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 doing what
Speaker 1: they're getting 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 what's going on with? What should I say?
Speaker 1: Just say? It won't stop? Want so you tune me off?
Speaker 1: You said to like, Hey, what's going on? Okay? How
Speaker 1: you won't meet open? What's what's on your preferred list
Speaker 1: of openers? I was just saying, I'm just saying it
Speaker 1: through me off. I apologize. Sorry, Hell am I married?
Speaker 1: Hello Steve Man, let me tell you by my morning?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, when whenever someone's like man, let me tell
Speaker 1: you you're about to get a good story. Well, so
Speaker 1: I've started on this whole, so you know, not bragging,
Speaker 1: but just more of going through it. I bought a
Speaker 1: Peloton treadmill and I love running. I used to hate,
Speaker 1: first of all, I used to hate working out and
Speaker 1: I hate running now I love to run. I called
Speaker 1: the inflection in your voice that I love it. I
Speaker 1: gonna stupid runs just just to just not think. Stupid
Speaker 1: run A stupid run. So stupid run is stupid run
Speaker 1: when you just say, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're just struggling, can't get right right, you got got
Speaker 1: a flat tire, or somebody didn't do something, or your
Speaker 1: co worker or now with COVID, the zoom call didn't
Speaker 1: go well, or the internet's out, and so you just
Speaker 1: have that end of the day. What am I gonna
Speaker 1: do just going a stupid run, which is you just
Speaker 1: veg out. You just literally run like a zone. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just run. It could be forty minutes, twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: it could be five minutes. It's just you don't overthink,
Speaker 1: you don't underthink. You just run right, and it's it's
Speaker 1: very it's very good. No, So I got this whole
Speaker 1: routine now and ever retirement, having a routine has been
Speaker 1: extremely important. So Monday morning is my stupid ass. Because
Speaker 1: I'm an athlete, and athletes are extreme. We don't have
Speaker 1: do anything. We either go all out, balls to the wall. Oh,
Speaker 1: we just getting a whole bunch of weight and don't
Speaker 1: do anything. So my Monday's Monday, and Tuesday is my run.
Speaker 1: So I get up bout five o'clock. I give me
Speaker 1: a ten minute warm up run and I do some
Speaker 1: kind of run and say the hip hop run, it said,
Speaker 1: the endurance run. It's a camp and I'm and I'm
Speaker 1: old school nineties run. It's a progressive run. It's all
Speaker 1: kind of runs. So I love the peloton. So I
Speaker 1: get up, and the podcast is on Tuesdays, you know,
Speaker 1: so in case you don't know which day it is,
Speaker 1: usually we dropped on Tuesdays. So Monday, I had a
Speaker 1: great run, had a great run, got twenty minute hip
Speaker 1: hop run in there. It was Meek Mills. I had
Speaker 1: a trap it was actually a trap run. Trapped run.
Speaker 1: And R and B runs are my best run because
Speaker 1: you just go to the flow of the music. You
Speaker 1: really don't hear the words. You're just going off the
Speaker 1: R and B run. You probably just coast RB run.
Speaker 1: I went fifty eight minutes and ran almost five miles.
Speaker 1: John legend or War Yeah okay, And so I was running.
Speaker 1: And so today Tuesday got up and I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I was enthusiastic. Bro four oh five, I was up yankes,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, and I was saying, I say
Speaker 1: a couple more minutes. So I got up about four fifty,
Speaker 1: got got dressed, you know, sat in, read a little bit,
Speaker 1: turn on the TV seeing what other stuff is going on.
Speaker 1: Then bang, I'll go up there and get my So
Speaker 1: four fifteen, I'm um, my tim in a run, now
Speaker 1: my warmer run. I'm getting. I'm up to almost a
Speaker 1: mile in ten minutes. So I'm I'm I'm going good.
Speaker 1: So today I said, I'm a door indorms run forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. I'm building my endorms. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: what happened. Happened? This is this is where things turn
Speaker 1: the stream. So I'm I'm in my I'm in my
Speaker 1: gear and so my running gears I have for your gear.
Speaker 1: My gear is I'm a sweat I'm a sweater. I'm
Speaker 1: old school cat. So I'm fully dressed. I got on
Speaker 1: either tights, shorts with tights or or running pants. Got
Speaker 1: on my my my shoes. I got two pair of shoes.
Speaker 1: I got shoes that I run outside, and I got
Speaker 1: shoes that for running this out on treadmill. And it's
Speaker 1: starting to get cold. So I'm in the house more
Speaker 1: brother ain't trying to freeze his butt off at five
Speaker 1: in the morning. And plus two, I'm concerned getting hit. Um,
Speaker 1: so I'm dressed, sweat, I'm going. I got my l
Speaker 1: a Dodgers shirt on. I was asking, I want to
Speaker 1: make sure you ain't like Richard Simmons type stuff. So
Speaker 1: like Richard Simmons swing, I'm not even going down that alley.
Speaker 1: That's a good one player play off. So I got
Speaker 1: a forty five minute endurance run, and so what is
Speaker 1: the endurance shrun? To stay at the same speed for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes or forty minutes because it's five minute
Speaker 1: world warm up? But I do a ten minute warm
Speaker 1: up run in the five minute warm up and then
Speaker 1: bang for forty minutes. I only made twenty two minutes. Dog,
Speaker 1: I was on the bus. What bus, I'm owned struggle
Speaker 1: bus her. I don't know what happened. I was enthusiastic.
Speaker 1: I was ready to go. What happened? I had asked
Speaker 1: it like that. What happened? The girls said on the
Speaker 1: run with the guy to run? She said, this endurance run,
Speaker 1: you have to embrace being uncomfortable. I didn't embrace it,
Speaker 1: but my ass was damned show uncomfortable. I was about
Speaker 1: to give me something profound. It was just your heads
Speaker 1: wasn't ready. It is profound. My body, my mind, my
Speaker 1: mind's telling me yeah, but my body is telling me
Speaker 1: hell no. Bro I knew I was in trouble because
Speaker 1: about ten minutes in I was heavy breathing. Did you
Speaker 1: did you call earl? Excuse me? Did you did you vomit? No?
Speaker 1: I did not, but I did take At one point
Speaker 1: I got off the treadmill and looked myself in the mirrors.
Speaker 1: What did you say? I said, what is going on today?
Speaker 1: And my body says, ship, I don't know, broh, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. But then my mom I
Speaker 1: started I did not didn't braced the uncomfortable, and she said,
Speaker 1: you have to be okay, the only way you're gonna
Speaker 1: get uncomfortable. But you have to be uncomfortable to have progress. Bro.
Speaker 1: I was so struggling and in that progress by my uncomfortableness.
Speaker 1: You know what it showed me, and I'll be transparent.
Speaker 1: I was screwed up for about an hour after that
Speaker 1: because it was probably the first time as forty one
Speaker 1: years old that I couldn't wheeld myself through it. I
Speaker 1: could not get over the hump, and I was kicking myself.
Speaker 1: And I do a routine. Ten minutes I run, and
Speaker 1: after after I run, I do abs and I do
Speaker 1: a few other things, and I stretched bro I got
Speaker 1: twenty two minutes and I stopped. I even stopped it
Speaker 1: and went back to it to try to do it,
Speaker 1: and I still couldn't do it. And so I came
Speaker 1: here and I said, you know what, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and say today and say if you are struggling,
Speaker 1: if you are not comfortable with being uncomfortable, you did
Speaker 1: not want to get the progress, It's okay, It's all right.
Speaker 1: But what I really learned was I failed in a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but I was okay with felling today.
Speaker 1: I actually felt human and it was really cool that
Speaker 1: I did not want to beat myself up about it.
Speaker 1: But I I literally didn't do my ad workout, didn't
Speaker 1: finish the run, and I just jumped hopped in the
Speaker 1: shower and I was struggling and I and I have
Speaker 1: this whole routine. But then I started going in my
Speaker 1: mind while I haven't taken my um, I do a
Speaker 1: plant base um protein shape that I do, and I
Speaker 1: just struggled all the way through, like I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't do it because I can't do it too
Speaker 1: early because then they'll wake up dudes then and you
Speaker 1: get mad that I woke up dude. But I needed
Speaker 1: my protein. I haven't been able to take it too
Speaker 1: so I took it today on the way in. It
Speaker 1: was just really cool that I'm evolving to realize it's
Speaker 1: okay with not accomplishing to day. Or maybe the perspective
Speaker 1: shift is your body couldn't finish the workout, but your
Speaker 1: mind got to exercise today. Is that it? I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's that profound, but I just know I'm
Speaker 1: just giving it. Man. I drop a gym every now.
Speaker 1: But listen, I saved that workout. You're going back? Are
Speaker 1: You're gonna barrel through that? Oh? You best believe that.
Speaker 1: Forty five men the door swand a mothersucker. I am
Speaker 1: coming back now. I don't know what the outcome gonna be,
Speaker 1: but I'm gon await a couple of days. So on Saturday,
Speaker 1: if you see Smith Fam eighty nine on the peloton,
Speaker 1: just no, I'm coming with that smoke. I lost today
Speaker 1: I'll be on your back. Mom will be back in
Speaker 1: a couple of days. And then told you so listen,
Speaker 1: if you're struggling, if you went through something, I understand
Speaker 1: that you're not alone. It happens. So I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I think maybe guy was saying, hey, you know you
Speaker 1: need you you need a little bit today. So I'm
Speaker 1: cool with it. That's dope, man. I'll be there at
Speaker 1: them all though. Who's the guest today? The Quail Jackson.
Speaker 1: The Quails a former linebacker for the Indianapolis Coats and
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Browns. He was a teen pro bowler and
Speaker 1: just overall great guy. The Quail thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Oh thank you, Thank you guys for having
Speaker 1: me thanking me. You're about to get iced up. Smitty's
Speaker 1: got these random questions. Have no idea what he's gonna
Speaker 1: talk about. Smitty, go ahead whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 1: Ice him up. Son. Your favorite movie all time? Favorite
Speaker 1: movie all time? I definitely have to say Mental Bonna
Speaker 1: is one of them with Cuban Gooden Jr. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: that's like my goal to anytime I would go into
Speaker 1: camp just to get my mind right, I would throw
Speaker 1: mental ban it. That's one of my all time favorites.
Speaker 1: Uh the program another football movie, that's a good one, right,
Speaker 1: Watch that school. That's so the funny if I can
Speaker 1: say this, the funny thing about that the movie program
Speaker 1: my literal league coach. He used to he used to
Speaker 1: have sleepovers over his house night before games. I was
Speaker 1: what was the linebacker's name. I forget the linebacker his name,
Speaker 1: but I was. I played linebacker, so I had to
Speaker 1: embody what he lost it got it got the juices going. Man.
Speaker 1: So I like that um pancakes or waffles, and it
Speaker 1: just depends on the mood. I mean, ah, give me
Speaker 1: a good give me a good soft pancake, man, give
Speaker 1: me a good pancake. Yeah, softy. That sounds like it's
Speaker 1: an uncooked bing. That's that like a doughty pag No.
Speaker 1: I like it just right. I don't mind a little dope.
Speaker 1: I don't mind a little doing, But my joint gotta
Speaker 1: be solved. Any any flavor chocolate chill, Nah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: straight up, just as plain as it can be. And
Speaker 1: some syrup and some what kind of okay, let me
Speaker 1: say what what kind of syrup? Though? What kind of sirup? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: like organic or you just going with the buzzwor o
Speaker 1: you all that hot fruit toast syrup? I need all
Speaker 1: the sugar cuts, all right. The first the first job
Speaker 1: you've ever had, first job I've ever had. Oh that's well.
Speaker 1: I used to bad groceries back home at a grocery
Speaker 1: store called public. But only work the week, is only
Speaker 1: work on the week, is only work. For a while,
Speaker 1: I was out the day, but I got getting fired
Speaker 1: because my lunch break, instead of half hour breaks, I
Speaker 1: would take an would break. I would be on the toilet,
Speaker 1: just magazines and all that. So it didn't last long
Speaker 1: before hours at the time, man, and I couldn't you know.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, this football thing needs
Speaker 1: to work out for me, dude, that's terrible, dog, that
Speaker 1: is That is just what I did. That was my
Speaker 1: legal job. But what I my uncle, what I what
Speaker 1: my uncle had me do was I used to mow
Speaker 1: everyone's yard around the neighborhood, just you know. And I
Speaker 1: was a bigger kid growing up. So again, when I
Speaker 1: was playing football, we had weight limits. So in order
Speaker 1: for me to make weight, my uncle put me in this.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you guys have heard this the sweat, the
Speaker 1: trash bag, trash bag, cut holes in the trash bag,
Speaker 1: and I would cut everybody's lawing all week long in
Speaker 1: the mid mid of summer down in Florida. Yeah, Florida
Speaker 1: was my first real job. You know today they call
Speaker 1: that child to be Yeah. I know, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: You know. I won't name any names, so we don't
Speaker 1: want to nobody. All right, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know this, but I gotta throw this out there.
Speaker 1: You were notoriously you were notorious for getting um emotional
Speaker 1: on the football field to the point of where you
Speaker 1: would um be queasy. So the most embarrassing things you've
Speaker 1: ever thrown up? Oh man, I get teased about this
Speaker 1: all the time. He used to call me with it
Speaker 1: be man. I just had this conversation last weekend one
Speaker 1: of my aunts because I can't. I don't judge me
Speaker 1: on this, but I cannot. I don't eat a ton
Speaker 1: of seafood. Growing up in Florida. We had the fresh
Speaker 1: fish Prize, we had the crowd boils all that. I
Speaker 1: never touched any of it, but if I smell it,
Speaker 1: my stomach will get so queazy. I could posibly throw
Speaker 1: up like it happened before. I can't. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's an allergic reaction or what,
Speaker 1: but I cannot do it. But yeah, I have been
Speaker 1: known to throw up a time back in my day.
Speaker 1: You know, you know it's funny about that, is playing
Speaker 1: against you, getting hit by you, And all I need
Speaker 1: to do is maybe put some imitation. Craping just would
Speaker 1: have been no about nothing. It would have been over
Speaker 1: from the start. Bro. Yeah, man, I can't get over ye.
Speaker 1: I have a very weak stomach, very weak. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: That's your worst, not mine, weak stomach. The Quail Jackson
Speaker 1: got them bad guts. Okay, in retirement, your Sunday afternoons,
Speaker 1: now you're gonna catch a basketball game or a football game.
Speaker 1: Gonna catch a basketball game? Why game? I've watched enough
Speaker 1: football on my day. I'm not missing anything. But you're
Speaker 1: throwing some basketball? Oh yeah? Because you know back in
Speaker 1: the day, I wish, you know, I played ball. That
Speaker 1: was my first love of basketball. I wonder who you know?
Speaker 1: Back home, they had this tournament called hoop it Up
Speaker 1: where you get three on three and it was hundreds
Speaker 1: of you know, uh, your trees to get in you
Speaker 1: you you play at this dog track they set up
Speaker 1: Who's And I loved it, man, But I was just
Speaker 1: better at football. But yeah, if it's a basketball it's
Speaker 1: a basketball game or a football game on nine times
Speaker 1: out of ten, and I'm probably gonna watch basketball. Who
Speaker 1: is the Quail Jackson? The guy who's who grew up
Speaker 1: in Florida. Let's discover the Quail Jackson inside of the jersey?
Speaker 1: Got it? Got it? Well? The first thing that comes
Speaker 1: to mind for me is, you know, I was one
Speaker 1: of those kids. I'm the youngest of three, my oldest brother.
Speaker 1: We have the same father, different mother, so we didn't
Speaker 1: really grow up together. And so for me, I grew
Speaker 1: up with my middle brother, my brother Dante, and single
Speaker 1: family household my dad. You know, really the only memory
Speaker 1: I have with my dad as a youth was him,
Speaker 1: you know, giving me a bath. And it's probably partly
Speaker 1: why I love bad time with my son, you know,
Speaker 1: It's like it's very important for me that I spend
Speaker 1: that time with him. But I think for me, I
Speaker 1: was always that inquisitive little kid that probably I was
Speaker 1: very very very shock growing up. But I used to
Speaker 1: think a lot and my mother, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I was the problem child because I wanted to try everything.
Speaker 1: I was cool. I grew up in a you know,
Speaker 1: small black neighborhood, but yet I went to a predominantly
Speaker 1: all white school. But if you say my name, I
Speaker 1: was cool with white black it didn't matter. You know,
Speaker 1: I was just that guy. I seem to love everybody,
Speaker 1: which was you know, came off is different or maybe
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, my mom didn't really understand that.
Speaker 1: So let me let me interject, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to miss an opportunity. You stated you grew up in
Speaker 1: a predominantly black neighborhood in Florida, yet you attended a
Speaker 1: predominantly white school for whatever ethnicity, culture, sex, creed economic situation.
Speaker 1: Why do you believe bringing that up in the manner
Speaker 1: that you brought it up? Why? Why is that in
Speaker 1: today's culture? Why is that? Why? Why did you need
Speaker 1: to say it in that way? That's a great question,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times we all live
Speaker 1: in our own silos. I own little bubbles, and for instance,
Speaker 1: I give you an example of my my own wife.
Speaker 1: My wife grew up in the Washington, D c. Area
Speaker 1: where you know, it's George's County was one of the
Speaker 1: most affluent areas for for black people, uh in this country.
Speaker 1: So her perception of black was a lot different than
Speaker 1: my perception of black. And so so what is your
Speaker 1: perception based off that statement? You said, what is your
Speaker 1: perception of black right now? For me? Black right now
Speaker 1: is its excellent. Black right now means means education. Black
Speaker 1: right now means strength. Black right now means uh, misunderstood.
Speaker 1: Black right now means it's like the secret that that
Speaker 1: we've all kind of talked away is now at the
Speaker 1: forefront when you look at what's happened in the world
Speaker 1: right now with the George Floyd murder and how the
Speaker 1: conversation and dialogue has completely shifted now. You know, I
Speaker 1: drive around my neighborhood and that's black Lives Matters signs
Speaker 1: everywhere where. Before it wasn't as an easy topic to
Speaker 1: talk about. So mean, so your your your previous question
Speaker 1: about why I thought it was important to bring up
Speaker 1: that I lived in a predominantly black area, but yet
Speaker 1: I went to a predominantly white school. It was because
Speaker 1: the percep I was looking back as a young d
Speaker 1: Quell Jackson, I was looking for more and in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You had some great role models, you had some not
Speaker 1: so great role models, just like any other community. But
Speaker 1: I just always thought it was much more and I
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot of much more from the people
Speaker 1: that looked like me, and only saw it in Florida
Speaker 1: from the people that didn't look like me. So it
Speaker 1: was a matturation process of when I get the from
Speaker 1: the university that I chose. I could have gone the
Speaker 1: University of Florida, but I didn't. I felt like it
Speaker 1: was like a fifth year high school. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to a you know, big metropolitan area where
Speaker 1: it was more people that looked like me doing well
Speaker 1: other people, big Melton pot of people. That's just the
Speaker 1: way I'm kind of wired. I love to be around people,
Speaker 1: you know. It's just something that has always been very
Speaker 1: close to the chest for me, of trying to identify
Speaker 1: of of who I am, because in the South, a
Speaker 1: lot of grandparents didn't really tell you those horror stories
Speaker 1: about your your blackness so important that we all get
Speaker 1: educated on our history, because listen, just because you're black
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you speak for everyone that's black. Everyone has perspectives,
Speaker 1: and I think for me, I've always sought that out.
Speaker 1: But my parents and my my grandparents and my uncle's
Speaker 1: and my aunts, we really I really didn't have that
Speaker 1: history from them. I learned through the school system, and
Speaker 1: as I got old, I'm like, wait, there's gotta be more.
Speaker 1: That's gotta be more. And that's partly why I live
Speaker 1: in the Washington, D c. Area. You know, my wife,
Speaker 1: when you talk to her about the history and and
Speaker 1: her she can give you personal stories from her great grandmother.
Speaker 1: She has a grandmother now that's ninety three years old,
Speaker 1: her sister, So they're just endless amounts of information that
Speaker 1: kind of ties us all together. It just makes you appreciate,
Speaker 1: to your point earlier about blackness, what it means to
Speaker 1: be black. It was a pride, and it was it
Speaker 1: was a pride that you carried with history and education
Speaker 1: and and even sparked my interests of reading. Now you know,
Speaker 1: I was never a reader. I've gone through I'm reading
Speaker 1: this book right now called Policing a Black Man, which
Speaker 1: is and I just finished, uh two years ago. I
Speaker 1: actually read a book that kind of sparked my interests
Speaker 1: again about um when I went back to school to
Speaker 1: finish my degree. It was called white fragility. It's written
Speaker 1: by a white woman, but in a white woman's white
Speaker 1: person's perspective. To get insight of what the things that
Speaker 1: you know, songs that we've heard over the years, people
Speaker 1: you know, black people, you know talking about you know,
Speaker 1: different you know, how to raise their kids, how we
Speaker 1: you know, prepare our kids when they leave the house
Speaker 1: differently than their white you know friends. That It takes
Speaker 1: a deep dive into that. And that's something that I'm
Speaker 1: really passionate about and really important about it. And I
Speaker 1: want to push all that over to my son to know,
Speaker 1: because quite frank, he's not gonna grow up the way
Speaker 1: I did. You know, he's got everything he's possible. He's
Speaker 1: got a pool in his backyard. You know, he's got
Speaker 1: every toy known the man. But it's some somehow, somewhere
Speaker 1: you want to find that balance. So, okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: know who we are. You know, we we live a
Speaker 1: great life. But yet you know, a lot of people,
Speaker 1: including our family, don't live a charm life as we do.
Speaker 1: And it's important just to be have a good balance.
Speaker 1: When it comes comes to that, we have to take
Speaker 1: a break. And more than anything, we gotta pay some bills.
Speaker 1: I love cut to It, and I love it even
Speaker 1: more when you download us and subscribe, and you can
Speaker 1: follow us on social media too, Smithie, where where at?
Speaker 1: That's at? Cut to It on Instagram? What about Twitter? At?
Speaker 1: Cut to It? Facebook? Cut to It featuring Steve Smith singr?
Speaker 1: What about online? And you can follow us at cut
Speaker 1: to It podcast dot com where you can buy merch
Speaker 1: and 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. So who was the
Speaker 1: biggest influence in that community as you were going to
Speaker 1: the schools and thirst thing for that hungerl who? It was?
Speaker 1: My uncle? It was my uncle Charles. He was a
Speaker 1: military guy. He had you know, uh he was. He
Speaker 1: was good and sports growing up. But he was a knucklehead,
Speaker 1: you know. He followed the crowd instead of leading on
Speaker 1: his own. He went to prison and when he got
Speaker 1: back out, he basically did not want me or my
Speaker 1: brothers to to to to become entrapped in that environment.
Speaker 1: So he was my sounding board. He was you know,
Speaker 1: I'm eight years old and he's talking to me like
Speaker 1: I'm a grown man, you know. And and I didn't
Speaker 1: understand all of it then, but I understand it now.
Speaker 1: He was preparing me for what, you know, when that
Speaker 1: situation would come up, whether it be whatever it was about.
Speaker 1: You know, I had heard it ten times over from
Speaker 1: my uncle. But he was the guy. He was. He
Speaker 1: was a disciplinarian. He took the place of my father,
Speaker 1: who wasn't around because my father was in and out
Speaker 1: of prison majority of my life. Uh, he had a
Speaker 1: he was he was a drug addict. He was on drugs.
Speaker 1: But now that I'm a grown man, I realized it's
Speaker 1: an illness. Ye speat it like a drug, like a
Speaker 1: like a criminal problem, when when in fact, it's an
Speaker 1: illness and it's something that Listen, all of us have kids,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing more important than our kids. And if
Speaker 1: something is dragging your way that's much more important than
Speaker 1: your kids and your family, then that's an illness to me. Well,
Speaker 1: I heard a story about your apologize on another podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, I don't know the exact podcast, and
Speaker 1: your apologizing to your old college coach, bro. That was
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, So sixteen sixties. Ever, teen years ago.
Speaker 1: Why did you believe you needed to apologize? Why? Because
Speaker 1: he's a he's a He's a good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: that's why. And we talked so much, and I never
Speaker 1: had a chance to to think to give him a
Speaker 1: call and tell him that, you know, I put him
Speaker 1: through the ringers in high school. It is Mike Lotchley,
Speaker 1: who's a current head coach here at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 1: And now you know he he was a guy. He's
Speaker 1: always been super friendly to me and my family, always
Speaker 1: looked out for us, always wanted I look at him
Speaker 1: as looked at him as more than a coach. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we had some fun with it because he tells that
Speaker 1: story all the time. Man, I didn't sign on signing day,
Speaker 1: and one coach wanted me to go one place, another
Speaker 1: coach wanted me to go another another college. Because looking back,
Speaker 1: they all had friends and everyone had their own agenda.
Speaker 1: I gotta figured out I had to apologize to him.
Speaker 1: He thought it was hilarious. But we're good friends. That's
Speaker 1: the only reason I feel like I need to apologize
Speaker 1: to And plus it was just good fun. You went
Speaker 1: to Maryland. You you like you said you didn't want
Speaker 1: to go to any schools in Florida's And I actually
Speaker 1: have to give you kudos for that, because you know,
Speaker 1: growing up and you know, growing up, I grew up
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and usc U C L A San
Speaker 1: Diego state, like you desired to. You desired going to
Speaker 1: those schools because college the colleges now have their own networks.
Speaker 1: You got Packed twelve a C C S SEC. Right,
Speaker 1: you got you even got the rudy poop leagues that
Speaker 1: got their own you know network. And so back then,
Speaker 1: back yonder back when we were playing you locally only saw,
Speaker 1: you only watched like growing up in l a Florida state,
Speaker 1: Charlie Ward right there, Brooks Peter Ward, I called flag
Speaker 1: for leaving the state. Now like where I grew up
Speaker 1: in Florida, we would die hard Florida state. We're exactly
Speaker 1: in Florida. Like I'm in a city called Largo, Florida.
Speaker 1: It's like Southwest is on the Gulf side. So I
Speaker 1: grew up near the beaches and just that little pocket. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm a West Coast guy. How far away from
Speaker 1: Disney are you here in South Georgia. Man. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I'm like, they're like, oh, I'm from here. I'm like,
Speaker 1: where's that from Florida? He need he needs the panhandles,
Speaker 1: Like you gotta give him a landmark from Disney. I'm
Speaker 1: about two hours Okay, okay, I know where that's sad,
Speaker 1: I know where that side you got, so yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go in that area. Your Florida State
Speaker 1: was the school, and that was like if you played football,
Speaker 1: you went to Florida State. That was like you kinnacle.
Speaker 1: But they never offered me. They never offered me. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was huge fans of you know, the
Speaker 1: guys you mentioned, Derrick Brooks, Wark Dones, Peter Ward. I
Speaker 1: loved all everything about it. And when I realized I
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough to play for them, you know, I
Speaker 1: had to really dive deep into into like, Okay, where
Speaker 1: am I gonna spend these next four years to play football?
Speaker 1: But when I decided to go to Maryland, you know,
Speaker 1: Maryland is not a football school. That's still not a
Speaker 1: football school. They had just won the national championship in
Speaker 1: basketball two thousand one. They went to the Orange Bowl,
Speaker 1: got got, you know, the break speed off of them,
Speaker 1: from University of Florida. And it was just like when
Speaker 1: I made the decision. My uncle down at me, my
Speaker 1: family downed at me. It was it was a decision
Speaker 1: I had to make on my own. Good one wanted
Speaker 1: me to go to Maryland, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: had to make the best out of it. Let's talk ball.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna talk a little football. In
Speaker 1: high school, you played everything. Your school was pretty sorry
Speaker 1: because you played punter. I see, they said, don't always
Speaker 1: if you if you play a linebacker and you're the
Speaker 1: punter of and you're in the National Football League, your perspective,
Speaker 1: you look back, you go, bro. We was terrible some
Speaker 1: of these deep South teams, like you may only have
Speaker 1: thirty five guys in your roster. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: play both ways. Did you play both ways in high school? Yeah, y'all? Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to say so, but we're sorry. Okay,
Speaker 1: got it. I played safety, I played corner. I this
Speaker 1: how sorry we were. Let me just tell you my
Speaker 1: best friend Peter Mills from Africa, who could who was
Speaker 1: from Africa, grew up playing soccer, couldn't make the soccer team.
Speaker 1: Was the kicker was the kicker. He was such a
Speaker 1: piss poor kicker. When I scored, I actually kicked the
Speaker 1: field goal after you st you're going back and you
Speaker 1: can kick the extra point because he was so inconsistent.
Speaker 1: My friend, it's a sorry football team. I hate to
Speaker 1: say when I played quarterback to I played quarterback, I
Speaker 1: ran a wing t d. Yeah. See wait a minute, buddy,
Speaker 1: thank you draw our little john. My boy. He went
Speaker 1: to high school North Carolina Lexington. Put a respect on it,
Speaker 1: bro same place, And what kind of offense did y'all run?
Speaker 1: Freshman and sophomore year, we ran wing tea and then
Speaker 1: we ran spread my junior and same year. How do
Speaker 1: you go from listen? It was a transition. It was backwards.
Speaker 1: You don't go from spread. We did? We did? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's a little quick talk. Let's talk
Speaker 1: bold with your a's playing linebacker? What was what? What's
Speaker 1: so intriguing to play linebacker defensively versus playing offense? Where
Speaker 1: you think back now you're retired, thinking back at your career. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't like getting hit, as simple as that. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get hit, you know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't mind a collision. But I wanted to be the
Speaker 1: one to strike force on somebody else. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't think about the idea. It didn't intrigue me for
Speaker 1: me to run the football, and I didn't need to
Speaker 1: score touchdowns. I wanted to hit people. I had a
Speaker 1: ton of energy. I could run a little bit. And
Speaker 1: you mean to tell me, I can wear these shoulders,
Speaker 1: I can wear these pass and I can go tackle
Speaker 1: anybody that has the football. To me, it was that simple,
Speaker 1: you know. When I first started, you know, this ability
Speaker 1: to have fun. And I was a rough little kid
Speaker 1: growing up. I used to break all my toys like
Speaker 1: there was nothing that my mom could could do to
Speaker 1: me or put me in to tire me out. But
Speaker 1: when I started playing football, it soaked up so much
Speaker 1: energy and it was just so much you can learn.
Speaker 1: And my uncle was there. The more I asked, the
Speaker 1: more he would give me. And you know, just I
Speaker 1: loved everything about it and I was obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: You know. I was that kid that before games in
Speaker 1: literal league. I mean I used to sleep in my
Speaker 1: my equipment, sleep in my uniform. Oh yeah, I used
Speaker 1: to lay it all out. Oh I used to see
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. I love football so much. We
Speaker 1: had this dirt role next to my grandmother's house and
Speaker 1: we it was probably about I don't know, maybe a
Speaker 1: little short of the link of for football field. Well,
Speaker 1: my brothers didn't want to play with me, so I
Speaker 1: used to play football by myself. I used to snap
Speaker 1: it to myself, catch it, go, go through a play
Speaker 1: by play in my head, scoring a touchdown, playing lineback
Speaker 1: of being you know whoever I was into at that time,
Speaker 1: I mean I loved him and I was obsessed with football.
Speaker 1: So football football for you growing up was it was
Speaker 1: a real arena for you to um plugged because you
Speaker 1: stated you were anchor and you love you. You're inquisitive,
Speaker 1: you question everything. But I know for myself as a
Speaker 1: thinker as well, you always you. I won't say always,
Speaker 1: but I think always is fair assessment. You always are
Speaker 1: looking for places to imagine, not fantasized, but imagine a
Speaker 1: better situation or place you can go. That's entirely accurate. Okay.
Speaker 1: It was definitely my way away for me to get
Speaker 1: away from everybody, you know, get lost in my thoughts
Speaker 1: and you know I would be dreaming. Is one thing
Speaker 1: dreaming is. There's different dreams, but mine mine. What I
Speaker 1: would imagine was it was the same story. It was
Speaker 1: me playing football, me being successful at you know, whether
Speaker 1: it be that upcoming game or or years from now.
Speaker 1: I used to envision myself as a thirty year old
Speaker 1: plus man, what would I be. It was the same
Speaker 1: image when it came to football. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: never thought about anything. I never really gave it a
Speaker 1: chance of it not working when I was young, like,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do and until people,
Speaker 1: until this route changes, I'm gonna stay committed to it.
Speaker 1: And definitely that was my place of solids man, where
Speaker 1: I could just get away. I felt comforted into that. Well,
Speaker 1: let's keep in the theme of let's talk ball. When
Speaker 1: I first met you, um outside of an helmet of
Speaker 1: jersey and you trying to decapitate me going across the middle.
Speaker 1: We met on a NFL USO trip to Kazastan, in
Speaker 1: which I was actually on another trip in China. I
Speaker 1: think it was China. Yeah, I went to China. So
Speaker 1: I took a I took a day trip. We were
Speaker 1: meeting in in Stanbol and so I did a layover.
Speaker 1: So I spent like hours and instabl pretty interesting to
Speaker 1: see instables in thirteen hours, basically living in a van
Speaker 1: a private tour. And so I met It was me, you,
Speaker 1: Von Miller, J J. Watt, and Champ Bailey and it
Speaker 1: was awesome. But we also when we met, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get into it and I want you to kind of
Speaker 1: talk about it. What was the most intriguing thing we
Speaker 1: played against each other? Me and you? But you got
Speaker 1: to see a little bit of the intensity and uh,
Speaker 1: the I don't want to say shortcomings, the short fused
Speaker 1: that I had at times hear stories. I had heard
Speaker 1: the story like, man, this dude is fighting, like you know,
Speaker 1: don't mess fluid and like a dude, it's a grinding
Speaker 1: practice games. You're gonna talk ship to you. He gonna
Speaker 1: do whatever you can to get the edge. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I met that guy. I'm like, it ain't
Speaker 1: so bad. Everybody get a bad rap now, it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a bad rap about to get some rap, right,
Speaker 1: So I get to meet him or what have you,
Speaker 1: and and I can understand what I'm going with this
Speaker 1: is I can completely understand with Steve, and I know
Speaker 1: I know where he's going with this. So you know,
Speaker 1: anytime people meet me right there was like, oh, you
Speaker 1: played receiver. They always say receiver, Like, no, I played
Speaker 1: lineback in the league. Oh you you pretty small for
Speaker 1: a linebacker. It kind of pugs you the wrong way
Speaker 1: every now and again when you don't want to hear.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, when we got the Afghanistan, Steve
Speaker 1: kept getting this people, hold on, stop, stop stop. We
Speaker 1: are with the top of the top. We went in
Speaker 1: in in Afghanistan, the the place that we were deployed
Speaker 1: and we went to. First of all, when we got there,
Speaker 1: we sat on the tarmac for like five hours because
Speaker 1: we cannot have a time frame to go into the Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: because we didn't want the the Afghan people or Terrish
Speaker 1: people too here on ray know when we were landing.
Speaker 1: So we literally said we sat on the tarmac so
Speaker 1: much we all like too different gnaps were still on
Speaker 1: the tarmac. So we finally get there and we're we're
Speaker 1: like Navy seals, Navy Army, your forest pilots. We were
Speaker 1: everybody the top of the top, the toughest are the
Speaker 1: tough We get there, bro, we ain't there but thirty
Speaker 1: bang minutes. Oh I thought you were taller. The only
Speaker 1: person Maye to think was taller was j J. That
Speaker 1: was it because j J used to right everything. Everybody
Speaker 1: was getting it, man, But I just felt when I
Speaker 1: heard it the first time. But normally all right, Steve,
Speaker 1: he probably gonna brush it off. But he not. Steve
Speaker 1: always not back. You know what I'm saying. Not the hat.
Speaker 1: You're not talking about the hat? No, you having back?
Speaker 1: Not the hat. Ok. I was like, okay, he's just
Speaker 1: finding on all cylinders. We had a long commute. Everybody's
Speaker 1: not kind of you know, everyone's kind of growing give
Speaker 1: from traveling. Just that the other everybody wants to get
Speaker 1: to a bad sleep, figure out our schedule later, let's
Speaker 1: get us where we're going. So just it's over time.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna fast forward through maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: days or what have you. That a week, It just
Speaker 1: we were that week. This would not go away because
Speaker 1: Steve was you know Steve with Steve when he walks
Speaker 1: on the bus, when he walks anywhere, people, he just
Speaker 1: have that that type of personality what people want to
Speaker 1: be around you. But Steve is you know, he's on,
Speaker 1: he's fine, right, he's on, he's rolling, and what do
Speaker 1: you know? These soldiers and full uniform. They keep bringing up, Hey,
Speaker 1: I thought you were much taller. I guess gets you
Speaker 1: what wait you play football? What? Wait? What? Just just
Speaker 1: will stop and now Steve, he's done. So now this
Speaker 1: is a day where you know, we're gonna interact with
Speaker 1: with the soldiers like they put us on a heck
Speaker 1: of hell of the schedule, man, it was awesome based
Speaker 1: to base eating different people. We didn't have time. We
Speaker 1: barely had time to eat. They worked out, asked you
Speaker 1: hear me? They worked us pretty good. But it was
Speaker 1: all worth. But this one particular day, we're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: have a little downtime. We're gonna play football, right, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna play with the soldiers. You know, we're having fun.
Speaker 1: My intentions, but we're gonna have fun, right. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know what his intentions was, but he just
Speaker 1: tried to shoot some bail real quick. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was going great. It was going great. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody playing Ja having fun, Champ having fun, Von Miller
Speaker 1: them they're throwing up because he's out of shape, of shape,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, we're not doing it
Speaker 1: if they's straining withus. Next thing, you know, I look
Speaker 1: over and Steve has wrapped up with this guy in
Speaker 1: the uniform. I'm like, no, they gotta be playing nah, buddy.
Speaker 1: Active soldier probably thought he was playing. Steve, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, was not. We was wrestling that. I'm making
Speaker 1: sure when you say wrapped up, so he is entangled.
Speaker 1: So so what happened? Like all boys like, man, you
Speaker 1: you're small, blah blah. I was like, you know, man,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, hey, if you feel like your boat
Speaker 1: can handle the waves, drop anchor. So he dropped, he
Speaker 1: dropped up. He dropped his anchor. And so they're letting
Speaker 1: us wrestle. So me and here wrestling five nine, one
Speaker 1: nine seven continue out set in the stage to this.
Speaker 1: You know, Steve has the guy bare hugged, and now
Speaker 1: I look over, I can see the guys trying to
Speaker 1: like really get out of this bear hug that he's done.
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, every time he moved it
Speaker 1: was like a python. Every time you move right up,
Speaker 1: Steve kept tightening and tightening and tightening. Sudden you hear
Speaker 1: screen like this man, Steve may have fractured this guy's
Speaker 1: ribs and active duty soldier all because he thought he
Speaker 1: was man enough to drop his anchor to try this
Speaker 1: man that was five nine one night thinking he was
Speaker 1: too small. Oh my goodness, Yo, that's when I realized
Speaker 1: this guy, See he is not playing around with folks.
Speaker 1: Do not mess around with this guy. Great got to
Speaker 1: be around, but do not make jokes about his height.
Speaker 1: You're not pissing them off, because he will choke your
Speaker 1: ass out. Oh. I don't even have a retort for
Speaker 1: that man. Only. But on that on that trip, I
Speaker 1: had the unique opportunity to formulate a bond with you.
Speaker 1: And in that bond when when truth you know, me
Speaker 1: and Gerard are really good friends, one of my best friends,
Speaker 1: and so to get to do this podcast sometimes we
Speaker 1: I want to say, air dirty laundry, but we talked
Speaker 1: about each other's. Uh, there are things Gerard does well
Speaker 1: that my deficiencies, and there are things I do well
Speaker 1: that his deficiencies. Me and you were mates, now they were.
Speaker 1: One time we were mid sleep and the dang siren
Speaker 1: goes off. Rocket. So this isn't why y'all, why y'all
Speaker 1: deployed in Afghanistan? You're talking about and you're talking about
Speaker 1: you've been sleep three. They had given us like the rundown. Okay,
Speaker 1: you hear sirens, that means there's a missile launch. Were like,
Speaker 1: I've already been prepped. Now we we've been prepped and
Speaker 1: we're staying on the base. It's like a fire drill.
Speaker 1: You prepared for the fire drill, but in your mind
Speaker 1: you're gonna I ain't gonna really be no fire. This
Speaker 1: is it, man, that thing go off. I look at
Speaker 1: d look at me. You better run, And we had
Speaker 1: to run to a bucket launcher shelter. Man. Now you've
Speaker 1: got several athletes, and then someone of the athletes, and
Speaker 1: then some folks that just ain't athletes. So you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know the old story. I ain't got the out
Speaker 1: run the bear. I just gotta outrun the last person
Speaker 1: that we We were just running. You know when black
Speaker 1: people see other people running, we just run. You don't understand.
Speaker 1: You don't understand being in that more. I thought I was.
Speaker 1: We thought for a second, I thought I was gonna die. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm scared listening to it. People just running everywhere. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the what is y'all running for? What did I
Speaker 1: come here for? Why didn't we think this was a
Speaker 1: good idea? So I got a funny story. So when
Speaker 1: that happened, right, I guess I was on the phone
Speaker 1: with my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time,
Speaker 1: my not wife, and I guess the siren goes off. Well,
Speaker 1: this was after the sign goes off. We're running around.
Speaker 1: I called her. I was like, hey, we just had
Speaker 1: a you know, uh sigren go off. We gotta run
Speaker 1: to a punker, we gotta we gotta get to safety.
Speaker 1: And my phone cuts out, and you know, I guess
Speaker 1: the day goes by. When the next day goes by,
Speaker 1: we're doing whatever and my phone is just dead or
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not paying attention to it. I
Speaker 1: finally called her. She cusses me out because she thought
Speaker 1: I was dead because I just told her that we
Speaker 1: had a missile alert that we had to run the shelter.
Speaker 1: She hadn't heard from me in like ten plus hours.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, Yo, she cuts me
Speaker 1: all the way out of that. I'm sorry, man, it's nothing,
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. I'm sorry, but yeah, crazy time, man,
Speaker 1: I think it's about that time. Just so I'll take
Speaker 1: a little breather. Cut do it, cut do it. Let's
Speaker 1: get down to do it. Hey Gerard, why did you
Speaker 1: get that T shirt? You mean this thing? Oh yes,
Speaker 1: I got it from cut to a podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys
Speaker 1: at seven or four shot. But yeah, you can go on,
Speaker 1: buy you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. We were buck mates because we were
Speaker 1: anking together. You hear stories and you hear but I
Speaker 1: saw something that you did that you have later, um,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about this, you know, off record, UM
Speaker 1: to to the point of where you are in a
Speaker 1: place now that you're healthy and that you could share. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like it's soul the story. I don't know
Speaker 1: where the start, but I can. I'll tell you. This
Speaker 1: is the first thing that comes to mind, because we
Speaker 1: we definitely had great conversations, you know, for the first
Speaker 1: for the very first time us spending that much time together.
Speaker 1: I trusted you with the information. I don't mind talking
Speaker 1: about it now, but what I was, what you're referring
Speaker 1: to is, you know, playing football, you go through injuries,
Speaker 1: right and you learn to you learn from your environment,
Speaker 1: you learn to self medicaid, you learn to do different
Speaker 1: things just to get you to the following week. So
Speaker 1: you get paid and you you know, you take care
Speaker 1: of your family. You sacrifice a ton, not only from
Speaker 1: a time commitment, but your body. Your sack off, I
Speaker 1: see your body. And for me, I told both of
Speaker 1: my packs and it was back to back years two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, two thousand ten, and I had search season
Speaker 1: and ends of surgery. So with that came a lot
Speaker 1: of prescription pills, you know, oxycott and percocet, you know,
Speaker 1: things that are highly addictive. And that's just what happened
Speaker 1: to me. I became highly dependent on this medication, and
Speaker 1: I was I saw myself going down the wrong path,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and it just it just didn't
Speaker 1: feel right because, like we spoke about earlier in the podcast,
Speaker 1: my follower had the same illness. And I did everything
Speaker 1: I possibly could as a child, as a young man,
Speaker 1: now professional athletes to not have that same that that
Speaker 1: stigma holding holding over over my head. So I felt
Speaker 1: like my my life was was unraveling. You know, I
Speaker 1: was going through a divorce at the time, didn't have
Speaker 1: a pre nub, I had to sign a big check.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm looking at my bank account I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: that's some money, but that's not the money that's gonna
Speaker 1: last me the rest of my life. You know, I
Speaker 1: was really, really in a tough spot, and really in
Speaker 1: a tough spot. And I'll tell you what it was.
Speaker 1: Probably probably when you're in a tough spot as a
Speaker 1: as a as a, as a young man, as a
Speaker 1: young woman, or whoever, you realize who the important people
Speaker 1: are in your life and you basically have to come
Speaker 1: to a uh. You have to draw a line in
Speaker 1: the sand. And for me, I drew a line in
Speaker 1: the same I took myself. I took myself to a
Speaker 1: place called I amg Academy. I met with therapists, sports psychiatrists.
Speaker 1: I had a friend named with Dow Williams who at
Speaker 1: the time, I was in a tough spot. You know,
Speaker 1: I was injured, I was pretty much dependent on prescription
Speaker 1: pills and I was drinking with it. I was basically
Speaker 1: abusing my body, doing everything I possibly could not to
Speaker 1: help myself. Right, And my buddy gives me a call
Speaker 1: and he's from Sierre Leon, He's from West Africa, and
Speaker 1: he tells me, he's like, hey, Q, you you know
Speaker 1: I really love for you. To come on this trip.
Speaker 1: He was like, what's in it for me? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? You know, at the time,
Speaker 1: I was still on my rookie deal um the head
Speaker 1: coach at the time, you know, in Cleveland's like musical
Speaker 1: chairs at the head coaching position. But I was spending
Speaker 1: money as if I was going to sign a new deal.
Speaker 1: That new deal hadn't happened. Instead, I got injured again,
Speaker 1: and I was going through rehab again, and all these
Speaker 1: things just you know, just weren't looking at I wasn't
Speaker 1: trending in the right direction. I was better, I was mad,
Speaker 1: I was all those things to blame everyone else. But
Speaker 1: then I had a realization after that the Sierre Leone trip,
Speaker 1: when I removed myself away from all the things that
Speaker 1: I thought I didn't have, and when I put myself
Speaker 1: and that place in Sierra Leone at a school, watching
Speaker 1: young kids with no not no proper clothing, no shoes,
Speaker 1: bathing and and and ditches, you know, it really really
Speaker 1: changed my perspective on life. And I looked back at it.
Speaker 1: Before that trip, I was very selfish. I was looking
Speaker 1: at the things I didn't have as opposed to appreciate
Speaker 1: the things I had accumulated and where I go, how
Speaker 1: far I had come, and the things I had overcome.
Speaker 1: And you know, at the time, it's something that was
Speaker 1: it wasn't all that important to me, but uh, it
Speaker 1: was important. After the trip to sere Leon was you know,
Speaker 1: I had the big rims on the car, I had
Speaker 1: a big diamond change, I had the big charms. I
Speaker 1: was that guy, right I was. I was that guy
Speaker 1: going to the club, you know, just flashing money. I
Speaker 1: was that guy. When I got back from Siri le On,
Speaker 1: I got rid of the rims. I started wearing jewelry.
Speaker 1: I just had a new appreciation and not the jury
Speaker 1: is bad, but that's just my own way of kind
Speaker 1: of dealing with it the time. But I got rid
Speaker 1: of all the superficial stuff, you know, and just really
Speaker 1: stopped blaming everyone else. I really did a deep dive
Speaker 1: into myself. I invested in myself. I did all the
Speaker 1: things I could possibly do to get me out of
Speaker 1: this rug. And it was and it was quite frankly
Speaker 1: me speaking to a therapist, you know, and and at
Speaker 1: the time, a young black man was like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to talk to somebody like I'm not crazy. It
Speaker 1: was a different I had a different perspective of what
Speaker 1: helped look like. And it changed my life. Man, it
Speaker 1: really changed my life. So when we met, I was
Speaker 1: I was, I was dating my new my now wife.
Speaker 1: I was in a much better place. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of guys like myself who I
Speaker 1: was a fortunate I was very blessed to come out
Speaker 1: of that situation. On the better hand, a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: you know, life starts and unraveled. They don't seek the
Speaker 1: proper help, they don't take chances, they don't meet people
Speaker 1: like Steve that you could talk to. And you know,
Speaker 1: and from that moment, you know, if I text you
Speaker 1: or whatever, you always it's got back to me. And
Speaker 1: that's so important with guys like ourselves, where you played
Speaker 1: the game and you become remove away from that environment
Speaker 1: of brotherhood, you get attached to anything and it necessarily
Speaker 1: may not necessarily be the right thing. So for me,
Speaker 1: it was it was one of those moments where I
Speaker 1: look back, Oh, it gives me chills thinking about it, man,
Speaker 1: it really does, because it was a tough moment. Many
Speaker 1: days I wanted to give up. Many it was like, man,
Speaker 1: screw this, but I knew if I went back to Largo,
Speaker 1: if I looked my uncle in the eyes and look
Speaker 1: the I did not want to see disappointment in his eyes.
Speaker 1: I did not want to squander away this opportunity to
Speaker 1: make right of the bad choices that I had made
Speaker 1: up until that point. Through this whole process you stayed
Speaker 1: in in the beginning when we started this podcast, you
Speaker 1: talked about a huge influence in your life. Was Uncle
Speaker 1: Charles through this process of meeting me in Afghanistan, meteor
Speaker 1: going through a divorce, worse, getting back on into the
Speaker 1: life of you know, trying to find someone else because
Speaker 1: God has all made us relational. You can't just act
Speaker 1: like you don't need people in the world, no matter
Speaker 1: how many interceptions or touchdowns you make. You need you
Speaker 1: need significant, important relationships. All of this stuff you got
Speaker 1: going on, Where was Uncle Charles in this dialogue between
Speaker 1: YouTube as your life is falling apart and manifesting itself
Speaker 1: into your words, um kind of repeating the same behaviors
Speaker 1: that your that your father. Yeah, I was embarrassed to
Speaker 1: say I didn't let him in. You didn't know. You
Speaker 1: didn't know because I couldn't. I couldn't handle him knowing
Speaker 1: that I was slipping. You know, my uncle had looked
Speaker 1: at me like I was I was living his dream
Speaker 1: and I knew that, and I knew how much it
Speaker 1: would packed him and hurt him and me. Being in hindsight,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have let him in because it
Speaker 1: would have been a lot easier process for me. But
Speaker 1: he didn't know. I mean, I would lie to say
Speaker 1: things are good and this rehab is going here. I
Speaker 1: would lie about I just I couldn't be honest with him.
Speaker 1: But I knew I had to be honest with myself
Speaker 1: before I could be honest with him. So you know,
Speaker 1: after the fact, you know I did. You know, I
Speaker 1: let him in on what was going on, and you
Speaker 1: know he was pissed at me, but he understood. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta figure yourself out. You know, we all have
Speaker 1: a way of we all have our different ways of
Speaker 1: dealing with things. Now, going through that process, I know,
Speaker 1: now you gotta have good people in your corner. And
Speaker 1: I met my my current wife through that process and
Speaker 1: we talked about everything. I'm completely honest, and I have
Speaker 1: that network of people where I'm not afraid to talk
Speaker 1: about anything that I may be dealing with Like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, in the locker room, you think you have
Speaker 1: all the answers. You think you have enough guys around you.
Speaker 1: You know that there's a player development guy. I have
Speaker 1: to see you this direction the other direction. But when
Speaker 1: you remove yourself away from the game, you know you
Speaker 1: really have to you really have to make a conscious
Speaker 1: effort of making sure and cleansing yourself and having those
Speaker 1: good people in your corner. We want to go into
Speaker 1: another part of the podcast that we like to call
Speaker 1: a deep three, um and so this deep three is
Speaker 1: really three questions that this allows us to take a
Speaker 1: deeper dive into you as a person, beyond your profession,
Speaker 1: beyond your jersey. So Smithy, go ahead and start with
Speaker 1: the first question, how has life been for you since retirement? Oh, listen,
Speaker 1: I've never felt so free in my life, just from
Speaker 1: a mental standpoint, hold on, hold on free? What do
Speaker 1: you mean free? So being in locker rooms and being
Speaker 1: and and basically being groomed in the football culture that
Speaker 1: you and I was brought up in. It was it
Speaker 1: was we're going to tell you how to think, We're
Speaker 1: gonna tell you what to say, We're gonna tell you
Speaker 1: what not to say that drove me crazy towards the
Speaker 1: end of my career. So the probably it hit me
Speaker 1: a year or two after I was done, I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I can tweet whatever I want. I can I can
Speaker 1: post whatever I want. I could say whatever I want
Speaker 1: to the strangers. And I feel like I gotta, you know,
Speaker 1: represent this this organization that's on the smallest, simplest level,
Speaker 1: but just just through the and not to get to
Speaker 1: you know, philosophical. But my last few years was the
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick years, and you know every I love Chuckle
Speaker 1: gone on to death, love him to death, man. And
Speaker 1: there was times where I thought we were being told
Speaker 1: what to say as opposed to expressing yourself individuals. So
Speaker 1: for me, that was the most rewarding aspect of removing
Speaker 1: myself away from that football environment where I was a
Speaker 1: free thinker. I had time to go invested whatever I
Speaker 1: wanted to invest. I can go do in ternships. It
Speaker 1: basically was a free moment from being under scheduled. Uh.
Speaker 1: For you know levin professional seasons, Queen, what is COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen taught you about yourself or your relationship? You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. We I just realized then My wife just
Speaker 1: realized two weeks ago there she thought I would put
Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, let me let me start.
Speaker 1: Let me back this up a little bit. Who puts
Speaker 1: Let me ask you guys a question. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: getting right, if we're talking about wife, now, yeah, do
Speaker 1: you do either of you guys put peanut butter in
Speaker 1: the refrigerator? No? No, I know some folks that do.
Speaker 1: But I want to keep my podcast, so I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say which folks to do because because some because
Speaker 1: because some of the folks that I'm talking about, My
Speaker 1: wife is the same. So okay, so to that point, right,
Speaker 1: So I realized doing this pandemic about maybe two and
Speaker 1: a half weeks ago. My wife had the peanut butter
Speaker 1: out and she put it in the refrigerator. And you
Speaker 1: complain so damn hard. Let me get this straight. I
Speaker 1: was about itself and day I had the peanut butter
Speaker 1: and I was putting it on the bread, and I
Speaker 1: was like like that, I hate hard peanut butter. She
Speaker 1: was in the kitchen. Woman she was like, well, you're
Speaker 1: the one that put it, puts it in the refrigerator.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't put peanut butter infrigerator. I only
Speaker 1: put an in refrigerator because I assume you did it.
Speaker 1: So we just realized during this pandemic. For you, we've
Speaker 1: been together over a decade, living together for over a decade,
Speaker 1: we've been putting the peanut butter. I keep an extra
Speaker 1: peanut butter in the pantry because it's because I thought
Speaker 1: you gotta have a spare of my dude. He thought
Speaker 1: I put peanut butter in refrigerator, so she would always
Speaker 1: do it. So yeah, during the pandemic, we realized we
Speaker 1: both like wart peanut butter. We don't need to put
Speaker 1: it in refrigerator, all right, So our our last question.
Speaker 1: You tweeted a while back about Josh Gordon when he
Speaker 1: was in Cleveland. You have moved on to the July fifth,
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, you tweeted, Yeah, if you're close to
Speaker 1: Josh Gordon, please help this kid. It's not about football anymore.
Speaker 1: It's about picking up the pieces of his life. What
Speaker 1: led you to put yourself out there? Because you already
Speaker 1: had signed a two year deal, um and and and
Speaker 1: signed some pretty good money. You were out and and
Speaker 1: U with the Colts. You had moved on. You're out
Speaker 1: of Cleveland. You had no reason to be there. You
Speaker 1: are you had been on a roster with them, so
Speaker 1: you've seen some of that stuff. But I want to
Speaker 1: ask you that because it wasn't a tweet as if
Speaker 1: you were putting somebody or throwing shape putting somebody out there.
Speaker 1: You were tweeting because why Because I had a relationship
Speaker 1: relationship with him. It was a friendship that you as teammates.
Speaker 1: You know, trust me and Josh will tell you. When
Speaker 1: we were teammates, I saw the amount of talent this
Speaker 1: guy had and I would there would be times where
Speaker 1: the head coach at the time, Chazinski, he was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, you guys aren't going to meet You
Speaker 1: need to go talk to Josh. And then Josh and
Speaker 1: I we would chuck ourselves in meeting rooms and I
Speaker 1: would just try to just get the norm a little
Speaker 1: better so he can trust me because I wanted to
Speaker 1: help him. I wanted to help him, you know, in
Speaker 1: his life. It was like listen, man, if you can
Speaker 1: buffle down for these seven to nine months, I ever
Speaker 1: long the seasons, the season is, you can go do,
Speaker 1: you can go enjoy, you can go travel, you can
Speaker 1: go drake, you can go smoke. I don't care what
Speaker 1: you do. But if you take care of what you
Speaker 1: need to take care of, you, you can set your
Speaker 1: life up for the rest of your life and your
Speaker 1: children's lives if it means that much to you. And
Speaker 1: I was just giving him point us. I would just
Speaker 1: give him, you know, things that I would do to
Speaker 1: help myself, buckle down and studying a lot more, and
Speaker 1: sacrifice throughout the season. You know. Uh, just give them
Speaker 1: like little tools to work with, because we saw it all.
Speaker 1: We saw the talent, but you know, I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of myself in him, you know, and we had
Speaker 1: had I wouldn't have tweeted that if we hadn't had
Speaker 1: those conversations before. And I think, you know, behind the
Speaker 1: scenes before it kind of really blew up and the
Speaker 1: public really knew about Josh's struggles trust. And there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people in that building, including myself, And
Speaker 1: I wasn't Josh's friend on the like seeing type of level,
Speaker 1: like we didn't go to clubs together and things like that.
Speaker 1: It was in the building and when I spoke to him,
Speaker 1: it was real life ship. You know. It's like I want,
Speaker 1: I care, I care, I care for you probably more
Speaker 1: than you care about yourself. Right now, I see you
Speaker 1: going down a route that I've seen many people go down.
Speaker 1: I want to put these things. I want to tip
Speaker 1: your head to you know, what things look out for.
Speaker 1: So we had that type of relationship, and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I just saw a guy, even if he did go
Speaker 1: to the club during that time, he didn't drink. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a big drinker, you know. So if you know Josh,
Speaker 1: he's a fairly reserved guy, uber talent, uber talented, and
Speaker 1: just he just needed good people in his corner. Man.
Speaker 1: And we haven't spoken it in quite some time, but
Speaker 1: you know, I hope he gets his life together and
Speaker 1: I hope he has the right people in place to
Speaker 1: help him do that. Look how it came full circle
Speaker 1: the way that I do invested in you when when
Speaker 1: you needed that, when you were in a dark place,
Speaker 1: and then you're able to come back right back around
Speaker 1: and do that same thing with Josh. Man. That the
Speaker 1: coll that speci to your leadership, bro. It really does
Speaker 1: about Josh where at the time the GM was he
Speaker 1: was from Philly, and uh, he called me in his
Speaker 1: office and this is not realized, like, Okay, this was
Speaker 1: before the tweet, this is not realized, Like, wow, if
Speaker 1: you're a player, you know the front office really values
Speaker 1: your opinion and what you think about other players. So
Speaker 1: it was a you know, it was a tricky time.
Speaker 1: It was really confusing that at the time. But I
Speaker 1: was called in his office and he asked me about
Speaker 1: some players, and he asked me about Josh Gordon. And
Speaker 1: I'm only saying this because I talked to this GM
Speaker 1: some years later and he told me why he called
Speaker 1: me in. He wanted to know for me whether or
Speaker 1: not he should cut or move on from Josh Gordon.
Speaker 1: And in so many words, in so many ways, you know,
Speaker 1: that conversation I saw, I knew what he was doing,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't I wouldn't give up on Josh, Like, no,
Speaker 1: what we need to do is hire somebody ope him,
Speaker 1: help him, not just worried about him when he's on
Speaker 1: the field, when he's catching football, but help him when
Speaker 1: he leaves the building. They decided not to go that route.
Speaker 1: Josh ends up, you know, going through suspensions and that
Speaker 1: sat and the other because if they really wanted to help,
Speaker 1: they knew how to help him. They knew how to
Speaker 1: help him, and they weren't willing to do it, and
Speaker 1: that's when I really realized, like, Okay, you know this
Speaker 1: is serious. This is a business, and they really care
Speaker 1: about your talent as opposed to the person I value
Speaker 1: our friendship, and I remember the day, and until this podcast,
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to let it go. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to hear the story. I always wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you how that was, because, Um, I grew up with
Speaker 1: a lot of things in my family. UM that I
Speaker 1: experienced a witness as a young man and as an
Speaker 1: adult with with drug use. And I was actually shocked
Speaker 1: to see because we had had so much great dialogue.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I want to I want to
Speaker 1: screw this up. I want to preach to him. But
Speaker 1: also it was very uncomfortable. But I'll tell you this
Speaker 1: that you never know until today on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: haven't shared it. I never told anybody. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I wanted to have you on
Speaker 1: this podcast, because I knew after all the years we
Speaker 1: talked via text and played against each other and you
Speaker 1: knocked in the mess out of me and me trying
Speaker 1: to hit your back on the football field, and you know,
Speaker 1: playing against you when you were in India and I
Speaker 1: was a raven. It was a few times, bro, I
Speaker 1: looked in your eyes just to see was he clean?
Speaker 1: And man, I never told a soul. I never out
Speaker 1: of you. But I'm I am honored to be able
Speaker 1: to call your friend. But more importantly, I kept your secret.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to tell you I kept your secret.
Speaker 1: And I didn't tell anybody because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose your trust. We played ball as as brothers, but
Speaker 1: like I stay that God makes us desire and need
Speaker 1: relationships with people, and at that moment, I knew that
Speaker 1: guy gave me a person that was pretty darn special, man.
Speaker 1: And so I just wanted to tell you that I
Speaker 1: never told anybody. I never gave that a way because
Speaker 1: I treasured it and I even though it wasn't it
Speaker 1: didn't make me comfortable. Mm hm. I knew I needed
Speaker 1: to keep it inside because I want to give you
Speaker 1: a chance to to to to do whatever you need
Speaker 1: to do. So giving me this platform to talk about it,
Speaker 1: because the more I talk about it, the more you
Speaker 1: know at peace. I'm at peace with it, you know,
Speaker 1: and stuff you know, it was it was a dark,
Speaker 1: dark time for me. And uh, you know, if I
Speaker 1: could help someone listening, you know, whether it be a
Speaker 1: player or not, someone listening to know you know what,
Speaker 1: you got to write people around you, you got you
Speaker 1: really want to change. You can, but it will be difficult,
Speaker 1: but it's a life at the end of the time.
Speaker 1: Quinn really spoke about lifting others up underneath him, like
Speaker 1: Josh Gordon, and trying to find them support inside and
Speaker 1: outside of the facility. Why is that important? I mean
Speaker 1: when you talk about the people um that that that
Speaker 1: he's referring to, those people need to support. They still
Speaker 1: need support. And he also revealed that he needed support
Speaker 1: support and he has some things going on that he
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable enough addressing or bringing to light. Now
Speaker 1: obviously he's healthy and he's uh went through the proper
Speaker 1: channels to to to advance and to bring light to
Speaker 1: what he experienced. So I think it was it was needed.
Speaker 1: I loved I love talking to uh the quail Man.
Speaker 1: He's a real dude, but also too he's been through
Speaker 1: some things and sometimes people who are very judgmental really
Speaker 1: haven't been through it. But the people who are their
Speaker 1: understanding but not tolerant. He's more of an understanding because
Speaker 1: he understands the journey, he understands the battle that they
Speaker 1: went through. So it was really cool and and just
Speaker 1: great conversation. It was it was really cool. The Quail
Speaker 1: gave us an opportunity to peek into his recovery and
Speaker 1: just to peek into his is a life as a man.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's enough support? No, four players like
Speaker 1: m H there's not because one that requires the players
Speaker 1: to come forward to be able to have they can
Speaker 1: have data analysis and understanding what they need. But um
Speaker 1: and also two guys are hiding because of shame, so
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of guys open. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of guys that are sharing their thoughts. So how
Speaker 1: is the team going to be able to support them
Speaker 1: if they don't know what they need support on? But
Speaker 1: there are more players who need to speak up that
Speaker 1: teams don't even know about. Cut to It with Steve
Speaker 1: Smith Senior. That Is Me is a production of Cut
Speaker 1: to It, LLC, Baltold Creative Media, The Black Effect, and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows from Cut to It
Speaker 1: executive producer Steve Smith, singer co host Gerard little John,
Speaker 1: talent and booking manager Joe Fusci, social media manager Peyton Smith.
Speaker 1: From Balto Creative Media Cut Too. It is produced by
Speaker 1: Brian Baltaschevitch and Meredith Carter, with production existence by Alex Lebrec,
Speaker 1: Production manager Sarah Hollock, Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics
Speaker 1: and vocals by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard about it,
Speaker 1: then we're about to let you. Now it's all