaker 6: signings in the history, Yeah, the NFL for a defense player,
Speaker 6: right just in Houston, just in Houston, right with the Chiefs.
Speaker 5: Correct said it.
Speaker 3: Was the most stressful day of your life. It was.
Speaker 3: It was, it was.
Speaker 5: It was the most stressful negotiation thus far, because there
Speaker 5: was just you know, going back and forth with the
Speaker 5: team getting the numbers right. We actually was negotiating from
Speaker 5: that past October all the way to July fifteenth, which
Speaker 5: was the last day because he was end up. He
Speaker 5: had to be enfranchised dad, and it was up into
Speaker 5: that July. You head up until July fifteenth to negotiate
Speaker 5: the contract or you would have to play that one year.
Speaker 5: So you know, we got it done in the twelve hour.
Speaker 1: How much? How much was it?
Speaker 5: It was one hundred and one total and fifty two guaranteed.
Speaker 4: And all right, all right, so you can talk about
Speaker 4: that deal, right because it's done pretty much, right, So
Speaker 4: all right, so how does that work? So you got
Speaker 4: one hundred and one total.
Speaker 5: Totally if you play out the whole contract, which would
Speaker 5: have been for eight years with the same team.
Speaker 1: With that team, all he had to do. All he
Speaker 1: had to do was play. He didn't have to reach
Speaker 1: Pro Bowl or as long as he all.
Speaker 5: Language on that at all. Okay, right, But what you
Speaker 5: got to realize is sometimes, okay, the first four years
Speaker 5: is guarantee, which was that's what was considered the whole guarantee,
Speaker 5: which was the fifty two million. So after that, as
Speaker 5: you know, they can cut you, which they did with
Speaker 5: those bigger salaries. Is about to start the hit.
Speaker 1: They cut them.
Speaker 5: They cut him, they released him in this past here
Speaker 5: and I negotiated another extension for him. Well another contract firm,
Speaker 5: which is a two year deal right now, and he's
Speaker 5: with the Indianapols.
Speaker 4: So you had all right, the contract is seventeen to
Speaker 4: twenty something pages. You said you have a legal department
Speaker 4: actually reached out.
Speaker 1: You have a lawyer that you work with.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not a lawyer. I'm CBA, So I'm a
Speaker 5: certified contract advisor I have. There's about four of us
Speaker 5: on our team. I work with a guy by the
Speaker 5: name of Joe Siegel, who is about far the most
Speaker 5: powerful man in NFL negotiation business, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So he's a lawyer. We also have another lawyer on
Speaker 5: our team, and we have two other agents. So we
Speaker 5: all look at our contracts together. But you know, we
Speaker 5: so a negotiation. You know, you might have all of
Speaker 5: us looking at one contract, circling different things. And you know,
Speaker 5: when you do a contract, it's not like some people
Speaker 5: think that you're just at the table talking numbers. You know,
Speaker 5: contracts is usually done you know via email. They send
Speaker 5: the offer over, you know, we send it back. You know,
Speaker 5: this is what we last for. You know, it goes
Speaker 5: back and forth and then once the numbers get right,
Speaker 5: then you got a lot. The language has to be right,
Speaker 5: so there's a lot to it in a negotiation for
Speaker 5: a contract.
Speaker 6: And you spoke about having trust and one of the
Speaker 6: things in your resume you had a family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you had a series of brothers right.
Speaker 5: That had Yep, the Fuller family. I had Corey Fuller,
Speaker 5: who are represented first out of Virginia Tech. He's a
Speaker 5: wide receiver. He got drafted in the sixth round two
Speaker 5: Detroit lines. After that, I had Kyle Fuller, who was
Speaker 5: the first round cornerback drafted to Chicago Bears. And the
Speaker 5: last one who's in his third year now four third year,
Speaker 5: Kendall Fuller who's with the Kansas City Chiefs. And they
Speaker 5: are older brothers who I did not represent. Vincent Fuller
Speaker 5: was a draft pick with the Tennessee Titans. He's retired
Speaker 5: now he's actually working as a lawyer.
Speaker 3: And the four brothers, for all four.
Speaker 5: Of them, they're all siblings. All their siblings made it
Speaker 5: to the NFL.
Speaker 4: Wow, So what do you feel about There was a
Speaker 4: quarterback of the I think the Colts. He just made
Speaker 4: news because he he did his own contract and actually
Speaker 4: got someone on the podcast Brandon Copeland negotiated Huh Brisbane
Speaker 4: yea and Brandon Copeland. He also negotiated his own contract too.
Speaker 4: He was a guest on the podcast, So what would
Speaker 4: you What do you think about players not utilizing agents
Speaker 4: and doing it themselves.
Speaker 5: Well, it's a little saying the girls. Anybody who re
Speaker 5: presence yourself as a lawyer as a fool for a client.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, if you have the background and
Speaker 5: you know it, that's all found and Dandy, I know,
Speaker 5: he put comments out there in the media that he
Speaker 5: didn't want an agent BS and BS and on his behalf.
Speaker 5: Why does his agent have to be BS and you
Speaker 5: know this language. I didn't look on his contract, for say,
Speaker 5: everybody just looks at the numbers, and he was probably
Speaker 5: you know, I'm not talking about them, but he was
Speaker 5: probably just gunn help me because they came and offer
Speaker 5: him something. Because Andrew Luck He's like, oh, I'm taking that. Hey,
Speaker 5: I don't know whatever whatever it was, And maybe he's
Speaker 5: looking at like I want to go to get this
Speaker 5: if luckis I don't know. I haven't looked at the contract,
Speaker 5: but I just hope he's protected, protected because there are
Speaker 5: ways that he can lose. I don't know what his
Speaker 5: guarantees was or anything like that, and that's why we
Speaker 5: earned our keep. That's where we earn number. But you
Speaker 5: know too, each is all if you don't want to
Speaker 5: use an agent, you know what I.
Speaker 1: Mean for sure?
Speaker 4: All right, So yeah, we got a lot of good
Speaker 4: gyms on the on the NFL. So in the next time,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about correct bit preparing players for
Speaker 4: the career after sports with some other stuff that you
Speaker 4: do as well.
Speaker 1: So you've been getting to that, all right.
Speaker 4: So now in the last segment, we're going to talk
Speaker 4: about life after football for your client, because that's something
Speaker 4: that you're really passionate about. Is is like, you know,
Speaker 4: one thing to be an NFL agent and you know,
Speaker 4: to work with guys when they're actually in the league.
Speaker 4: But as famous Sheikh Lops said, you're going to be
Speaker 4: older a lot longer than you're going to be younger.
Speaker 1: To the lock stay from Westchester also for sure for sure,
Speaker 1: So what does that look like?
Speaker 4: Because I know you were talking, that's something that you're
Speaker 4: real passionate about as far as like you know, helping
Speaker 4: them out and like even with charities and things of
Speaker 4: that nature. So like, what's that look like having like
Speaker 4: the career after football.
Speaker 5: Well, right now, because I've been in about you know,
Speaker 5: sixteen or eighteen years around that time, some of my
Speaker 5: first guys some are already retired, but you know, some
Speaker 5: of my bigger guys are now you know, starting to
Speaker 5: come upon retirement. And like, for example, one guy, Percy Harvin,
Speaker 5: has hired me. I used to be his agent when
Speaker 5: he was in the league, and now he's hired me
Speaker 5: to be his business man. And what's that doing is
Speaker 5: basically finding businesses for them to start with or to
Speaker 5: start up and to get involved with. Not managing their
Speaker 5: money or anything like that. But like, for example, someone
Speaker 5: wants to get into cannabis, someone wants to get into
Speaker 5: real estate, someone wants to invest in tech. So just
Speaker 5: working as a business manager. When I recruit these guys,
Speaker 5: I ask them, you know, and I let them know
Speaker 5: like this is something I love to do. I love
Speaker 5: to work with athletes, and even when they're done playing,
Speaker 5: hopefully it'll be an opportunity where I can continue to
Speaker 5: work for them. I've gained that trust where they allow
Speaker 5: me to help them with their businesses, you know, as
Speaker 5: they're not playing anymore. It might be things simple as
Speaker 5: just keeping their football camp going in the off season,
Speaker 5: you know, or something like, you know, creating a golfing
Speaker 5: event to give back to a charity or something like that.
Speaker 5: So it's not just always doing things for profit, but
Speaker 5: also getting their name out there. And I always try
Speaker 5: to tell my guys, you know, do things for company
Speaker 5: while you're maximize your worth while you're playing. Once you're
Speaker 5: done playing, nobody cares about you, you know, unless you're
Speaker 5: a Tom Brady type guy. Yeah, thirty seven super Bowls
Speaker 5: or whatever, you know what I mean. But these companies
Speaker 5: might not need you when you're done, So do little things.
Speaker 5: I encourage them to do things to do speaking engagements
Speaker 5: and things like that for a company, even though it
Speaker 5: might not be paying anything, that's going to make a
Speaker 5: real difference for them. Do that because they'll remember that
Speaker 5: after you're done playing, and sometimes that could be the
Speaker 5: difference between you picking a job or a job picking
Speaker 5: you or career once you're done, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: You want to be able to do what you want
Speaker 5: to do when you're done playing. So that's what I
Speaker 5: try to set up for them.
Speaker 3: So the average NFL career is short lived.
Speaker 6: Right, So these athletes could be done playing by twenty five,
Speaker 6: thirty years old.
Speaker 5: Easy.
Speaker 6: So what is the toughest thing as far as that
Speaker 6: transition period that you see with your athletes finding.
Speaker 5: Out what they want to do after football, what they
Speaker 5: want to do for them? You still got two thirds
Speaker 5: of your life, right what they're trying to give us?
Speaker 5: What about seventy five eighty five? Right now?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 5: So what you're going to do and if you've done
Speaker 5: it twenty five, whether you're rich or not, you know,
Speaker 5: what are you going to do? Because even if you're rich,
Speaker 5: that money's gonna run out if you're not doing anything.
Speaker 5: So hopefully they have a good financial advisor and then
Speaker 5: they downsize and what they're you know, and they're they're living.
Speaker 5: You know, you don't, you never need three cars.
Speaker 4: But all right, So one thing I was curious about,
Speaker 4: what's the difference between negotiating contracts for players and negotiating
Speaker 4: endorsement deals, because that's something that you do as well
Speaker 4: as far as the agent is concerned, is endorsement.
Speaker 5: Negotiating is negotiating. So when you say negotiating a contract, well,
Speaker 5: what you mean by.
Speaker 4: That, like, well, like, as far as all right, friends,
Speaker 4: So like, all right, the NFL player and gets drafted
Speaker 4: and you have to negotiate the contract right right, and
Speaker 4: the guarantee and stuff like that. But then they they
Speaker 4: know Coca Cola wants to, you know, endorse them. So
Speaker 4: that's a different I would assume conversation, right, like, how
Speaker 4: does that more?
Speaker 5: Well, you're still selling your client to both you know,
Speaker 5: you're selling your client to a team. You're selling your
Speaker 5: client to a brand. A lot of times you got
Speaker 5: to make sure it's the right fit. But that that
Speaker 5: goes also with football also. You know, sometimes I guess
Speaker 5: the difference, but it's very similar because I was going
Speaker 5: to say, you got a brand like Coca Cola that
Speaker 5: might say he's the right fit for us. But just
Speaker 5: that and the third same thing with the Raiders, they
Speaker 5: might say he's the right fit for us. So I
Speaker 5: don't think it's too much different. Now, of course, the
Speaker 5: contracts are structured much different, and doing an endorsement contract
Speaker 5: you're not governed by anybody, so of course it's different.
Speaker 5: It's really just whatever you're a green and greening on
Speaker 5: in the language and the contract on what that brand
Speaker 5: is offering.
Speaker 3: The endorsement jails are a lot shorter. What is like
Speaker 3: the average term for an endorsement.
Speaker 5: I would say is a lot of that's year by year,
Speaker 5: you know, in most cases it's year by year, season
Speaker 5: by season. You know, you know, your average a pair
Speaker 5: of you know, shoe deal might be for about two years,
Speaker 5: maybe three years the most, something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember Iverson had the legendary lifetime.
Speaker 5: Lifetime and now Lebron has.
Speaker 3: Now Lebron has a lifetime NI those days, you got
Speaker 3: to be super level there.
Speaker 5: You go right right where they know they're going to
Speaker 5: sell your likeness for years and years after.
Speaker 6: I think they just they just built the whole building
Speaker 6: building for where at the Nike Nike I saw that.
Speaker 5: Something like that.
Speaker 4: So, all right, speaking about Lebron, So you're a football
Speaker 4: guy and he played football, and you're a football agent,
Speaker 4: but you have ties in basketball also AU circuit. I
Speaker 4: know your son's played AU and you've been around basketball level.
Speaker 5: That was actually, yeah, I love it a.
Speaker 1: Long time, probably longer than you played the football right
Speaker 1: all the same time.
Speaker 5: Time eight nine years old, seven eight years old, that's
Speaker 5: you know. But of course I made my living playing football.
Speaker 5: When I say living, got scholarship So.
Speaker 4: As far as AAU is concerned for basketball, when you're
Speaker 4: talking off camera, like how big it is, and a
Speaker 4: lot of times people don't fully understand, Like can you
Speaker 4: just like briefly talk about that, Like what's the influence
Speaker 4: of AAU on college basketball?
Speaker 5: And just a big business right now. It's a big business.
Speaker 5: And that's where you you know, you heard all the
Speaker 5: corrupt things that was going on, you know, and the
Speaker 5: charges or the fence came in and you know, the
Speaker 5: whole the whole thing with our Adidas and couple of
Speaker 5: college coaches, you know what I mean. It's such a
Speaker 5: big bottom line. These brands want kids in their brands.
Speaker 5: There their big picture is to make money off a
Speaker 5: player once they become pro. They need the next Lebron,
Speaker 5: They need the next Alan Moblinson, like you said, and
Speaker 5: that's how they make their money. They need the next
Speaker 5: or under Armour wants the next stuff, the next steph current.
Speaker 5: So what they do they go out and sponsor AAU
Speaker 5: teams and they give them a lot of product and
Speaker 5: pay for them to travel and hopefully that will funnel
Speaker 5: them to their brand college and it goes from there.
Speaker 5: Hopefully at the end of the day, they get that
Speaker 5: player wearing their shoes, they're going to sell those shoes
Speaker 5: for X amount of dollars and they.
Speaker 3: Make It's like that influence that will live with them.
Speaker 6: So like eleven, when we gave you all those niggas,
Speaker 6: right now you're eighteen, right, and they get directed towards
Speaker 6: schools too, right, So like they have the a you can't,
Speaker 6: they're not supposed to.
Speaker 5: But that's what's going on.
Speaker 4: You you know, because like an Adidas school and then
Speaker 4: you had Adidas High school.
Speaker 1: Now you go to.
Speaker 5: Adidas Grassroots exactly the day you signed with Adidas, and
Speaker 5: they they give.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like it's like another person from our
Speaker 4: town that you may not know be from our town.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Well, I know.
Speaker 5: Is his dad. I knew of you know, knew we
Speaker 5: worked out a couple of times the Mets. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: because he was with the Mets when I used to
Speaker 5: work out before. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was a coincidence or not,
Speaker 4: but obviously he went to Louisville, which is which is
Speaker 4: Ada school, and now he's Adida is one of the
Speaker 4: premium athletes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he has his own shoe, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: yeah for sure, so shout to him to send me
Speaker 5: something from my kids.
Speaker 1: For sure? For sure.
Speaker 4: So all right, so oh okay, as far as you
Speaker 4: know picking an agent, right, we're gonna we're gonna end
Speaker 4: it with this. What what should have Because a lot
Speaker 4: of guys in the league listen to us, and a
Speaker 4: lot of aspiring guys, you know, have dreams of going
Speaker 4: to the league, and even parents and things of that nature.
Speaker 4: What should somebody look at when they're evaluating picking an agent,
Speaker 4: Like in your opinion, like, how do you do that?
Speaker 5: You want to make sure he's experienced. You don't want
Speaker 5: to be a guinea pig, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: If you blow your knee out, you're gonna go and
Speaker 5: get surgery by the guy who did three thousand surgeries,
Speaker 5: or you're gonna go with the guy who just did
Speaker 5: one surgery. You know what I mean? Now, how does
Speaker 5: that guy with that one surgery get? You know, known,
Speaker 5: you got to work on just somebody who was doing
Speaker 5: a lot and eventually, like you said, get your break.
Speaker 5: But you don't want to be a guinea pig, that's
Speaker 5: number one. So you want to go with somebody with
Speaker 5: ex experience, expertise, and you want them to have power.
Speaker 5: You want them to have juice to be able to
Speaker 5: talk for you in the league. You know, the owners
Speaker 5: aren't your friend, you know what I mean, So you
Speaker 5: want to go and do contracts for yourself. They know
Speaker 5: they love it, They would love that. They love when
Speaker 5: they hear the mom is working as an agent or
Speaker 5: he's going to represent themselves because they're gonna take advantage
Speaker 5: of you. And then for the most important point, once
Speaker 5: you get past that, somebody you can relate to and
Speaker 5: you can trust when you sign with them. You can't
Speaker 5: trust them at that point yet if you just met them,
Speaker 5: uh during the recruiting process. So that's going to come
Speaker 5: with time. But somebody who's that guy you you can
Speaker 5: you have the least trust issues with and that you
Speaker 5: have a relationship with. Everybody's different sometimes, I mean, we
Speaker 5: just don't click some guys out here right off, you know,
Speaker 5: and you can feel it sometimes. I mean, so everything's different.
Speaker 5: Everybody's different. But going you want to look for somebody
Speaker 5: you can relate to and you can trust.
Speaker 1: That's for the most part, that's dope.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: So once again, man, thank you for joining us a
Speaker 1: special hometown.
Speaker 5: Guys in my hometown elementary school when I was getting
Speaker 5: out of coming out of high school.
Speaker 4: For sure, for sure. So it's good to you know,
Speaker 4: have roma. It's good to have role models and hopefully
Speaker 4: we could see you to do what you did. You know,
Speaker 4: give the inspiration to people younger than us and even
Speaker 4: people older than us. You know, you can never be
Speaker 4: ashamed to learn from somebody, no matter what age they are.
Speaker 4: So how can the people contact you? And what's should
Speaker 4: you have any initiatives or anything going on that you
Speaker 4: want to make people aware of?
Speaker 5: Not right now? You know, right now, you know a couple,
Speaker 5: couple of business and devins throughout Atlanta, but you know,
Speaker 5: nothing where I need to promote. Right now, my main
Speaker 5: focus is being the best NFL agent I can. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm a family man. You know, I'm you know, uh
Speaker 5: married with two kids. You know, I didn't mention that
Speaker 5: before I got eight year old son and a twelve
Speaker 5: year old son. They have you in sports. And I
Speaker 5: have a wife, Katrine Us. She works in school system.
Speaker 5: She's a media specialist. She loves doing that. So you know,
Speaker 5: right now that's my focus, being the best you know,
Speaker 5: husband and I can do and dad and you know,
Speaker 5: focusing on being an NFL agent and see where it
Speaker 5: takes me in my upper years. You know, I love
Speaker 5: working with athletes, you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, sure choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So shout out to everybody on our Patreon that's patreon
Speaker 6: dot com, Backslash and your Leisure. That's our proud of
Speaker 6: pay program. We said there are five tiers. You can
Speaker 6: join any tier. We have new members every week, man,
Speaker 6: So we just want to give a huge shout out
Speaker 6: to them. They allow us to come to different cities,
Speaker 6: come to Atlanta, come to Chicago, go to LA and
Speaker 6: Houston and have networking events. So shout out to y'all.
Speaker 6: Continue to support that, continue to support the merch. We
Speaker 6: have our tour merch up there now, so check out
Speaker 6: the new site, the new design site. Shout everybody that
Speaker 6: was behind that getting that, getting that out. So when
Speaker 6: we went to Houston, people were asking how we get
Speaker 6: the EYL Houston toy shirt is now available, So make
Speaker 6: sure y'all go cop that.
Speaker 3: Cop the Chicago one. Yeah man. Keep supporting that.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And once again shout out to the to
Speaker 4: the city of Atlanta. It's always a good time when
Speaker 4: we're out here, and shout out to the town of Greenberg.
Speaker 4: That's where we come from. Yeah, very special place, very
Speaker 4: funny place.
Speaker 5: And just know you guys are safe here in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Mike Man.
Speaker 1: My book.
Speaker 4: Tip of the week is Sole Influence, and that talks
Speaker 4: about grassroots basketball. Just kind of piggyback in all conversation
Speaker 4: that we had on AAU basketball. And once again, especially
Speaker 4: for parents a lot of times. You know, I'm a
Speaker 4: parent myself and my son plays basketball. Now he's talking
Speaker 4: about he wants to be on AAU teams and things
Speaker 4: of that nature. So it's a very competitive landscape. But
Speaker 4: unfortunately it's a lot of corruption like all things, so
Speaker 4: you just got to navigate that. And it's also important
Speaker 4: for athletes to to not just play the game, but
Speaker 4: to understand that, you know, there's a there's a career
Speaker 4: after that and the flip side of that. And that's
Speaker 4: why every player that's coming into the league and all
Speaker 4: the parents and coaches you need to hilt my man, Greg,
Speaker 4: so you can set you up right. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
Speaker 4: for sure. So once again, thank you guys for rocking
Speaker 4: with us. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Peace.
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