Bussin' With The Boys - Best of the Bus: Greg Olsen On Tom Brady Drama, Coaching W/ Luke Kuechly & Being A Full-Time Dad

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

With Tight End U this week in Nashville, what better wya to start the weekend than with one of the founder of it all, Greg Olsen.   Greg Olsen hops back on the bus for another incredible episode with the boys. From coaching his kids and navigating the wild world of youth sports, to teaming up with Luke Kuechly on the middle school football sidelines, Greg shares hilarious and honest stories about parenting, competition, and dealing with tough parents. He opens up about his broadcasting journey, Tom Brady taking his spot, and whether he'd want his kids to play at "The U." We also get some Cam Newton love, a Bud Light hypothetical, and Greg throws some classic shade at Will. A must-watch for dads, fans, and anyone who grew up in a competitive household.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force.

From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American football on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions, ever since I was born.

This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real, and genuine, just honest conversations about what it means to be. be alive. I'm Javier El Chicharito Hernandez and listen to Learning to Be Human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Our guest today, three-time Pro Bowler on Fox, giving you the breakdown each and every single week, hailing from the U when the U was a U, give it up for Greg Olson. This is a long time coming.

I was just going to say that. I've never been on the, I've gone, I've been on with you guys, been never on the bus. Correct. Do we do a Zoom? I don't even know if Taylor was part of it. I did so. Because I was doing Tideon you and that was when it was in your guys' hotel a few years ago. That's right.

This is the same. But I've never been on the bus. Yeah. How's it feel? It feels great. It's everything I ever dreamed of. Right? It's, I really like your whole setup here.

The bus inside the shed. It's going on out here. You got a lot going on out here. It has good, you can tell there's like a good culture here. You can, when you walk in. in this warehouse, you could just tell, like, there are only dudes that work at this place. There's not one female within 40 hours of this place. There's trash over the place.

You know what this looked like when I walked into my, so I got here for T you, I got my two boys, 12 and 14, and my nephew who's 15 and our friend from home who's 12th. And the four boys are sharing two double bed, you know, two double bed. They're living the dream right now. When we, well, they're living a dream. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about the week. But we walked in, I walked into the room with. my wife this morning, I thought my wife was going to throw up. When I tell you, there was not a square inch of carpet visible on the floor, clothes, wet towels, shoes, their cleats from yesterday's

workout, dirty socks, all the shit they've given away here at T.U. That, when I walked into their room and I walked into your little shit, like, that's kind of, it was very similar. Yeah. We're just a bunch of teenagers with a double beds in a hotel. You just got a lot more money. Exactly. A lot more bud light. Just expensive, expensive trash on the ground. What's the conversation you walk in that room? You know mom's pissed. Mom's pissed. That's like a, that's like a, boys, get up.

Like, they're, you know, they're still sleeping. They're like in bed under we let ourselves in because we got a key. And it's like, all right, fellas, you got literally 45 seconds to like be out of bed showing some level of urgency. Even if it's fake. Even if it's like fake energy, like you've got to be up putting stuff in the hamper, putting stuff in your bag. Just fold the same shirt five times. Right. Like you don't even know what you're doing. Just you got to look busy and look active because if not, you're done.

Mom's going to get you to her. Yeah, you're dead. Yeah. Yeah, you can't have that. Your boys, I'll be honest. They got some talent when it comes throwing a baseball. We're working on it. They can be better.

You can tell they're working on too. Greg was, you know. We take it seriously. Yeah. He was a father-in-father. You are the ultimate boy dad. Yeah. I'm just, I have very little patience.

And I probably drive my kids nuts. I just have very little patience. I'm good. If they told me today, like, you know what, Dad? Like, sports isn't our thing. Fine. Like, I don't need them to play sports. But if we're going to play sports, we're going to play. We're just not going to participate and be on the team and just be around. And what I do at practice is enough. But at home, I'm like, more, if you're going to be on this team and you're going to say you want to be good, I don't know any other way than just like, let's go be good. Like, let's go be as good as you can be. Whatever that is, you don't need to be a star, but like, I don't do a lot. of shit half ass. So that's kind of like my big message to them. Like, all right, if you're going to I always say like if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. Like, if we're going to do it, let's do it. If you don't want to do it, no problem. We'll go do something else. All good. But like, if we're going to be on the team and we're going to want to go to go to weeklong tournaments and we want to go travel to here and try out for this. All right. If you want to do

that, I'll show you what that looks like. But it's a lot of work. Was that what your childhood was like? Yeah. Is your dad very similar that way? If you're going to do something, we're doing it 100%. Yeah. So my dad. So my dad. I'm, so my dad. I'm was my high school football coach. So picture from 19, he started coaching in the late 70s, coached Ironhead Hayward, coached, I mean, he coached some real dudes, coached me and all my brothers. He coached at my high school, public school in New Jersey, typical suburban public high school from 1985, the year I was born until 2013, he was at our school that we grew up going, that we grew up and went to. So picture traditional high school football coach, hard, intense,

all that picture it that was him and we won a shit ton of games he won 10 state titles like we were good but it was serious like we grew up going to summer camps and we slept on the floor of a dorm room in a sleeping bag and we were working camps and that was our summer vacations like that's all we knew was football locker rooms water boy ball boy and then eventually grew up and played for him but yeah there wasn't a whole lot of just like casualness to our sports and journey as kids and uh i know it's not for everybody, but obviously I'm thankful for it because that's where I learned. That's where my whole foundation was laid. And are you trying to lay the same foundation for your boys?

Yeah, as long as they want to do it. Yeah. Right? So, like, I have two boys. Did you have the same choice when you were growing up? Yeah, we loved it. Like, my dad did not have to beg us to go throw the ball, to go run. And we played everything.

We played basketball. We played baseball growing up. I did track in high school basketball all four years in high school. So it wasn't like today where, all right, ninth grade. you're going to be a football player, you're just going to do football for four years. Like that, we didn't have that back when we were growing up. So we played everything, but like he never had to beg us.

He never made us go to the gym. He never made us go out to the field. Now, when we went, it was hard. Like, looking back what we were doing in eighth, ninth grade, relative to the times that we were in, like it was pretty intense. Like, our weight room, we were lifting with the high school kids. And it was four days a week in the summer.

And it was hot. And it was sleepaway camp. And we were exposed to that since we were in middle school. Yeah. But he never had him, he never made us go. It was never forced upon us. We loved it, but it was hard. And I'm thankful for that.

Do you see the same thing with your kids? Do they love it? Are they all about it? I think they love it. I think we live in very different times, right? I think we live in very, it's a very much more distracted world of youth sports. I think it's a lot more highlight driven. It's a lot more social media driven.

I think there's a lot more pressure on these kids because they know every single kid, both around town and around the country now, who they are, what their names are, how hard they throw, how big they all, how tar they all, how many home runs they've hit, it's all accessible. Growing up, you knew who the star was of your town. You knew who maybe the town next to you because you played against them in all your sports. That was it. Until I went to Miami in high school, I didn't, for a summer camp, I didn't know what else was out there.

Like all I knew was North Jersey sports. Yeah. And, you know, lived in a very, you know, kind of little bubble. But then the kids now, they're playing in tournaments at a state. You know, they're going to Texas. We live in North Carolina. They're going to Texas. They've been to Florida, Georgia.

They've been all over and played teams from all over the country. So there's this, there's a bigger scale of like what good looks like at 12 years old, 14 years old. And it's dangerous. It's hard. If you're not, my kids aren't the biggest kids. They're not the most physical kids. They're not the big grown man at 12.

Like, you go to some of these events. Your confidence can get shot pretty quick because you look around. and there's a 12-year-old who walks in. He looks like you. And he's throwing 80. I'm serious. Some of these kids are insane. We saw a picture the other day of some five-star recruit who's 17 years old.

And he looks like a 45-year-old man. Yeah. And it's just like what's in the water? What's going on? It seems like everyone's just getting bigger, stronger, faster. I walk out of these baseball, baseball, whatever tournaments. We've done mostly baseball with the boys on like that level. And I'll be walking out.

And mind you, they're 12, 13 years old. And I'm a fairly tall guy. I'm walking out of these parks and I'm looking around and the 12 year old kid who just threw 75 on the mound who's 511 and dad's 5.9. Mm-hmm. It's, I don't know. There's something in the water. There's something going on. PEDs.

This is going on. Listen, I don't know what's going on, but there's something going on because kids, I know everyone always says it wasn't like this in my day. But it wasn't that long ago. Kids did not look like they do now. to answer your question, they love it. I do think like all kids, they get caught up and like, that's the best kid. He's the best kid. Oh, he got selected to this event.

He got selected to this fest. Like, it was telling me, it's not a race to 12. But it's very hard to convince young kids that the moment they're in right now doesn't define their athletic career forever. Right. And that's a battle. It's there right now. It's there right now. And they're making these kids to be superheroes.

That's our biggest struggle. Has there ever been, has there ever been? a struggle for you, for your kids being like, oh, my dad did X, Y, and Z with his career. And they feel like they should live up some sort of expectation. I'm sure. And again, we live in Charlotte. Yeah. Which, you know, obviously the bulk of my career, the bulk of my success was there. I think if we lived in Nashville, it would be different if we lived in where, you know,

I think it'd be different if we lived in a city that I didn't play the bulk of my career. The vast majority of the people in the Carolinas know me from my career. And yeah, when they come in, are there people going, That's Olson's kid. I hope he strikes out. That's Olson's kid. He's not that good. He is that good.

That's his daughter. I'm sure. Because they're comparing their kids versus your kids. My kid beat this kid. His dad was X, Y, and trust me. They want to beat our teams. And I coach a bunch of the kids sports.

I coach each kid for one season. And yeah, they want to beat us. There's no question. I'm aware of that. I make my kids aware of that because I'm not going to shelter them from that. Like, if you guys want to do this, A, the competitive landscape of sports, has never been higher at the young age.

It's just the nature of the world we live in, right, wrong, or indifferent. And when you're around here, especially some of these people that they might not like me, they might, whatever it is, there's a lot of people that are not rooting for you to have success. And you better be mentally strong enough that that does not waver anything you do. But again, they're young. They're in middle school. It's hard. They're very influential.

It's a very unique world, but we don't get it all right. but I teach my kids, we're going to compete our ass off and we're going to do all the work humanly possible in between your competitions to give yourself the utmost chance to have success. Whatever the result is from there, great. You hit three home runs, great. You strike out five times.

Did you do the work and compete your ass off and go out and battle? If you did that, we'll fix the rest. But the second you stop competing, the second you stop putting the work in, the second you start feeling sorry, that's the part. I don't have a lot.

I don't have a lot of patience for that. And you're saying that they're learning about these kids from other states and everything else just through like social media. Oh, yeah. Which is true. It's like growing up playing travel baseball, you wouldn't necessarily know. Like you're still coming across like kids you were throwing 70 plus. But you wouldn't see it until they're warming up on the mound and be like, oh, fuck. Like this guy's pretty good.

You know the second the games come out, you know, hey, Will Compton. He plays for the Ash gosh, gosh, select, boom, boom, elite national. I hope he doesn't pitch because Taylor, he throws eight. Oh, they know every kid on every team, whether they're from California, North Carolina. Carolina, that doesn't matter. That's such a crazy concept to like wrap your mind around. Because like, because games can be one and lost like just before it even starts.

Before it even starts. Because growing up, like baseball, like baseball, basketball, football. Like you kind of just showed up and played and you all you hear about like, the kids that were really good at baseball.

They would start going to the camps doing things like hockey. My dad grew up in a dime Minnesota. And my brother got really good at hockey. So at a young age it was like, we need to go to all these travel events, do all those travel things. And for me it was like, yeah,

just keep playing sports and get a scholarship. Great. If not, it is, it is what it is. Football is a little different. Football is a little different. It's kind of like, because, I mean, until kids hit puberty and like kind of understand what they are and who they are, it's like you'll find out who you are in the future with that.

Baseball, it seems like guys are getting figured out quickly. Basketball seems that way. Hockey for sure. Yeah. Like, it's crazy to me that kids go to a billet family. Like, oh, you're 14 years old. You have an opportunity to make it in hockey. All right.

You're going to move up north to Michigan or Minnesota and you're going to go live with a different family you don't know. so you've a better opportunity to do this. Yeah, the culture of hockey is very unique. That's the most, I don't know a lot about it. We haven't been hockey family, but it's definitely the most intense, the most that kind of track,

almost more like Olympic, like Olympic sports where these young tennis stars, these prodigies and golf tennis, you know, these young girls go live at IMG at 14 and there's these academies around the world for tennis and golf and all that. Almost gymnastics is kind of like that. Hockey fits in that. That's what's so cool about football, though.

Like so on the other side of the coin, we coach our kid, my, both my boys on our middle school football team. And it's just our school. Seventh and eighth grade. Kids at our school. We got 50 some odd kids that come out for the team and we represent our school. Like it's easy. It's what we, it's what I remember growing up. Like you just, right.

It was no get this kid from here, get this kid from here. No ball ball. Whoever showed up plays. Like whoever's on your school and comes out for the team, that's your team. And you just coach the shit out of them and see how good you can get. It feels like on a national, from my. national standpoint, though, it is kind of shifting a little bit because you brought up IMG and these bigger schools that are essentially recruiting guys. We had J.C. Treader, J.C. Latham, excuse me, J.C. Latham on.

And he was in Wisconsin, right? And he was kind of doing whatever. And they recruited him to go down to IMG. And that's where all the four and five star kids go. And that's just, it seems like that's starting to go that way now with football. It's getting younger and younger. It's getting younger and younger. That used to not happen until you were junior in high school. Now it's happening as a rising ninth grader. Yeah. And now it's going to move even younger now to middle school kids are going to relocate. The thing that's unique about football is seven-on-seven is kind of taking over that travel, baseball, travel basketball, AAU circuit where it is more, it's not school-dominated.

It's true travel ball, collect as many good kids, make your whatever seven-on-seven team, and then go around to all these events, more of the AAU circuit, the EYBL and, you know, travel basketball and all that. the wholesomeness though of school sports is still the strongest in football that's where kids really get recruited that's where colleges still know your high school coach the other sports are losing that a little bit and i i don't necessarily love it i think there's there's something special about playing for your town your school with your buddies friday night you can't it's hard to describe to a kid nowadays what that looks like but like i don't know how you guys feel but like looking back on that the highlight of my entire football journey i had really fun times great guys like there's

something cool playing with your buddies at your school friday night in front of your town and going to try to beat the town next door to you that you grew up playing against those kids like i don't man i just don't think you ever beat that dude you cannot be i mean just put on k chis and the boys of fault that song doesn't get you fired up you got you got nothing just the purity of the game like you don't know that a monster energy drink is bad for you but you want to go to the gas station You don't know that when you look back on your neck roll. Yeah, if I take one of these, I'm going to have some more juice before the game. Oh, what's getting your ankles tape?

That seems like, I don't know if I should. That seems kind of cool. You watch Friday night lights. Like the purity of the game in high school football, there's just, there's nothing like it. And being able to play, be lucky enough to play every level of the game of football, the fact that high school is the best in our minds is great because everybody, every kid can go and play high school football and feel that Friday night lights. Yeah.

Where you kind of feel like you're the main. event. And if you're lucky enough to grow up in a smaller town, that you cannot fucking beat it, dude. Like we, my sophomore year of high school, just a bunch of gritty white kids. We go 15 and O and go to state down in Phoenix. And the town itself put up little signs, a close for state. It's Friday night lights. It's the van down. It's the movies. It's the, that's real. It's amazing. And you feel like for that moment, you're like, we are the main attraction. It's the best. It's when you're like you're, you're,

you're obviously extremely motivated in college and when you play. in the NFL and professional ball. But when you're in high school, like I feel like it's when you're just the most inspired. You know nothing about the business side of everything. You know nothing about any of the bureaucracies that go on with depth charts or any of that stuff at the highest level in college.

Like high school, it's like you are just the most inspired by players you want to be like, players you want to emulate. Just live in the dream in your head a little bit on a Friday night. It is the best. And you got even more pure form because, like, it was rivals in 24-7 where those are things. Just starting. I was in its infancy of like rankings and player rankings and stars and all that.

It was just starting when I was in high school. Because I remember going to like 24-7. Yeah. And after every game, we didn't get a stat sheet ourselves. So I would like wait for that to load up to be like, how many tackles did I really get? I feel like I got eight and it'd be like three. Like, okay, I can I can see how they got there. But like, you know, I felt like I felt like a lot.

I got eight. I jumped on a couple piles. I think I just a pile. I was a big pile jumper. Big pile jumper. They're like got the assist there, boys. You're welcome. Got them down for you.

The guy that's doing the PA announcing, he just found the closest number he can find. He's just saying your name all day. You're a hero. Right. Exactly. On on the tackle. But we're losing that. You talk about IMG and those academies.

That's one thing. There's public high schools all around the country that kids are going to four different schools in four years. There's public schools that they're getting apartment buildings down the street. And you can just move in, write your new address on. And you go to a new school like that. Florida's got school choice. You can transfer free of charge, go to any. school within your county and not have to no need to live there like it's it's the wild west right

now when i when i was in high school i was in a small town right we i told you the state thing sophomore the next year we go like three and seven we were really bad and i we played a school in scottstale Arizona and one of the coaches coach me and pop warner and he's like hey taylor he's got the frame for being off its alignment they kind of started doing the little recruiting thing yeah so all my dad did was go get an apartment that was a block away and now you're in the district and i was i started school like before the end of my junior year. You were ahead of the times. The head of the times, man.

Best decision I ever made, I was heartbroken to leave my boys, though. Because that's what's all about. Yeah. The Friday, we had one Dairy Queen. And because the Cave Creek, Arizona, like, they don't allow any franchises. But like in the 80s, they're like,

hey, we'll allow a Dairy Queen. That was a big deal for the town. So Fridays before games, we would go smack a blizzard before game. Go play thinking like, yeah, we're juiced up. Yeah, I'm just trying to get my cows up. That's all I care about is having a little more weight on to handle this double team.

a little bit better. No doubt. And then after that it's like who's got a fake ID? Who's that's it right there? Catching a cramp at the after party because you play so much. Yeah. And you're like someone's, so, and so's parents are out of town. Oh my God, stretch.

Yeah. Someone's parents are out of town and so they got a couple racks of Bud Light and we're going to get there and like, I'm going to hopefully get three beers in me and be like this is, this is what maybe it's all fucking about. Where does life go from here? It does it. Just babies and memories after that. Yeah. I got lots of them. Yeah.

I got lots of them. He's listening to Headstrong on the bus. The music, high school locker room music. Yeah. I think every high school in America, for the most part, listen to the same like six songs in those days. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the amount of times you hear a Thunderstruck.

Oh my God. A fucking game is crazy. But every time you're like, ah, ha, ha, ha. You don't know really, like, I wasn't like in high school. I don't know, like in high school, like we all, like, we're in our rap phase where, like, everyone loved rap music. Tupac and Biggie, like that was our era. But in a locker room, like, it didn't matter who was in the locker room.

Like, there was something about rock music and pregame. You wouldn't listen to that song in a million fucking years. But if you're, if you're spatting up, did you guys used to get to the games early because you wanted to change your cleats? Like, did you guys have screwing cleats? No, no. I had Nike sharks and you could actually take. So the Nike swish, you could, they had like little colors. You could pull out the color and put it in a different color.

So you guys are so much. younger than me. Dude, the highlight of high school football was we were able to finally use detachable cleats. Like you'd go. So like go before the game, meet all the other buddies and the team. We were going to get there early. I got to put in new cleats. My dad would buy like boxes of just detachable cleats. So like only the seniors could get like fresh ones. And you made the freshmen. They, they were down to like their nubs. You could see the metal coming through. But man, you sit there with those little keys. You change your spikes. The spikes were this big. and you'd walk around like the tile locker rooms in school.

Oh, yeah. It was like, you know, Clint, oh, he's the best. You got that one, that one coach on the staff that knows how to make a little highlight tape in the VHS and pops it in. Thunderstructs in the background and you're seeing the tape from the press boxes. You being here. You're running for an 80 yard. Dude, crazy. We're going to kill these.

Crazy. So like the end of the year banquet when like you're, I don't know about you guys. Like we had like a school like TV productions class. that would make like a year highlight film that was like the season recap. Yeah. And you were just like at the bank when you're like,

because you know, the cheerleaders are there, the parents are there, the freshmen, you're like, I hope they put on all my good play. And then they put on your good plays and you're kind of looking around.

I was like, he's like, you think that was, wow, what the good Greg is. Yeah. In my mind, I'm like the only thing anyone in here

is thinking about is that guy number four. The main character big neck roll. Yeah. Yeah. My shoulder pads were bigger in high school. You could probably find

My shoulder pads in high school were bigger than my shoulder pads in the NFL. Not and it's not even that's for most guys right? It had to be. Yeah. You can't even I mean, I mean like who what is that? That's a fucking unit. What is that unit? That's a unit.

Look at that guy. The little two bar. Look at my face mask. The little two bar. I mean that's an office alignment face mask if I ever saw one. What is that? What surprised me to read a bust a wedge. What surprises me about this photo is sleeps.

Sleeps. Yeah, practice. That was our practice uniforms. Summer is on at Base 31. The drill hall, RBC stage is packed with big shows, live music, and electric summer nights. Featuring acts like USS, Dallas Smith, and the glorious suns. From Can't Miss concerts to food, drinks, art, history, and places to gather across the B-31 district. There's never been a better time to visit.

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I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Echabari, And this is American football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though.

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Stay close. It is a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Okay. So, yeah, I wouldn't wear it sleeves in the game, but that was definitely practice. No mouthpiece in.

Looks like we're practicing kickoff return. What was your... Does you say it looked like kickoff return? You're about, yeah, you're locked around. You're locking a guy for a little... The wedge. A lot of stars. I don't know about if you guys noticed the stars.

I see him. Is that the athletes? That's me and my dad. Go to the left. That's me and my dad after we won our first state championship. That's my senior year. Big shoulder pants. Your senior year.

First one, we had lost, he had lost seven. No way. We finally won my senior year. Seven state titles? My older brother, Chris, who was one grade ahead of me. Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year. He played in four state championships. They lost all four of them.

Oh, my God. In high school, that's a heartbreaker. My dad had won state championships at his previous school, but that was his first state championship at our school. That was my younger brother. He played quarterback at Miami. He was nasty. Both my brothers were quarterbacks.

And I got the tight end gene. Fuck, that is awesome. Was your dad one of those guys where you're always searching for the proud of you comment? Or was he pretty vocal emotionally with you? No, he was pretty quick to tell us. He knew we were good. His balance was immediately after the game, we're going to focus on all the things you didn't do well. And then like an hour or two later, it was going to be like, you guys were pretty good.

Like you guys, you guys played your ass off. So he was going to coach first and fix all the mistakes. You want to hear a great story about my dad? This sums up my dad. So 2016, we have Monday night football against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Cam had gotten hurt the previous week. So Derek Anderson's the quarterback. If Derek Anderson played quarterback,

he was going to throw every single pass of the game to me. Like that was just, it was just understood. It was the best. I got him for however six quarters of my life. And he would throw every ball to me. So we go to Monday night football. There's my dad right there. We go to Monday night football.

I have 185 yards on Monday night football. We lost. But I had 180. something yards. We walk into like the little family section in the lobby outside inside the stadium like you know I say how to my wife and my kids and my mom and dad and everybody and in the late in the in the mid of the fourth quarter we ran like a like a corner route to the boundary and it was a good ball and it was one of those like catch and the guy

kind of rakes you like I got turned inside he was on my back and I got turned inside which like made my chest to the defender caught it and as I was going to to the ground, he kind of raked me, like, raked the ball down. Yeah. And I lost it. It was incomplete on third down. So we could punt. We end up losing the game.

Was it close? It was 181. Yeah, 17, 14. There were 115. You had the catch. 13 targets. So I walk in, you know, that's the best game I've ever had in my life. Dad gives me a hug.

Say, hey, what happened on that third down in the fourth quarter? I was like, I probably should have caught it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And he wasn't saying it. He was not the guy that was like dogging. Like he said it sincerely. But like that's just how we grew up.

Like and I was like, yeah, like I probably should have caught it. Like that probably would have helped. We would have converted on third down. Who knows? We would have scored. But like, I get it. Like, yeah, I should have caught it. But like that was it.

Like the standards were super high. And that's all we knew. You being the head man of the middle school team, what are practices like in middle school? I got a great. I bet you're intense. You had my defensive coordinator on the bus a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Luke Keeckley.

Luke Keekley. You have a staff. So my staff is me, my dad, Jonathan Stewart, Luke, and Todd Blackledge. You guys know Todd. He calls games at NBC, quarterback at Penn State. And your dad's on the staff too.

My dad's been doing it with me for this is our fourth year. Dad's welcome to the kids back, get you one of these. So we did two years of Pop Warner, and now this is our second year at the middle school. So this is our fourth year doing it. Me, my dad and Luke have done it. There's a picture of those. Me, my dad, and Luke have done it together for four years.

Stu just joined us because his kids go to school with us. So you spotted him out. You're like, hey. Yeah, I was like, Stu. Let's move it down. You need something to do it. Let's go. His daughters are little.

But yeah, man, so we have a blast. And we run real practices, though. We're fortunate that we have a big staff. For middle school, five guys. We sometimes have a six. Like six guys on a coaching staff in middle school is like 100. So we're doing individual team takeoff, individual offense defense. Like we can really spread everybody out, do a ton of individual work.

There was us last year getting ready under the lights at our school. That was sick. Just the focus. Oh, dude, it's the best. We do pregame meal. We do pregame meal. So me and Luke are riding on the bus, taking the boys to the game. So it's just me, Luke, and just like 30, 40 middle school boys taping their fingers.

Now it's like wrist tape up. to their elbows. They got, they're putting eye bl- You know, it's the whole- Understrocks in the background. Thunderstructs in the background.

Still 30 years later, you only can play. Kids are like, this sounds a little old that's like, you fucking respect this. If you were listening to this song, me and Luke are up there.

We're fucking bashing our heads against the road. Someone's like, come and it's like, hey! Yeah, for some reason, you weren't allowed to talk on the bus like growing up.

Dude, isn't that wild? It was dead quiet. And then there was like that one assistant hard-ass coach. Someone would like sneeze. Yeah, like, Hey, can we focus on the game?

Yeah. Why is he yelling at me? Yeah. But, like, Coach Wilson's like, you can not talk on the bus. Right? Yeah. The school buses, the yellow school buses in line up,

you get in, you sit in the back, you'd snicker for a little bit. All took us one coach, be like, hey, we focus tonight? It's so true. Please tell me, please tell me you just take the buses for just the moment leading up to the game. And you're like, hey, we're not taking any time.

Make sure you're tape, make sure you're ready to go. We're getting off this bus and we're whooping some ass. Yeah, we're taped before we get there. And then it's shoulder pads. and helmets on on the bus and we're walking off down the stairs. Oh shit. We're walking off the stairs.

There's no locker rooms. There's nowhere to go. But you don't just put the shoulder pads under the little storage area. No, no. We carry them on. Yeah. Putting them on.

Take care of your rifle. We booted up. Put your cleats on. We are walking off the bus. Locked and loaded. So last year, Luke and I are on the bus with the boys and we're going to one of our way games.

And Luke's like taking attendance, like making sure we, because it's just the two of us, the bus driver, and we're responsible for all these kids. And he's doing attendance, and I'm talking to the offense and defensive line about, you know, our combo rules and first play of the game is going to be whatever. And let's get off to a good start. And, you know, 20 minutes later, Luke's like, hey, man, we got a problem. Because I'm looking back at the boys talking to the kids.

He's like, we're back at school. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, the bus driver just went completely in a full circle. And we're back where we started. we end up being 30 minutes late to our game me and Luke are sweating parents are texting us where are the kids they're waiting for us and Luke and I

fucking coming in late with the boys because the bus driver got lost he got lost and just drove back yeah none of us were talking none of us were paying attention because we're all doing a million things and we did a full circle and we're back at school he's just thinking I don't know where I'm out I'm just gonna drive back you think he'd look back at one point but hey do you say like uh

also it's 2025 You got the, you put your phone and plug it in. Yeah, it was, uh, you was, those are the best, like that's the best part of all of it. Yeah.

Like, those kids have no idea how good they have it right now. You guys went seven and one last year? We lost the first game of the season to a good team. We lost the first game of the season. And then we rattled off. And then you didn't look back.

No, we, we got better as the year went on. You only had like 30 kids on the team last year. We got like 50 something this year. All right. The energy is. building, but we had a really good group of eighth graders. They just hadn't played a lot of

football before. Like a lot of first time kids. We're teaching kids how to put helmets on, how to buckle chin straps, how to put, you know, how do you do the clip on your shoulder pad? Like, we, part of our practice was like that. Like we, we had a lot of kids. They just, they didn't know what they didn't know. Yeah. Understanding how to get dressed is something that nobody ever talks to you about. I played one year, I played Popper when I was a corner, third grade. Nice. And I didn't play again until my freshman year. But I remember going to my freshman locker room, all the kids are like getting dressed. And I'm watching them.

Okay, I guess that's a hip pad. I'll put that on my hip. And I had to like, I was like watching the kids on the last one dress. You used to be to put the pads in your pants. You had to weave the head pads weaving in. Yes. And then you get to college and you find the shorts that have the hip pads that are built in. Yeah.

And you might be a little tool for that. You might have been playing in college with them things. We, we wore girdles with our hip and our butt pad. And then our pants, we would put the thigh pads and the knee pads in our pants. Yes. That's what we used to do. Now all of the pads are all built into the girdle. So they put on it, they pull up a girdle, thigh, hip, butt, all that.

And then they just put knee pads in their pants. And that's what the kids wear now. So it's actually pretty easy. Isn't it wild that like when you're in high school, it's how big can I look? Like I need the biggest thigh pad, the biggest knee pads. But the older you get, it's like how tiny can I make these pads just so I can be bigger faster stronger. It's crazy how much of changes.

It's so true. It's the best though There's nothing better Do you tell me Are there any moments You still get a little bull in the ring in? We don't Oklahoma Drew?

It's illegal now, right? I'll tell you it It's a good question though We don't do bull in the ring We can't we don't do Oklahoma Eye opener You remember eye opener We're like one guy would go sideways

And you would shuffle And I was cones And I'd pick a lane And we'd go Yeah And like you're standing in the back of the line Oh I never did that Oh like a ball carry

Would run sideways You would shuffle You would shuffle You'd shuffle And then once I picked a hole, you're going. I would go through them. So we did that growing up, and you'd be in the line and you're like, one, two, three, four. And you're like letting the kid go in front of you.

He's like, the badass kid on your team is the fourth. And you're like, one, two, three, shit, I'm four. I'm not going with Taylor. All right. Will's going to, you know what I mean? Like, you're doing the math in your head. Like, there was a, like, you learned a lot of shit at football practice when we were growing up.

Like, that was your mom and dad was there. Survival the fittest. And that coach, he didn't give two shits. he could have run you until you died. Like, no one cared. Yeah. We, we can't, we can't do that anymore. Parents are there.

How about, I'm not worried about the parents. How about your watching everything? How about pursuit? Where, you know, we do. You got a runner going. You got a low pursuit. It's like two on one. You have nowhere to go out.

We do a lot of two, we do a ton of pursuit drill. We had a kid actually break his nose bumping in first practice last week in the summer, no pads. But we just tag off and we teach in-in-in, out-out, setting edges, you know, who are inside hit men, who are our force perimeter players. like get them run into the ball. We do D-line. They go through their little station

and then run to the ball, second level, secondary, backside guy, run corner. Like, that's our first drill we do on defensive day. But we just tag off. We do a lot of teaching progressions of tackling, striking.

We always talk like, we're going to hit guys with the screws of our helmet. Like, the helmets don't have screws anymore, but like that's how we learned it. Like you hit the guy with the screws of your face mask. Got to keep the face up.

Face up. So like we do a lot of that all, summer. We do controlled, uh, contact in practice. Like, we do a ton of like two on one combo blocks. We call them bazookas, like ton of hip to hip bazooka like combo taking on strikes. We don't go to the ground. We don't like, just keep a thud. We keep it thud. You teach us some good football. We, we, we keep it thud. And then in the game, obviously we, our goal with the kids, and we don't shy away from this. Like our, we tell the kids all the time, we're going to fix you're going to take the wrong foot you're going to have a backside cut off and you're going to

cross over and your stance we're going to have to fix your all that will coach when you come play our team our goal is when you're sitting in the stands on the other team it's like I'm not sure if i want my kid out there this is fast it's violent they're playing to the ball like and i'm talking within the confines we don't like no dirty stuff like we don't we have no patience and tolerance for any of the extra stuff we finished though but we are playing we always always say to the kid, we're playing real football. We're here to take a motherfucker soul. We're playing real football.

We're not going to do it dirty, but we're taking their life. No, we never, we're not hitting people low. We're not teaching people to hit them in the legs. Like we're, we're, we have high school rules. You're not allowed. Like, there's no chop blocking. There's no cup blocking. Like, everything's above the way.

So kids are protecting in that regard. But like, we don't strike with our helmets. We don't strike with the top. But we do strike with our face masks. And we do block with our face. And our hands are behind my hands. My face is behind my hands. And I'm striking coming off the ball.

I mean, we're playing real football. Like our job in a year or two, these kids are going to be playing high school ball. And we play in a very competitive league. We got real dudes. Our running back just committed in Nebraska. Wait, wait, wait. Our Charlotte Christian high school. Okay, okay.

We're a K through 12 school. Yeah, okay. So our high school uprising senior running back, Jamal Rule, just two days ago committed to Nebraska. Let's go. So hold on. The school you're coaching at is K through 12. So there's a high school coaching staff. Yeah.

that is watching Greg Olson and Luke Keekley coaching middle schoolers. We share the field. Yeah, but you know the high school kids are like, well, why the fuck aren't they coaching guys? No, we haven't, and I'm not just saying this. High schools are running practice like that. Hey, do you mind if we go over there?

Do you pursue? No, bowl in the ring. That's what the fuck we're doing. No, he does a really good job. Chris James, Charlotte Christian is a school. He does a really good job. We have a, we're not a big school. We got 150 boys in a grade, 100 total kids.

So we're not going to roll out. there with 75 kids on a Friday night in uniform. So it's a smaller group. But we got college-bound kids. We sent two kids in Notre Dame last year. Bryant Young's kid, Bryce, defensive end at Notre Dame, 6-8 monster, wide receiver at Notre Dame, both in the same class. Micah, they played in the national championship last year as freshmen. I mean, we got, we put some real dudes into the league, into the, into the college. We just don't have a million of them because it's just a small school. Yeah. Well, when you're talking about doing thud, not taking guys to the ground, what's the anxiety level for you on tackling quality, tackling quality the first game of the year.

I want to see us play violent. Like we are going to teach, we are going to run, you might with, we might got to teach keeping our head up and striking backside. And we're big on like, we set firm edges. Like every one of our practices. Edge wall swore. We are setting hard edges. Our inside, our inside backers, like our run and chase guys, like some of our better players, like we're all inside out hit men. We don't overrun the ball. If the ball gets outside, the numbers on a high school field, like somebody really screwed up. Everything we do is perimeter edges, squeeze this field, and we make them play as tight as they can.

And when that ball hits, vertical, we are coming in hot. Like, we are coming in striking inside hips and running through. So we'll overrun. We'll have bad pre-snap technique. We'll have false steps. Our linemen won't get off on the ball. We'll jump off sides. Like that normal, they're 13.

They're young. That stuff will happen all season. long. We don't teach running full speed to the ball. We are not coaching that. Like, if you do not run full speed to the ball and you do not chase and you're not going to play. Like, that's it. Love that. And we always tell the kids, this is not a big versus little. We have little kids who play. We have big kids who don't play. We have fast kids, slow kids. We got kids of all shapes and sizes. We don't care how good you are or whether you've ever put a helmet on before. That is not a requirement. We don't cut. We had zero kids quit last year.

roster we started with in summer was the roster we ended with. If you show up every day willing to be coached and willing to learn and do things to the best of your ability, we will find something for you to do. You might not be the running back. Get me juiced up right now. But you might not be the running back. Put me on your 13 year old's team. We'd take you. You'd play. You think so? I can find a job for you right now. But yeah, like when we, you know, we demo drills. It's like, all right, Stu, Stu, you're the back. Show these guys the path of how we want to get to the edge. All right, Luke, he's going through the bag. He's teaching inside out, downhill, never overrun, inside hip trail. I mean, like, Luke is demonstrating and Stu's running with the ball, and I just

get to stand there and orchestrate. Like, it's pretty cool. So that's your, that's clearly your, your day one opening speech is the full squad. You keep the full squad intact. What is a Greg Olson halftime speech? Depends what the score of the game is. Say you're down. Say you're down seven. You shouldn't be down seven. We shouldn't be down, but we are. You have a guy's flopping ass, leaving their So, so half time Not finishing to the football Yeah, we have no patience for that shit So, so I'll tell you

I'll tell you what half time looks like for us There's no locker rooms, right? It's it's grab the water, you know, One of the young seventh graders Grab the water, little carrier thing, you know, has like the six sections of the water. Yeah. Bring it over to the bench, take your helmets off,

sit down, catch your breath. We'll get them together. I coach the O-line and D-line. Like that's my jam. I spend every day every minute with the O-line D-line we alternate offense-defense days back and forth.

Most of our good kids play both ways just because we don't have enough kids. But yeah, it's offensive line where our corrections, is it the front we practiced all week, is the front different? Are we coming off the ball? Are we finishing?

Or we get, you know, all just offensive line-driven stuff. But then we take like a four-and-a-half-minute break because my daughter is on the cheerleading team. So we make all the boys stop and they got to watch the girls dance. so they come out and they do like their halftime routine. So like I'm all over these middle school kids

and we're coaching our ass off. And then it's like stop. And then I'm like dance mom. You know, I'm like dance mom watching. Talbot, good job, honey. Why? We got to get firmer in our double teams and use the left. Hey, we got to set this edge, that ball.

And then you go back to like wearing the girls or like running off with their pom-poms. And I'm like, good job, honey, you did so good. And then you're just like back wearing the kids out. So it's a mix of both. Like, we tell the kids all the time. Summer is on at Base 31. The Drill Hall, RBC stage is packed with big shows,

live music, and electric summer nights, featuring acts like Father John Misty, The Beaches, and Wild Rivers. From Can't Miss concerts to food, drinks, art, history, and places to gather across the B-31 district. There's never been a better time to visit Base 31 in Prince Edward, County. Plan your visit at base31.ca. I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football, it's home. Why do I watch

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As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult.

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No one wants to see your kids have more success than us. we are going to coach the shit out of your kid. But we are going to get to the point where they trust us and they know we love them and they know we want to pour into them with everything we have. Before you coach the shit out of them, you got to get to that level first. Because if not, it just feels like you're attacking them. And for these middle school kids, it's a different day and age now. Like, they're not used to being yelled at.

They're not used to being coach. So, like, we got to make sure, like, we're not yelling at you because we don't like you. We're talking loud. It's football. It's intense. You're across the field. Like, we're not going to stay. in here and I'm not going to signal into you like we're not playing baseball right like if I need to

get a hold of the corner on the far side of the field like I'm going to scream across the stadium and everyone in the stadium's going to hear me but if he needs to be inside leverage because he's on a backside one receiver like move your ass inside and if you give up a slant we're going to be pissed yeah right like you're going to be praying for that cheerleading break at halftime because yeah they're like I hope the girls have a chance hey uh coach I think they're coming out early Yeah, that's great. We'll work on the slant. We'll work on the slant a little bit.

He gives up a touchdown. He's like cheerleading coach. He's like, I will give you anything for this dance to go the entire half-line. He's bribing the, he's bribing the coach in the corner. And crazy how different it just was like us growing up in the drills we would be doing compared to everything that you seem to be teaching with the squad now. Oh, dude. Like bull in the ring.

We'd play duck, duck goose. What do you mean? You'd be holding the ball. You'd be holding the ball and you'd be going around the squad. This is when we're like fifth, sixth grade. Oh, and like you tack and they have to chase. You take off sprint. Old buddy gets up sprints the other way and you just collide.

You just collide. I feel so bad for the smallest kid in that circle because you know he's getting picked like seven times. That kid's going home that night. He's tired. He's quitting. He's done. That's how you don't end up with the same roster at the end of the years. There's a lot of basketball players made at football practice.

No doubt about it. You know what? The gym's air condition. That felt good. I didn't play much, but like no one ran through my skull. Yeah, exactly. I get it. You talked about the parents.

No one's going to love your kids more than we love your kids. They're going to trust us. You've had to have run across a Karen or two. Yeah. And your time. How are we handling that? Our approach is I over-communicate. And maybe to a fault sometimes, I don't do the whole, regardless of the sport, right?

So you think growing up in baseball after the game, the coach takes the team out in deep left field, and it's just the coach and the kids. And then you get in the car with your kid and you're like, hey, what'd coach say? It's like, they're 12. They don't know what just happened five seconds ago, let alone relay an adult's message, good or bad, and relay it. So, like, I never want the parents to be dependent on the kids to know what I'm saying to their kids. So we do our postgame stuff right there behind the dugout.

I want everyone to come. I want people to come to our practice. I want parents to sit in the stands. I want people to know what we're saying to your kid. We would say in front of you. Like, there's no secret. There's no I'm gonna tell your kid one thing, but then I'm gonna say something else to the parent like we are very transparent and what we do how we coach we don't apologize for it like We are gonna pour in so much of our time and energy into your kids because we love it

If you have a prop not everyone's gonna like what we do you might not like the position your kid plays or how much he plays or As they get older obviously playing time is a little bit different at the young age everybody plays like we don't like we're not in the business to play eight kids and five of them stand on the sideline you know sit in the dugout so we get everyone involved to the best of our ability and give everybody a role i'm very clear that if a parent wants to call me and he wants to talk through like i have no problem with that you're the parent they're too young to remove the parent from the process now if i was their high school coach college i'm not going to answer to your mom about what we're doing like that's just not the business but at the young age, you have to engage the families.

I want my kids coaches to communicate with me. Where does my kid need to get better? Where is he falling short? Where is he doing well? What's his role? Like, I would love to know that because when I ask my kid, they don't know. So like, there's a communication barrier there. So I have no problems with our families being super engaged, be around our practices,

ask questions, see how we coach, see what we do. I encourage it. I like it. I don't want any secrets. But if you ask me a question, just be prepared for the answer. That's it. And that's the simplest way to do it. And we've been very, very fortunate that for the years we've been doing this in all different sports and different girls, boys, ages, we've had really good families.

Like people that I think in the beginning are kind of, this is a lot. Like, this is. And then after it clicks and they see the spark go off in their kid's eye and all of a sudden the kids doing things they didn't think were possible, it's like, okay, just go. Keep going because the kids that's coming home to me after each day is a better version of my kid than I had when we started. That's our goal. And whether they're a better football player or not, that'd be great. But like confidence, character, how they carry themselves. Like our families will tell us like, for these summer workouts, we start at 8 a.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays all summer long.

8 a.m. at the field. These kids are up 7 o'clock in the summer. Up, downstairs. Breakfast made, cleats on. Come on, mom, we got to go. I can't be late to practice. If we only accomplish that, we're doing a great job in middle school football. Amen, dude.

That's awesome. With that. We're looking at 8-0 this year? Yeah. I'm going on the record. Oh, this is it right now? I'm Joe Namath. Okay.

Breaking news, bust with the boys. Our goal is to win every game we play. You're not worried at all about the other eight teams that might just grab this clip. No, we have some good teams. No, we have good teams in our league. You're going to know you're coming. Yeah. Oh, be ready.

Yeah. You ever walked across the field, you see one of those boys that maybe a little more developed on the other team? Yeah, and you try to get him to come to your school. Hey, hey, you want to, you got Luke Kinkley over here. I was you play lineback. You know who that is, dude? Hey, man.

That's Luke Keekely. What was a recruiting process like getting Luke on your team to coach? Easy, free, I give free pizza. You know, Luke would sit. Luke says easy as it gets. We go free pizza. The amount of days, Luke and I sit at like, we have, we have a little bit. like our Monday routine.

We go to lunch every Monday and we sit there and it's like salt and pepper shakers. All right. They come out and two by two spread. How are we going to get the nickel to know which way he's going to go because there's no tight end? All right. Hey, how are we going to make the big call? How are we going to set the front?

The kids only know to set the front to the tight end side. They're not going to have a tight end this week. Do we want to back? Like we're sitting there. The amount of time and energy we are spending on third now or 13 and 14 year old football. I don't know if I'm proud of it. it or embarrassed by it. We got to go out for a game this year.

We need to go out for a game this year and vlog it. Yeah. Could we mic you up? Yeah. That would be insane. It's a Christian school. Okay. So we...

Lay the foundation. What the flip are we doing out there? Gosh, dang. Yeah. Like... Cheese and rice, guys, come on. So we have to be careful. I remind my dad a lot.

I'm like, dad. This is not 1990 public school in New Jersey. Where it didn't know and even... Right. No one even hurt. You said it and it never even dawned on anyone that you dropped an F bomb. Yeah. We got to understand.

The demonstrative things that coaches would say to your face, what do you think is the worst thing a coach ever said to you grown up? I don't know if it was said. My dad one time, remember Rockham Sockham Robots? Yeah. Where you'd punch each other and then someone's head would pop up and that's how you'd win. My dad one time, he thought it was a pregame walk through. Walk through high school.

I was probably a sophomore junior. We're just in pants, cleats, helmets, no shoulder pads. So you're out there. You got your skin tight cut off on. It's cut. Remember, we'd all like cut our shirts and like your belly? No, sir. Oh, you cut your shirt 10 years in the early?

You'd have like a, you'd have like a dry fit. But even if you didn't have a drive fit, you'd have like an old school cotton tea. It was cut all the way up. It was cut in raggedy, cut off. So we'd only have that on. You thought you were jacked. You weren't. You saw my pictures.

Speak for yourself. Yeah, some of us were. We weren't juicing yet. So I get back to the huddle and he thought I jogged. Hence, it was a walk-through practice. So my brother overthrows me, ball lands. I come back. We huddled with the linemen's back to the line of scrimmage.

And then the skill players would stand in the front with their hands on their knees. Quarterback would call the play facing the line of scrimmage. So lineman would call and go. So he's standing next to the quarterback facing me and I'm facing out with my back to the line. And I guess I didn't answer him. I guess he didn't like my answer. I might have given like a smart ass answer about something or any uppercutted my face mask, a buckled face mask, a buckled chin, a buckled helmet.

He punches my face mask and knocks my whole helmet, chin strap and all, completely rock'em sockam roboted me right off the top of my helmet. So I put my helmet back on and I ran the route next time full speed. But he was my dad. So he was allowed to do that. In a jog through in pregame, we won the game. How'd you doing that game? Tone was set.

The tone was set. The conversation did it pop up after the game or anything? Yeah, no. Hey, good game. We're good. We're just trying to set the tone. I love that.

You dad, you know, because he tells you we're going out there. He didn't hit me in the face. He hit my face mask. So he didn't hit my head and punched me in the jaw. I get him. That's your dad.

We're got your back, man. Skin to skin to not happen. We get it. Hey, but he would always tell us. He's like, hey, sometimes I got to use you boys to set the tone here because you're mine.

and I don't have to answer to their mother. I don't have to answer to the other kid's mother. I go home and I'll answer, but that's in my own house. Holy shit. Yeah, we were, it was, thankfully, he's,

he's mellowed. He has not ever punched any of the kids, including my own helmets off. So that's a positive. Yeah. That'd be a tough conversation to have. Yeah, that'd be tough. In 2025.

Yeah. A lot of flips. You're out of there be a lot of flips. Yeah, there'd be a lot of flips going on. Thankfully, thankfully, we've been good. Thankfully, thankfully we've been good. Let's play a crystal ball game. Love that.

Your kids develop into stars. They're a four star, five star recruit. How heavy are you pressing on them to go to the U? Not. I'm not. Are there you fans, though? Oh, yeah. We love, I mean, I would love them to go there.

And if they asked me, I would tell them about my experiences there. But Miami's not for everyone. Ohio State's not for everyone, right? Like, I think especially whoever. Michigan, Michigan, Nebraska, whoever. I mean, my point was big school, small schools, private, public. Miami's a small little private school in Coral Gables, Florida. If you drove by it, you wouldn't even know it was there.

It was great for me. It was great for my competitive spirit. It was great for my development. It was great for getting me outside my comfort zone and getting me outside of my box I grew up in. But it's not for everybody. Like, maybe I went to Ohio State or Michigan or Nebraska. And that might not have been for me. So I'm a big believer.

If they ask me, I tell them all the positives that I had. But like they've got to find a. path that suits their needs and they've got to find a school. So if they were ever in that position and who knows if they will or not, like they've got to go where they can make their own path and there. And if it's Miami, great. But if it's somewhere else, awesome. Like I'm, I'm not going to tell my kids where to go to school. By that point, like, they've got to start learning, making decisions. I went to Notre Dame. I signed a Notre Dame out of high school. It lasted three months. My first ever adult decision. I got there and I was like, oh, bat, not for me and transferred to Miami before

the season even started. So like, you got to go through some of those, you got to go through some of those moments. You can't just tell your kid, go here to here, to here, to here, to here, to here, because they're going to grow up and they're not going to have any ability to make decisions. And if they make bad decisions, how do you get out of it and get to a better one? So would I love them to go there? Of course. My wife and I both went there. But I don't need them to go there. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I feel the same. but you ain't going anywhere in the Big Ten. My dad went to college,

actually went to college in Nebraska, Midland Lutheran College. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's got a lot of Nebraska ties. But, yeah, I don't know. You don't have to go. You don't let your kids go anywhere in the Big Ten. I'm saying that you don't have to go to Nebraska.

You're going to know that I want you to go there. But you can go somewhere else, but it's going to be outside of the Big Ten. Yeah, they're not going to Purdue. Yeah. What about Michigan? What about Michigan? They ain't going to Michigan.

They ain't going to Iowa. Uncle Taylor. No, you're not going to be Purdue. He ain't going to the Big Ten. They're not going to be Michigan men? No, no. First off, let's talk about, what about education? Like, Michigan is the top 15 public school in the world.

I think we have the most academic All-Americans in college football. The bar is pretty low if the end stands for knowledge. Warren Buffett, the Oracle. Right down the road. All right. So you guys have different parenting styles. So you let him go to, uh, Florida State?

Yeah. And you put a Florida State jersey on? Here is my take on like team allegiances and stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love Miami. I have great memories. They were a big part of my journey. Met my wife there.

Our family. Like love Miami. Everything about it. If all three of my kids went there, great. Now it's 100 grand a year. So they better be damn good at whatever they do. But we'll still pay for it.

But like I, if they went to Florida, Like, I'm not that guy that's like, you cannot say the word Florida State in my house. I played for the Bears. Yeah, that's a little too. The Packers are sacrilegious. You know, in Carolina, it's like Atlanta. I'm like, do we really give too shit? Like, I just, I'm not a big, like, team rivalry guy.

I like people. Now, has that been a thing that you are now? But what about when you were at Miami? It was like Florida State. You still were Zoom down enough? Yeah, I mean, the Florida State game was huge. Don't get me wrong. But, like, when you're in that moment, that's all.

you know, it's you and your boys. You're drinking the Kool-Aid. You were fully invested in hating whoever levels. But I'm just saying now, like taking a step back and removing myself, like, Mario Cristobal is the head coach at Miami. He was my tight-end coach. He recruited me when he was at Rutgers with Greg Shiano when I was in high school. I met Mario when I was a 16-year-old kid in high school. I went down to the Miami camp.

He then went to Rutgers with Greg recruited me there, ended up coming back to Miami and was my position coach. Now he's the head coach. When he was the head coach at Oregon, I took my boys out to Oregon and spent some time with him and they all wore duck stuff. And was I a diehard Oregon fan? No. But when they were playing, would I cheering that Mario had a lot of success? Yes.

Like, I cheer for my people. I cheer for I've gotten an Orion day. Am I a diehard Ohio State fan? I'm not. I've never cheered for Ohio State. Ohio State beat Miami in that big national championship game. And I was in high school and I hated it and I wanted Miami to win. But like, I like Ryan Day.

If Ryan Day tomorrow was the coach at Michigan or if Ryan Day went and became the coach at Oshkosh school, I'd want them to do well. I'm just not like so wrapped up blind into program and team and this, like school. My kids wanted to go to Florida State, that'd be amazing. That's just, I don't know, I'm just, that's just how I'm wired. There's no right way to parent.

There's no right way to parent. You can't judge other parents. Yeah, I feel them on the relationship stuff, but when it just comes with the kids going somewhere. So who, like, who's, the no brainer school your kids come home daddy daddy i'm so excited i just got my acceptance letter to here and you're going not happening like where iowa would be one it would be yours yeah so your so your kid comes in my kid my kid if if busting with the boys were still had any type of relevance

or if i could still do any damage on uh the internet if my kid wanted to go there they will publicly know where i stand fair enough and huskrona and hush grenade and hush and Oscar Nation will know when the battle for the border is happening, they won't see me in black and yellow. Would you, would you pay, would you pay, would you still pay the tuition? If they said, Daddy, I love you. Do you have boys or girls? Girls. If you think you're telling you're fucking, you are, how old? They're young, right?

Yeah, they're young. Roos three. Okay. Where's the fucking camera? Let me just, I'm mark, mark this day right now. this guy's so full of shit because he has you have two daughters

do you yeah he's got two daughters and if he thinks for one second the 17 year old daughter who comes in and gives daddy a hug and her Iowa acceptance letter comes in the mail and it's her dream because her and her best friend are going to go there and room together and join a sorority and they're so excited

if you think for a million years he's not writing that tuition check and giving her a hug and saying I'm so proud of you honey You're my baby girl. You're so full of shit. Because guess what? They're going and you're right in the bill and you're going to fake a smile and you're going to be there. You're going to be in Iowa City and be like, yeah, you know what?

This place isn't half bad. I'm happy for you, sweetie. Listen. I'll go by and many lines when I'm wearing red. Listen. That's fine. Here's my final way. Don't tell me how to live my life.

This is my final take on this. This is my clearest way I can put it. If my kid said, dad, tell us where. to go. It's down to our final three. We love them all and Miami's in the mix. Obviously, I'm saying, let's go to Miami. Like, it's amazing. It's like, yes. But if they came to me and said, Dad, Miami's just not for me. Like, I didn't like the campus. I want to go somewhere bigger. I want a state school. I want, yeah. Whatever. Whatever the, they, and if it was Florida, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Alabama, or a community, whatever it was. Great. Go to college.

Go learn. Be live your life. Get a degree. agree, make mistakes, learn how to take care of your fucking dorm room. Yeah. Just, I don't know. Like, I didn't, I'm paying the bill wherever they go as long as they're good kids. And I think, too, like, if I had a son and he was good enough to go play college or whatever, I think a lot of it that would, I would think about too as like, who's coaching them? Yeah.

Like, when I said to No Big Ten, it's like, if they came back and they're like, you know, Coach Laining, Oregon offered, then knowing Coach Lane and say, hey, that's a guy. That's a guy you want to be right. Yeah. And that's my point about people. The guy you want to go play around. Who else have we been around? I mean,

Charon Moore. I mean, even Dillingham. Yeah, Dillingham at ASU. Yeah. Oh, really a lot of the guys who came across,

you kind of can tell. I would feel a little bit different. If my daughter, if my daughter wanted to go to ASU, I'd have a harder time with that. Yeah, I was going to say, I'd have a harder time with my daughter.

Arizona State. But like for me, son? I would tell him the same thing. I would tell him the same thing. I would tell my son, listen, ASU.

If you ask my daughter. You're going to see a lot of beautiful girls. That's the reason why Daddy didn't go to ASU. I'm from Arizona. I went down those streets. I've been down Mill Avenue. And I've looked both ways. And I didn't know which way to look because there's so many beautiful girls.

That's why Daddy went to Michigan. That's why Daddy chose not because Daddy wanted to go to the NFL. That's what I would say. This is what you're telling you. That's what I'm telling my son. My daughter. So when we're having the conversation, I also have two girls, seven and four. I got a daughter.

I got one daughter too. So daughters are different. Yeah. My daughter, I've told the story of multiple. time since this happened but we're watching playoff hockey and my daughter my oldest daughter she's not like she's she's she could be athletic she's just she's seven but i'm basically telling her she's not very competitive which is totally fine but we're sitting there watching playoff hockey together and i'm like sweetheart you have the genetics you have like the ability like your mom's athletic your daddy you know

you've seen the wikipedia i've showed you the highlights your dad's a dude yeah you got what i was a a great corner right exactly i was like if you wanted you could play sports like you could get your school paid for you, you do all these things, like you can really make something if you wanted to do this. And she sits back in this chair and goes, you know, them, I think I'm just going to be me. Summer is on at base 31. The drill hall, RBC stage is packed with big shows, live music and electric summer nights featuring acts like Father John Misty, the beaches and wild rivers. From can't miss concerts to food, drinks, art, history, and places to gather across the B-31 district. There's never been a better time to visit Base 31 in Prince Edward County.

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Listen to learning to be human On IHard Radio Apple Podcast Or wherever you get your podcast And that was the moment I was like I'm not going to press her at all anymore

about sports Because she was always like Daddy You're always talking about sports I'm like yeah Because it's really all Daddy knew growing up So like obviously I'm going to try to get you into these things, but now that I know that,

so if we're having the conversation at 17 years old and she has an acceptance letter from Ohio State and she's like, I want to go to Ohio State. I'm thinking, why would you want to go there? It's not like a predominant, like educational school. Like it's not anything like that. Michigan top 15 public school. You want to go to somewhere like there. There's a lot of other places.

But if you wanted to go to Ohio State, I'm bent in the knee. I'm bed in the knee. We all sit. It's just the way it goes. It is the way it goes. But I'll tell you one thing I will say, though, about, Girls, I'm further down the last year. Oldest is seven.

She turns in, my daughter is 12. She'll be 13 in the fall. So I got twins, boy girl twins. They'll be 13. They'll be seventh graders. And then my oldest son is eighth grade. So boys and girls very different, maturity-wise, whatnot.

She wanted nothing to do with sports until probably like two years ago. Played like little soccer with their friends, but like there was no training. There was no practicing. there was no going out in the driveway. Like, she had no interest. So it was pretty much just the boys that were our sports experiences. About two years ago, she played for a little school basketball team, took a liking to basketball. Started going out and like venturing into some more of like competitive basketball role.

So now she's, when the boys do basketball training with the guy, like, she's out there with the boys doing basketball training. She's in the gym. She prexes. She just went out for the track team at her school. Me and her just drove to Greensboro for the Adidas Outdoor. track and field meet last weekend. And she's competing against some of the best girls in the country. Granted, she's sixth grade.

Like, yeah. Not that she's winning, not that she's the best or anything. But like all I would say is for the girls, sometimes the competitive side doesn't, at least in my family, it came out a little bit later. When the boys were little, it was run around with a football in their hand and let's go play catch and daddy, let's go hit off the tee. It took her a little bit longer, fifth grade, give her take, fourth, fifth grade. But now she's as completely.

competitive and as strong and as driven and as much of a dog as anybody. Like she is a horse. That juices me up. So don't give up on it. Yeah, don't give up on it. I think a lot of it too is probably like, uh, we didn't press her. Like we had, we never in a million years thought she was going to really get much into sports

outside of just like recreation, fun, soccer or whatever. Yeah. But she's competitive. Like right now, like literally as we speak, my wife's taking her and my, and the two boys. all the kids took you know kula you know brian kula trained mcalfrey and he is he he works at battleground academy okay do you know that school here in franklin i think i've heard of it did you guys live in nashville yeah we live okay i wasn't sure i'm naming all these nashville guys i'm from anyway so like

they came down here he's like a great track and field coach like that's his specialty um trained anahall and mcalfrey and all these people from colorado he moved to nashville within the last couple months. So like they're there. She's there doing a hurdle workout with him, learning how to run hurdles and they're going to do a speed day. So like she'll work now. Like she'll get after a lot of it too with like young kids has got to be just feeling confident. Like maybe they're a little insecure. They kind of shy away from maybe doing a sport because they, they don't know if they're good at it yet. I just like the idea too. It's like when you get you just getting kids obviously involved in sports, but you have something that you are committed to doing a place that you have to be, a place to show up,

how you show up for the world, like how to stay. you know, start getting in those areas of like discipline and everything else and say, hey, if you don't like doing it afterwards, we might find something else to do for you during that season. It could be anything. It doesn't have to be sports, but something that you can commit yourself to because at some point you're going to have to start, you're going to have to start doing that like when you go to school and you're committed to your grades.

You're committed to whatever your things are going to be. Totally agree. And again, we all just know sports. So that's like the only avenue I know to teach those lessons. But we know it's the best lessons. Again, we're biased. We have an idea. It's the best list.

We're biased. We haven't been exposed to the arts, to music. I wasn't exposed to it. I think a lot of people have great experiences doing that. And I think that's wonderful. I don't know that world. I didn't grow up in that world. So obviously our life experiences to our kids are going to be things that we're comfortable

with. We recognize because we got the values out of it. So like our model with that is like we're not trying to do all this to become professional athletes. If we were all trying to have our kids. play sports to be professional athletes, we should all just stop. If that's the goal, you're wasting your time. You're better off spending your time and energy doing other things. It's all the other shit, being accountable, being on time, doing something for other people, having an authority figure

that maybe you don't like or you don't think it's giving you the fair end of the deal. And it's not your parents in there trying to. It's different. It's different authority figure. You're kind of coaching you up. Totally. You're not going to talk crazy in front of the way. Where else are you getting that? Yeah. It doesn't keep them well-rounded. Like, when my kids, it's like, hey, you have to have an art you have a different language and you have a sport. Right now their sport is like Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Jumping in that. My daughter wants to learn Chinese because she saw how to train your dragon.

The dragon of Chinese, they're all about it. And then they're taking classes and stuff like that. So it's cool to see these things that I know nothing about, but like they're really enjoying it. They're about it. They have these like canvases sitting outside. They're always painting and doing stuff. It's just really, it's cool. Because I'm like learning as I'm going to.

Totally. I would love my kids to be like that. Like we stress trying to be well-rounded and then like I take a. I take a look at myself and I'm like And you're there on a Monday with salt and pepper Yeah, what do you do other than sports? So like I growing up like we did sports Right

Like we didn't go camping Mm-hmm And everyone hunting I can't tie a fishing line I'm not the guy to call like I always joke Like the kids are like, can we go fishing the lake? I'm like yeah let's call Luke He lives around the corner for me like Luke's the guy that needs to come put the lure on

Luke needs to come when your spool gets tied and nodded Like you don't have a dad That's good at that shit But if you need a dad to come coach your team and you want to be good at that, like, I can be good at that. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I can help that.

But outside of that, like, I'm not the guy to teach you out of pitch a tent. Yeah. Yeah. I know we have like three minutes before we have to get out of us. So we have a couple questions. Let's go. Broadcasting. Yep.

You've obviously, you do, you crush it. You're very, I'd say the way you're able to express yourself to the viewer that's listening that might not a whole lot about football when you have a wealth of knowledge, you do a great job of letting the casual viewer understand the game of football. in those three hours you're sitting in the booth. Thank you. Tom Brady comes in.

There's been a whole lot of conversations about Tom Brady. He gets thrust in in this role. Is there like a rivalry type of thing between you two? I know you've commented a little bit about it. But how do you feel when all this stuff is going on? And you've kind of put a lot of work in.

And Tom being Tom kind of gets thrust it up to the top right away. Yeah. And again, it's not something that I've shied away from and I'm happy to talk about it and be honest with it. The simplest way to put it is like anybody, you guys in your world, wanting to be at the top of the charts and you want to,

that doesn't mean these other people aren't your buddies. It doesn't mean that you're not also pulling for them to have success. Like everyone who's motivated to be a high achiever in any industry, whether it's in the podcast world or whether it's in broadcasting, whether it's in coaching, athlete, whatever. Ever since I've been little, I've always wanted to be good. Whatever I'm doing, I want to be good at it. And I'm going to do everything in my power to be as good.

I'm never going to be the best. I don't have to be the best at it, but I'm going to be whatever my best is. I don't really have, I don't know how else to do it. I don't like doing things that I'm not particularly good at. Like,

I don't enjoy that either though I am going golfing. But like, so when it comes to the situation with Tom and the games, like I was very lucky that in my second year, the things went down the way they did with Joe and Troy leaving that me and Kevin got, got promoted to being the top number one team. And we were,

and it happened to be a Super Bowl year. So we were going to call that Super Bowl. We called the Philly Kansas City game. but we knew going in that Tom Tom had signed a futures deal in essence to be determined whenever he was done playing when he's going to start it but he had a deal on the table before I got elevated from the two crew

with Kevin to the one crew so that was the order of events of how all that went down so I knew going in I was going to call the A crew for a year and past that was TBD it ended up being two years so I got the Super Bowl year one additional year and then Tom came. I really enjoy broadcasting. I love football.

I love talking ball. I love talking to the guys. I love learning. I've learned more as a broadcaster about other aspects of football that maybe I wasn't as privy to playing in the last five years than maybe been 14 years of playing.

I enjoy the process of learning. I enjoy the process of presenting the game to an audience in a fun way and a cool way, maybe ways they're not used to hearing, whatever that is. Tom and I's relationship both professionally and personally is really good. Like we've gone, I've said this before.

Like, we've spent the day golfing together. He sent a hype up video to my team before their first middle school game last year, which was super cool. And the kids lost. We lost. Jesus. Tom. Need a better video.

We're going to redo it this show. We're going to reset. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bad case where people say, you guys don't have beef because you guys did lose that game. So that's really where the animosity comes from. It's not taking my job. It's that we lost the game.

I got a couple hype videos out there if you ever need somebody to step in. No F bombs, just flips. I got you. Just flips. Christian school. Christian school. Good friendly.

But like, you know, we've spent a lot of time on the phone, you know, talking broadcasting, but also talking about raging teenage daughters. Like, we have a lot of other things in common that we've formed a better personal relationships since he's joined Fox than we had when we were both playing. We knew each other.

We'd see each other before and after games. It was a very casual professional relationship. Yeah. Me and him, I have spent a lot of time together, a lot of time talking professionally, a lot of time personally. I have zero animosity for Tom. I don't sit there saying I hope their broadcast stinks. I hope at all.

That is independent from my personal aspirations of I want to take this to the highest level I can. I want to call Super Bowls. I want to get to a top crew. I want to continue to elevate and see how high in the industry that I can get. Those things can both simultaneously exist. My ascension individually does not have. have to come at the expense of him. It does not have to come in animosity towards him. If he has a long career in this industry, so can I. Those two things are not. So that's the way

I look at it. I'm going to go in this year to hopefully have a great year and continue to present the game in a fun way. I have a great crew with Joe and Pam and my crew at Fox is awesome. And I hope to do this for the next 20 years. And what that looks like, I don't think, you know, what does this look like for 20 years? No one knows. But that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my approach. towards all of it. Love it, dude. Our very last question. You know,

people would do anything for a bud light. What would you do anything for? Can't say family. I feel like if he did say family, he'd have a very good answer. If he wanted to go that route. Doesn't have to. Yeah, I mean,

family, I think, is probably at the top of everybody's list, right? Like you would go to the end of the earth for your kids. And, you know, for as much as sometimes they aggravate you and they frustrate you and, you know, they don't want to listen. at the end of the day, when you take a step back, man, that's what all of it's about, right?

It's about your family and your wife and your kids and giving them a better, giving them a better opportunity than maybe you had and paying it forward. And, you know, hopefully they go on to make great impactful lives. Like, I think that'd be everyone's cliche answer, even though it's the truth. I mean, professionally, I would probably give anything to go back and be able to replay our Super Bowl. So, 2015, we were 17 and 1. We won 15 regular season games. we ran we had a tight game in the divisional round against Seattle

we were up 30 nothing at halftime ended up having to recover an onsite's kick we didn't score in the second half Russell Wilson almost brought them back and beat us we won we blew the doors off Arizona we scored 45 points in the NFC championship game so I mean we had scored almost 90 points

collectively between the divisional it's a great picture I look thrilled in the back you know so I look back on that season and there's a little like That was a wasted moment, right? Like we were on the cusp of the most wins ever for a Super Bowl team in NFL history. We would have been 18 and 1 Super Bowl champs.

No team had ever won 18 games and won the Super Bowl. And we were the best offense in football, and we shit down our leg. We were terrible. We turned them all over a bunch. We didn't score. I think we scored 10 points. We were averaging 32 a game. We scored 47 against who was the next best team.

team record wise was Arizona that year. I think they won 13 games. We beat them 45 to 17. I mean, it was a bloodbath in the NFC championship. But as you guys know, you get one shot. It's not best to five. It's not best to seven. I would give anything not to win the Super Bowl.

Like go back and just play it one more time. And maybe we were to lost again. I don't know. They were damn good. Denver was good. Knowing your mind frame about like effort, finishing. Like if you're not going to do that,

you're not going to play for my Pop Warner team. Yeah. Well, goes to your mind when you see Cam Newton double clutch on that fumble. You know, I think to the outside world, and I mean this sincerely, this is not me covering for Cam. If every guy I've ever played with, if there was ever a guy that you did not have to question his physicality, his toughness, his competitiveness, it was Cam. That's what a lot. That's exactly what Luke said. And that is not a cliche cover for him. Like, if he pulled up in the moment for that ball, and he's talked about it.

He's like, man, if I could go back, that's probably. I've heard him talk about on his podcast. Like in the moment that was not, I'm scared to go get hit. I'm scared to go dive down on the ball. There was a, as we all have been there in time, your reaction to what you see in the moment and feel and you're, it's hard to really even quantify what you do. You react for 10 years.

I watched that guy put his life on his body, his life, his career on the line in big moments, in meaningful games, in Wednesday practice, in training camp all between. If there's one, people want to knock him for a lot of things,

fine. You cannot knock him for not being competitive, for not being tough. And when it came time to going out there to play, that dude played his ass off every day. He was unbelievable. Every day. Played a player.

You wish you would have said he would have traded in his MVP for a Super Bowl? That's a longer conversation. But short answers, yeah. I would rather he traded his MVP for his Super Bowl. No, I, I, again, there's always context with Cam. And those of us that have spent a lot of time with him always can view the things that he says that maybe to the outside seem. But we're viewing it through a lens of 10 years, now 15 years of being around him and really knowing him intimately. How he, how he thinks, how he responds, how he body language, all of it.

Like we have a very keen idea of his good days. He's not like we really understood what made him tick. And he was the pulse of the team. He was the center of the locker room. Everything everyone saw from the outside, that was genuine. Like he was like that. He would run for a touchdown on the last play of inside run period on a Wednesday in week 16.

We would have to make any quarterback pull play the last play of the period. Because if we were running it from the, say, the minus 30. and that was just where the ball was marked. He would run 70 yards to the goal line and he would put the ball on top of the fence like he scored and it was like him handing the ball to the stands. Like that was his touchdown thing.

He did that in practice 100% of the time for 10 years. We would have to change the script and make sure that any play he would have the ball was the last play because if it was play three, we'd have to wait for him to run 70 yards back and call the next play in the huddle. when he was running back, the defense would go and we were off the field and the defense would do their period. And by the time he came back, it was time for seven on seven or whatever the period was.

Like that was every single day. So when he talks about MVP versus winning the Super Bowl, I think the point he's trying to lay out was he took such great pride in the season he had that year, winning MVP on clearly the best team up until the Super Bowl. The end versus there's a lot of guys that have won Super Bowls, but didn't have nearly the level of impact that he had as the reason you want. There's a lot of guys who have Super Bowl rings and were on Super Bowl winning teams, but that, in his, again, his message was, that's a big difference between I won our team a Super Bowl. I was one of the big factors of winning our team a Super Bowl, right, wrong, or indifferent. I think that's the lens that he was trying to present that by, but like, I think we all would be like,

hey, Cam, we love you to the end of the earth. But if we could have won a Super Bowl, like, You're going to have to take that one for the team. Yeah. I love you. And you're my guy forever. But like, you're like, I lose your ball. Yeah, let's go take that. We're going to have that.

You were still great. Yeah. You were still great. But yeah, man, it's a, so yeah, that would probably be, that was tough. Like we, and we never could find it again. You know, we had almost the same exact team in 2016. And I think we won six games. Yeah.

You hear about, you're about guys that are young that make the playoffs early. And they kind of like losing a divisional round or losing the championship. round and older guys is like just so you know it doesn't always go like this and you never know until you know because we we in 19 we went the a fc championship and we had essentially the same you guys right here i know you're like to finish you're good i do love that you're good you're good round of pause for great awesome i sit here all day with you guys yeah it feels like on maybe 70% of pods like at 2019 that a that was that was our 2015 that you got to bring up as much as you can We're having on 10 points on the Chiefs.

80% of the time, Willis wants to bring up his pick six in the Capital One game against Georgia. But he goes team up 13-7. You know what my favorite, are we still rolling? Yeah. Can we just address the elephant in the room?

Yeah. Me and you have talked about this, but I don't know if we've talked about this on the open forum. You don't like when you hear a story about your former self and you look back and you're like, don't love it,

like not proud of it. Probably in the moment, didn't react. When I, what is this? this must be our oh you just don't oh oh tackle eligible do you score did I I got tackled on the one in that stadium one year

I came to tell you guys you've told this story we're playing each other you're with Washington and you knock a ball away from me yeah you just had like a little like a little sticky or whatever and broke on it

and you gave like the typical like it was a four yard knockdown I webbed him like Spider-Man. He gave me webs. He gave me like full on. He was cutthroat. I mean, it was like every celebration that Defenders ever done. Got to get him when you can. Gotta get him how you can. So I just remember and it was like the first quarter. It was not like third down game on the line. It was like the game started at one. They ended up killing us that game too.

The game started at one. I think this completion was like at 107. Nobody was even in the stand yet. And he's webbing me, spider manning me. He's got all sorts of wristbands on. I mean, he's got a lot going on. And I just remember turning around. And you've told the story. And immediately after I said it, I was like, God, that I felt real. Like that shit, that felt bad.

I wasn't a shit talker. Never really got into stuff with, like my kids asked me all the time. Like, dad, did you ever talk shit? I'm like, the whole game, all I could think about was catch my breath. And when do I get to go sit back on the bench to like, regroup like I had no time or energy to be into like piss and matches between plays I was exhausted I don't know on this day I was a say no this moment but it was early in the game I was full of piss and vinegar you know and I turn around and I remember and I was something along the lines of like who the

fuck are you third string at this point I thought I had some good years like I was pretty productive and I was like maybe feeling myself too much and the second I said it said it he kind of looked at me with like that like really dude like almost a I say hey man I'll work for this spot and I remember so we get off the field and we come back on and we're in like a TV timeout yeah and I was like I just it didn't fit I don't know I don't know why I felt I was like a little pussy

I guess I felt I don't know I was being sensitive in the moment I guess and I walked over and I was like hey man like we're good I shouldn't have said that but like good play sorry about that and Will was like no man we're good we're good You know, but like, and when you told, now, years ago, I hadn't thought about it. Like, I hadn't thought about it. But when you told that story, however many years ago on here, and I heard it, I was like, I heard, like, that was fucked up.

Like, I shouldn't have done that. Like, I was not proud. So I just wanted to address it in front of the boys, all of you guys. Like, that's how me. I'm proud that I fixed it in the moment. I felt good about that. But like, you were busting your ass and you earned that spot. And that was not for me.

And it's the shit-talking moment that I remember. I wasn't proud of it. When you told that story, I was like, yeah, that was fucked up. That guy busted his. I was like the amount of shit he probably overcame to be in that spot that day to play. Like, I can't take that for him.

Yeah. I was like, that's a whole other three-hour podcast. Yeah, we'll catch that episode too. But anyway, I just want to make sure we're on the record here in front of all the boys. Like, that's on me. That's big. That's on me.

Dude, love having you, go make your tea time. We could have done this forever. Yeah. Appreciate you guys. Guys, let's get a photo real quick. Hey, big hug, thank you here to subscribe. Quick photo, guys. Yeah.

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