Crime in Sports - #223 - A Most Epic Fall From Grace - The Groundbreakingness of Joe Gilliam

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

This week, we transport back to the 70s to look at a man who had it all, talent, ability, style... and a rip roarin' drug habit that consumed all in its path. So much so, that he went from being the first Black starting quarterback in the post-merger NFL era & being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, all the way down to a ton of arrests, including robbing a fast food restaurant at knifepoint, and eventual homelessness. Did he ever make it back, or did his lifestyle finally take him under, for good? This one is indescribably nuts! Be an idol to many, and a source of anger to others, never let them cramp your style, and always hold at least one crack rock with "Jefferson Street" Joe Gilliam!! Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!! Contact us on... twitter.com/[e-mail]/Crimeinsportsinstagram.com/smalltownmurder See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It's streaming. You can say anything. It's an all-new season. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. Hello and welcome to Crime and Sports. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo.

I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We have an absolutely crazy episode. I hope so. It's wild. This is like a, well, it's a cheer up for a while, then it gets, we'll see. But last week, you know, we had, it was a little dirty.

We had Rabino there. Grimy. Yeah, who was basically a, you know, a club it was a little dirty. We had Rabino there. Grimy. Yeah. Who was basically, you know, a club rapist. Shitbag. Shitbag. Today, we have a guy who you're going to root for the whole time because it's a super 70s spectacular. This dude is a Curtis Mayfield song with a pulse. Fucking awesome.

And this is when I honestly have been saving for a while. And I was going to do cards on the a while um and i was going to do cards on the table originally this was going to be brandon marshall this week the wide receiver lots of shit with him but he's got a lot of mental problems yeah later on he yeah he's like alonzo spellman-esque type of thing but he did a lot of a lot of time yeah he was a great receiver but i had a lot of problems but then something happened to him over the weekend if you might have saw on the news that i'm like, you know what? I'm not going to pile on this guy.

I'm going to save him for another time. We're still going to do it. But I'm like, not this weekend. He's got another problem. So we're going to bring somebody else up who has no chance of having anything happen to him this weekend. We'll get into that. But first, thank you guys so much for everything this week.

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murder and if you haven't listened to small town murder you are missing out and you should check it out especially this last one we just had was a crazy ass episode oh it was wild yeah you'll want to hear that you can root around in there too man root for someone you can root for someone that you wouldn't think you would it's crazy stuff so check out check out small town murder also check out uh ps i hate this movie on fridays where we will be doing grease 2 this week which is it's not good forgot there's a sequel real bad stuff now if you want to become a producer of the show so easy to do that and you will get access to lots of stuff it's all not only for us it's for you damn it jimmy will mispronounce your name at the end of the show. And also, you'll get access to all of our wonderful bonus material.

God, last week we had our last bonus episode for Crime and Sports was the Minnesota Vikings loveboat scandal and small town murder. We've had a ton of stuff this week for Crime and Sports bonus episode. We are going to talk about Action Park. Yeah. Back East. The documentary just came out on HBO Max. And I've also read the book. And I've been there. I'm from back east. The documentary just came out on HBO Max, and I've also read the book, and I've been there.

I'm from back east. It was, the place is 50 miles from my front door when I was a kid, so we'll have lots to talk about there. Crazy stuff, injuries, some first-hand knowledge. It'll be fun. Lots of people from PA knew all about it. Oh, Pennsylvania, Jersey. You wore a shirt of it.

Yeah, I've had the t-shirt for years. That's how I found out about it. Yeah. Everybody after the show, that's all they wanted to talk about. It was Action Park. We just did a live show, guys. Yeah, we just did a thing. They're like, hey, did you go to Action Park?

So we are going to discuss Action Park on that this week. It's a lot of fun. You can get access to that and all of our catalog for both shows very easily by going to patreon.com slash crime and sports and make your donation there. Anybody above the $5 level gets all the bonus material. easily by going to patreon.com slash crime and sports and make your donation there anybody above the five dollar level gets all the bonus material and also if you just want to be a good person have nice karma and uh you know also you get a shout out jimmy will mispronounce your name you can go over to paypal use our email address crime and sports at gmail.com to make a donation and damn it do we appreciate every penny you guys give thank you can i be overstated no it definitely can't

so uh to give back let's give you a crazy ass episode right certain episodes you just know are going to be classics you know what i'm saying there's just certain you know you got you're putting mitch blood green together i'm sitting there going well this is a classic and stick around this is one of those right this is one of those that's why i was saving it but damn it you know what let's we all could use an up yeah an upbeat crazy ass story so it's not really upbeat but it's crazy so let's get into it okay it's joe gilliam you know who this is no now there is his name pronunciation first of all is a problem um okay it's pronounced a lot of people pronounce it gilliam oh no which is how it was like pronounced in college but then a lot of people pronounce it Gilliam, which is how it was pronounced in college. But then a lot of people, because it's spelled G-I-L-L-I-A-M.

Like Armand. Yeah, they say Gilliam. So over the years, it's just been kind of taken over to Gilliam, but it's supposed to be Gilliam. Do you think Armand had something to do with that? I don't know. It just looks like Gilliam. But did he play at the same time as Armand? No, no, no, no.

This is a 70s guy here. It's Joseph Willie Gilliam jr my friend oh yes and he is a a mountain of junior behavior it's really he's what was his dad famous for his dad we'll talk about it his dad actually is a his dad's a really solid dude title really yeah his dad's a great football coach actually oh really good football coach uh so joe willie gilly as he's called uh on the pittsburgh steelers later everybody calls him jefferson street joe gilliam okay that's his nickname jefferson street joe because broadway joe is joe namath and he everybody was calling like the black joe namath so they called him in college jefferson street joe because jefferson street ran along the college by the stadium so he was jefferson street joe gilliam

that's their way of doing that what's happening over there on jefferson street is on broadway no it's a tennessee state so not really but for that school though they were all about this football team as we'll talk about because they were a pot shit and uh not a ton of sports today more like a lot of crime and a lot of messed up weird 70s stuff and a lot of kind of behind the scenes weird kind of politics of sports a little bit too so uh that but not a ton of sports because he really didn't play that much actual football no as we'll get into here uh born december 29th 1950 okay He's born in Dunbar, West Virginia. And his parents are Ruth and Joe Gilliam, senior, obviously. He's the third of four kids, Joe.

And, man, this is such an interesting, not to interrupt the one line of the story that I'm telling here, but it's such an interesting thing because he's like the, hard to put a finger on it, but this guy's a pioneer. He really is he went through a lot of shit he went through a lot of shit and guys like doug williams and guys like that recognize that other black quarterbacks who came after him he took a brunt of the shit for them and a lot of them no now there is now it's nobody cares but for a long time right away we have to say if in case you're not like much about sports history, black quarterbacks were just not a thing that happened for a long fucking time.

There was guys that could play, but when they get in the NFL, they'd change in positions. They'd say, well, he's too good of an athlete to be a quarterback. So, in other words, athlete was code for black. No, it was back then. The coaches all said athlete meant black, which in their mind mind and which not even in their mind stated was black people are too dumb to run a team fascinating they can't be leaders and no one will follow them and they won't be smart enough to call the plays because back then quarterbacks called the plays so they said i won't be smart enough to call the plays so yeah we can't have

that we'll make them a wide receiver or a safety or some shit like that which is fucked up yeah and it happened to countless guys i mean countless so many fucking guys nowadays it's not like that nowadays no one looks twice they don't care cam newton comes in you don't go oh well he's a black quarterback he's a quarterback who cares you know patrick mahomes fucking i mean who's gonna say he's not good you know what i'm saying like it's not even an issue anymore i mean it might be if you're old and racist but to normal people you're just, that's just a dude playing quarterback. But back then, that shit was a big deal. And we'll get into just how big of a fucking deal it was, too.

He grew up in Nashville, primarily later on, because his father is going to be a coach at Tennessee State University. That's where he grows up his uncle frank gilliam was an all-american at iowa playing football and also was a longtime scout for the minnesota vikings after he played in the cfl so really good athlete great not and i don't mean athlete in terms of code i mean he was a great athlete now it's gonna be tough to say that yeah he Yeah, he's an athlete. Oh, no. Take it easy, man. Well, we're not 50s coaches, so we just mean a guy's a good athlete. We don't mean, hey, wink, wink. Yeah, yeah. He's a black feller.

Calm down, David, dude. Yeah, right? So, yeah, his uncle, though, I mean, that's good football stock right there. And then his father was a coach, and we'll talk about, too, was a coach at Jackson State and Kentucky State before he gets to Tennessee State in 1963. And these are all black colleges, too, that he's coaching for. So it's yeah, it was the black college scene was much more kind of thriving back then athletically, because a lot of the players that were good would go to black colleges and not go to these other schools. Because if you were a quarterback and you went to Notre Dame, because you want to play you ain't playing quarterback that's how it works you're going to be a fucking safety they're going to do the same thing so um his dad when he

was younger his dad was raised in steubenville iowa and he was uh he earned black all america honors as a quarterback at west virginia state so that's the other thing Joe knew how this game was played from the beginning because his dad went through it his dad was drafted by the Green Bay Packers but when he got to camp they said oh no you're not playing quarterback no no we drafted you to play like defensive back or something so he retired promptly yep he said you know what don't want to do that not going to do it and he went into coaching instead. That is fascinating. He said, I'm a quarterback. If you don't want me as a quarterback, then go fuck your mother.

And he left. That might be the first guy that I approve of him calling his son Junior then. So it was a good. Yeah, no, his dad. There is not a bad word to be said about his dad. His dad's a stand up like, you know, stand up cat. He's helped so many kids come on and coming up. And he's everybody loves his dad.

There's not a bad word ever said about his dad by far. So, yeah, his dad did that. His father was head football and basketball coach at Oliver High School in Kentucky from 52 to 54, winning a state championship in football in 54. So third year there, he wins a championship, which is great. And then he ended up going to Jackson State University in 55 and left to become a head coach in 57 at Kentucky State University. He was 2-13-1 at Kentucky State. And then he ended up going to Tennessee State, where he was the defensive coordinator.

And they have seven black college football national championships in 20 years while he's there oh so yeah they're a dominant force they made so when they when you qualify it with black college they they did like a tournament just for black it was a separate national championship yeah it was a separate thing because they're most of these schools are like division one double a they're not they're not one a's right they're not bowl games no they're like they might be if they're popular enough like a steve mcnair you had with alcorn state they were playing in a bowl game just because everyone wanted to see steve mcnair so they were you know doing that but normally alcorn state you don't see a lot of bowl games it's one of those

things you know i think i just learned that they were in a bowl game there you go i think they were in one when steve mcnair was there just because he was a... Can't wait to see that game. Good stuff. Tell you to ask Steve about it, but a little too late for that. So at Jackson State here, when his dad was there, Joe served as the team's mascot when he was there. And he met another guy there, this guy Gentry that he knows. What the hell is his name? Bruce Gentry? Is that it?

Bobby Gentry? Damn it. I have it in here somewhere. We'll get to it. But Gentry, he knows. What the hell is his name? Bruce Gentry? Is that it? Bobby Gentry? Damn it. I have it in here somewhere. We'll get to it. But Gentry, he was the mascot there also. And basically, he was at first a mascot for another team and then became a mascot for Tennessee State. So they didn't get along.

So Gentry said, quote, we were rivals, rivals enemies and we were not friendly at all with each other they're children right by the way they're children they're mascots mascot enemies he said then his dad came over to tennessee state to meet with our coaches we were both in the hallway where our dads while our dads were in a football meeting and he bought a baby ruth from a candy machine and walked over and asked if i wanted half he told me we might as well be friends so uh that's the kind of dude joe is too joe is a very friendly dude like nice guy to a fault type of guy a trusting to a fault type of guy and uh he's a real nice he's a gentle soul old joe joe gilliam couple things he does that don't quite say that but there's extenuating circumstances there overall when you weigh it gentle soul let's just say here so uh joe jr began he was a really good athlete from an early age

and you can tell he's just an athletic guy i mean he's uh he's still so right wink wink it's so racist no he's he's uh he's uh he's a thin guy too he's a real thin he's sick when he plays he's like 6'2 185 for an NFL quarterback that is thin yeah normally 6'2 you want 220 215 take a hit you'll get hurt if you're lighter yeah but uh he's a real good quarterback his arm is uh I mean he's got a cannon for an arm this. You wouldn't believe it because the way he throws, too, it's this little sling motion. And it's awesome. He can just be standing still and just whip a ball. And it's like, holy shit.

It's kind of like a, not like a Dan Marino, but the ball flies kind of like a Dan Marino throw. Like rivers. Yeah, and he doesn't throw like rivers, though. No, his throw's got style, dude. Everything he does has style to it too joe gilliam everything he does picture with like a felt fedora tipped just right you know i'm saying just right to one side and a fluffy collared like velvet shirt and like you know i'm saying because that's how he dresses that's the type of duty is so everything has a tint of style with it. So even when he throws, he looks fucking cool throwing.

It's pretty cool. Yeah. As a kid, like if I was a kid in the early 70s, I would have been like, that dude is the shit. Yeah. How does somebody like that not get just pimped out? Do you know what I mean? In terms of just pushed really hard.

Well, he kind of does. To be on a team because you need a guy like that to sell. But yeah, this is before corporate America got into football. This is also, you know, we're talking about when he comes in the league is 1972, which is, you know, the country is very divided and not everybody is okay with. I mean, all in the family came out in 72. So Archie Bunker, that's where the country was, is Archie Bunker. You know, that whole debate. It's ugly.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's an interesting time period here. So he did all sorts of sports when he was in junior high, too. He did tumbling. He did track. He did basketball. He was a good swimmer.

Joe Gilliam. So, I mean, he's doing all sorts of shit sports-wise. In 1966, he became the starting quarterback at Pearl High School. 1966, he became the starting quarterback at Pearl High School. And he was the quarterback in the city's first season of integrated football. So that was also first season of integrated football. Doesn't that sound crazy? Bananas.

How long ago that was? It was far too late. That's fucking nuts. And it's so long ago, too. It really is. But it's not long enough ago. I wasn't born. But it's not long enough ago at the same time born. But it's not long enough ago at the same time.

The 60s weren't that long ago. No. That's far too early for us to be talking about segregation of schools and schools being integrated and people protesting about it. It seems very late for that, right? It's far too recent. But then also, yeah, it's weird. It's just strange. My mom was alive.

That's weird. That's weird. Yeah. That's fucking weird. It's just strange. My mom was alive. That's weird. That's weird. Yeah, that's our... That's fucking weird. Exactly. My parents were alive when that happened. That's strange stuff. My grandfather had an opinion about that.

I don't want to ask him what it was because I'm pretty sure I know, but it's fucking weird. Yeah, yeah. It's bizarre. Yeah, I'm sure my grandfather probably had a couple opinions himself. Probably watching the TV, yelling for whichever side. Nah, he was drunk. He didn't care. He was hammered.

He didn't give a shit. My grandfather had an opinion. He just cut hair. He didn't give a fuck. He was a barber. He worked 12 hours a day and got shit hammered. He didn't give a fuck. As long as my grandmother wouldn't fucking yap.

That's all he was interested in. My grandfather was welled and shit and angry about it. So when he got home, he was more angry because he just dealt with that shit for 12 hours. Man, he should have tried scotch. It worked for my grandfather. My grandfather was not much of a drinker. Oh, mine were. Poltab.

Poltab cans, James. Oh, boy. Gross. Yeah, that one's old school. I wish I could teach him. No. It's too late now, Jimmy. There's so much to it, Grandpa.

It's too late now. So apparently Nashville, everybody says if you ran into nash if you ran into joe gilliam during high school basically uh he always had a football in his hand when he walked around the streets and he just throw to anybody who was like hey i got like yeah one of his gentry here the other mascot he says you never saw him without a football in your in his hand if you were walking around town and saw joey all you had to do was break out into a pass pattern and he'd throw the ball to you. That's awesome.

You just start running and he'll fucking chuck it to you. It's like his little party. That's cool as fuck, man. Hell yeah. Yeah, just walking down the street with his football. Hey, hey. That might be what America needs. That's fun as fuck.

This guy with a big afro walking down the street throwing footballs to people? Absolutely. Fuck yeah. That'll change your day. If you can catch a ball on a run just some kid throw people like that's cool as fuck you will feel so good about yourself take the ball back right on that changes get changes days yeah good job hope you get make it to the nfl so 1967 so they have a bad time here uh his older sister sonia commits suicide that year which is obviously just very destructive on the family joe 17 it's it's rough um his sister apparently was

a drum majorette at tennessee state where his father was coaching and where you know they were living and she killed herself on the campus too too. So it was like a big deal. Over pressure? We don't know what happened. A drum line's a tough thing to do, man. It's tough, man. We don't know if it's drum pressure, or, I mean, she could have had a mental illness. We don't know what her problem was.

See that Nick Cannon movie? Forget it. It's tough, man. It's a lot of competition. It's cutthroat. It's cutthroat, the drum line. So he was told after they pulled him out of a pearl high school practice and then he just disappeared for a few days that's kind of how joe deals with things if he has a problem he'll just

vanish you're like where joe go i don't know i'll just come back like three days later and just be like i don't know i had a problem sorry which i admire that yeah but he disappears for other reasons later as we'll talk about here. That's the problem. Yeah. That gentry guy, his friend, said, quote, We were playing an away game on Friday, the day of the funeral, and are getting beat pretty bad when a car pulls up just after halftime. Joey jumps out of the car with his jersey and shoulder pads in his hand.

He comes into the game and throws a touchdown on his first pass. We had a great comeback but lost the game by one, and afterwards Joey broke down. So, yeah yeah he tried to play after the funeral and apparently uh you had other commitments show yeah he uh but he that's i feel like he was just trying to let out something i don't know what it was so uh 1969 he decides he's going to go to tennessee state as well which i mean why not he gets a full ride. His dad's there. He already lives there. Yeah.

You know, he literally lives, like, there already. So why not? But this is also where my sister died. Yeah, yeah. She's fucked. But the whole family revolves around Tennessee State at this point, so he goes there. One of his teammates on Tennessee State at this time is Ed Too Tall Jones.

No kidding. The Cowboys defensive end who's tall as fuck, obviously, by his name, who's in movies and shit. While he's in college, he's going to be an All-American quarterback there. He is going to between 69 and 72. He leads the team to a 39 and three record. That's impressive. And two black college national championships in 70 and 71.

So he's a bad motherfucker. Joel Jefferson Street Joe. That's why he's a bad motherfucker uh joel jefferson street joe that's why he gets a nickname and uh 1970 when he's a sophomore he marries his high school sweetheart beverly all right so why not there uh he's an all-american in his junior and senior seasons in 1970 they went 10 and 0 and uh were played in the grantland rice bowl played in baton rouge louisiana which i remember the rice bowl it was i remember that one i remember hearing about it anyway gilliam passed for two tds ran for a third and they beat southwestern louisiana 26 25 oh that day in louisiana in louisiana suck it

and that was one of their national championships that was a national championship game so pretty good stuff there um yeah voted ap all-american and national black college player of the year in 71 and 72 so he is a bad motherfucker old jefferson street joe good skinny as fucking can sling that fucking rock like nobody's business the nfl needs him they do they really do they need him now yeah so he's fuck that's a mad shortage it's a shortage of quarterbacks man yeah and it's so fucked up because even into the 80s they treated black quarterbacks different like doug williams when he was on the buccaneers he at one point had been starting for their team for three years took him to the nfc championship game a team that was a piece of shit before he got there the most wretched ever

and they went oh and 26 to start out with and he was the 42nd highest paid quarterback in the nfl backups are making more there's a dozen backups making more money than him that's how he was treated so he ended up going to the usfl because they would actually pay you for skills there so anyway that's just a little you know whatever insight into that so he's so fucking popular there though i mean as you can imagine he's the team hero so uh gentry said quote someone had given joe name at the nickname broadway we had our own joe and since jefferson street ran through the black community in nashville that's the name coach merit gave him so he's jefferson street joe that's four syllables yeah well he also he gave ed uh too tall jones his nickname apparently this merit guy liked to give people nicknames he thought it would make him more

popular and he was marketing yeah not bad so uh he first kind of attracts attention here you know from the nfl because how do you miss this if you're an NFL scout? They won the national championship. Yeah. You got to pay attention. I get if you don't pay attention to the black schools a lot, but I think the scouts should if they were looking for players. And I would think they go, holy shit, this guy is by far the best quarterback going right now in the country. Whatever fucking color.

He's just awesome. So whatever fucking color he's just awesome so uh yeah he's there uh he says that quote people told me that there weren't any black quarterbacks in the nfl but i always thought i could pull it off so he always had a he's always very positive that's the thing as we'll find out he will set a record two records this week we're going to set number one the record amounts of of times he's good now yeah is staggering it's fucking remarkable like i've never heard a human being be good now more than this fucking guy all right number one and number two the most silver-haired middle-aged white men ever in the history of our show i could see that it's fucking intense i would be too

they're coming out of the woodwork if you're within proximity of the guy you've got to be rooting on him that's the thing that's it now uh january 25th 1971 while he's still in college a daughter is born joy joi i assume that's joy yeah now she will grow up to be an r&b singer and be if you look her up she's in a shitload of songs that are like popular songs with big artists. And she was married to Big Gip from Goody Mob. No shit. As well, yeah.

Oh, Big Gip. Good for you. They're not married anymore, but they were married for years. Big Gip was my favorite. Well, there you go. He was great. He was married to this guy's daughter. So there you go.

It's a very small separation here. So the 1972 NFL draft comes along and you know you would think he'd be a pretty commodity yeah i mean take a guess when he's drafted uh top five uh no no no strange right weird uh number one overall best quarterbacks in the country nope not at not at all. Who's number one? Well, number one is, I could let you guess until you died, and you would never guess. I could even tell you it was something Polish, and you still wouldn't get it. Walt Patulski. That was the number one draft pick in the NFL. Walt Patulski, a defensive end at a Notre Dame to the Bills.

Wow. Also, the last Notre Dame guy to go number one overall, by the way. Really? 1972. And they've been good so many times. Yeah, they've been whatever. Then the Bengals picked Sherman White from Cal. The Bears picked Lionel Antoine.

You know any of these guys yet? No. Then a few guys that ended up being pro bowlers, Bobby Moore with the Cardinals, Riley Odoms with the Broncos. He was around for a long time, Riley odoms as a tight end uh willie buchanan the cornerback for the packers was around a long time franco harris is number 13 overall really franco harris with the steelers same draft so these guys are rookies together on the steelers all those names and then franco 13th franco's a hall of famer obviously and franco is a weird thing we'll

talk about him but in pittsburgh he plays a different role because franco's half black and half italian so rather than the italian people going out he's black or the black people going out he's italian they both just claim him as their own that's awesome and fucking love him so everyone loves him because yeah he's they have the franco-italian army which is their thing you know that all the fans are doing and all the black guys love him too because he's a black guy so it's like he just he made friends with everybody and pittsburgh has a history of there's a lot of very popular people from pittsburgh yeah carnegie he's not necessarily from there but he started the fucking steel empire there and the the statue in their airport is franco harris that's what i mean franco harris is they fucking

love franco harris unbelievable they love because he's he he fits everybody everyone loves him uh i guess if you're black or italian right everybody else fuck you yeah sorry paul oxen lynn swan together yeah great and yeah they were lynn Lynn Swan was coming, I think, it came the next year, I want to say. Were they that close in career, too? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's unbelievable. All these drafts were like just Hall of Famer, Hall of Famer, Hall of Famer. So awesome.

Later on in that draft, Cliff Branch, the great Oakland wide receiver in the 70s and 80s, was picked in round four. Round 11. Wow. Get the fuck out of here 273 joe gilliam to pittsburgh round they don't even have 11 rounds now do you understand that he wouldn't even have been drafted now he'd been a fucking free agent walk on so that's how long and another quarterback that had a better nfl career than him went in round 13, Brian Seip, who played for the Browns and ended up playing in the USFL, too. And he was a fucking Pro Bowl quarterback.

He was a really good quarterback at one time. So 1972, he gets to Pittsburgh. Now, right away, we have to talk about the fact that there's a book called About Three Bricks Shy of a Load by Roy Blunt, which I've talked about on the show before. And it's an embedded reporter in 1973 just with the team all the way through the year. Hanging out in the locker room. He hangs out with all the players. He goes out with them at night. Just basically acts like he's a player.

They give him warm-up gear to go out and practice. And they don't like it. He just runs around. But he gets himself totally embedded. warm-up gear to go out and practice and you know they don't like he just runs around but like he's gets himself totally embedded and this was before players were aloof these guys made 26 grand a year like they lived in the neighborhoods with the rest of the people they went to the corner bar that everybody else went to they you know people bought them drinks they didn't swarm them for autographs it was a different type of thing so you know the players didn't know to be to to be pr savvy back

then they just fucking talked to him like he was a regular dude and this dude wrote a book about it and it's fucking crazy unbelievable and one thing about pittsburgh that they all emphasize he does in the book but more importantly the players all emphasize the black players the white players pittsburgh all the players say is the least racially whatever team that existed back then how do you mean they hadn't there was they didn't see color basically back then okay they all said the color they saw was black and gold that was it they saw black and gold and green and that's all they fucking saw there was nothing else they didn't they said chuck no all the players said chuck no is fucking we we honestly think he's fucking he doesn't even know who's black and white

like we don't even think he looks up to pay attention he just you're a number and a stat and that's it they don't they don't care what you are and the team the roonies were always very much like publicly would state that they do not go for racism at all like there will be no fucking racism on this team that sort of shit you're paid for how you perform yeah and in the locker room it was the same way all the players these guys have been Like, there will be no fucking racism on this team, that sort of shit. You're paid for how you perform. Yeah. And in the locker room, it was the same way. All the players, these guys have been on different teams. They said all the other players, all the other teams back then were segregated pretty much.

Like, they'd play and they'd be in the same locker room. But after the game, all the black guys went out to the black bar. All the white guys went out to the white bar. And they didn't fucking mix. Period. I mean, even guys that were the same position they'd go and on the steelers he said it was it was such as they were all like how strange it is that you could go into the some polish bar and there'd be eight black steelers hanging out with 10 white

steelers just having drinks and it was and you go to the black bar there'd be 10 white guys in there with 10 black guys hanging out drinking and they were like it was just the weirdest thing it didn't happen back then so it was uh the steelers were an environment where everybody was very comfortable racially and that's how you win that's how you win yeah that's they didn't give a shit the raiders were the same way and it helped because they were like yeah we don't give a fuck who you are play hard we're all criminals let's just do this exactly you kill the quarterback i love you i don't give a shit what color you are who cares you kill the quarterback and if the wide receiver catches the ball i'll stab him exactly so now aware of the fact from his father that black quarterbacks get moved to other positions joe has a little trick up his

sleeve he tanks his 40-yard dash oh in the in the training camp they do 40-yard dash times he runs it slow on purpose so they wouldn't say oh you'll be a good cornerback right he ran it way slower than he could have on purpose so they wouldn't say you're too good of an athlete to be a quarterback all right that way he said it was either they were taking me as a quarterback or nothing because i was too fucking slow to do anything else great move yeah it worked he's a quarterback i don't think they were going to move him anyway but just i think his dad probably told him hey yeah don't fucking they pull this yeah you walk around with a limp around training camp and then when you get behind center then fucking sling that ship but don't act like you know how

to run at all because they'll make you i think that was how it goes but taylor swift is soaring high her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans she's broken billboard records and made grammys history not to mention becoming a billionaire in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time.

And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that.

Bing! The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me.

Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother.

That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all new season.

It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. This was one of the first, this was like their first really good year, the Steelers. Because I think,

I want to say 69, they were 1-13. Is that right? And then that was when they hired Chuck Knoll. That was his first year. And then he built it like Jimmy Johnson built the Cowboys and just built this fucking dynasty with good drafting. So they go 11-3 that year.

They beat the Raiders in the playoffs. I believe that's the immaculate reception that year with Franco Harris. I believe it is. And then they lost to Miami in the championship game because that is their undefeated season. 21-17, though. Fucking close. That's not bad. Almost took them out.

Joe only plays in two games in relief, and he's a rookie, so they don't really play him much. He goes 7-11 over two games throwing the ball so bad it's pretty good i mean it just came in at the end of games now 73 this is when he starts getting he gets propelled into the spotlight a little bit he has a good game uh guys are injured they have they have him they have terry bradshaw who you might know from christ being on tv everywhere about football and everything is a reality show now just him and his family yeah he was in a movie where he was a parent of somebody yeah it was a matthew mcconaughey's dad yeah because it was him and kathy bates yeah we sandra failure to launch we did it on psa hate this movie i had vitriol

trust me i was fucking livid at that movie oh my god you kidding me has he been in any others like that too he's been in a bunch of movies where he's always somebody's just goofy dad hey how you doing yeah that's what he does says dumb shit yeah weird yeah and we'll talk about it too terry bradshaw yeah is that dumb yeah that's not a character i know that's not a cat, over the course of this book, like, he gets benched for being dumb. He got drafted in, like, 70. He should have been entrenched as a starting quarterback.

He wasn't yet. In 73. In 72, 73, he was not. It was a wide-open quarterback competition because Terry Bradshaw didn't know how to read defenses. And there's him in the book, quotes of him going, I hear other guys saying they know how to read defenses and all that. I think they're lying because I just get out there and I just throw it where I see it. And I don't know what the hell they're talking about reading defenses.

Yeah, guys know how to read defenses. That's what they do. Yeah, that's what they do. Ever see Peyton Manning go up to the line and move his leg up and down? It's because he's reading the defense. He knows what they're doing. Tom Brady makes fucking hand signals like he's doing the hand jive to try to tell the receiver what's gonna happen bradshaw was too dumb to read defenses so

teams would trick him and he threw a lot of interceptions early really oh god he was awful at it so they had bradshaw they had gilliam and they had terry hanratty who was like the crowd favorite yeah he was like a skinny guy who had like a big nose and a mustache. He looked like a rat. Very Pittsburgh. They called him the rat. That was his nickname, Hanratty, the rat. Hanratty looks like a rat.

He looks like a fucking rat. But he was one of those guys like a Ken Stabler type who knew how to come in and just pull shit out of his ass. He was that type of guy. So the crowd loved him. But there was this big quarterback competition and uh yes bradshaw was dumb as fuck between those three between those three han ratty and bradshaw get hurt okay and gilliam they start gilliam in a game and he has

a good game so they decide that he's going to start on monday night uh right after that uh so they do his first start start is Monday night football. It's Monday night football, and it's a fucking huge deal. It's absolutely, Howard Cosell is talking about on the broadcast, what a big day for this young man, and every black athlete in the world. He made it like this was the most important thing ever. lead in the world he's he made it like this was the most important thing ever like you know finally on television you're gonna see a black quarterback start a game on a prime time but it

was like this huge deal is like he's just a quarterback leave the fucking guy alone for christ's sake um so yeah uh problem was this did not go well and And I watched the game. It's on YouTube. I found the game. 1973, week eight. And he is awful in this fucking game. Like I said, the guys call the plays. Who did they play? Miami.

And it was good. And you can tell that he is pressing. The quarterbacks call the plays. So he's in there. They have a game plan, and the quarterbacks go in and execute it. Now, the Steelers' game plan is to run a lot. They had Franco Harris, Rocky Blyer,

Frenchy Fuqua. They had a run on Miami. You got to try to run on them because they have a great running game. And so Gilliam, though, wants to come out to shoot Gunnan, and you can tell. And he comes into the game and fucking just throws

interception after interception after interception he's throwing off his back foot one of the picks is not his fault that goes off a receiver's hand and tips up and a guy picks it off that one's not his fault it was actually a really good pass that the receiver fucked up like he looked surprised that it was such a good pass like i didn't expect that to hit my hand. That's how good of a pass it was. Then it went into someone else's hands. Then after that, he's pressing like crazy. He's throwing balls nowhere near receivers, getting picked off. You're like, holy shit.

To the point where they pull him and bring in an injured Terry Bradshaw. Really? Yeah, because he was terrible in this fucking game. So that kind of really was a big drag. They pulled him before halftime. I mean, it was rough. That's fucked up. It was rough to watch.

Yeah, it was hard to watch. I can't remember a game where I've seen that recently. They'd get the ball. I mean, literally, it was like first down. They'd get the ball. He'd drop back and fucking throw a pick on first down. Miami would come back and score. Then they'd get the ball.

He'd throw a pick on the second play. You're like, holy shit, dude. This can't go on. No. So it was tough to watch because even, I don't know, 50 years later, I'm watching this game. And I'm like, I'm rooting for him. You know what I mean? I want him to do well.

And he's just not. So for the season, he plays in five games. He's 20 for 60, which is not good. For two touchdowns and six picks, which again, not terrific here. Yeah which is not good. That's not good at all. For two touchdowns and six picks, which, again, not terrific here. Yeah, so not good. His nickname here, who was it? Oh, in the Steelers, Ralph Berlin, who was the equipment guy or the trainer, he called him Ragu.

Oh, no. That's what he called Gilliam, quote, because he's on the rag all the time. They said he was grumpy. Really? Yeah, by this time, he starts to get kind was grumpy really yeah he was grumpy by this time he starts to get kind of grumpy so he calls him spaghetti he calls him ragu gross and uh like just rag uh but he said that uh he was just a little too too much and then they started calling him joe willie gilly as it's like joe willie nameth type of thing so um yeah now him and bradshaw

were really tight actually during this time all the quarterbacks were tight with each other uh to the point where they had nicknames for each other um which terry would probably rather this not be out there would you call him apparently this this is roy blunt in the book talking about they came in they were fucking around for a while they were talking about football and they were just bullshitting about stuff and dumb dumb terry said and so they were done and uh gilliam says to him okay cajun sugar because that's his nickname for him and then terry's nickname back is sweet n-word no yes okay sweet n-word and then they gave each other five and left oh my god how forced do you think it sounded in a louisiana accent probably came out pretty smooth in the 70s it didn't have an and

it had an er in there oh yeah yeah it was that's how it's quoted i mean but and it was uh that was there it's a different time though you have to that to. That was and it's going to sound weird, but that was their all way of showing how comfortable each other with each other. They were. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't that wasn't to be insulting or demeaning. That was an actual. I mean, it's still a thing today.

They do that. You know, white guys say that to say stuff like that. It's like trying to prove something. No, like there are white guys that are friendly with black guys that i guess the black guys just let them do it when i in new york yeah everybody said the n-word like as a i was never into it because it sounded funny coming from me but and i wouldn't do but like you were allowed to yeah like i could call my back friends that and they would be like they wouldn't give a fuck right because you know as we all hung out together but i didn't think it was it didn't sound right coming from me i didn't think it sounded like so i wasn't gonna say yeah not for me i've seen it and black guys

not be offended no i've seen it all over fuck growing up like crazy i find it a little disturbing but anyway it's a little off-putting so this that's why they were getting along though that's i don't approve of it but whatever so anyway 73 season they lose to oakland in the playoffs they don't go to the super bowl and that's kind of the point of the book is uh i think it's that subtitle is the year the steelers were super but didn't make it to the bowl or something because that was like in between right was before their dynasty dynasty kind of started 74 season starts with a strike okay it goes the whole pre-season and one week of the regular season the first week of the regular season now it's disputed all of this i

think i want to say bleacher report did like a thing trying to debunk this based on you know they oh they said the strike was only one week blah blah blah but the strike was one week of the regular season it was six weeks of pre-season before that as well so basically there's a strike but gilliam goes to camp anyway because he wants a fucking job he wants to play whereas bradshaw sits out so at that point it's kind of like and joe lights it the fuck up in in preseason too he has a great preseason he's fucking awesome so chuck knoll says well i mean i haven't seen other guys and this guy's playing great this is my starting fucking quarterback right week one starting quarterback is going to be joe gilliam which is like he's going to be the first black quarterback to start a season opener since the merger uh denver had a

black quarterback in 69 but that was before they the leagues played together um so i mean this is a big fucking this is literally historic the first one he's the fucking mike evans of football and it goes do you know mike evans is it goes to see there you go let's say because he's forgotten the same way joe gilliam is does anybody know who mike evans is are you sitting in your car going football no oh no. Oh. No. That's why I asked. No, no, no, no. I'm sure there's Mike Evans that have played football, so I should be more specific. But Mike Evans is an actor.

Oh. Mike Evans is a writer. Mike Evans is a show creator. Not anymore. He died in 2006. Oh, no. Mike Evans was Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family. Okay.

Okay. So he was like... He was the black guy on All in the Family. He was the neighbor, the Jeffersons, who later on, their kid, because it's a spinoff, All in the Family. Oh, it's the kid. He's the kid. Is he on All in the Family? Yeah, he's always on All in the Family.

Now, Mike Evans was 21 years old and in acting school when he got the job. He didn't even finish acting school yet, and he hadn't had any jobs yet, and he got a job on a sitcom as you know one of the main character so lionel was a he was fucking hilarious on the show and he kind of he made fun of archie without archie knowing it that was the way he would do it like archie would be like see i'm telling you the lionel knows the blacks they don't want to do this or that and he'd go right lionel he'd go boy mr i'm telling you mr bunker you know i mean you sure know inside the community or whatever he'd say like that. And then he'd look at the fucking kids. And they'd all fucking roll their eyes at Archie.

And Archie goes, see, I'm right. And they'd all fucking laugh at him. That's how it worked. So Lionel, that was his role. And he was fucking great at it. Real sarcastic delivery. He was really good. And then he went on to create fucking Maud.

Really? Which was B. Arthur's spin-off of all in the family uh i'm sorry not create maude he wrote on maude and then he created good times okay so i mean he's uh creator he's the fucking creator of good times and he's uh i want to say he's the creator i thought he was a creator of maude too i think he's the creator of maude as well that's awesome i know he's too so i mean he as a a black show creator that's a fucking he's the creator of Maud as well. That's awesome. I know he's too. So, I mean, he as a black show creator, that's a fucking he's a pioneer. This guy. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, he was writing on all these shows. Two different shows. Yeah. And then he was on the Jeffersons later on, too. I mean, he's doing all this shit and you don't even know the fuck he is. No. And most people don't know who the fuck he is.

And he's a pioneer. And it's the same thing with Joe Gilliam. He's the Mike Evans of football. Right. So remember Lionel Jefferson. Remember Mike Evans. Remember Joe Gilliam. So say his name. with joe gilliam he's the mike evans of football right so remember lionel jefferson remember mike evans and remember joe gilliam so say his name so now obviously this is a historic thing but the steelers don't give a shit they said to them it's not a big deal uh the one wide receiver here

lewis who's a black guy at a grambling you know he said quote in the locker room we really didn't care it wasn't a matter of who was going to be the quarterback. It was a matter of who was ready to step up and play in that particular week. Yeah. They just didn't care. They were like, let's just win every week. Now, there wasn't just no divided locker room. Even Bradshaw admitted that the better man won the job that year. And he did a big Playboy interview, which is a fucking trip in the 70s.

If you want to read a funny interview, look up Terry Bradshaw playboy interview. Wow. He says he found Jesus watching Monday Night Football in this interview. He says, I was watching Monday Night Football, and I just saw Jesus' face. And the guy was in the TV screen, and he was like, no, no, no, man,

just in my living room in my apartment. And tears came to my eyes. And it's crazy. I think he like ate clean drank cleaning solution by accident or something and had like a hallucination he's a bizarre man so he's a christian now so there you go that was the day that was the day that's what started all that was it watching monday night football in his apartment when he should have been at the game no no just some no he wasn't playing that night yeah it's a night off yeah yeah so he says

about gilliam though quote joe gilliam had a phenomenal pre-season he won the starting job and i lost it so there you go um and uh gilliam will say much later on when he's interviewed by real sports he'll say later on quote i had never seen a white guy anybody throw like terry bradshaw and i bet he never seen a black guy who could throw like who could throw and play like i could bradshaw had a fucking cannon for an arm as goofy as he is he could fucking throw that ball um so he says though about terry bradshaw later on quote yeah he won four super bowls and he was the quarterback but he wasn't any better than me i know it and he knows it which talent wise he really wasn't gilliam i think was more talented possibly probably and even he was better at uh he knew the play like he's a coach's son so like he had like you know playbooks he memorizes them like that because football education is not even close

between the two no he's been bradshaw went to louisiana tech because he said he thought he was too dumb to go to lsu and he was right that's what he said he's too dumb for lsu lsu right not fucking cornell lsu lsu down there oh jesus christ it's not stanford all them swamp scientists i don't know if i could i'm gonna feel dumb down there i better go to tech right jesus christ so uh his first game of the season as a starter is against Baltimore. He throws two touchdowns and the Steelers win 30 to nothing. Wow. So, I mean, that's it.

That's awesome. It's awesome. He says, quote, all I wanted was the opportunity to prove my worth. He said, I've gotten that chance and earned the starting job. I came to camp with that intention in my mind, so I certainly had no doubts about my ability. Good for him. In one, in the book in the book september 27th 1974 he is on the cover of sports fucking illustrated really on the cover of sports illustrated him taking a snap and like you know coming away from the center and it says around his head pittsburgh's black quarterback oh jesus

yeah what the fuck come on dude it could have said pittsburgh's a new quarterback quarterback or you know well because he's a the new starter pittsburgh's new starting quarterback would have been fine rather than pittsburgh's black quarterback but it was 1974 so yeah they want did the next week have uh cleveland's white quarterback yes cleveland's white quarterback yes it was it was uh uh this city's white golfer here he is so uh the problem is that the steelers the coaches didn't like how he called games it's like we said the quarterbacks call the games they want a running game they want to establish certain things because that keeps their defense off the field a certain amount of time and they have it planned the way coaches do.

It's chess. He likes to whip the fucking ball around. He likes to freestyle a little bit, which is fun as shit to watch. Oh, God, yeah. But if you're the coach, you are going, Jesus fucking Christ, stop shooting from half court. What the fuck is wrong with you? It's a little nerve wracking. It's nerve wracking.

And the fans, too, are to this like defense ball control game and all of a sudden there's this wide open thing and it's not quite as successful at times and so the fans start to revolt a little bit they start to get mad at gilliam i think it was just racists who found an excuse to be mad yeah like they didn't like it to begin with but they couldn't say anything and then once he had like two bad games or like see i fucking knew it you know they couldn't say anything and then once he had like two bad games or like see i fucking knew it you know it's one of those this is when he started getting hate mail this oh oh yeah um so much so that he had to move his wife and daughter back to nashville because he didn't feel comfortable leaving them home alone he thought somebody would try to hurt them that's it was that bad that's

horrific it was a lot uh he says later on, I did not understand the ramifications of what it was and what I was doing and what I was representing of being the first. He didn't get it. Like, he just didn't think it was that to him. And he went to Pittsburgh where it wasn't a big deal on the team. So he just didn't think it was a big deal. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world. And also for a guy who came up around. You got to imagine.

I mean, obviously, he grew up in tennessee so he must have encountered some racism but not right around where he lived he's a black college black college town his dad's a coach like he's not hearing it there i'm trying to see from the person's side that's writing the letter how do you throw that in a mailbox and then just be like i can't wait to see it people still do nothing out of that no and people will fucking lose their minds when they read that yeah no they do the the fear that you instill in somebody but that's ridiculous fucking male oh yeah that's what i mean so yeah he moved people away that's how bad it was but the everybody was excited his friend howard gentry that's his name there you go howard gentry his

friend who played with him in high school and college. He said that he was fucking excited. And later on to this day, he still has this, uh, this magazine framed at home in his office. Yeah. Prominently this Howard Gentry. He said, quote, I'll never forget when that issue came out. That was one of us on the cover. That was exciting. Grace. That's terrible.

That's grace for him. No. Now I will say this. Some stories have ebbs and flows of a little bit up a little bit down and then grace and then whatever this is mountaintop is grace yeah and then there's a fucking cliff oh boy that you can look over like the abyss at grand canyon yeah and that's where he fucking falls off of the sheer face of a mountain is coming. It's wild. This is a downfall like few we've seen. He was brought up right.

Parents raised him right. He had education. He did all this stuff that, you know, he's not like an MMA fighter that we have will do and just kind of come from a fucked up family and start fighting when they're 14. And that's what they're doing, you know, as a thing. And they don't care about school. Like he had all the structure and it just goes awry here. You got us. I mean, there's got to be enough people rooting for him, too, as a lot. and they don't care about school. He had all the structure, and it just goes awry here. There's got to be enough people rooting for him, too,

as the first black quarterback. Fuck yeah. But it became political. It didn't become a matter of his quarterbacking. It became political. It literally was a political thing where it became wrapped up in fucking Watergate and everything else. It was all one big stew back then.

Similar to fucking now. It's a similar thing. Who was the first black quarterback that won a Super Bowl? Was that Russell Wilson? No. Doug Williams won in 87, I know. He was with the Redskins in 87. Was he the starter?

Fuck yeah. Really? Yeah, Doug Williams, 87, against the Broncos. Beat the Broncos. Beat the shit out of the Broncos, as a matter of fact. Trying to think. Before that, no. 53, no 53 7 before that you had what plunkett plunkett montana joe theismann fucking phil sims uh he probably hung as the only one until russell williams for a while yeah that's crazy that's fucking there wasn't a lot of black quarterbacks now four he

ends up going four one and-1 as a starter. He had a three-game winning streak in there. They lost a game, and then also there was a tie of a game. It really wasn't his fault because their kicker missed a field goal at the end of regulation, and it was a tie. So what do you want? But he says that through all this, he thought that the hate mails and the threats and all this type of shit, hate mail threats and certain other factors made Chuck Knoll want to make a change at quarterback.

So he makes a change and ends up making Bradshaw the starter, which he'll end up being the starter for the dynasty after that. For a long time. Yeah. For the season, Joe plays in nine games, starts six of them, goes 4-1-1. He's 96 for 2-12 for four touchdowns and eight picks. So not exactly great, but he's young. It's his first time starting. Peyton Manning led the league in interceptions his first year.

He threw more interceptions than touchdowns. He had like 28 picks his first year. It was a fucking disaster. Brett Favre must have been thankful. Oh, slinging that shit all over. So the team goes 10, three and one. At the time, Joe says it's not about race. Why he got pulled.

He says, quote, it's an honor to just play in this league, whether you're black or white. The pressure is not your color. I feel more pressure on the bench not playing. That's what football is all about playing. Yeah. But Myron Cope, who's the color analyst for Steelers broadcasts, he said later on about it, quote, It became a race issue and things started to get nasty.

I ran a talk show at the time and we took all kinds of calls from people who were upset because Joe was playing and he was black. The fans were upset that he was black. Yeah. They would call the state. This is what I mean. It wasn't like, I don't like him because he's not a good player and they would be like i don't want that fucking black asshole playing quarterback for my team that's bullshit that they were outwardly fucking racist it wasn't even i'll bet there was still those calls when slash was playing for him probably i mean i wouldn't doubt it probably less but i mean i'll bet it still

happened yeah um he said about it i joe said i can take the heat he said i understand it the quarterback always takes the heat if he's bugged by it he's doing his best not to show it he says no white guy ever had to go through what i have i can handle it he said ignorance is what's wrong with people today if we can knock down these barriers we will be halfway to a harmonious world but it's not just a racial thing. I know that. And then Bradshaw, in that Playboy interview, gave his opinion on it.

Quote, from what I can recall, there was a lot of pressure from fans, and he was throwing the football a tremendous amount of times, and we weren't running the football, and we lost our edge, and we lost our aggressiveness, and a lot of flack around the city.

He said, and they chucked they chucked me back there which was a terrible time to do it it was kind of a touchy situation Bradshaw was uncomfortable like I don't want to be the fucking guy that would be like oh here he is here he's the blonde savior's bag oh hey no no no no no no the differences between you two are vast yeah hey on the surface it's real fucking obvious yeah he said i responded all right for a couple of weeks and then i faltered and terry hanratty played and then he faltered and then i played again and did all right and then i faltered and then i played and i did all right and then i faltered the following week and then chuck decided to stay with me for the new

england game but i always felt if i screwed up i was going to be benched and you can't play that way at least i can't. That's the thing. Noel would, from week to week, play different quarterbacks. He would move those guys in and out like crazy. That's not a thing that happens anymore. So weird. No. That's not how you keep a harmonious locker room.

Fuck no. But there's a rumor that it was Al Davis that caused this. Now, yes, you're going, how would Al Davis, who has nothing to do with the Steelers, as a matter of fact, owns a different team completely, have anything to do with who starts in the Steelers? Well, Al Davis will tell you how. Here he is. Al Davis says, quote, this is 1974.

Which is, this is 1974. Pittsburgh started Joe Gilliam in the game, and we beat him something like 17 to nothing. After the game, Terry Bradshaw came in the locker room and said to me can you get me out of here can you trade for me so uh and i said to him listen i love you but i got enough problems i got stabler i got blanda i still had uh la monica and i can't starle monica the quarterback and i can't get you but let me put in a good word for you. He says, Chuck Knoll had always been a close friend and probably one of the dumbest things I ever done. I told him, why the hell don't you play Bradshaw and stop playing Gilliam? Bradshaw can win for you. He put Bradshaw back in the line. They beat us in the championship

game in 74. They beat us in the championship game in 75, and we had our hands full with the Steelers from then on because good me because good me raised his hand and suggested they ought to start Bradshaw I think he just Noel just starts as whoever he feels like I don't think Al Davis had anything to do with it but it's nice of him to think that someone would listen to him who doesn't even work for him that sounds like very egotistical a little bit right so they beat the Bills in the playoffs. They beat the Raiders in the championship game. And they go all the way to the Super Bowl versus the Vikings here. This game, National Anthem, is sung by, what do I guess?

Never heard of them. Okay. The New Orleans chapter of the Society for the Preservation of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Did you say a school for barbershop quartet singing in america a say did you do you say a school for barbershop quartets is that what played not even a school like a yeah new orleans chapter of the society for the preservation of barbershop quartet singing in america a society for it national anthem there are four on the super bowl they got just enough people to uh call it a quartet now they get like most famous person they can get then they were like i don't know is it barbershop

quartet guys from new orleans maybe i don't know they're not available what about the the fucking society for them oh boy so can they come the rest of the guys halftime show is a tribute to duke ellington with mercer ellington and the grambling state university band that is terrible that's the halftime show a college football band playing duke ellington tunes oh boy that is not cool so that's what the super bowl used to be guys don't worry it's only 12 minutes not quite the spectacle it is today now this is the lowest scoring halftime score in Super Bowl history. 3-0. 2-0.

Get the fuck out. 2-0 is the halftime score. Not a touchdown, nary a field goal. Steelers leading 2-0. One safety is all that happened. That is awful. It's the lowest possible score besides a scoreless tie. Yeah.

That's wild. Steelers win this game 16-6. Sounded like it was boring as piss. Yeah. So, yeah. just fucking awful that's right that's why they didn't fucking get anybody to watch it it was fucking terrible your game's a plate of piss sir i'm not aware i'm not fucking watching it so gilliam how is he affected by all this the steelers win the super bowl all is he happy well uh he says once he was benched that's when he became involved with drugs um that he said that's what did it we're not sure

if that's exactly what did it but that's his story he's sticking to it for the man has a Super Bowl ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers oh he has two we'll talk about it yeah holy shit he says quote I kind of withdrew I guess it was my way of not facing and dealing with the fact that I wasn't playing for the Steelers. And there were other problems in my life, not just those related to football. It was my way of hiding from what was really happening and not facing up to things. He says he can't understand why he wanted to hide. He doesn't understand that, never quite understood that.

He says, I don't know because I'm no shrink. At times I think about it. He says, I don't know because I'm no shrink. At times I think about it. I think if there's any part, I think there's any part of me, any part of feeling good about myself during the year and a half that I wasn't active. It was that it really didn't break my spirit. I damaged myself. I did things to hurt myself, but I didn't let anybody crush my desire to play. If I felt I wasn't going to play, I didn't think I would, but I still wanted to.

And I still do. He said that he started with weed and then he moved on to heroin, which is a big jump. That's just a big jump. Yeah. See, that's the thing. If you smoke weed and you're like, that's just not doing it for me. I don't know what your brain chemistry is like, but I'm happy right there. I smoke weed.

I'm like, perfect. Done. Done. You know what? Solved the problem. Yeah. Maybe a glass of wine once in a blue. Maybe. But nope. I'm like, perfect. Done. Done. You know what? Solved the problem. Yeah. Maybe a glass of wine once in a blue? Maybe.

But nope, I'm happy with this. I'm never like, I want to kick it up a little bit. Let me jam a needle in my arm. How far after the fact from when he was benched to getting into drugs, but how far after that did he say, I don't know, I'm not a shrink? That was years. Okay. That was years later.

I mean, at that point you're saying yeah you're not one but you clearly know yeah yeah the the route to figuring this shit out this was like four rehabs later so he's seen one he's yeah he's had some i ain't a shrink i've seen i've seen a lot of them though just a team i've had a team just concentrating on me from time to time so yeah to jump to heroin it's like this weed is good but if only i could concentrate it and jam it jam it into my bloodstream that would be better and can i be so numb because it was yeah you still feel all right you're still there yeah can i get nba players play whole games on smoking weed is there anything that can just erase human

emotion yeah can i do that uh he said he experimented also with cocaine. He did more than experiment, as we'll talk about. Uppers and downers, but he avoided LSD. Afraid of acid, he said, which is, I'm afraid of heroin. Never mind acid. I loved acid when I was a teenager. So, I was afraid of LSD. I should have been afraid of them all.

He said he took drugs every day, though. He said, I didn't do it when I went to play ball. I did it after practice. The stuff was very easy to get. Yeah, that's it. So, so easy. Let's do it in their own words about heroin. He's got a little heroin tale here.

Let's just, let's see what he has to say here. Let's do in their own words, quote, After you've done it a while, it's not even about getting high anymore. It's to keep from feeling bad. I realized that when i realized damn i got to have it jesus christ this happened the first time i didn't have any about eight or nine months after i started i told the guy i was sick and he said you have to have it man you've been doing this for a good little while haven't you and i said yeah and he said you don't

have any and i said no he was that's he realized withdrawal and that was the worst day of my life oh shit i'm addicted to heroin that's what he just that's what that was i think that might be the first in their own words heroin addiction revelation i think that's the first one oh my that was the day i knew i was hooked on heroin and you don't have any no no and i said no and at the end and on a sitcom, that's the moment where everything goes silent and they go to commercial break. That's it, yeah. It's silent and maybe a clapping as they go away in the old school ones. And his future lawyer, a guy named David Vincent, said that the problem is that he had no problem getting all the heroin he needed.

A, it was around, and B, everyone likes Joe, so they want to give him heroin if he wants heroin. He said, quote, the trouble with Joe is that he's been a star all of his life. People defer to him, and he can't handle that. He's a tall, very handsome fellow who walks with grace. He's very attractive to women, not just sexually, and attractive to men, and they tend to let him do things he shouldn't. He needs someone to tell him what to do and insist that he live up to his responsibilities he's just he's got it yeah people are deferring to him and he's not the type of person who can say step back and go hey i need

to be responsible he just goes well i mean if everybody else no one's saying anything i guess it's fine it's that kind of dude uh now chuck noel the coach of the stealers said he had no idea that gilliam was on drugs and uh no clue and mean joe green said he had no idea either uh later on mean joe green said quote when i heard about it later it was a shock it would have it wouldn't have been a shock if i had heard he was on marijuana but the extent of it that came as a shock because i mean back then they were all smoking weed yeah that was there was this is pre-drug testing so even in the book they said all the guys smoked weed that was just like a joke you know they all drank beers constantly because that's just what those guys did yeah constantly drinking beer and they'd all smoke weed because it wasn't a big deal back then you know it still isn't but i mean for a while it

became a big deal in the nfl so uh 1975 for the season season Joe only plays in four games. He goes 24 for 48 three touchdowns, three interceptions. So not a great year. Spotty just kind of put in relief here and there. They win a game against the Colts 28-10 in the playoffs. Then they beat Oakland again in the championship

game. And they go all the way to the Super Bowl. And we've talked about this Super Bowl. This is the Super Bowl that thomas hollywood henderson was in uh with the national anthem being sung by up with people who we've gotten many tweets about and people sending us pictures of them and shit and now it's down with people people are the worst well do you remember the halftime show no i don't up with people presents 200 years and just a baby, tribute to America's Bicentennial. That's right. Whoa.

That's the worst halftime show they've ever had. 200 years and still a baby. I don't know if you've ever heard the Grambling State Band, but they're fucking awesome. Are they? They're like the best college band. They're fucking amazing. I would much rather hear them play a tribute to Duke Ellington

than this shit, whatever this is, patriotic horse shit. Marching bands, I still don't want to hear. No, I don't want to hear drums. I don't want to hear any of that shit. I don't want to hear it either. It's dumb. So. I don't want to play Hang On Sloopy or some stupid shit.

Yeah, they all play fucking. Every fucking one of them. They all play Louie Louie and Hang On Sloopy. That's the. They all fucking play that one. I don't know it. All of them play it. And there's always that snare pop at the end.

It sounds not like a snare drum in the song. It sounds like a fucking band snare drum, like a high school band snare drum. Any song played by a band, I hate it. It makes it much worse. It's so annoying. I've never heard a song and then heard a high school or college band play it and go, I like that version better. It's never fucking happened. You know what?

That's the version. It is. It's not like all along the Watchtower where Dylan did it and then you're like, no, Hendrix, that's an epiphany. This is totally... No. So either way, the Steelers win the game. And pop songs are worse, because I've heard all of them way too much anyway in some fucking commercial somewhere or whatever.

And now we've got to hear the University of Hawaii's version of fucking something Bruno Mars sings. Fuck you. No. Okay. When Nordberg... No, it's not Nordberg. When the bad guy in Naked Gun falls off the top of the stadium.

They're playing Louie Louie, aren't they? I think they are. They are. Okay, I know. They're playing as they go over him. They're all going over him. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from Smartless Media.

Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, Bye. unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Okay, I thought so. God damn it. Fucking popped in my brain.

I hate that stuff. So the Steelers win the Super Bowl, which is good. So that's two rings for Gilliam. Keep track of those because we're going to keep track of them over time. Those rings in particular. Not the wins, the actual physical rings. The pieces. Yeah.

So 1976 preseason, Joe Gilliam's father comes out. And now he'll come out later and say he was misquoted here. William's father comes out and now he'll come out later and say he was misquoted here. But in the paper, in the Pittsburgh Press, all the different papers, he he says that his son blamed the media for his decline as a quarterback. And he said, quote, In every way possible, you, the Pittsburgh media, have tried to destroy him. Joey told me to tell you. Joey says he's received the brunt of all the bigotry in Pittsburghittsburgh and he considers the media the enemy so that's that's what he says later on he'll say you guys misquoted the fuck out of me and that's bullshit so okay it's interesting how do you get misquoted there i don't i don't know who knows but it was in like five papers too like all the media tell him to tell him maybe not um so yeah he's basically um you know he's he's doing well here

uh uh at even in the preseason he does pretty decent but then there's a there's a problem here um let's talk about it here uh he doesn't show up one day for camp you can't do that uh no phone call no explanation just it was a quarterback camp for the three quarterbacks or i think they had five they had like two free agents on there or whatever so it was a quarterback camp and he was mandatory attendance and he didn't show up so afterwards the trainer ralph berlin the guy who calls him ragu uh he got his phone number from joe gilliam senior and told the stealer and he called him up and joe told them that he had hurt his elbow and his knee when he drove his go-kart into a wall that weekend his go-karts he has a go-kart and he says he drove it into a fucking wall causing him injury yeah so um yeah and so he

just decided not to chose not to go nor tell anyone nor tell anyone about it yeah so uh then the stealers minicamp expands with the arrival of rookies and free agents, and he doesn't go there either. He doesn't show up again. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the Steelers didn't have a clue where he was. And another Pittsburgh paper said that he was in his hotel room with the Steelers suggesting there wouldn't be any effort to reach him because they knew where he was. But he didn't show up. So I don't know what the fuck's up with that. Yeah.

So they contacted his father, the Preston in Nashville, and he didn't show up so i don't know what the fuck's up with that um yeah so they contacted his father the press did in nashville and he wouldn't discuss it he says quote you guys have flagrantly misquoted me and i have no comment uh he said i never said chuck noel and the pittsburgh steelers were racist that's not the way i feel so uh yeah he caught some shit for he caught some shit for that yeah they i'm sure So basically, where the fuck is he? Basically, why did he not show up? Where the fuck is he? Why wouldn't he stay the whole way?

He showed up one day and took off. What the fuck is he doing? Basically. So after missing a couple more meetings, he has a meeting with Chuck Knoll. And he says that basically he wasn't in him anymore. He didn't have the heart to compete for a backup role there. And he didn't want to do it anymore. And he wants out, basically.

He wants out of Pittsburgh. So he does. The way they work it is he is allowed to be transferred to another team here for a $100 fee. So another team gets to pay $100 for him, and that's the New Orleans Saints. So they take him. They take him for $100. Why not? And a salary, though.

Well, you've got to pay a salary. He's making like $75,000 a year, I think, is what he made. So, I mean, it's not a big deal. It's not like he's a bank breaker by any stretch. So the problem is a lot of people say that he was was everyone knew he was on drugs and this sort of shit. He says before this, he was way, way into drugs already. Of course, he says, people say I couldn't take being cut. That's bull.

I was very well aware of what I was doing. He said he was he did it on purpose. Basically, he fucking he kind of did drugs and didn't show up and moped himself out of Pittsburgh because he wanted out of Pittsburgh. He thought that was the way he could get cut. Because back then you had to get cut if you wanted to go somewhere else. You couldn't. The way the Roselle rule worked was even if you were traded, there was hardly any trades.

Look at the NFL in the 60s and 70s. There's no trades. Because if, let's say, somebody trades for him, or let's say somebody signs him as a free agent, I mean, if he is a free agent, they sign him as a free agent, then you have to give that team compensation. And Pete Rozelle, who was the commissioner, he decides what that is. So that could be a player. That could be a draft pick. He just decides.

So nobody signed free agents if it was a guy who was owned by a team. It's an arbitrary deal made by fucking Pete Rozellellas as he sees fit it was made so teams wouldn't sign free agents it was to keep salaries down that was the whole point because teams were scared to fucking sign free agents there was a san francisco i think it was san francisco they signed a player uh or a player got signed from san francisco who was uh he was like a decent kind of older farty receiver he was a pro bowler, but five years earlier, end of his career, they made him give. They ended up doing the trade or doing the free agent signing. Roselle ended up giving the other team like the first and second round draft picks next year.

I was like, holy shit. So, yeah. However, he sees the value. Yeah. So Jack Ham, who's a great Steeler linebacker, he says the pressure that Joe would go through was unbelievable. He would sit by his locker for at least a half hour after the game, literally shaking, trying to recover from the pressure of each game. He took too much of it personally, I think, but it didn't matter. He shouldn't have had to endure as much as he did.

He wants out of there because he wants to do drugs, and there's too much spotlight in Pittsburgh. Yeah, he wants to do drugs. wants to do drugs and there's too much spotlight in yeah yeah he wants to do drugs he wants to uh i think he also in his mind if he goes somewhere that's better and he gets to play then the drugs won't be an issue because he won't want to do them because he'll be happy yeah that's what i think he's got going on in his mind like if i just do this then i'll do this and do that he's chasing professional happiness as a reason not to do drugs yeah meanwhile he's got a chemical dependency but that's what his i think that's what his addiction is telling him right because that makes him able to do more drugs so that's you know what i'm saying it's one of those his excuse for doing them is that he's not happy yeah so i'm gonna try

to get happy then i won't have to do drugs anymore and it's like but you'll still do drugs that's the problem that's what addicts do like i said he knew he was he was hooked now franco harris who like i said has a very different outlook no one ever said a racial word to franco harris who like i said has a very different outlook no one ever said a racial word to franco harris uh because everyone loved franco harris because he black people loved him white people loved him everybody loved him um he said quote uh you have to understand joe man he's not a thug he's not a hood he's too much of a believer in people if anything people like the saints would promise him him the heavens and give him nothing. It's no wonder he became disillusioned.

I'm not saying he should have turned to drugs or crime. Of course, he shouldn't have, but it's easy to understand why he did. And it's going to, boy, is this a fall. June 14th, 1976, he is signed by the Saints, and he's telling people that he's cleaned up. He's good now. Good now. Okay, everything's fine i'm happy no he comes in and he says quote this is right to the press he's not hiding it he's saying look i

had a problem it's all good now he said quote i used drugs about a year and a half before i stopped i used all the drugs heroin cocaine all of them all the drugs not at once but all it was tough real tough as each day went by i got stronger and stronger and stronger but i had made up my mind it was an individual effort an individual effort with the help of god yeah so god has smited his drug problem smoke and smoke yeah done two days later two days later not two months later two days eight hours later for the happy to wear off he walks out of saints training camp borrows a teammate's car and then leaves and doesn't bring it back what doesn't bring the car back took off and then later on that day he is in a high speed chase with state troopers in that car in the oh my god oh sweet jesus in his friend's car he's got a buddy with him a bennett guy here um he was going 85 miles an hour they tried to pull him over and he wasn't having any

of that shit so he went faster kept fucking going pulled the james brown here i mean it was a pretty good distance i guess they chased him for. When they finally did stop him, next to the car, right next to the car, I don't know why I didn't do it earlier, they found a tinfoil packet with Coke in it. He just pulled over next to it. Right next to the car. That was an amazing coincidence, honestly. And then also, when they got him out of the car, he also had weed on him.

Big fat joint, apparently. And the worst part was a loaded.380 pistol on the seat under a towel next to him. Oh, no. Which, I mean, he's lucky he didn't get fucking shot for that. I mean, I don't know if it helped that he was Joe Gilliam, but that's a touchy one nowadays, especially. You know, any time a gun is in a towel, that tells you that gun's not being used for good. Yeah, it's under a towel. It's just being hidden.

Under a towel is never how those are stored. No, they never say, what you do is you get a gun and get a towel. You want to just keep it under it. Very few people leave a gun shop and say, do you have a towel to carry this? That's a police academy. They go, here's your badge, here's your gun, and here's a towel to wrap it in. There you go. Get out on the street, stop some crime. In a towel to carry this at the police academy they go here's your badge here's your gun and here's a towel to wrap it in there you go all right get out on the street stop some crime in a towel no so uh the powdery substance is later identified as cocaine as well and him it's just a recipe for a good time he's got a fat joint coke, and a 380 fucking pistol. That's a good time right there. When all the drugs run out, we've got our way out.

Yeah. So he ends up missing two different days of camp for this. Four days later, he comes back with the guy's car after he's been arrested. It's been in the fucking newspaper. The guy's car's been impounded, everything else. Got this out of impound for you. He comes back, and after all of this, all he would say is he was gone for, quote, personal reasons. Yeah.

Very personal. Pretty fucking personal. Yeah. So the team fined him $1,000. He says at that time that his, I'm good now. Now I know I was good four days ago, but now I'm extra good. That's it. He said, my wayward days are over.

He said, quote, I want to play football and I want to help make this a winning team. I want to live my life like a man and be with my family and be happy winning football games. Yeah, okay, but you have to show up to do that. Hank Stram, the coach who is the old Chiefs coach. Have you ever seen the old NFL films that have you ever seen the old nfl films that they show like the ones that are in that weird 60s color i love it he's the guy that wears the bright red chiefs uh sport coat with the big chiefs logo on it that's hank stram with the fucking mannequin hair and hey guys hey he's got the big booming voice he seems like a salesman

yeah that's hank stram uh he's also was involved with gamblers in new orleans which was really the fbi said so but who knows um he said quote joe is such a nice kid and unbelievable but there are certain things he doesn't understand we can't just can't sacrifice the discipline and program of 100 people to try to save one if you're not careful you'll save one and lose the hundred he's like if i let this guy run rampant everyone's gonna do it basically uh so he is cut by new orleans that year uh he is cut and um yeah right after he's cut he goes to court and he has the three charges against him possession possession and possession he has the charges continued for six months uh for nine months, on a condition that he contributes 60 days of community service. So that's the deal. So do 60 days of community service and then...

They'll continue and then they'll end up dropping it. Yeah, pretty much. That's the idea. That's the deal here. He entered a guilty plea to reckless driving and also carrying a weapon and possessing marijuana. Part of the deal was they would drop the coke charge because that was the most serious one here. So the judge said that, you know, do your community service. And he said that, you know, he said that he didn't see,

what did he say? Oh, the judge said that he did not see the justice in convicting Gilliam and having to accept the dismissal of drug charges against Gilliam's co-defendant, Thomas Bennett, because he ended up having to gofendant, Thomas Bennett, because he ended up having to go to trial, the Bennett guy. Gilliam's attorney said that he would be cleared to work when the court was satisfied with his community service.

The assistant district attorney recommended a fine of $25 on each charge and a 30-day suspended sentence on the weapons, 15-day suspended sentence on the weed, and he recommended charges of possessing cocaine be dropped. So there was that. That is a great deal. He got off pretty good there. Good Lord. It gets worse. All I got to do is start for the Steelers to get that?

Yeah, he has to go talk to some kids. I mean, he's a fucking, you know, he's a pro athlete, so he's not going to probably pick up garbage. He'd probably be better off talking to kids or something. I'm just saying, if I get caught with all three of those, I'm in a little bit of trouble. You're probably in trouble. I bet I don't pay 75 bucks. No, but this is a first offense, too. So that's another thing.

So I think that helped a little bit. Now, December 20th, 1976. So not too long after this. This is a little worse. This isn't quite there. Apparently, he was leaving the home of what he called a friend, but he was actually a large heroin trafficker. The friend and the police had been the police and the drug task forces and everything had had him under constant surveillance for months and months and months. And they busted Joe Gilliam walking out of the man's house with about $400 worth of heroin,

which is a decent amount, I guess, here. They followed Gilliam from the house to a motel where they arrested him and charged him with possession of controlled substance for resale. Not Reese. He's doing all that. He's doing all that. He's a fucking he's a mess. He's doing all that.

That's ridiculous. That's just to up the charge. So that way you the deal is we'll drop the intent to sell and you'll just get possession and you take that deal legally that's why they charge you with all that shit that was his that was his uh business startup money that's it it was what it was yeah next next week we're gonna buy no that was a seed money it's gonna we're really gonna keep flipping it we're gonna flip it a little bit a little bit at a time a little bit at a time eventually we retire uh yeah so uh i guess he is taken to uh from the nashville jail to a to a hospital for medicine methadone treatment from for was with heroin withdrawals because when they

arrest him he's having he's an addict yeah he has within very short amount of time he's going through some pretty bad withdrawal so they take him for a treatment there when he ends up in court a few days later. Jesus Christ. The judge here who had this judge had seen him before. He sets a bond for five thousand dollars on the on the drug charge. And Joe is sent back to jail for a while because he doesn't have the five grand to pay on that. So he's in jail for a little while. And Joe says, quote, It was pure hell in jail, but it really almost wasn't as bad as some of the things i had to endure while i was in pittsburgh it was a different kind of hell in the nfl but it was hell just the same i'd rather be a drug addict in jail in jail than in then play for the

pittsburgh steelers different kind of hell i guess well he said when he was in pittsburgh not when i played so maybe he meant like the city itself or the people or whatever. I'm not sure. Can't put those words in his mouth. So he ends up agreeing to not go to jail. He has a diversion program where he goes to a rehab center for a while in Virginia. So they send him there. Now, Hank Stram, the coach of the Saints, tells Joe that if he cleans himself up, he promises him a shot again next year with the team. So I'll bring you to training camp, and you can have a shot at the team if you clean yourself up. He wants to give him a chance, wants to give him something to strive for and look forward to, which is pretty fucking cool, actually.

And I need a quarterback. And also, maybe you can throw the ball. He's got Archie Manning, so he doesn't really need a quarterback. He's just nice to have another quarterback. So the Saints saints are at this point mad at the steelers this comes out publicly that jesus christ hank stram claimed they were told nothing about the possibility of a drug problem when he was picked up off of waivers gilliam they sold us a lemon yeah stram insists the steelers lied now rooney the owner of the

steelers says that uh he didn't know fucking fucking Gilliam had a drug problem or anything else. He said he said Stram was told two things. One is he one is he was either physically sick or that he could have been a drug thing and whatever. That's what he was told, I guess. So they're saying we did tell you that we don't know if he's sick or has a drug problem. There's something wrong with him. So, yeah, that's that went back and forth in the press 1977 comes around guess what jimmy good now oh he's good now he's good he's fine he's out of

rehab he stays in rehab for almost six months that's a long fucking time yeah it's a bid so he's really he's really going after it but then he claims to be clean and sober working out at tennessee state getting ready uh wants to be reinstated by the league claims to be clean and sober working out at tennessee state getting ready uh wants to be reinstated by the league uh to be able to sign again with the saints here so uh yeah his friend who went to tcu with him said quote in a nutshell i think joe has everything in the right perspective he looks real good both physically and mentally he just uh he just seems to look forward to getting back in the nfl as a rookie i know working out with him has been a big help to me joe has nfl experience and he's been showing me a few things

like how to hit holes quicker he's an educator to rookie pros so he's helping people down at tennessee state everybody says he's good when he wants to coach somebody up he's good at it it's like his dad i mean it makes sense do as i say not as i do exactly so joe does not want to talk about his past problems though whenever the proof because that makes me want to fucking do drugs yeah the press questions him and he goes i don't want to talk about it so hank stram says he thinks it would be a good idea if he talked about it though really yeah because then they would stop asking hank stram about it probably i think what it is can you get him off my back can you just fucking answer two questions and i'll tell

them to refer you ask me if i like drugs and i going to have to tell them they're delicious and I'm going to have to go fucking find them. I'm going to have to tell them a lot. Yeah. Like a whole lot. A lot more than talking to any of you. Definitely. And playing football for that matter. And this is a lot of pressure and I need drugs for this.

So shit. So Stram says, quote, I'd first like to be able to have him down in New Orleans and meet the press. He understands there'll be questions on his problem, but we'd like to get those questions out of the way. It would be best for all, if things work out, to get these questions out of the way. Then we'll be able to concentrate on football camp. So, yeah, they talked a little bit about it.

He said, we talked last summer after Joe went AWOL from the Saints camp in Vero Beach about the possibility of him coming back i just think that joe is a great talent and should get another opportunity to play maybe he will not be able to accept the challenge that lies ahead time will only tell the only thing we are doing is providing him with an opportunity the kid needs help if he loses the opportunity to play football a human life will be destroyed jesus that's a little much is that a threat i guess i will kill i will fucking slit its throat if he doesn't get to do it uh the league before they reinstate him they

want a report from the rehab center that he was in um they said the commission is awaiting further information from virginia which is where the rehab center was and so they would said there they have to decide once they get a report on him. They do. And he is signed by the Saints again there. He says he's coming back to do it again here. Hank Stram says, I fulfilled the promise and responsibility I made to him a year ago. I have no regrets whatsoever. So he's got him in there. But there's a problem, as you might imagine.

He ends up missing shit loads of practices doesn't show up for stuff um it happens here uh brought him in telling me to give him another chance uh gilliam said quote most people don't come back he says uh i he says that he i can't tell i can't tell you how it affected me playing take Take it from me. It's something you don't want to go through. He's talking about drugs. He says, I know people have heard me say it before, but I'm really together now. I'm good now. What is this?

Good now five? A lot of good nows. He says it a lot. I'm really together now. I'm ready to play ball and not just go off on any side trips like borrowing teammates' cars. This is just a stop for me on what I hope will be another trip to the NFL. Nobody's going to do a number on me anymore. My head is fucking straight.

God damn it. It's like an abusive relationship. It is. The NFL is his girlfriend, and he just keeps shitting on her. That's the thing. And he ends up, first couple exhibitions, he plays really well. And then, I mean, in training camp. And then he starts missing practices and missing team meetings for a variety of excused and unexcused reasons, they say. Hank Stram says, it's become a very burdensome thing.

You want to be honest with people. And we've got too many things to worry about getting ready for the season to worry about any other particular individual regardless of who he might be and the saints cut him again they cut him again he's done and done with the saints um he says and gilliam says he didn't really get a shot he says quote but it really wasn't a shot you understand the saints are always trying to get people to help their image get you get people to get behind them they figured they'd get good response if they took old joe and gave him another chance bullshit they weren't going to have anybody playing quarterback but archie baby manning and that and the first chance they got they unloaded me yeah but you gotta show up that's the thing he's right and you didn't fucking show up though so you couldn't have possibly played your way in he's right and he's dead ass wrong he's right in terms of New Orleans is a fucking heavily black city, and if you bring in a black quarterback, that might help shit, just as a PR stunt.

But at the same time, Archie Manning's constantly hurt. If you're there, and you show up, and Archie Manning gets hurt, and you get in a game and play well, guess what you are now? A fucking commodity. So you fucked yourself fucking them so that doesn't help now december of 1977 um okay there is uh james e windrow he is a 32 year old man who is the assistant vice president of the first american bank okay never heard of him so this is gonna go bad exactly he is withdrawing money from an atm at 930 p.m. on a Monday night. Seems simple.

Bank vice president. I don't know why he just didn't get it before he left, but he's withdrawing money. So that's fine. Now he's robbed at the ATM by a man who he identified or not. He identifies, but is identified later by a lookout uh during the robbery as joe gillian uh yeah bank vice president was withdrawing money at 9 30 p.m yeah he stopped at an atm to get money somewhere bad anyway oh i'm sure he got 40 bucks out so who knows all right he's getting money out and he gets robbed by joe gillian oh boy now uh what ends up happening he'll also end up getting

a possession of marijuana charge because what they do is they arrest him on a robbery warrant. They don't find him right away. He had been in drug rehab and on and off and had just gotten out of there. Oh, boy. So anyway, the officer, Don Buckley, who found him, said that when he went to the Gilliam residence to serve the warrant, he found Joe hiding in a closet. He is accused of robbing a bank official of 44 at knife point 44 gilliam was found in a closet with a small

quantity of marijuana and two syringes in his possession he's now shooting marijuana i guess so he's waiting for some heroin yeah get it in there there. So he ended up back in a drug rehab again for months again. He goes back into rehab. And yeah, it's not great. When he gets out of rehab, he has different thoughts on his Saints tenure. He says, I have no excuses for myself, and I make no apologies. I was wrong. I was very wrong.

I know a lot of kids look up to me. And for that, I guess I have to say I'm sorry. But mostly I hurt myself and nobody else. They can offer me anything now, and I won't get upset if I don't get it. I'm realistic enough to know that if I'm promised the sky, I'll probably just get the smog. I've grown up a lot. That's a great fucking line. That is a great line.

I promised the sky, I got the smog. That's fucking good. He said, I'm not justog. That's fucking good. He said, I'm not just playing for Joe Gilliam now. I'm playing for a lot of people who have believed in me and not given up on me over the past couple years. No matter what kind of stupid things I've done. I have to make it up to those people. And I will. I swear it.

What's he saying, Jimmy? I'm good now. I'm good now. Now I'm good. I was good. Now I'm better. It's good. Now I got it. So that'm good. I was good. Now I'm better. It's good. Now I got it.

So that's fine. That's December. He swears it. He doesn't know what he was thinking. ATMs, drugs, who knows? It's all good. January 21st, 1978, a warrant is issued for his arrest again. Okay.

He used to play in the NFL. This guy. This is amazing. Like six months ago um this guy oh wow this is bad too this is a he denies this charge of course this is a charge of armed robbery oh no the warren is four so this isn't good no um he police accusing are accusing him of doing this by the way i think it's on the tennessee state campus um robbing 16 year old oscar shaw of 20 with a sawed-off shotgun sweet christ that's aggressive that's up in the ante that's a lot

that's a lot and not getting any more money in return no you got 20 he's a 16 year old kid no matter if you have a bazooka he's got 20 what is he gonna do pull it out of his ass give you a toe i mean he's fucked so this is not good here uh he's robbing citizens at this point just yeah of of nothing of nothing some kid is a teenager for christ's sake two robberies under his belt he got 64 combined yeah that's nuts two robberies caught for both of them 64 out of the whole deal not wonderful um this somehow i don't know if it's because of the school. I don't know if this kid is related to somebody and they got this kid to change his story or whatever. But this gets dropped.

Really? This gets dropped after a while and the kid just basically says, I don't want to talk about it. Really? So I think it had something to do with the school or something. They were like, hey, give him a break. He's having problems. He's going blah, blah, blah. He's got drug problems. Because he ends up in rehab right after this. So I think it's something to do with the school or something. They were like, hey, give him a break. He's having problems. He's going blah, blah, blah. He's got drug problems.

Because he ends up in rehab right after this. I think it's one of those. That's unconscionable. It's somebody that washes that for somebody in terms of that is a fucking dead serious ass. College covering for an athlete. And that's the most serious shit that he's done so far to cover for that. That's crazy.

That's what colleges do. Jesus Christ. If somebody is murdered, it's on their fucking. That's on their's crazy that's what colleges do jesus christ somebody is murdered it's on their fucking that's on their head that's what i mean they were like oh it's he's he's having problems he's not good so they it gets dropped and he strongly denies i didn't do that i was like well then why the fuck do they say you did it right it's a pretty big charge um why did this kid say you fucking robbed him? So summer of 1978. He's at a rehab. Guess what he is? Oh, boy.

It's good now, Jimmy. Fuck. Straight. He gets a try. He not gets a tryout. He tries out for the Cowboys for the Cowboys. They have their free agent, like basically walk on, try out type of thing. And he shows up Philadelphia.

Invincible. Yeah, that's what it is. It's I know y'all seen the Marky Mark movie or the new kids on the block movie y'all see the new kids on the block movie y'all want to try out right love fucking phase on love so anyway um jesus donovan mcnab pulling up in the car fucking is it elvin was that uh elvin from the cosby show i don't know he was playing donovan mcnab he looked just like a fat elven. I would have no idea. So, anyway, he tries out. David Off's in it, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's his best friend. That's right. He tries out for the Cowboys, and he says, quote, I've been drug-free for over a year now. Oh, boy. I'm good now. Oh, my God. I am good now.

Just announcing it from the... Over a year. I want to play football. I know I have a contribution to make to the game. And Cowboys scouting operations director Gil Brandt, who was like in charge of shit forever. He said, quote, I thought I was I thought I was seeing things when he walked in. He said he saw Joe Gilliam. He said he told Gilliam that it'd be hard for him to succeed there no matter how well he did, because Dallas already had three quarterbacks, so he'd have to be bumping one out.

So they don't sign him, and he goes back to Nashville when he can't find work. And his next job is with the North American Fence Company. Oh, no. Well, it's his first job at all in a while. Well, North American Fence Company is owned by a man who also owns the pittsburgh wolf pack semi-professional football team which is why he has a job with the north american fence company during the day so they can pay him a salary and you know he makes 50 bucks a game to play semi-pro football so he's clean he says he's good now he says he's free of drugs he's

on probation then he's ready to do this shit he's only 27 by the way which it seems like he's good now. He says he's free of drugs. He's on probation. Then he's ready to do this shit. He's only 27, by the way, which it seems like he's 40 by now. That's unbelievable. You know, I quote athletically. He's lived prime of his career. So many lifetimes. Prime of his career. He should be.

I mean, as a professional athlete, 27 is your physical peak. You're mental. You start to know things. It's good to read defenses and start to know how to do that. you start to know things it's good start to read defenses and start to know how to do that um he said that he uh the team there is representing uh uh jesus christ the uh pennsylvania jesus it's a pittsburgh town also the allegheny valley there they like them i guess uh the allegheny kiski valley yeah i don't know their uh their home field is 25 miles away from three river stadium which is where the steelers played and uh they said that he's playing every saturday I don't know. Their home field is 25 miles away from Three River Stadium,

which is where the Steelers played. And they said that he's playing every Saturday in the summer. Basically, these are semi-pro guys. These are guys that do construction during the day, and they want to fucking crack some fucking NFL player. That's what they want to do. They want to hurt some NFL player. This is horrible.

They make 50 bucks a game. And he hates Pittsburgh, remember? Well, that's what he want to do. They want to hurt some NFL player. This is horrible. They make 50 bucks a game. And he hates Pittsburgh, remember? Well, that's what he said, yeah. But he ends up appearing there. When he gets there, though, there's a lot of media interest. Over 100 media passes are handed out for a semi-pro football game. So he's a huge draw for them. That doesn't happen.

Like they've never seen here. So, yeah, they're talking about him. They had the press conference for him coming in at the Fence Factory. That's where they had the press conference because they play on high school fields, so they weren't going to have one there. So the owner of the team and the fence company, for that matter, is Bob Baker. And he says there that everything's going to go great with Joe Gilliam. He says he puts it to like hanging the Mona Lisa in a garage to have him in Pittsburgh.

He's that good. He shouldn't be on a semi-pro team. So he's just there to, you know, just there to prop him up so he can get back to the NFL. He said, we're kind of flabbergasted by the response we've gotten. He said, we're thrilled to pieces to the NFL. He said, we're kind of flabbergasted by the response we've gotten. He said, we're thrilled to pieces to have him. We're thrilled to pieces to announce that Joe Gilliam Jr. will play quarterback for the Pittsburgh Wolfpack. We realize that he is a talent and that kind of ball player,

the kind of ball player he is far exceeds what we have in this league. He says that we hope to propel Joe back into the National Football League. We know he needs to show some people a few things. So he does. How does that feel if you're a player in that league? A bunch of pieces of shit. See him? His drug-addled fuck face over here is 15 times the player any of you are.

Guys want to see an athlete? There he is. Watch him clean up this syringe. Watch it. It's amazing. And then he'll throw the ball 80 yards after he's done. You can't even do either one of those things you guys suck um the head coach here he says that uh this is before his first appearance in a game quote i'm predicting joe won't finish the year with us

but he said he's throwing the ball real well just like he used to so someone will sign him away right that's what he's trying to say yeah yeah it sounds terrible i think he's gonna fuck up honestly i mean i'm just telling you no way he goes all see right i mean there's heroin everywhere right he'll find some get the fuck out of here so uh jesus christ he said that he wasn't completely for at first sold on gilliam coming there he said i had my doubts i was wanted total commitment because i knew he had some personal problems that's putting it mildly and i didn't want them to interfere with the team and joe gilliam said quote i know people will be watching but all i can do is go out there and try my best he's trying to give it the old college

aw shucks i don't want to hear so he does that he goes there um the uh one of his friends here an assistant coach and a friend of his ub bryant here's a friend it's the guy we talked about he said quote i told joe it's going guy we talked about, he said, quote, I told Joe it's going to be rougher than the NFL. People are going to try to test him because he's Joe Gilliam. And Joe said, quote, It doesn't have me worried, but I am very aware of it. I know they're going to want to get me,

but as long as they play the game fair, what can you say? So, yeah, they talked to one of the Roonies, Tim, here, who's the pro scouting director for the steelers and he said quote i'm not building up my hopes too high i just hope that the pressure of football isn't his poison as opposed to being his cure then the poor guy is going to be worse off than ever which is a really yeah that's a really smart yeah and gilliam says though even if i never throw another path another pass I've made my comeback in life. He said, I'll take more licks in this league than I would in two years in the NFL.

That's no problem, though. I'm bigger, stronger, and faster now. He said he doesn't want to dwell on his past. He says, my daughter is seven. He says, and she can read this, so I've got to take care of me and mine. That's what he's saying. He cuts off any questions also concerning a woman friend that he has in nearby Springfield. They ask him about that.

And he said, quote, she stays out of this. I'm very married. That's what he tells the press. In other words, don't ask about that. I'm married. You guys know better. Yeah, I'm fucking that girl. But don't worry about it.

But they say that she always shows up. She take the press that she said she quote flaunts her presence and drives around in her mercedes convertible beverly who can also read is not happy that's what it says his daughter can read soaking his fucking wife and everybody talks about how he's got a girlfriend who drives around in a fucking mercedes convertible and uh she don't like it as you can imagine and that'll come up again she's not gonna last much longer with him so uh he completes in his first game 17 of 33 passes for 219 yards and yards and three touchdowns um they said that he gave a poised performance was pretty uh crisp

he said it's good to be back uh he said uh that i know i can play in the nfl he's got a lot of pressure off the field though and they asked him about that and he says quote i can play in the nfl he's got a lot of pressure off the field though and they asked him about that and he says quote it's all in the hands of god his will will be done oh boy oh boy that's not good that's not good no no no no no no don't if you can blame someone else even god you will so don't yeah don't do that no so leave it up to anybody please god no see i just did it too now uh he said that he's worried about the shit off the field more than anything. He said that there was a rumor around that he got arrested again. And it turns out that he was in jail, but he was at a jail where they were giving a speech to kids about the dangers of jail.

That's what it was. So they said they just said they see him coming out of jail. They're like, he's jail. Oh. That's what it was. So they said they just said they see him coming out of jail and they're like, he's arrested. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. But instead, they saw him going in or whatever. But instead, that's what it was. And this was he's a he's he's the head of PR for North American Fencing Corporation. That's what he does there. So he lives in a motel room at the time.

He has no phone. And also there's no locker room because they play in high school stadiums. So he has to get changed in the pads in the motel room before they leave. How depressing. Yeah. He says his dad's come to see him a bunch of times and offer him advice. He said, quote, My dad's a groovy dude, man. He's dedicated his life to helping people's kids they send them to they

send them into the school as kids and he sends them out as men um but he said i can't say whether the toughest part is me being uh is is behind me or ahead but i'm growing i sure hope it doesn't end here yeah but he's still playing he leads the wolf pack to a five and run one record the team is ranked number one among semi pros by a national football magazine. And his coach says, quote, Joe's probably better right now than half the quarterbacks in the NFL. Not bad. And a Steelers official under the anonymity, he said that Gilliam looks good and he might be signed by a league team before the summer is over. He said, quote, There's always a market for good quarterbacks.

That's what he said. He said if no NFL team takes him, he might coach or continue to work with drug abusers. He also said he's toyed with the idea of showbiz. I think I could hold my own in Hollywood. Quarterbacks have to be great actors. Do they? Well, Terry Bradshaw is a terrible actor, and he's been in a hundred things. Yeah. Been in a hundred things. So how does it all end with the wolf pack it can't end well right

of course not uh well let's see here he ignored the play calling from the sideline and they lost the game 12-6 and so the coach pulled him from the game which he's not happy about and they argued back and forth and the owner ended up backing up the coach. So, yeah, we're trying to win. And you did everything. But that's the thing. So the owner said, quote, he's had some problems understanding that he's a player, not a coach or an owner. There's been a wedge between him and the coaching staff for the last couple of weeks. Well, he thinks I've played in the NFL and my dad's a national champion coach.

And you're a fucking you work for a fencing company and fucking coach two days a week. Fuck you. I know better than you. I don't think i even thought about that yeah that's exactly why no nfo players should play anywhere no well he's he knows better than this coach guaranteed he knows more about football than this fucking coach does by far just i mean or is at least at a higher level than that just from his father being a fucking a higher level coach to guy. So just an osmosis. So he said that he wanted, Gilliam said he wanted the coach gone and he wanted more money.

And so they had to cut him. The owner said, quote, he just didn't want to play for the Wolfpack. That's all it was. Just didn't want to play. He said for nine weeks, everything was excellent. We opened the season in front of 8,000 people in a driving rain just to see him.

They loved Joe. We thought it was just a matter of time before he would be back in the NFL and they would have a big feather. That would be a big feather in our cap. Things have deteriorated. I think he got back into the junk. Jesus. Holy fuck. In the paper, he said that.

Just throwing out willy-nilly theories. Yeah. His weight slipped from 187 to just over 170. Well, he started skipping practices and arguing with the coaching staff. At one game in Buffalo, there was media present from all over the country. Joe did not play well and was removed and went into a tirade on the sidelines. Joe can be very engaging when he wants to, but he can also be just as difficult. He came to me afterward and demanded that the whole coaching staff be fired.

Also, some old charges were brought to light by the media, and people started delving into his past. Like you didn't know he got arrested. So where does he go? Canada. Really? Why not? For a minute.

What else has he got? He signs with the Toronto Grizzlies. What? He's trying to catch signs with the toronto grizzlies what which i he's trying to catch on with the bc lions a friend of his somebody he knows is in with the coaching staff of the bc lions they call the bc british columbia lions about him which is a legit cfl team and uh they was waiting to see if that was going through but in the meantime he goes to play for toronto and he says his life is quote personal, personal life is back on course.

Good now. Good now. He's so good at getting his life on course. Every six months. But he ends up being late for a game. A game. His car ran out of gas, he said. The actual game.

Yeah, the actual game. Out of practice. He didn't have gas. He should have been there for like four hours beforehand. So it doesn't really matter. So they said, okay, when you get gas in it keep driving it back to tennessee because we're not fucking having you anymore goodbye october 1978 he violates his parole or his probation apparently uh his father supplied the authorities with information that led to his arrest as well apparently joe was

out in a place where he joe senior thought he'd be safer in jail than where he was that's that he was in that kind of place where he he was happy to see him in jail he just needs to chill the fuck out um this is a quote here from the assistant district attorney the indication that came uh was he was using that the indication that he was using drugs again came from a very concerned person, his father. His father came to us and was concerned that he was afraid he was back on drugs and he was afraid he would hurt himself and others. Yeah, he's walking around with shotguns with 16 year olds. And yeah, you never know here. So on October 12th, he's arrested by a Tennessee vice squad officer on a warrant issued charging him with a parole violation.

He claimed he was unemployed and using the state claimed he was unemployed and using drugs. That's both. He's supposed to be employed and not using drugs. He got it backwards, apparently. And this is from the 76 charge of having the gun in the weed in the car, gun the weed and the coke on the high speed chase uh the judge revoked his bond and placed him on the placed him on the original charge which is still pending remember they they continued it right that's what that is and sentenced him to you sir may fuck off 45 days in jail yeah he's transferred from uh he was in a workhouse for a while they put him in a workhouse and then he was transferred to a drug and alcohol abuse center to go on a detox program for a long term medical treatment. He's a fucking mess.

Yeah. Doctors said when he began the program, he was drug free by then. So he hadn't been doing drugs in jail, which is a good sign, I guess. I don't fucking know. At least their jails clean yeah at least when he showed up at the program he wasn't like detoxing at the time so 1979 comes along he's playing football again playing for the baltimore eagles oh exactly yeah uh yeah um for this he only receives uh road trip and meal money that's all he gets for playing for the eagles

playing for a per diem that's it um that's all he gets for playing for the Eagles. Playing for a per diem. That's it. That's all he's doing. He plays for them. He also has to work for an oil company. That's who owns it. Some guy who runs an oil company. The owner said, quote, I'm happy to have Joe.

He has it put together for us. That's a weird thing to say. As far as I'm concerned, what's in his past is gone. He's been cutting it both on and off the field. So he's fine. It's good now. Silver. Silver.

He says that he loves the Baltimore Eagles fans, although he was taunted at one point. This is a teammate said, quote, We played a game against the Pittsburgh Colts. And some of that's weird. And some of their players were yelling personal stuff about drugs and stuff like that. The players, not the fans, the players, they were trying to get him into a fight and thrown out of the game because he was passing them silly. But I but Joe said to them, you're not getting in my head. So he said when the final good game was acknowledged here or when the final good game, Joe was

acknowledged after a recent home game he went and sat alone outside in the dressing room really weird and they said he's been acting strange like that uh he refuses to share his thoughts on his comeback the reporters asking questions he said quote i'm not rapping yeah walked away maybe if i don't talk about this it'll it'll it'll be better for me yeah he's been talking the whole time and it's not going well no shit one of the other players on the team said street which is what they call him jefferson street street should talk at least selectively if not he's going to end up like duane thomas he's got to let people know what's on his mind duane thomas was a cowboys player who ended up

out of the league because they had a fight with the cowboys over a minor marijuana arrest it was ridiculous it just kept gaining steam so uh yeah they said that his skills though are still there a bunch of baltimore cults the cults are still in baltimore back then were watching this game and saw him throw it uh he threw five touchdown passes and uh they said quote this is one of the receivers said quote i'd like to see a horseshoe on that helmet so he's like we could use him on the cults but um instead he's going to sign with the birmingham vulcans of the american football association very quickly we'll talk about what that is afa i had no i didn't even know this existed and i know all these weird define

all the continental the i know world all these weird little defunct football leagues i'm kind of a kind of an expert on them and this one came out of nowhere. They had in there, what are they? It was nine teams. The Arkansas Champs, the Mississippi Stars, the Oklahoma Mustangs, San Antonio Charos, the Shreveport Steamer, which I think was a World Football League team as well, Alabama Vulcans, which I think the vulcans were no they were the americans never mind carolina chargers florida firebirds and kentucky trackers those are the teams here

um so they signed him because the owner of this team here the vulcans said that he was upset with dwindling attendance he said quote i must be doing something wrong we aren't drawing people to our games i'll be darn sure embarrassed if we only have this many uh 5500 at saturday's game against shreveport what makes that game so important is they're televising it back to shreveport i don't want birmingham to look bad in front of all those people in louisiana but if we don't draw better uh saturday than we did tonight i think it will be embarrassing so that's what he said the week before they signed him. He's embarrassed. Who the fuck wants to watch semi-pro football? That's why.

I'm shocked 5,500 people would watch that. That's amazing. 550 seems like a push. How bored are they? They love their football, I guess. So anyway, he announces that he signed with the Vulcans, and he was playing for Baltimore Eagles at the time. He doesn't show up right away in Birmingham, claiming he has a few loose ends to tie up

in Baltimore. He arrives in Birmingham, OK, has not signed a contract as he's just agreed a handshake deal so far, not signed a contract yet. He just told the owner he would show up and he says, quote, I've just been following my nose and this is where it's leading me. It's hard to leave an undefeated team that was the delay that's why it took him a while to get here because baltimore was undefeated so the owner promised joe that he would be a buffer for him at the media interviews and that he would sift through the questions and not let it wouldn't let the

press hound him about drug shit basically he said um gilliam said my past has been written about too many times and he didn't want to deal with it so uh the problem is the eagles then want to sue the other the vulcans over this they meet and talk about a lawsuit and blah blah blah the baltimore team said quote his contract with us is certainly binding and so he we don't want to give him up basically so they're fighting over that the owner of the alabama team says that after that he had talked to him and then joe left alabama and landers this the guy's name is lander he says in the paper quote that he doesn't know the whereabouts of gilliam after loaning him his cadillac to go to atlanta for an overnight trip

to see a friend's new baby. Don't loan him your car. I've not heard from him since Friday afternoon when he left. He still has my car. If he had come into town, I'm positive he would have gone to the stadium and I would have seen him. I don't know where he is.

Well, you can continue to not know where he is because he just never fucking shows up. Wow. Yeah. At one point here, they play a game by the way against the arkansas champs who had to borrow players from the vulcans to play the team play the game because they didn't have enough players to do it so against the vulcans yeah they had to borrow

they had to go go put a different uniform on play for them this game get your bench this game that's what it was um so they champs borrowed the vulcans white road uniforms and spray painted the vulcans helmets white to blend in so they wouldn't look you know fucking out of place this is the best league i want to watch that that's so awesome i want us that game that was broadcast back to shreveport i want to see that fucking thing so finally the owner says he got a call from gilliam who was back in baltimore and he told him that his car, Gilliam tells him, your car is at the Birmingham Airport's remote parking lot.

That's where your car is if you're looking for it. It's been a week. He just took his car. It's over there at extended parking. If you want it, it's going to cost you about $12 a day. I mean, it's there, though. You'll find it. Now, why does he claim he was gone?

What could have possibly done this? He went to see a friend's he claim he was gone what could have possibly done this he went to see a friend's baby i mean what could have happened for 12 days for like a week he said he claims that a friend quote doped my drink and the next thing i knew the next thing i knew the world it was sunday so he said yeah friend dope my drink and i slept for three days that's what happened here uh lander was he said a day away friend, don't my drink. And I slept for three days. That's what happened here. Lander was, he said, a day away from calling the police and having auto theft charges filed against Gilliam. But he said, quote, he called me. He said from the Nashville airport.

This is the owner. It was a brief conversation. The operator broke in and said she needed more money for the pay phone if he intended to talk any longer. I did everything humanly possible to help the guy. But as far as I'm concerned, it's ancient. He he's ancient history i'm not embarrassed by the whole incident i feel like i walked an extra mile to give a guy another opportunity so uh yeah six days he was gone uh gilliam said he resented the owner for taking him to local television station for interviews upon his arrival in birmingham that's why he did it. He said, Lander was dealing with me as a piece of publicity, not a person. I made a lot of dumb mistakes, but nobody's perfect.

Lander offered me a lot of money. He assumed a lot of things. I left his car with more gas in it than it had when he gave it to me. You did him a favor. When I was a senior in college playing the Blue Gay Game, the Blue Gray Game, that would be a very different game. George Wallace made me an honorary lieutenant colonel. George Wallace, the fucking presidential candidate from 68 and 72, who is the most racist man that's ever walked the face of the earth.

His stated political fucking platform was, I hate them blacks. Wow. I mean, he was just a the most vehemently fucking racist guy in the world um yeah he apparently made him uh an honorary lieutenant colonel i figure i would pull that badge out on him if i were if uh on him if you if i were ever arrested he said with the recession and everything everybody has their own pressures but i guess the last couple of days, I really wasn't myself. Yeah, he took a guy's car for a week.

That's wow. So he goes back to Baltimore and he apologizes there for leaving. And he says to the press about it, why he left. He goes, I was supposed to get a lot of money. That's why I hadn't talked to the press in over a year. And as soon as I got off the plane, the first place we went was to a TV station. Oh, I was so mad. It was publicity for lander to make a few extra bucks for his game i didn't even give him a chance to make the offer i just didn't appreciate being used like that and uh another guy here who works for sear works for the royal oil company there in fucking and

he's also the offensive coordinator for the eagles He says, Joe asked me about his going down to Birmingham to check the offer. I told him, go ahead, that he'd be a fool not to investigate. The problem that I'm having with it, though, is that no matter what league you play in, you're a bringer. That's your job. That's what it is. As an athlete, your job is to fucking get people there to see you play. If you're a name and you're signing for a semi-pro team, that's why they're signing you.

They don't care. That's not the point. They're signing you for publicity. Why would you think that for any other? What, because they like you? Yeah, they like you. They think you'll be really good, but they're going to keep it under the radar that you're there. Like, no, you're famous.

They're going to tout you. Their job is to make money. So August 19th, 1979, it's a bad day for Joe. Let's just say that. In the morning morning his wife of nine years files for divorce that's the morning then it gets worse then it gets way worse way worse okay um okay now he is uh he's working as an inventory manager and general troubleshooter for the royal oil corp which is is owned by the Baltimore Eagles owner, which they own the team. And they also own the 1977 Buick that he's driving. I was just about to ask whose car did he borrow.

It's theirs. But it's his company car. At about 5.15 p.m., Officer Joseph Goldberg of Baltimore Police found Gilliam staggering from an alley in the 1500 block of Kenset Street, which is fucking not a good area. If you've downtown Baltimore. No, it's not. It's not good. In the heart of the ghetto is the way he described it. He'd been badly beaten on the head with two by fours and lead pipes.

Initial news reports went out that he was shot twice in the head. That's how bad he was hurt. It looked like he he'd been shot that's how much blood was there one television network interrupted regular prime time programming and programming in pittsburgh to show a report that gilliam had been shot twice in the head so i mean it spread a lot back then um supporting the witnesses four men he went into a liquor store parked his car outside four men. He went into a liquor store, parked his car outside. Four men smashed the windows of his car, all his windows, while he was inside the liquor store. So they knew they were waiting for him. They apparently were a little mad at him for something. Then when Gilliam came out of the store, they attacked him.

They beat the shit out of him with pipes, with everything repeatedly hitting him in the fucking head. According to the police report, the car was parked in a vacant lot with all the windows smashed. The report said the attack occurred in an alley adjacent to where the car was found. They found him bleeding from head wounds. He added that the two men reportedly smashed out the window of the car with two by fours.

He was rushed to the hospital to the shock trauma unit. They said it there, quote, there was some beating around the head with a blunt instrument. There may be a slight concussion. It's a little bit more than that. That's brain damage. Actually, two days pass before he regains consciousness. Oh, boy.

That's a long fucking time in a coma. Yeah, basically, they said with a brain injury, a head injury, we don't take any chances, but the injury won't hurt his football abilities. That's literally what the doctor said. The injury won't hurt his football abilities. That's literally what the doctor said. The injury won't hurt his football. Don't worry, everyone. His shoulders, his elbow are fine.

Wow. They didn't hit him in the leg. It's all good. Uh, what the fuck? So he's an athlete. Don't worry about his head. That's what they said there.

So, uh, another two, and they said athlete with a wink. Yeah. And I had another, another two days passed before he was able to recognize his father so four days before he could even recognize his father

uh he had no bones had been broken miraculously not even a skull fracture no nothing no bones just a hardcore brain swelling and all that sort of thing he lost 16 pounds while he was in the hospital as well which is not he's not a guy who can lose weight uh so yeah that's the uh problem is the neighborhood he's in is basically unless you live there or are buying drugs there there's no reason to be there so it's one of those things that's a bad it's on the west side of baltimore i mean it's fucking it's the wire basically if you're if you're going by the low rises it's for a fucking reason you know what i'm saying so it's one of those things um yeah uh he was cut by wood clubs

and uh possibly glass who knows he says about it he's got a quote quote i was robbed i was coming back home when i stopped to buy some liquor i had a lot of money in my pocket i wasn't thinking about anybody doing nothing to me but they did i came out of the store and all my windows were knocked out the last thing i remember was that i had gone to the trunk to get a swish brush and was sweeping glass glass off the street back home we have uh brushes to wipe the snow off your car they have a scraper on the end and a brush on them you just do everyone has them in their car so uh yeah he said to sweep the glass off the street off the suite sweep the glass off the suite. Sweep the glass off the seat.

When I woke up in the hospital, I remember I had some money, and I asked my mom to check my pants, and it was gone. They crept up on me real good. Happens to people all the time. But the cops are like, we think it was a drug thing. We think these guys knew who the fuck he was. Why would four guys beat the shit out of him like that for that? He was a targeted at a time so it bashes your windows and waits for you that's what i mean that's when they're mad at you when you when you owe them money exactly that's what happens it's not a random ass hey motherfucker yeah when you rob

someone you hide you don't fucking it's just weird so anyway he says yes i have pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana and possession of heroin and i did time on both of them because of my reputation even the things that aren't my fault give me the air of irresponsibility it's tough it gets to me but i created the situation so i've got to live with it yeah i'm talking for a man with a head wound that's what i mean yeah there's later on there um so yeah uh he has a friend of his on the team said quote he realizes that that problem is in the past he realizes that he was definitely going nowhere in that kind of scene so he's going to be okay there he uh he also says quote if he has a problem now i'm not aware of it and i can't foresee him having one in the future okay we'll see august, 79, arrests are made in this beating.

They find at least one of the guys here that beat him. He was still in the hospital at that point in stable condition. And they said, the police spokesman said, quote, we think the assault was quite possibly drug related, but I'm not going to say anymore. They arrested brothers Timothy Matthews and Warren Matthews and a third suspect as well. Held him on $100,000 bond. They also had marijuana on them and a couple other things here. So they're being held with charge with assault with intent to murder malicious destruction of property. That's a lot.

So that's two of the guys here. Attempted murder. Yeah. September 15th, less than a month later, Joe insists on starting a game for the Baltimore Eagles anyway. He does against the Connecticut Sea Raiders. Jesus. He underthrew his receivers and was intercepted six times before being pulled. Oh, no.

He was still 20 pounds light. He shouldn't have been in there. He was weak physically. He shouldn't have been in there. Not the head wound. No, it won't affect his football. He then came down with stomach trouble and a cold. What two things also their effects look like?

Stomach cold. Well, a cold if he does coke and heroin. A cold and stomach troubles, they go together. And he didn't practice for the championship until a week before the game. Now, he's kind of done with the semi-pros, except he'll come back and play a little bit. 1981-ish, he sells both his Super Bowl rings. Hawks them. Oh, no.

Pawns the rings, man. That's when you know it's bad. That's when you know it's happened. You hang on to those a little while longer, too. Those are going to be worth some money. That's what I mean. You got rid of them way too early. He did.

What did he get for them? I don't even know. even know who knows doesn't say just so he hocked him man a grand pond him yeah i mean i bet it wasn't much both of them yeah 1982 he's playing ball again yeah jesus he's playing with the new orleans blue knights of the dixie football league oh no it's funny when you look at the up the dixie football league that's not even this dixie football league that you find you find the dixie Football League from the fucking 40s that was around. Yeah. Who knows what this is? He is also, Jesus Christ, he's working there and making his money, though, as a stevedore on the New Orleans docks.

He's a fucking dock worker. Oh, boy. He's a season two of the wire dock worker. That's a stevedore. That's what he's doing. He's fucking dock work. He's a he's a season two of the wire dock worker that's a stevedore that's what he's doing he's fucking dock work it's a long shaman he's a long shaman basically yeah and you can make decent but if you're an nfl quarterback you don't want to be a fucking long shaman you want to be an nfl quarterback shit he says the money is just enough to get me by yikes that's a far cry from backing up fucking Bradshaw. Terry Bradshaw and looking at Super Bowls.

Right. Now, January 1983, the USFL comes around. We've talked a lot about the USFL. Ad nauseum. He signs with the Denver Gold of the USFL. Oh. Yeah. Look at those hats.

Not too bad, right? Yeah. It's fucking, it's pretty funny. This is, the Gold were the cheapest team by far. The story's about how cheap they are. San Antonio was worse later, but these guys were like markedly cheap. This is fucking funny. One of the, this player said, quote, the first argument I ever saw between an owner and a coach in pro football was between Ron and Red Miller, which is the coach and the owner of the Denver Gold.

Ron wanted to send the cut players home by bus. He didn't want to give him a fucking plane ticket. They were going to fly in and take a bus back when they got cut. Put on a greyhound. Jesus fucking Christ. His assistant coach was former Broncos quarterback Craig Morton, who was their Super Bowl quarterback in the 70s there. And he said, quote, I called joe talking about gilliam

and invited him up for a tryout that's red miller the coach of the team i told him if his problems were straightened out fine if not i'd let him go didn't that didn't you ever get a second chance god damn it's not a second chance it's like a ninth chance he said i've been coached in 33 years and i thought joe gilliam was worth a shot The quality of the USFL isn't the same as the NFL, and we have to take some chances. Our final roster will have maybe 50 players by March 3rd. Maybe Joe Gilliam will be on it. Everybody said he looked great. He showed up strong and fit, they said.

Looking good. Yeah. And he said, quote, the only thing people are going to talk to me about is drugs, and man, I don't want to hear it. I took that jacket off three years ago. Good now. Yeah. I'm good now. He said, I feel great, and I'm really looking forward to playing in the new league.

And he said, I'm really impressed by the coach, because he's a former Denver Bronco head coach. He's impressed. He said that the problem is, once he's there, from the Jeff Perlman USFL book there, they talk about how, quote, he would arrive for workouts either drunk high or drunk and high. He chain-smoked cigarettes along the sidelines. Oh, no. So not exactly your picturesque starting quarterback there. Not great. But he got that Rocky Mountain high.

Yeah, and he got shit-canned, too. He got cut from there. And he's bad. He said, quote, I knew I played well enough to make the team, but I knew Red Miller wanted Napple, another guy, so what could I do about it? I should have made the team. Okay. He's got another shot.

March 18th, 1983, he tries out for the Washington Federals, who are a disastrous USFL team. They're fucking awful. Should be easy to make the team. They had Craig James, the broadcaster, as a running back. disastrous ufl team usfl team they're fucking awful should be easy they had craig james the broadcaster as a running back and uh yeah otherwise like the biggest the worst fucking disaster ever put out on a football field this this team was in the beginning they lost 48 10 in their opening in their opening game things were not going well then they lost 20 to 3 and they invited joe gilliam in to uh to try out they invited him in for a three-day tryout and he finished his second day of a three-day tryout

and uh yeah he said quote i wish i could tell you it happened all of a sudden on a sunday morning but it was hard it took time the press never let up they were always dwelling on the past i don't appreciate it and i know my fans didn't appreciate it. He's good now. He says people don't forget though. That's nothing. He says he credits his family, his friends and his religion for his ability to end his drug problem once and

for all. He said, my problems are over again. I'm good now. He said, there was a time when I just didn't think positive the way I do now. I was on the, I was on a whole other page.

I do less childish things now. I've done a lot of things. You can just do a little research. You'll find a lot of them. Don't pitch at me. He told me to do this. See, do a little research and find it was OK. And I did this and it was a lot of research.

So, yeah, he ends up he ends up being fucking stuck there at the Washington Federals for a minute. And here's what happens. They send their media relations director to pick him up from the airport. Who's their media relations director? He's a college kid. He says to drive him to a TV station for a local introduction. And he said, this is what the guy says, quote, he said we needed to stop at the liquor store. I was 24.

He was a stealer. What choice did I have? He got a bottle in a brown bag and he drank it on the ride. He said that Gilliam lived in his car at the time, which was a 1960 Ford Falcon with bald tires. Oh, no. Yeah. Until a spot opened up inside a halfway house. That's what he was waiting for was a drug addict halfway house a spot to open up in so he was living in his car until then so he could play for their football team

yeah this is fucking crazy um and the guy the defensive back says i look back and i realize the truth about joe he didn't stay late after practices to work out he did so because he needed a ride to the rehab center yeah that's what he did he said one time we were flying back from a game and joe who wasn't supposed to drink the team said he has to be a fucking choir boy he has to be whatever uh he wasn't supposed to drink had a drink on the plane this guy said everyone was sleeping and he told me he was going to talk to the coaches right then and there because he wanted to be the offensive coordinator of the team and he knew he would do a better job i stopped him he was drunk and he knew he would do a better job. I stopped him. He was drunk, and he would have been cut right there.

He can't get drunk, bum-rush the coach on a team, and go, I'm going to fucking offensive coordinator. You haven't even been signed yet. You're on a three-day tryout. What the fuck are you talking about? He got lit and wants to be the boss. Wow. He's good now, I guess. So they talk to him, and I'm there,

and he's smoking cigarettes, and he says, quote, you guys in the press don't want to let me take that jacket off, and I haven't worn it for a long time.

I'm older now, but I have no advice to give. Interesting. When people have personal problems, they shouldn't give too much advice. Nobody talks nobody out of nothing. That's pretty, that's fine.

Advice doesn't really help. As my friend Rod said, people are the way they are. If they didn't want to be, they wouldn't be the way they are. I went, well, that's pretty fucking... I can't argue with that. I don't know how to argue with that. Why does he keep saying a jacket? Is there a heroin jacket?

Yeah, that's like the cover that they put on him, the jacket. I think it's more like jacket like your arrest record jacket. What's what's his jacket type of thing i suppose i think that's like you picture him like a folder yeah like a like a jacket like a leather jacket says heroin on the back lettering and heroin just it's got a needle on the back and it's like h on the chest h yeah a little h that's your letter there and then it's got like a like a tie off little patch that you can get on little patches that you get for different things your sore picker lettered and drugs yeah uh the federal's coach said quote we're glad to have him he's just getting used to our system and for a quarterback that takes a while uh they said they'll have to decide whether they

want to give him a contract or just end the uh tryout he said quote we don't know what joe's got left we know he can still, but we want to see what else there is. We've heard he's been problem free for the last two years. He's saying he's been great. Gilliam said, quote, how well I play is for others to say. I'm just going to keep trying. All I want is a job as a quarterback. That's all

I want. So he gets cut. Doesn't play for the Federals, and he's finally fucking done with football. Finally. Finally. No more semi-pro. He finally gave up. None of that bullshit. In 1987, he takes a job as a drug counselor

at the Koala Center in Tennessee. Okay. That's good. Very good. Trying to get him off the eucalyptus. Yeah, you know. You know how they are, dude. Those koalas are fucking...

They're addicted. They're addicted. 1988, a report on the pregame show of the Super Bowl that year. They did a report about Joe and his hard times. And that he sold his Super Bowl rings and all that type of shit. Oh, no. Yeah, it was like this. Oh, poor Joe Gilliam.

You know, remember him? Because, you know, this was like 10 years after whatever. Poor fucking guy. Yeah. Well, it ended up people were watching the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh businessmen and a bunch of businessmen that decided to get a group together to get the Super Bowl rings back for him.

That's what they did here because they had been sold. They said that they were sympathetic. His life is back on track. He's a drug counselor and all this shit, and they want to help him. So a Boston businessman named john canik who was a former drug abuser and had recovered recovered the ring bought it back and returned it to joe gilliam very nice that was his super bowl 10 ring there and then a group of pittsburgh businessmen got together to buy back his other

ring for him and they do they give him back his rings they are kept at his parents house for safekeeping because he doesn't trust himself did they say how much they bought them for don't have that figure but i do know what one sold for in 2011 oh no we'll talk about it we'll talk about it uh may 1988 he quits the koala center but it's to take a job at a different place at the desire street rehab center in new orleans I understand. Those koalas always smuggling. Well, I mean, you can only deal with the koalas for so long before you're just tired of them and you have to get out of there. So he goes down to New Orleans, which is where he wanted to move.

So that's why that happened. And he seems to be doing great, except January 24, 1989, in New Orleans, in the projects. He's arrested for cocaine, again. Not good. He's arrested for possession of cocaine. Apparently, he had just bought, like, three bags of coke from somebody and was walking back to his car. They fucking nabbed him.

But this is fucking amazing. Comes out. He's arrested after a chase, too. That's right. He ran away. They had to chase him down and tackle him and all that shit. After it's all tested and everything, it turns out, let's see here. He was driving in New Orleans at 3.10 a.m.

when he saw a police car and sped away, trying to elude them. After a lengthy chase, he was stopped and they confiscated it, arrested him for possession of cocaine. After testing it, they found out it was baking soda. Oh, he got fucked over. He got, somebody sold him bullshit at three o'clock in the morning. Assholes. And he didn't even fucking have cocaine. Yeah.

But he's, you know, what do you do then? He thought he did. He's sitting there in jail and they're like, they come to him and they're like, well, good news and bad news. Yeah. Bad news is you're a dummy and people want to rip you off. Good news is no possession of cocaine. Isn't that great?

Possession of clabber girl. Have a good night. That's enjoy. There you go. So he's so he's there and they go, you got to sit tight for a minute until we get all your paperwork. And while they're waiting for it, there's maintenance being done all over the place. And somebody comes to the cell door and Joe opens it. I guess I guess this is legit he opens it and it's paul calhoun

shit pipe enthusiast and he says uh how is it you come to arrive here guy that the fuck is wrong with you look at this i'm coming in for the shit pipes i'm not gonna lie i'm always unplugging these jail shit pipes that are worse people put fucking shoes down there i found a baby in one last week i don't know where it was in a male prison i don't know how it happened weird as shit right you find things you though for the love of christ your shit pipes were about eight feet wide at one point everything could have flowed through there like the fucking ocean really funneled them down hey you got like a fucking drinking straw and it's full of coke and heroin and you got stuff in there what the fuck's going

on what's wrong with you what the fuck is wrong with you huh get your head out of your ass people like you they love you they're trying to help you you're fucking up like nobody's business yes son of a bitch poof and in a po a poof of PVC and poop, he's gone. And Joe is like, that has to be like a flashback left over. I'm good now? I think I'm good now. Fuck. So July 20th, 1991.

So he gets off on the baking soda thing, but he still was trying to buy Coke at 3 in the morning, which is a bad sign. July 20th. Oh, God, the depression. It must feel. As soon as you go to take a nice big fat reel of that shit, and it's just Arm & Hammer. He would have been cooking it. Oh, boy.

As we'll talk about. Really? Yeah, yeah. He gets in the crack here in the 80s. Well, you think it can't get any lower, right? Yeah. Can't get any lower? Yeah.

Want to see lower? Yeah, a little bit. It's about to drop lower, Jimmy. Oh, boy. July 20th 1991 shreveport louisiana 1 30 p.m okay at a church's chicken oh boy um yeah um he apparently okay he walked up to the window he walked up to the window placed an order and when the employee turned his back, he reached in the window with a knife, threatened him, took a small amount of money, and took off on foot.

Didn't even get the honey biscuits. But patrol officers arrested him about a block away. He robbed a church's chicken drive-thru at knife point. He told the employee, stay back with the knife, and and took like 15 from the register right there that and then arrested a short mile and then arrested that is as low as you can fucking get right i don't i don't know if we've had a lower moment than this before um yeah uh and he at first didn't even give his real name he said he was thomas alderman at first but uh they said uh this morning upon further investigation,

he told us that he is Joe Gilliam Jr. and gave his address as New Orleans. They said he eventually told us he was Joe Willie Gilliam, who played quarterback with Pittsburgh at one point. This is a spokesman for the police. They said after finding his car, officers found identification papers and papers that were correspondence between him and the Steelers. So, yes. He still hangs on to that shit.

Yep. We located his car in Shreveport, and it's been registered to both Gilliam and his father. The only thing we've not done at this point is to match fingerprints, but for all purposes of prosecution, he's been booked as Joe Gilliam II of New Orleans. Yeah. They said that the fbi would be consulted monday um she said that calls to the uh calls to the steelers convinced investigators that it was gilliam there the fbi because they don't they have other similar robberies in other areas and they're they're trying to piece them together trying to see if it might be him doing a real

robber yeah so he's booked into the shreveport jail they're not good no uh charged with robbing a restaurant he says he has no money to hire a lawyer otherwise why the fuck would i be robbing a church's chicken at fucking knife point jesus christ so the court appointed a district attorney who represents indigent defendants that's where he's at right now don't drink churches like that anyway no biscuits are the best they are good good biscuits. They're really fucking good. But their chicken is shit. It is. Yeah, Popeye's is better.

And that's garbage. How dare you call that a chicken breast? It is smaller than a thigh. There's no meat on that. How dare you? You can't tell the thighs and the breasts apart. Just call a church's biscuits and sell nothing else. Yeah, because nobody wants the rest of your shit.

Nobody wants the rest of the garbage. He didn't even ask for chicken. He just said fucking money. Fuck you. The guy probably, you want your order? And he was like, no, it's church's. I don't want that shit. Well, I'll take the biscuits.

So a district court judge refused to reduce a $50,000 bond. And then he told Joe that I actually know who you are. I followed your career. He said, quote, you know mr gilliam i was a fan of yours when you were playing for the steelers but i have to deal with you the way you are right now in front of this court yeah and then he said he asked joe gilliam quote how are you doing and joe said hung his head and said not too good i guess not. 1993, he's good now. Now he's good again. He's good now.

His brother, Craig, his older brother, Craig, works as a coach at Lane College, a Division II school in western Tennessee, and gets Joe a job as his offensive coordinator at Lane College. He got the job. In 1993. Finally. He passed his drug tests and everything and he stayed there he was there for a year and then he left so and he didn't really go to another job so i don't

know what the deal was if it was a mutual parting of ways or what but it does not go well for joe because january 1996 the steelers are in the super bowl versus the cowboys and there's an article everywhere stewart being there. No, no, no. It was Neil O'Donnell as a quarterback at that point. But it's because he's an old Steeler. That's the last time the Steelers were in the Super Bowl was the 70s. So that's why they were talking about all the 70s Steelers.

He came up and articles all over, national AP articles here. And Joe himself would love to see the game between the Steelers and Cowboys, but he needs to find a place to watch it because he is homeless. God damn it. And does not have a TV. Oh, my God. He says he begs for money on the streets. He says good nights come when he has enough money to stay in a rooming night in a rooming house. Other nights he sleeps where he can.

Holy shit. Yeah. He says, quote, I take it one day at a time. You know, a couple of days. That's too far down the line at this point. I don't know where I'll be in two days. A couple of days down the line. That's too far.

That's a mess. He says he hasn't used heroin in over five years, but now he smokes crack yeah that's what he said so he goes heroin i'm off of that but i am smoking a tremendous amount of crack i'd love to do heroin i can't afford it no he said uh at this point he said only god can help him stop that's what he said he said i'm not really as bad as i seem i'm over the hump i can take it or leave it but he's just doing it oh man they're singing a kid rock song oh my god um all sorts of stuff going on he said that slipping to drugs is too easy for an addict he said no matter what kind of support comes from family or friends it doesn't

matter it's too easy he said quote i stopped doing the things i was supposed to be doing the things that helped me with my sobriety almost everybody who's had a relapse has some has stopped doing something he shouldn't have been doing, they should have been doing to help maintain his sobriety. That's exactly what happened. He said he talked to his dad. He's hopeful for the future. He talked to his dad about a football camp for juvenile offenders, maybe to learn how

to cope with life after jail. He does say he's looking for a job, too, right now. He said in the paper, if anybody wants now. Oh, I'm sure he is. He said in the paper, if anybody wants to hire me, I'm here. Wash your windows. The problem is, in the last sentence, he said, I smoke crack now, and only God can help me stop. So it's kind of hard to hire that guy.

He didn't even say, I'm trying to kick it. He said, it's up to God now. That means I'm not even trying. I'm just saying, if God wants me to stop, I guess I'll drop my crack pipe and break it. I don't know. So if anybody's got a job, I'd love it. Yeah.

He said he doesn't worry about what mistake, what might have been in his life and the mistakes he's made. He said, quote, other people do that for me. You know what I mean? And I just refuse to look at it that way. I've never been able to get up. You know, I couldn't go on. It happened.

I let it go. So you got to feel fucking terrible for this guy at this point. I mean, he does not. You don't want him being homeless. This is fucking ridiculous. I let it go. So you got to feel fucking terrible for this guy at this point. I mean, he does not, you don't want him being homeless. This is fucking ridiculous. I do. I feel bad for him.

I feel bad for his family, his kids. It's all his father is trying to keep him on track. I feel bad for all these people, Jimmy, all of them, but not nearly as bad as I feel for Joe Gilliam, co-owner at Poets Garden Gallery in 202 in the greater new york

city area joe gilliam chief financial officer and senior vice president of corporate development at glaucos in orange county california joe gilliam project manager at middle b bakery group in dallas okay let me bake stuff up joe Gilliam, senior product advisor at Heartland Payroll Solutions in Cleveland. And finally, Joe Gilliam, aviation electrical technician in San Francisco. I would not let this guy fix my plane. Never, ever. Not at all. And what the fuck?

Joe Gilliam, captain at the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office. Captain Joe Gilliam. So, yeah. Oh, my God. September 1996ember 1996 offers come in to help after this whole thing but nothing that he was real interested in until finally uh a coach at his alma mater tennessee state coach lc cole offered gilliam a job as an unpaid volunteer just to see if he would stick with it uh coaching the tigers quarterbacks so you want to come in and help the quarterbacks out for free and show what you can do come on in where is this uh tennessee state is uh his alma mater yeah he says quote this is the

coach here uh joey was so grateful that he broke down and cried as he just nobody was giving him a chance uh he says that uh quote joey knows he has to stay clean if he's going to remain a part of this program he's passed three drug tests since august also he's living back at home with his parents and that's a good sign that's great that's great anybody who knows his father knows he won't tolerate anything his father seems like a defensive coordinator for a black college he will fucking scream at you in a drop of a hat the man turned him in that's what i mean he's a bad motherfucker police on him i love his dad so uh he's been training with the

quarterbacks or teaching them he's trying to teach them poise and how to move in the pocket and pick up secondary receivers trying to teach them to run their run down their checks and shit like you know like pros have to do right don't be terry bradshaw he said quote i love it it's the best thing that's happened to me um yeah he said that uh gilliam the coach said that the coach's brother said that gilliam was his hero when he grows up when he was growing up he said as a black quarterback at texas southern i identified with him i followed his career at pittsburgh and uh yeah he said joey's not a bad person he's never hurt anybody but himself you can't just throw people away because they have a problem. You want to help. So January 7th, 1997, he's arrested again.

He's arrested after he left the home of an East Nashville drug dealer who had been under surveillance again. Yeah. Vice squad busted him. They found him holding a pipe with a rock of cocaine in it in his hand, and he was given. So obviously this is just never going to stop. He was in jail in lieu of a $4,000 bond. Nobody was getting him out.

He was sitting waiting for his hearing. 1999 is the 25th anniversary of the 1974 Steelers. Lewis, the guy who he's – remember that receiver who said that it wasn't a big deal that he was black. We just need a guy in the beginning. He wound up riding in the same van with Joe into the city. And he says, quote, He looked great. He was telling me how he'd gotten his life back together. He said he had a job, told me about a possible book deal and said someone was interested in doing a movie about his life.

I was so happy for him. They said that he looked good. He had like a cool hat on i remember seeing the picture he had like a cool hat on and shit um he said quote god this is joe guys were hugging me telling me how glad they were to see me he said i guess they saw me and saw i was all right and we did a lot of crying and hugging it was just a great celebration le Lewis said, I just remember seeing him catching up and thinking everything was beautiful for Joe. It seemed his future was looking so bright. Yeah, that's about that.

Looking back on the Steelers, Joe says, quote, I had begun to develop inconsistencies. This is about why the Steelers let him go. No hard feelings. He says, my overall attitude and actions, everything. Not showing up for practice, being late, just a goofer. I guess I figured they'd cut me. At the time, I cared, but I didn't care.

It was kind of a paradox. I did care, but I didn't care. I guess I really did in my gut, but I didn't. I guess for show or whatever. He just didn't want to show like they were getting to him. And he said that drugs definitely influenced his attitude and his career he said quote it certainly didn't help me think any clearer no shit and they asked chuck noel at the time why did you cut him exactly you know with hindsight and he said quote he was

unreliable uh he was of no use to the team we couldn't depend on him and there was nothing else to do with a player like that but other than let him go he was doing druggy shit well the quarterback's got to be the most reliable guy on the team. So if he's not, he's not. First guy to practice, last guy to leave, that's the quarterback. And not because he needs a ride to the fucking halfway house. So yeah, May 2000,

his friend Gentry there, he said he had a scheduled work trip from Nashville to Louisville where he was hosting a sports radio show on the grounds of the kentucky derby and he asked gilliam to come along with him he said at first he agreed but then when he went to pick him up joe changed his mind he said it was too hot that his chest was hurting and then he'd be coughing a lot gentry said he didn't feel good but i made him go oh we

made him go i made him fucking go he said g said Gilliam complained nonstop during the four hour drive. I think he's probably hurting. I think it's on something. He's hurting for something. He's going through a draw. Yeah. He said, but once they arrived at Churchill Downs and began broadcasting, Gilliam perked right up.

Red light came on and he knew people recognized him and were eager to get close to him. That's what it was. He said that Pittsburgh fans attending the race gilliam walking on the concourse behind the seating area and like swarmed him basically and uh he loved it he says they said he waited right into the people and talked to them till at least of course till nobody want to talk to him anymore he thought it was the greatest thing in the world people roll up their windows at the overpass yeah these people want to talk to him that's exactly that's what i mean. So they had a big party afterwards. A government official from Louisville noticed him outside the Kentucky Derby Museum and invited him to a party, like a highfalutin party.

So at the party, a woman who owned a bunch of real estate in Louisville invited Gilliam and Gentry to an after-hours party at her condo. Oh, shit. So this goes on and on as they drove back to nashville that night uh gilliam leaned his head back leaned his head back in the passenger seat this is fucking crazy leaned his head back in the passenger seat and started crying and uh gentry asked if he was okay and he said this is what joe said quote howie all that i've done and all that i've been through they still love me man and he was crying and they said they said his friend told him yeah joey they never stopped loving you like just wanted you to stop fucking up dude like it's that so 2000 in the

summer he starts the joe gilliam football camp at tennessee state so uh by the way that is still going on today really joe gilliam junior camp. That year, the football camp had 80 teenagers, and he was planning another. He was hoping to become a football coach and a high school coach or college coach, maybe high school to start, go into college like his dad did. And that's what he was talking about. He was talking to a Steelers assistant coach of his kind of philosophies of coaching, and he was getting serious about it. December 25th 2000

christmas day 2000 joe dies uh yeah he dies of a cocaine overdose really yep and it happened again um yeah he died of a overdose there not good um yeah he's found in the morning by his family on december 25th which you know that sucks Four days short of his birthday and Christmas Day. And yeah, it was a cocaine overdose. Accidental. Merry Christmas to me. Merry Christmas. So they had the funeral.

It was after the day, a couple of days after Christmas Day. 600 people showed up to pay his respects, pay their respects. He has three daughters, too. He's got kids and everything doug williams showed up doug williams if you don't know was the black quarterback and won the super bowl first and uh doug williams was kind of the he was a really successful black quarterback and he's he really appreciates joe he said quote joe made it possible for every one of us black quarterbacks the struggle um he went through eased the struggles we had to endure.

He said, that's why I had to be here today. I'm sorry, that's why I had to be here today. And also Steve McNair, Cordell Stewart, all the guys were there. Frank O'Harris was there, too. A bunch of the old Steelers guys. I wouldn't have been comfortable with myself if I had not come to pay respect to Joe for all he did to help the rest of us. And his friend Gentry said, quote, It was sad because you looked around the room and saw all of these African-American quarterbacks that he's opened doors for.

Yet yet for all he'd gone through, through his professional years and through his life to see him lying laying there unscarred and peaceful. It looked like he was sleeping. It looked like for once he was happy again. peaceful it looked like he was sleeping it looked like for once he was happy again and then uh rooney the owner dan rooney the owner of the steelers he said quote joe had some difficult times and everybody knows that um but he was really upbeat and then really he said when he saw him at the players reunion he was really upbeat and probably in better shape than anyone there and uh 2009 he is inducted into the tennessee state of Fame, which is good. Fuck. That's the national championships. Fuck.

Yeah. 2011, Joe's Super Bowl 10 ring. His actual ring sells at auction for $38,423.84. That's awesome. It's a pretty good amount here. And the football camp is canceled this year to COVID, but it was scheduled Joe Gilliam World Class Football Camp 2020. And yeah, they said it's a non-contact football camp for boys and girls with ages ranging from 11 to 17 years old. The risks are equivalent to playing touch football.

The activities are focused on teaching and teaching the skills fundamental to football, personal safety, various positions of interest, and improving on existing skills. Is anybody important gone through it? Not yet. No, I don't think so. Not that we know of. Maybe. But they didn't put it right on the website. $40,000 is all it takes to buy a championship ring.

That's it. That was 10 years ago. It might be more now. They said that, yeah, they have all these camps. They provide drinks and everything. It's, what is it, jwgcampatjoewgilliamfoundation.org is how you can help them out at all. If you'd like to give them a couple of bucks, help some kids. Can't get enough of Joe Gilliam?

I wish it was still alive. I know. I was going to say, I really can't get enough of Joe Gilliam. I want more. You can get this autographed, signed, ten uh picture of him it's a cool one him pointing on downfield taking it for a run sign uh 59.99 plus 4.95 shipping that's the buy it now you can also make an offer on ebay so you can get cheaper i'm sure um also because i was just fascinated by these semi-pro teams a 1979 pittsburgh wolfpack pocket schedule there you can get that for 50 bucks

what it's a little pocket schedule i think i'd rather have a picture that's autographed right or you can get a wolf pittsburgh wolfpack 1978 program yeah which is pretty fucking cool actually that might be neat might have joe in there uh 15 for that thing so that's not bad or you can smoke some crack and shoot some dope to fully simulate the joe gilliam experience if you truly cannot get enough but that my friends that is heartbreaking jefferson street joe gilliam a super crazy 70s wild fucking free basin heroin shooting crazy wild time career suicide and son of a gun fucking yeah suicide in general not on purpose but i mean he just everything he did was self-inflicted it was the most self-destructive

person on earth he's so self-destructive man it's so sad because he said he didn't have the demons yeah i mean like a lot of these people i mean we don't know exactly what he went through but we don't have some of these people's demons that we talk about in the show are fucking obvious they're obvious demons i mean they're like're like, holy shit, that was horrible. New Jack's dad shot his mom while she was holding him. You know what I mean? That's a fucking scar. Like, he didn't have any of that shit.

This one, he literally does not want himself to succeed. He refuses to let it. He gets himself in it every time he's in his element. He'll get right in his own way. And every time something good was happening, you just know the next date I say is going to be an arrest. You just know it. Things are going great. January 24th.

You know an arrest is coming. You just fucking know it because it happened every time. The fuck is that? So, man, if you like that story, tell everybody about it. Tell everybody about it. Get on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon. Give us five stars. It doesn't matter what you say.

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hours and hours of shit and we're putting there so get in there hours hours and hours of shit and we're putting out new stuff this week on crime and sports is bonus episode we will be talking about action park yeah the northeastern spot with the documentary and all that i grew up 52 miles from there was my front door to there was 52 miles away and i've been there before and just know the whole vibe and i also read read the book, which is way more in-depth than the documentary. So we'll be going over that. I'll be telling Jimmy all about it. And he's going to watch the documentary, too.

But then I'm going to fill in the blanks for him. And it's going to be a fucking lot of fun. I have to watch documentaries three times to get the whole thing. To get the gist of it? To get everything. I can watch something. Like Wild and Wonderful Wh white yeah i watched that shit five times oh that's good and then of course great but there's still points of the you'll

call out something from when did that happen oh shit that's right yeah oh when they were doing that i how did that happen there so yeah get on that you'll hear all this great bonus material and you'll be a great person with wonderful karma j Jimmy, you'll mispronounce your name. Everything can be had at patreon.com slash crime and sports. Or if you just want to be a wonderful person and get a shout out and, you know what, just have some good karma, you can do that as well. If you want to make a donation on PayPal, very easy to do so. Use our email address, crimeandsports at gmail.com, which is another way you can get a hold of the show. If you have any suggestions or comments or any shit like that, crazy stories. You can also use our voicemail, 602-759-0606.

You can bitch at us or say stuff to us or do whatever you want on there. But thank you guys for hanging out with us. And without further ado, God damn it, Jimmy, there's only one thing that would fulfill me right now and make me feel just make you know because i left all in my heart this story i feel bad i want more joe gilliam but instead of more joe gilliam give me the greatest people on the face of the fucking earth hit me now jimmy this week's executive producers are pamela solig who donated both ways thank you so much pamela jesus thank you thank you. Kara Blachick. Thank you, Pamela. Yes, a new one. I think it's Blachick. I'm not good at this.

Pamela Blachick? No, that's not it. Zach Charles, Nicole Breyer, Kurt Gammon, Sandra Lovejoy, Dalton Kocik, I think, Matt Wisher. Nope, Lusher. Hey. I think it's Lusher. You're starting out with a bang here, Jimmy.

I really am. Evan Shriver, Renai Degui, probably not, Tom Fairley, Jared Pitts, Jordan Bennett, Ellen Hodnett, Gabrielle Grant, Jackie Sukup, Leanne Hatch, Rob Lanto, Margaret McKenney, Joanne Ahern, Chrissy Ann Cristaldi, and Andrea Boyle. Thank you, guys. Every weekend gets Chrissy Ann Cristaldi, and Andrea Boyle. Thank you, guys. Every weekend gets much more impressive, and I can't thank you guys enough for all of this stuff. Other producers this week are Tanya Craft.

Hang in there. She's going through some shit. Oh, shit. Well, we're sorry to hear that. It's health stuff, too. It's fucked up. Oh, no. Happy birthday, Toya Wayne Becker Corneato O'Brien.

Holy shit, that's a name. All wrong. It's quite the handle chief and krista zachman's birthdays this week too ilia wilmot uh thank you very much other producers this week also are matt skinner lady of law uh s brasswell travis webb jonathan gabor gabry gabra oh boy uh bella night nightmare no that's can't be right sarah with no last name uh sjl leblond uh travis davis justin hoffy hoff jordan jordan well everybody jordan ashby hayley uh hayley coman or coming like omar i guess i don't want to. Emily Field. Jordan Ashby. I said that.

C. Tuker. Chantel Tuma. Brianna Bertrand. Trent Kruger. Samantha Patterson. Stephanie Fisher. Andrew, what is this? Celie Harris.

Tasha Juruzitsky. Andrew Hoskins. Kyle Berkeley. Adida Sanchez. Samantha Ruiz. Earl. Nope. Earl. Earl Graves. Samantha Quattro, what

the fuck, Quattro, what did I do, Quattrochi? Quattrochi, okay. Yep, that's Italian, I'm sure. It's got to be if you ruined it. Rachel Kerr, Katie Miller, Kira Mahoney, Bradley Joe Waldrop, Tom Milligan, Kelsey Knapp, Becky, what did I, Amio? No, Ipp, Becky Amio, Holly Ward, Michael Thomas, Nathaniel, Plas, Adrian Doheny, Adam Hurwitz, Jessica Jenkins, Jadio, I don't know what I did. I ruined somebody's name. Adrian Goff or Go?

Not the first time. Brady Murphy. Cherie Sandoval. Christian Pierce. Amanda Kent. John Mills. Damon Rail. Christian Kudahi.

No. Kudahi? Annalie. Annalie? It can't be right. M. Roberts. Sarah Potter. Painter. Mike. Oh, Jesus. Mike Shearer. Kaylee Verhusen. it can't be right m roberts sarah potter painter mike oh jesus mike shearer kaylee

veerhusen christy mcfarland uh hulk smash battle camp okay kevin huntington kieran uh what is the kieran mcguire gen uh jeanette throwberry throneberry cody crowder crowther shit right uh rita davis you're what uruguay no uh kaiser anthony amy beitch deitch what did i do i guess steve tincredi uh matthew boland sarah hamilton the bolero family jesse speicher uh and what is that arthur deaton, Brandon Greenbaugh, Greenhawk, Green what? Howlg, Adam Sorber, Dave Alexander. What is this? Kaylin Vanessa? No. Anisa?

Anisa. Not even close. Vanessa Rivera Fisher, Philip Smith, Corey Pritt, Warren Thompson, Amy Nesbitt Wright, Marco Parsons, GeekyNerd2000, Joseph Kitzberger, I think, Jake Dengler, God damn it, Michelle with no last name, Claire Downing, Rosie Marr, Mayor Jesperson, Velvet Heems, Heaps, fuck, what am I doing wrong, Mark Hackett, Chandra Jenkins, Sean Duggan, Patience Cole, Haley with no last name, Nathan Schroeder, Taylor Striegel, Aaron Nelson, Sharon Gabrion, Lisa Watson, Corin Maniscalchi. Yikes. Maniscalchi?

Fuck. You're having problems. Ultimate, what did I do? Hellcat, The Bond, The Bold. See, it's easy words. And i can't even get lisa watson i said that staley sadler mendy schmidt brandon calvin uh emily shilper dot what shilper ort show fuck kelby houseman sean no sharon gabrian i said that that's why molly would know last name sar Sarah Sparks. Chad Walker. Katie Andrade.

Andrade. Yeah. What? Stephanie Hicks. I talked myself out of them. Christian McCall. Georgia Mae Jankunis. Karenina.

Karenina Elza Doter. Alex Zanger. Kelly Evans. Jessica Merritt. Samuel Pickup. Travis Olumabaugh. What? Olumabaugh. alex zanger kelly evans jessica merit samuel pickup travis olum and a bar what aluma boss olum ball nicole rolling will with no last name no it didn't hugh janus you got that right that's not real chris with no last name kelly to call decalcany Decalgany? Adam? No. Adam Moody. It's getting so goddamn difficult.

Luann Holzenhauer? George Deck? Andrew Trimmer? Sarah Hargrove? Joanne Taylor? Dimitri? Nope. Datra?

Datra Walker? Jason Horvath? Thank you so much, Jason. He sent a nice email also. Asia with no last name asa that's asia i believe i think i think it is i think i got it samantha sinander swander anthony uh mora ada ada kaziniak joseph roadman uh all uh allison fox steve drake Joseph Roadman, Allison Fox, Steve Drake, Graham Linney, Ryan Hoff, Margaret Small, Ralph Williams, Stormy Sewell, Ash Mearns, Nick Poultry.

Nope. Poultry. Catherine Furlong, Alexandra Shank, Shane. Fuck. Marcos Zazueta, Kevin Kayak, Keok, Keok, Sandy. This is a rough one. I know. What did I, uh, Paul Unwin, Ryan Foovers.

You don't know what you're doing. Stephanie. No. Steffi Gillies. Joe Harris. Tone. Oh, it could be Tony. Helen Sunjoy.

Uh, Jenna, Jenna Pridey, John Sanders. I think Hunter Powell, Caleb Span, Gabby G, Lacey Griffin, Galaxy Story, Shelley Beasley, John Jones, Laurie Malcolm, Aaron Smith, Michael Richards, Jenna Drescher, Fran's sister, obviously, Barb Flick. Oh, Barb Flick sent a nice email. Thank you so much, Barb. Dave Howard. Brock, what is this? Ambrose. Connor Sparkman. Natasha Spellmer.

Semler. Hawkins. Gary Berry. Brutal. Brendan Thatcher. Malik Pfister. Dave Buren. Kennedy Smith.

Jacqueline Wright. Tige. Or Tiga? Shornack? CGB. Stephanie Davies, Tamara Carpenter, Matt Hough, Parker Jeffrey, Nick with no last name, Selena Jones, Nate Stanford, Tim Ibbitson, Brett with no last name, Sam with no last name, Lee Brown, Anna Lisa. Amanda Staley, I think. Jamie fucking Simuka. Somoko. I am so fucking illiterate. Emily Schlake.

Jenny Jeanette and Jeremy Wheeler. Fuck, it's even easy. Alexa Wright. Isabel with no last name. Neil, it's even easy. Alexa Wright. Isabel with no last name. Neil Jones. Madeline Clark. Shel Wadgetus. Amanda, I said that.

Danielle Childs. Erica Popham. And Jim Kirk. Homestretch, I think. I think we're close. We're almost there. Listen, I need a breather. Rock it out. Nate Sanford. Aki P. Aki P. home stretch i think i think we're close we're almost there i'm getting listen i got i need to breathe or knock it out nate sanford akp akip uh david whitson kirsten and oh no kirsten that's

her last name today oh tyler drury alexis suiter a mccosh lily lansbury jeff Evans, Jess Evans, I'm sorry, Jess, Samantha Berg, Nathan Blue, Michael DeSanto, Amanda Jacobs, Marcella Fletcher, Bob Daly, Lee Last, Zachary Benjamin, Anthony Dawson, Jabari Lawrence, Jess Childers, Timothy Simmons, Taylor Nicole, what is this, Dunkachino48, J.R. Brown, Sarah with no last name, Zach Conley, Zoe with no last name, Amber Crowell-Furist, Everest, I don't know what I did, Erica Brundage, Melody Nguyen, Rebecca with no last name, Edsel Paz, Ronnie Porter, Andrea with no last name, Kinsley Weir, Aaron Blumel, Daniel Boda, Ryan with no last name. Edsel Paz. Ronnie Porter. Andrea would. No last name. Kinsley Weir. Aaron Blumel. Daniel Boda. Ryan would. No last name. Tua Tagovialano.

No. That sounded good. I apologize. Elkie would. No last name. Or just Elk. Ryan Grange. Tamara.

Tamara. Viana. God damn it. Daniel Boda. I said that. Ronnie loves the U. I guess. i guess eric i think it's a last name oh no i don't know it's definitely that aaron uh rigby lisa matonis sean gardner chad warning weren't warning uh melanie walsh or wyatt i don't know what i did. Ronnie Ronell, Kim Shang, Andre W., Belvin, Amanda Knoften, Alicia Johnson, Megan Stewart, Delaina Viola, Daryl Abraham, Nicole Smith, Nick Ahrens, Tara Ann Jarrett, Bethany Sarah, Kristen Rose, Xenia Warren, Holly Fowler, Lauren Rodriguez, Taylor Bean, Crystal Oliver, Jim Lee, Christina Lee, Lee Dooley, Lauren Engel, Saz Sova, uh jim lee christina lee lee uh lee dooley lauren ingles what is this saz sova

i'm so bad at this lynn mcdonald kade bedron bed bedner chick terese f sherry gillowich uh nina seplak seplak angela wallace dalton chandler jen mccaule, Blanca Fuentes, Cody Goudorf, Holly, no, that's Haley, Pritchett, Prickett, I don't know, Heather Klinger, Ricky Bolig, Bolin, Michelle Butts, S.B., Sean Darnell, Danielle Sibisky, Sarah Pauley, Abe with no last name, Darla Derrick, Wayne Bond, Lance Paniccia, Chris Michelle, Michael, Wayne Bond, Faith Kritzel, Daria, nope, that's Darla, Derrick, Bailey Elizabeth, Tonto with no last name, Kathy Heffelfinger, Amanda Boeing, Brent Morgan, John Osho, fuck, william beats taylor elliot i think that's right megan mcdermott james aselta even ethan hunt karen rosier autumn uplinger yeah i'm sure that's what it is it's not close right she knows her name is brutal for me melinda velman aurora davis nick walters, Crystal Walker, Andrea Smith, Jordan would know last name, Jordan Taylor, Paige Snyder, Aaron would know last name, Charlie H., Jessica

Walker, Josh Cole, Ricardo Yarmio, and it's his wife, Senorita Melanie's birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Senorita Melanie's birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Senorita. Jen's Peter Axel Fries and Sarah, nope, Savannah Kirtley. Sharon Lacey, Lauren Maloney, Ricardo, I said that. Brendan Ables, Samuel Cefarin, Serafino. Our man, Brendan Ables. He's a good dude. He's around every week.

I love him. And Ashley Vio, too. Thank you guys so much. Yeah, and Jordan Bennett and all of them. Christiane. Fuck, Liz Vasquez. We love all you guys, goddammit. Cassandra Clark, thank you so much for theennett and all of christianne chris fuck liz vasquez we love all you guys got cassandra clark thank you so much for the email also i appreciate you thomas smith

uh calum malice senna senna what the fuck did i do senna lisa we nintini that can't be right i apologize i'm sure it's amazing name i'm sure it means something fantastic, too. William Bordwell, John DeLong, Georgette King, Peyton Meadows, Stephanie Agoa, Amelia Simmons, Joshua Reyes, Isabel Gill, I think, James Marder, Tommy Yakey, Kelly Higby, Laura Looney, Leah Gavin, Travis Marshall, Brittany Hughes, Janice Hill nikki lundquist and jessica merit and obviously all of our patron donors you guys are incredible thank you thank you guys so much honestly i know we're enthusiastic but we really are that enthusiastic for you guys thank you for everything you do for us it means the world hope you love the bonus material and if you have any suggestions for stuff you'd like us to do for bonus shit, we're open to suggestion.

Use any of those places we gave you to get a hold of us and say, hey, we'd love to see this on a bonus episode. No one will be offended. We want suggestions of what you guys want to hear. We want to give you different content. It all gets read. It all gets read. Check it out right there.

And, Jimmy, what if they wanted to check you out? How could they do that? You know where to find me. Where can they find you? Oh, my. Sipping my water. That Jimmy P is funny. We're around.

You'll fucking find us. You know where to do. Just our names are on the show description. We're not difficult to find. So do all of that. Keep coming back and seeing us every goddamn week. Because you know what? Next week, we'll have a story that's just as crazy, if not crazier.

One more again. Who the fuck knows? Either way, live from the Crime and Sports studios, we will see you next week. Bye. Hey, Prime members. You can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.