Green Light with Chris Long - Veterans Day with Author, Marine & Team Rubicon Founder Jake Wood. NFL Playoff Changes.

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

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It's Veterans Day. It's a special day. And it is a great opportunity to thank the men and women who have served our country. Today we've got Jake Wood, Marine, author, and founder of Team Rubicon. And he is one of the best, man. He is awesome. So you want to stick around for that. But first, we'll hit a little bit of football. We're going to talk about teams getting written off too soon, Bucks, and we're going to talk about the Saints ceiling,

as well as this new football playoffs. idea just in case shit really hits the fan in the NFL. 16 teams. How do we feel about that? Happy Wednesday, everybody. This is the Greenlight Pot. I'm your host, Chris Long, and I want to wish everybody who has served our country a wonderful Veterans Day.

To the listeners, again, that is not Memorial Day. Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. They're very different things. Google it. If you've had trouble in the past, think a veteran today, who's served. Appreciate y'all, guys and girls. Especially want to shout out our water boys vets. I know that we have some of our listeners have been involved with my clean water initiative.

And, you know, we bring a lot of folks together to fight for people's right, people's access to clean water, which is such a basic dignity that we take for granted here in this country. We bring athletes together. We bring fans together. We bring entertainers together. other, but my favorite role player, so to speak, in that whole equation has always been our vets. And that whole thing started by me, like, cold calling, Nate Boyer, who I'd never met my life, he's a Green Beret, played football, Texas, it's a longhorn, and played briefly with the Seattle Seahawks. And he's also really is the dude that had a conversation

with Colin Kaepernick and kind of gave his perspective on the protests and Colin listened and you know I don't know if that altered his path evidently it did as far as like he was sitting and then he took a knee because I thought it was more respectful so like that's Nate and he's an incredibly empathetic hardworking charismatic dude and he and he loves service and I saw something on him circa 2000 and maybe 14. I don't know. It was one of my last years in St. Louis. We were camping in Oxnard as a team.

I was at some really nice hotel because Jeff Fisher had us traveling good. Stan Cronky had us traveling good. And I'm watching TV. And this is like the off night after we got in this huge knockdown, drag out, like bar fight on a field with the Cowboys that like spilled over into the fan section and shit. Everybody was just exhausted. So I stayed in and was watching Sports Center and they did this great piece. on this guy Nate Boyer, you know, and everything I just said about him was coming through

in the piece and just his background in being in a lot of places that we were trying to serve in the fight for clean water. I saw this and I was like, holy fuck, dude, I don't know what I need this dude to help us with, but he's got to help us. So I hit up Jay Glazer. He does a lot of work with veterans. He does a merging veterans and players operation out of Cali where he's basically uniting athletes and veterans to work out, you know, kind of fellowship Zoom calls during COVID right now in isolation. I've been on Zoom calls, Jay Zoom calls where there's 60 people, 20 of them are NFL players, former NFL players, 40 of them are vets. There might be like an MMA fighter in they're like it's crazy the the bond that some people have formed through jay's uh deal out of

out of cali their MVP and nate's been heavily involved so once i found that up i cold called jay jay hooked me up with nate me and Nate talked for like three hours and i'm telephobic like i hate talking on the phone and that's probably to my detriment it could probably get a lot more done if i just got things done on on the phone and didn't try to text it all out um but I talked to a stranger for like three hours, and that was Nate Boyer. Like I don't talk to people on the phone for three hours. We hit it off, man. Love the dude.

And he was kind of like, well, what got you into Tanzania? What got you into the region? Well, I told him I went and climbed Kilimanjaro. So Nate said, why don't we bring vets over to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? We can bring amputees. We can bring vets who are struggling through the transition. We can bring vets who are successful right now and just want to serve. like we can bring football players and vets together.

And Jake Glazer is talking about doing this MVP thing. So it kind of all dovetails. And five years later, we have drilled a number of large solar-powered wells thanks to, in large part, guys like Nate Boyer and all the veterans that he's been able to recruit on that side of things while we brought the football players to the equation and the athletes and that sort of thing. And I can honestly say we've done a lot of good work, but the highlight of my work in the clean water space has been

summiting Kilimanjaro a few of these years with some of our nation's finest. And so seeing Kirstianis being the first female above the knee amputee to summit Mount Kilimanjaro 20,000 feet, you know, seeing Elliot Ruiz fly Eagles Fly, birds fan from Philly, who, you know, gets to the top

and, you know, he's crying and he's saying to himself, I heard him. He wasn't being dramatic. I'm not supposed to be here. Like, those are, and I'll say it because we fucking got it on, like somebody got it on video. So I'm not like doxing Elliott for getting emotional at the top of Killy. But like those are moments that I didn't cry after the Super Bowl. You know, the bond, you know, that you share with somebody when you do something like that is great. So, you know, I've gotten emotional a couple times up there.

And our vets are the entire reason because they are so motivated to continue service. And I appreciate all their hard work. So that's a bit of a special shout out. Any vet listening, thank you. To continue that shout out, congrats to Freddie. Freddie is one of our conquering killy vets. And he's now a dad two times over. So happy birthday to James King.

James had a birthday this week, my lifelong buddy and a guy I grew up with who said, you know what? I'm going to go climb Kelly with my friend for good cause and he did it. And it was pretty amazing. It was awesome. So today, very fittingly, we have Jake Wood joining us. Jake Wood is a Marine. He is the founder of Team Rubicon and now he's an author. His book is out today. It's called One. a warrior and he was also a Wisconsin football player. He would make sure I pointed that out.

I'm going to ask him about that. At some point during the interview, it was funny that like Joe Thomas, he always tells the story that Joe Thomas took his job. I mean, that's totally fucked. I mean, that is just fucked. You show up to campus and you think things are going well and then this guy Joe Thomas rolls in.

I'll ask him about that. But Team Rubicon is to me, one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. You know, I'm not easily inspired. You know, I was never one that read the signs on the wall and went out and played harder or anything like that. Like, I think a lot of that motivational shit is stupid. I think motivation is kind of inside you.

And, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to create it for somebody else. I was, like, legit inspired to do better and be better when I saw Jake Wood talk at the Espies. I met him the day of the Espies in an elevator, and we hit it off. So of course he downplayed this when I met him and had a beer with him, but like what he was there at the Espies for, which I learned a lot more about when he was on stage with that commanding presence was Team Rubicon.

It started back with the earthquake in Haiti, like about a decade ago. with only a few volunteers, and it's a disaster response kind of super team of veterans, civilians that are on call on duty all the time. There's a hurricane here, there. They pick up and they go, United States, around the world. And it's described as their role is to prepare, respond, and recover from disasters and humanitarian crises. So these guys are like kind of drop of a hat. They're there and they're there to help. And even in COVID times right now, they're all over the country. And hurricane season

has been nuts. And, you know, Jake will tell you about it, but they are out getting it done. And, you know, for them, there's no, hey, it's a pandemic. Hey, it's a really bad hurricane season. These people don't ask questions. They just go and they help. And I think it's pretty admirable. And obviously a lot of other people have been moved to go join the fight because what I said was a couple volunteers. The first trip out to Haiti, it's 130,000 folks right now that they have volunteering for them. So the book is out. Again, it's once a warrior and we'll have Jake Wood in a couple minutes. But I want to hit some football before we get to Jake. The one football thing that I will talk about today is it's the playoff deal, right?

16 teams in the playoffs is kind of an option three. All right, I'll break it down for you. Option one is obviously that all the cancellations we've had thus far kind of work out. We don't have enough meaningful reschedulees from here on out to tip the scales to where we need to go to option two, which would be building in a week 18 for everybody to get their games. And the reason that it's interesting now is that there's no more buy weeks coming up. And so we're kind of out of runway for them to just push games off into the corner. Like, we'll deal with that in a little bit.

There's no more like space for them to deal with that in a little bit. So the possibility of option one not working out is higher, especially if you consider everything that's going on right now, 100,000 cases around the country pretty much every day for a week now. You had 56 cases in the NFL last week, 41 of them were staff members. I'll talk about that in a minute, but that's a lot of cases. And, you know, the NFL's looking around. And to me, what this says is we need to get our shit together. Option three, if one and two don't work out, is this 16-team playoff scenario.

So option one, get it done in phase, normal-ish season. Option two, build in that extra week to get things done that we still need done. option three would be this 16 team set up. The reason I think this is significant, as I mentioned, is that this signals that a league that hasn't said shit about anything scheduling-wise for like months now, had a meeting and was like, we need to get our ducks in a row. That just says to me, I don't think they feel like option one happens.

And once you're in option two, option three is imminent. Okay. I think there's a decent chance that this. this happens. I'm not saying like it's more more likely than not, but the way things are trending around the country right now, we're kind of back in March. There's states talking about going to phase one. I know Virginia's, I thought I heard today. Well, it wouldn't change anything for me. I'm not saying that insensitively. I don't get out a lot. I have the luxury not getting out a lot. I don't go out to eat at restaurants, that sort of thing to each his own. But like phase one,

it sounds like it would be more like restaurants at certain capacities, et cetera. things are changing around the country. And I think the owners are looking around and saying, like, we got to be ready to build in some contingency plans here. Now, the way this would work would be, you know, like, they wouldn't change the seating. Everybody that's in now would be in as discussed this offseason. So the new playoff rule is in effect.

Don't worry, Eagles fans, when I first read this too, I was like, man, are they just going to, like, throw out division winners and go, like, winning percentage? We would deserve it, I guess. But, like, still, the Eagles are still going to get in if they handle their business and win the East, okay, for the birds fans here. What they would do, it sounds like, is tack on two more wildcard teams. And at first, I was like, damn, there's going to be some really bad team in the dance. It's actually not.

This year, there's a lot of middling teams. If this happens, you could see four NFC West teams slide in. If the Niners could get their shit together. like in the AFC, you could see fun teams like the dolphins. Like everybody's dangerous this year. More so in the NFC than the AFC, like the NFC is anybody's game. But the depth that this would yield in the AFC, it doesn't bother me. Like if this is what it takes to get the season in safely, this is a real possibility.

And I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, man. Like it was already going to be a new playoff deal. This thing would only make it more interesting. and hopefully we don't get there, but I got a feeling we're going to be flirting with option three staring down the barrel of option two, which is a week 18. How many games do you have to get canceled?

I have no idea. And also, I think a big question that ownership knows is what happens to teams when they start not caring so much? We're approaching a juncture in the season where teams are going to start to realize like they're out of it. Some teams have known that for quite a while. I do want to say one thing about the Jets. Guys like Frank Gore, older guys on that team, I was watching the game two nights ago.

And I was thinking to myself, like, God bless them. They deserve some sort of an award to know, like if you're young, you're just in a blender. You have no idea what's going on. If you're older, you've been at this a while, you're cynical. You know what really bad looks like. And you know what like a living hell relative to an NFL season is like these older guys, a lot of them, their careers might start, might be over. soon. A lot of them might have careers that are cut even shorter than they would be if they

didn't play for the Jets because nobody's career, you know, is trends up for having played for the Jets this year. Like it's, it's going to have a net negative effect on your career for the guys who are handling it with class there. And that includes like taking care of COVID protocol. I think they should be commended. And I'm not even fucking around. Teams like the Jets have been out of it for a while. But there's going to be some teams here real. soon that are like, okay, it's over. How are they going to handle, like the protocols? You would like to think they'd be professionals about it because they're getting paid, and I know it's not a good situation. I know this is a tough situation. I know the players that opted in had to consider

what if I opt out is that going to hurt my earnings in the future? Teams and people are going to hold a grudge against me. I'm kind of in an impossible situation, but now you're in the situation you're in. I would hope that you'd finish strong. But clubs know this and owners know this, that you're going to be dealing with, like, maybe if a team's got three wins in December, that nightclub looks pretty good, you know, like people come home for Christmas, people come home for Thanksgiving, big family gatherings, like, it's going to become more of a challenge. And I think owners know that.

And I think that's why these contingency plans, which were long overdue, are here. And a lot of that's because we don't have any more wiggle room. One thing is 41 staff and 15 players out of that batch of 56 positive levels. week. What that tells me is, you know, and they say a certain amount of that 41 staff or front office, I do think that you're going to see some front office people get popped. A lot of teams are like, they're almost like two different buildings as far as like, you know, if you play for the Patriots, nobody in the front office comes downstairs. Like nobody. And like depending on the team you're on, there might not be much interaction. So I think the further

removed you are from like the moneymaker, which is the players, the more last. you might be, but the closer you get, you need to be careful, right? Because not only do coaches provide great value as far as like finishing this season and leadership and every week, you need coaches to call plays and get people ready. But like, it's also the fact that coaches could die from this, dude. Like, this is the most important part of it to me is there are dudes who are in the building in close proximity with players. And if you're a player, I think not do you want to think about, you know, keeping yourself safe and respecting the fact that you've put in all this work to this point, but also like your, your actions, albeit in a really

fucked up situation that you didn't really have a choice, but opt in depending on who you are, could actually really hurt somebody. You know, we, we, you know, if you're younger, if you're healthy, we don't know what the long-term effects of this thing are, but you know that probably if you're 23 and you're healthy, you can get this thing. You're not going to drop dead. If you're 60, if you're obese and 60, if you're not in great health and you sit in meetings all day, crunch and film and doing that sort of thing. And there are coaches with underlying health conditions. I mean, Ron Rivera, fuck, dude. Like, if you're a player, you've got to consider that.

And you're also trying to finish this season because you put in so much work. And yes, it's a messed up situation, but you want to finish. So I would think they're going to consider that. The one consideration on the 56 number is that some of those front-off. office folks are kind of away from football. And I think there's going to be a lot of holdups. You know, like this week in Pittsburgh, you've got COVID like contact tracing flags where I think Big Ben didn't test positive for COVID. No, he was he was in close contact with somebody, I believe. What constitutes, you know, close contact, I'm sure they're going to be very careful

as they should. And, you know, Ben's out of practice for five days. I believe. I could be wrong. That's a big deal, even if he plays on Sunday. So it's going to get weird right now. And it's also going to get weird, more importantly, around the country, because we've got rising numbers of cases. And it's almost like the NFL and these NFL players didn't get the memo that the COVID, right, this is what I keep hearing, was going to just stop after the election. Just stop, disappear. Maybe COVID's waiting on the recount. Just thought of that. Fuck. It was right in front of me. Saints bucks, the only thing I'll say about this,

listen, that wasn't ass kicking, and I told you how personally I took it because of my involvement in that game from a business perspective. We're too emotional in general, so I'm not going to overreact to the bucks loss, like how bad they lost. They've lost twice to a division rival.

They're probably going to have to see them in the playoffs if they want to do anything. And that's the tribut. troubling part. When you're on a team that loses twice to a team in the division, you fear seeing them in the playoffs. I think the onus is more on the team that's lost twice than the team that's won twice because, you know, the embarrassment of losing to a team three times in the same season, don't know how many times this happened. But I'll say this. One of the reasons you can't write the bucks off, 2018 Patriots won the Super Bowl.

they lost 34 to 10 to the Titans, 2014 Pats, lost 41 to 14 at Kansas City. A lot of people remember that 14 game. I think it was a primetime game and the Patriots just shit down their legs. I mean, that felt a lot like that game last night. But the 2014 Patriots, they had the Tom Brady and his prime, Bill Belichick Patriots. Like, that's not supposed to happen. So I know we were watching like the new experiment of Brady at 43 and a bunch of new cast members and that sort of thing. And they're going to be a good football team.

I know we freaked out and we were probably like, that's the worst loss ever for a contender. I mentioned 2018. The Pats, led by Tom Brady, blown out by the Titans, 2014, that Kansas City game.

After that Kansas City game, Bill Belichick was asked in the presser if he was considering making a fucking quarterback change. Somebody told me that. I got to go back and look it up. So take that with a grain of salt, but I believe it. 2012 Ravens, 43, 13 to the Texans, 2011 Giants, 49 to 24 Saints.

And that was week 12. That's late in the season. 2007 Giants, 41, 17, the Vikings in 2006, the Colts, 44 and 17 to the Jags. So those are all Super Bowl winners, and those are their worst loss. Okay. That felt really ugly the other night. And I have to go look at these games or whatever to just to gauge if they were uglier or if they weren't.

But you can't write the bucks off because of a terrible, terrible night. You just can't. What concerns me more is the fact that something about the Saints has got the Darth Vader grip on these guys right now. But there's another reason not to overreact to a buck's loss, okay? Besides everything I just listed and the historical precedent of Super Bowl teams having really bad losses. We just did it with the team.

on the other side of the field, right? We killed the Saints like three different times this season. Like we just overreacted to the Saints and we just got smacked in the mouth over it. So I'm not going to then not apply that lesson I just learned with the Bucks this crazy season. But anyways, dude, like we just did this thing with the Saints. And I was guilty of it. Stop this shit. We have to stop this. The media, I hate like including us, yes, I'm in the media now. Our media has like run out of space like sports media in the 90s in the 80s and I was just a kid but like fuck it's easy to extrapolate a narrative had space to breathe and you weren't pressured every day to make a new determination about a team like by Sunday we've asked the same question 15 times about a team we've

run out of things so we need new topics are the saints done or the bucks done I don't think overreacting is a new thing but I just think we've squeezed you know everything we can't out of the week in TV and in podcasting. And I'm guilty of it. I've been on shows where they're like, all right, we're going to talk today about are the Bucks done or the Saints done? And by virtue of having to answer the question, you're forced to make a determination. Maybe we shouldn't be making these determinations.

Like maybe we should just give it some fucking time and let it breathe, especially in a season like this. So I'm not going to write the Bucks off based on our loss. also by the way I said this the other day not writing the Seahawks off for doing exactly what we know they're capable of doing which is to give up a million yards

okay they also have an easy schedule the rest of the way so they're going to be just fine they're going to be in the dance what happens from there I don't know same thing with the bucks but as far as the saints are concerned and man Sean Payton's a great coach they're a very good

football team right now K Adams on NFL next this week You know, she was on it. She thought they're the most complete football team in the NFC, that sort of thing. I will say this, though. That's not saying a lot in the NFC this year because there's not a lot of good defenses, which is also why I think the Seahawks will be okay. I mean, there's not many good defenses anyway.

And the worst thing we've done is, and we said this in the media, this year will, the teams that have continuity that have been together, the longest they'll win the day. Well, in August, what team fit the bill? the New Orleans Saints, right? Things in New England kind of blew up. You know, San Francisco was banged up, especially early in the year. And you weren't sure if that was a flash and pan thing.

Who were the teams? I mean, Kansas City, they're repeating. But again, it's like, it's hard to repeat. Who are the teams with continuity outside the world champions that, you know, you're going to fear this year? And New Orleans is one of them. So we knew that coming in. And then they played bad for a couple of games.

and we forgot it, and we made a determination based on a small sample size, ignoring the 10-year-plus run of continuity we've had in New Orleans. And now I know Drew's older and that sort of thing. And we have to remember that quarterbacks ride the wave, just like position players. So as a position player, there was always something that was hurt, whether it was my quad was torn and nobody knew about it, or like I had an ankle sprain or you had fluid in your knee. that is the cost of playing a high contact sport.

Try doing when you're 40-something years old and you're a little dude getting slammed to the ground. Like Drew Breeze is built like the mailman, dude. He's an athletic mailman, but he's built like the mailman. If I just went out in the street and slammed a mailman on the back of his fucking head, the mailman's going to be out for like a week. Drew Breeze has to get back up, take another snap, get slammed to the turf again by a bigger dude, and then like throw the ball perfect for all the people on ESPN.

like there's going to be three weeks spans where he maybe doesn't feel great. And I said that, but I also kind of wrote him off a little bit. Like I kind of like, and, you know, he's not going to be around a lot longer as far as the NFL is concerned. You know, father time is going to dictate that. But we should all give these teams and quarterbacks because we do it with all quarterbacks a little bit of time because we ignored the big sample size and opted for the small sample size with the Saints. And with the bucks, man, they play good for like three. weeks, they got kind of famous off the Green Bay win. And yes, do I think they're a good football team?

Are they dangerous? Yeah. But we started to get really horny for the bucks, dude. After like a two week span and then we're like, how is this dynastic team not blowing out the giants? Well, I don't know. We didn't think they were very good like a month ago when they lost to the bears. So we take the small sample size of the bucks and then we extrapolate based off no other evidence other than that three week span. So I'm not going to write off the bucks. I'm not going to write off the Saints. I'm not going to do the sports media thing. There is no more space for content. So I think we get back in these corners where every Monday we have to make a broad sweeping determination on a football team. I need to be better at that. Sports media needs to be better at that. I will fuck it up probably

next Monday. But right here in this moment, maybe it's because I've had time and it's Wednesday. I am not riding off the bucks, and I'm not putting the Saints in the Super Bowl either. Okay? All right. Saints are a really good football team, but a week ago, we were all worried about their defense. And Drew Breeze's health, and, you know, they got everybody back healthy on offense. They're amazing. But the thing about the Saints is the Saints, in my opinion, have the most important

home field advantage situation, maybe in the NFL. Okay? you could argue that Green Bay might have one because of the elements. Denver's not in the postseason. Because we're taking fans out of it. It doesn't look like we're going to have more fans in the stands, the way things are trending. Take Denver out of it.

Denver would probably have the best one because of altitude. I know it sounds silly, but I'm serious. When you take fans out of it, it's just about the circumstances, like the weather, the forces, you know, could be an east coast, west coast thing. I don't know. New Orleans is very important because their quarterback, this particular quarterback, this Hall of Famer,

that you're going to need to make the throws, in January, doesn't want to do it out in the 30 degree weather. Like, that's kind of a known thing. That's, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is with Drew Brees. So don't do it. Don't put yourself in that position. This team looks fired up.

They need to be. They still have Atlanta twice. I know, like, a saint. Like, if I had Cam Jordan on here right now, he's very outward about, like, being dismissive of the other teams in the division. And I love that. but Atlanta is always a fucking dogfight man it always is um and the saints in Atlanta they don't like each other and just last year Atlanta was maybe worse when they

kicked the saints asses okay like I think Drew Breeze had just come back and everybody was in a great mood in in New Orleans and I think they got beat up by Atlanta so they play them twice still they get Carolina week 17 outdoor at Carolina and they have Kansas City at home. The other team I mentioned, not writing off, Seattle, they got an easy fucking schedule. So really important home field in New Orleans. They have to take care of business.

Not going to overreact. Without further ado, I'm not overreacting when I say that Jake Wood is a fantastic individual. And this is a really good interview. And I appreciate him, not because of me, it's a good interview because of him opening up a little bit. So once more, thank you to our veteran community. I almost hate saying thank you because it just feels hollow, right?

Like I wish I could do something else. That's why we do Conquering Killy. So if you're a vet and you want to get involved with Conquering Killy, check out the website, waterboys.org. I'm not trying to talk about waterboys all day, but this is the way that we've kind of gotten involved. And also listen to what Jake's got to say about Team Rubicon. Download the top rated Draft King Sportsbook app now and use promo code Greenlight.

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Gambling problem call 1,800 gambler or in Indiana, 1,8009 with it. So it is a privilege, and I know he doesn't like being pumped up. he's a humble dude and an authentic humble dude, not like fake humble. He's really actually a humble dude to have Jake Wood join us here on the Greenlight Pot on Veterans Day. It's perfect. And boy, a lot has changed since we met at the Espies a few years ago. Jake, you never slow down. What's going on with you guys right now at Team Rubicon? Oh, man. You know, 2020 has become such a meme for craziness. And, you know, Sam holds true for Team Rubicon. We had big plans for this year, a lot of strategic initiatives we were looking to launch.

And like everybody else, COVID derailed everything for us. But we also saw it as an opportunity. So we've been doing some things we never really anticipated ever doing before. In response to COVID-19, it's like we put 10,000 volunteers into food banks across the country to help with food support operations. We sent 100 medics into Navajo Nation to help 3,000 COVID-positive patients there. I mean, like, that's the type of thing that we never thought we'd be doing here in the U.S. You know, at one point, we were helping to manage a quarantine shelter for homeless populations in Las Vegas. So it's just been a wild year.

But on top of it, the one thing we knew early was Mother Nature wasn't going to give a shit about COVID-19. So, you know, we started preparing our teams to respond to hurricanes and tornadoes and floods in a COVID environment. And, you know, lo and behold, in true 2020 fashion, you know, it's been the worst hurricane season in 100 years. And, you know, we've been there all along the way. Yeah, you guys started, I guess, after the earthquake in Haiti, your volunteer group or your gray shirt count, as you guys call it, grew from eight volunteers to 135,000, which is, I think, what makes you great. I mean, not just your heart, but your ability to mobilize people. And I think that, I mean, that's something that is really difficult to do from an organization. standpoint to inspire people to do things. Was there one, like, big catalyst for you guys along the way?

Because I know if you're trying to build anything, it's gradual, it's gradual, it's gradual, but then maybe one big event or one addition to the team allows you to grow exponentially, or has this just been a 10-year grind? That's a good question, man. I mean, we've had a couple of big seminal moments or inflection points along the way. I'd say one was Hurricane Sandy. You know, up to Hurricane Sandy, everybody kind of thought we were flashing the pan. And, you know, nobody really wanted to take us seriously as an organization.

And we put all our chips on the table during that one. And it paid dividends. You know, people really started to pay attention to us after Sandy. The other one then was Hurricane Harvey. I mean, you remember that. I mean, I think you were probably still in the league at that point in time. And, you know, just the outporn of support from celebrities, athletes, you know, all across the country. It was such a huge event.

you know, Team Rubicon. It was, I mean, we tripled or quadrupled in size in the months following Hurricane Harvey. And it wasn't just Harvey, right? It was like Hurricane Irma in Florida, Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico. And, you know, as with anything, right, like you're presented with these opportunities and great organizations rise to the occasion and just like great teams rise to the occasion, you know, in moments of consequence. And we were able to do that, which I look back on with a lot of pride because the result has

been that the organization's just scaled in a way that I don't think any of us really imagined five years ago. I think it's what you just said is really it hits home because I would like to think that our best and brightest and, you know, as Americans, if we have one redeeming quality that we want to lean into, it's looking at the worst of the worst, disasters, unfortunate circumstances as opportunities to help each other and flip the negativity to, guys, we can go make a fucking difference. You know, we can be, you know, and you're a football player. I talked about it in the open, you know, at heart.

You played at Wisconsin and that sort of thing. I liken it to, hey, when shit's hit the fan on the field and it's a blowout, you want to be the person that stands out on tape. And they say, why is that guy playing so hard? That's a convicted individual. How do you inspire people in a time like right now or on the ground, you know, after a hurricane, to dig deep and be positive? I mean, just to have hope and to lean into our toughest moments. Yeah, well, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, right?

It's how you show up. You talked about being that guy on tape who's playing to the whistle, you know, every play, every down, regardless of the score. people notice those things, right? And, and, you know, so if you can, you can show up in that way, every play or, you know, in my situation, every day, that's the first thing. The second thing is, like, don't put your head in the sand. We always talk at Team Rubicon about confronting the brutal facts of the situation. And so we don't shy away from just how bad a situation is. You know, we actually, we look at the sobering reality of a situation. We, as leaders, we communicate about it clearly. We don't. don't try to, you know, kind of sands the rough edges of those moments. And I think people appreciate that level of honesty and transparency. But then, you know, beyond that, then it's about demonstrating the competence that, hey, I may not have all the right answers, but we're going to figure them out together. And, and, you know, so taking that approach to it.

And then finally, I mean, you talked about hope. I think hope is one of these really powerful tools, but hope is not a strategy, right? And so if your team sees you simply relying on hope without a plan, that's not very inspiring, right? So hope isn't what's going to get you through. Hope is what, you know, is a tool that you use in the execution of a game plan or a battle plan or a strategic plan. And so I think one of the things we did early in COVID was, you know, we told our team that this was going to be bad. And they needed to brace for it to be bad. Whereas, you know, like other leaders, you know, across the country and some of the role,

organizations, they were kind of communicating that it wasn't that bad. So we embraced that brutal truth. Two, we admitted that we didn't have all the answers. We admitted that we didn't have a playbook for how to how to respond, but we told people that we were going to figure it out and we were going to get through it together. Like if you, if you can do those four things consistently, and people are going to follow you. And I think that's trust in leadership. I mean, you know, I don't want my leader to bullshit me. I don't want my coach to bullshit me. I don't want the person that I'm taking orders from or guiding me, you know, through a situation to BS me. So I think that rings very true.

You know, I know it's a tough one. I've been asked this before. Assuming leadership roles on a football field is way different than doing what you do. But in your experience, if you got to start with one quality of a leader, what is that quality? You can only one tool, you got to pick that one. And then from there, it's a crapshoot. Yeah, that is a tough question. I think that it's a tough question with one answer, and I think it's integrity.

You know, particularly in the situations I've been in, the stakes were always really high. And you wanted to know that the person you were following had integrity and that they were going to put, you know, that integrity on the line above anything else. and one of the things I've seen since, you know, coming back from my tours in Iraq and Afghanistan is that that's actually pretty hard to come by. You have a lot of people who pay lip service to that. It's really hard to find people who will do that consistently. And by consistently, I mean, like, you got about 100% on that one, right? Because people don't care about the 99 times that you made the right decision or at least made the decision with integrity. They care about the one time that you

didn't. Yeah. You know, and maybe that's not as important in all walks of life. But I think in certainly on the battlefield it is. And it's funny because I often, I would pose this question to people when I was interviewing them to join my team at TR, my leadership team. And I'd ask about three virtues. I'd say, hey, you've got integrity, judgment, and courage. Which one's the most important and why? And honestly, there wasn't really a right or wrong answer.

It was more about listening to them, think it out. And if they asked one, I'd always press on, they'd say, you know, like, you know, well, courage is, because if you don't have the courage to do something, and it doesn't matter. I said, well, I've met courageous fools before. So what's the value of courage without judgment? I mean, that's not, it's not going to do much. I think those are your useful thought exercises. When you're on the ground, you mentioned setting expectations.

You mentioned it's bad. It's going to be bad this summer. It's going to be bad this fall, this winter. What is bad? Tell us, we know a hurricane is terrifying. We see video, we watch the news, but when you add COVID into the equation, how does that manifest in your operations on the ground? Yeah, I mean, it's been super complicating for us. You know, and it ranges from, you know, we can't deploy any of our volunteers who are over the age of 65 because of the mortality rates for them with regard to the virus.

You know, that's a big portion of our volunteers. We've had a lot of Vietnam veterans who have been joining and they've been a great demographic. for us. And so that's been challenging to eliminate their ability to deploy. But then on the ground, I mean, you know, you've got to get larger facilities to house your people because you've got to maintain social distancing while they're sleeping. You know, we're not, we're not, you know, we don't have Gucci, you know, uh, housing requirements, right? We're talking about people sleeping on canvas cots, but now suddenly you can't pack them in like sardines, right? And, you're talking about being in southwest Louisiana in August, September, October,

wearing a mask while you're hauling trees and debris and tarp and roofs. Like, that's hard shit to do. You know, there's a saying in the military that we've really tried to drive home this year because I think it's so appropriate, at least in the Marine Corps, you couldn't leave a forward operating base like a small outpost without, as you're driving through the, what we call entry control point, there would be a sign. It was usually a plywood sign with spray painted words on it. And the words were always complacency kills.

And, you know, it was this mantra that the Marine Corps had that, you know, complacency is what's going to kill you, not the enemy. Complacency might lead to the enemy actually killing you, but it was complacency that caused it. And how did that look on the battlefield? It was it was not carrying out your night vision goggles because it was noon and you're supposed to be back by 4 p.m. before it got dark. Well, guess what? Like, shit happens. If you got caught outside the wire without your NVGs, like you were up Schitt's Creek, you know, it was not taking that extra magazine of ammo. to cut weight. It was, you know, whatever it might be. There's a thousand different examples.

And the same thing happens in COVID, right? And we're seeing this play out all across the country right now with this third surge that we're seeing in the virus. It's because people are tired. People are tired of social distancing. They're tired of not seeing their grandparents. They're tired of wearing a mask. And the reality is, like, it's the complacency that's killing us. Because we know, we know how to keep this virus at bay. The problem is, do we have the, do we have the discipline to keep it at bay. And that means staying distant, wearing a mask, washing your hands. So that's the challenge for our organizations. We put these people on the ground, hundreds of people in southwest Louisiana. Can we ensure that they maintain that discipline in order to stay safe?

And I'll give you an example. We've had 19,000 deployments across the country so far this year. We've only had six COVID transmissions among them. So that's the- the level of discipline. And in many of those situations, we were like directly treating in a medical capacity COVID patients. Wow. That's, I mean, it's amazing. Some of the people, you know, a lot of these volunteers are veterans. I feel like we for a while and maybe the narrative is shifting is like the way you think a veteran is, you know, a half time thing or a thank you in an airport or thanks for your service or I've talked to veterans who are like I just I want my mission to continue. I want I want to be I want to be utilized as the great tool that I am in

this country. I mean you you want to thank me direct me to how I can be of service and continue to be of service. Do you feel like what you're doing serves a very powerful purpose besides helping people on the ground. Oh yeah, there's no doubt, man. And we've seen it since the beginning. You know, we have, we have thousands of veterans who would tell you that their lives have been fundamentally changed for the good by serving with Team Rubicon. You know, it's, and it's what you said. It's, it's finding purpose. It's finding a mission beyond the one that they serve in the uniform. And yeah, and like everybody needs that for a different reason, right? I think the sense of purpose is a universal human need, right?

Like football players need it when they, you know, when they hang up the cleats for the last time, you know, you know, parents need it. Like, everybody needs purpose in their life. I think, you know, for veterans, you know, think about this. Like, they join the military during the most formative years of their life. They're usually 18, maybe they're 21 years old. And we give them a uniform in a rank and, you know, we give them a mission. And then we send them overseas with this band of brothers and sisters.

like that's that's hugely gratifying especially for a lot of people who maybe don't always come from great backgrounds maybe they've never had a father figure maybe they've you know never been told that they're a value before maybe you know maybe the military was an escape for them but then all of a sudden they get these things and then at some point they they lose it right like that's a huge void to fill in somebody's life and so yeah we can fill that um you know and for some other for some other folks man it's it's about making sense of the world right Like you go to war and you go to war in like some of these places that we did. And it's hard to make sense of like the world after you've seen a school teacher beheaded

for teaching young girls. You come back and you're like, what the fuck? You know, how do I make sense of this? And so helping people in a context that is void of evil and simply good helps people to kind of restore some faith in humanity in a way that I think is really, really powerful. What's that void like? Because, you know, I talk to guys and girls who do Killy with us for conquering Killy. And if they're getting introspective, it can sometimes echo the sentiment of a football player who's existentially in a crisis because I'm no longer a football player. Of course, your stakes are way higher. It's way different. Nobody's comparing football to, you know, serving in the military.

but the camaraderie, the purpose, and it's all relative. When that rug swept out from under you, I think guys and girls have an existential crisis that they're dealing with. What's it like? Because it's wild. You do some of the scariest shit while you serve. You know, like, I can only imagine the adrenaline that's pumping through your head, the fears, the thoughts that go into your everyday life when you wake up and you're deployed. And like, I don't know if you think could this be the day or that sort of thing.

when you finish, you would think you're safer, but I'm sure, do you feel safer? Or is that void just so heavy that you're like, how does that feel? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things you're talking about is like a crisis of identity. If I'm not a Marine, who am I? If I'm not a football player, who am I? And we see that in people all the time. You know, I'll go back to my, my sniper partner was my best friend. His name was Clay Hunt. he killed himself two years after we got out of the Marine Corps.

And he was suffering from post-traumatic stress. He got wounded on our tour together in Iraq. He started to really unravel a little bit when we were in Afghanistan, working in a heavily Taliban-controlled area. And, you know, he got diagnosed with PTSD. But I think what really he was, what he was struggling most with was this crisis of identity. If he wasn't a Marine, who was he? and if he didn't know who he was, how could he have impact in the world?

And I think, you know, I see that playing out for people a lot. There's a sense of adventure too, like you talked about. You know, climbing Kili is, you know, is one way to recapture that. You see, you see people try to recapture in a lot less healthy ways. You know, you see people hopping on motorcycles, you know, and racing down, you know, canyon roads at 130 miles an hour because they want to feel that thrill of being near death and in tempting fate. that's obviously a really fucking unhealthy way to approach, you know,

reintegration, but we see, we see that play out all the time. It's tragic. What about right now? Because COVID has to compound that. Isolation has to compound that. How do you check on your friends? You know, do you have a strategy? Is there chatter in, you know, I've been on, and I think Nate Boyer and Jay Glazer do

great job with MVP, emerging veterans and players. And they have these Zoom calls, which are terrific. There's like 50 vets on there. There's a few players scattered in there. And everybody's just kind of, you know, bearing it a little bit. It's a safe place to talk about how you're doing right now. You know, that's probably, there's probably not enough of that anyways pre-2020. This is crunch time, right?

Yeah. No, you know, we've tried to do it with team Rubicon. We've had what we, you know, we call them virtual firesides. You know, one of the things that we've kind of had is a cultural, tradition at Team Rubicon. When we're out on these missions, we'll try to have like literally a campfire because we're out in some remote places

and you see people get around this campfire and it's amazing what happens when people sit around a campfire, right? Like since the dawn of time, right? Like it's just like campfires like unlock a different side of us. We like we share stuff. Yeah. Yeah, let alone like every man on the plan at thinking that they have like the secret to building the perfect one.

You know, like since we created fire and like the spoken word, humans have just wanted to sit around campfires and tell stories. And it's just amazing. And so we've we've tried to, we've tried to recreate that, you know, in a virtual setting. And, you know, listen, it's good. It's not the same. But it's good enough. It's getting better.

I think that one of the one of the things that's, I think, challenging, you know, so my unit, second battalion, seventh marines, has had at least at one point, a couple of years ago, the highest suicide rate of any battalion that had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. We lost more men to suicide than we did to the enemy, and we lost a ton of guys to the enemy. And the New York Times wrote a big expose about five years ago on our battalion in the suicide epidemic. And then the same writer just last month wrote a follow-up story talking about how the political discourse and, you know, just the dialogue around Trump and Biden and all this stuff was tearing our battalion apart because these guys were trying to connect online in these

Facebook groups that we have. But people were getting so divisive over politics that was actually ripping the battalion apart. And I just find that so sad. You know, when people people say, you know, hey, how do I think a veteran on Veterans Day? Can I say thank you for your service? Of course, you can say thank you for your service. You know, I can really make a meaningful difference. Make it worth, you know, make it worth it. Right. And I think about what I fought for. I think about the country that I love. And I think about what I see playing out right now. And it's just, yeah, I do it again. Yes, it's still worth it. But God, I'm not just as fuck, man, we can do better, right? And we have to do better. And so I think a lot of guys are just a little bit jaded

about, you know, I spent all this time defending this country that's now ripping itself apart from the inside. That's tragic. How do you grapple with the concept of patriotism now? I mean, because it seems to be getting pulled in a million different directions and whether it's the meaning of the flag or like, it's just I've, I've, and I, and I, and I, and I, I, and I, I don't have your background, obviously, where that flag means something different to you. But I grew up as a kid and a little bit of naivete, but I'm proud to be an American and that sort of thing. And I still am, but I'm proud because of the people. You know, I'm proud because of what we could be, you know, and our potential.

And you've served and you mentioned that kind of that feeling, that sinking feeling that maybe we're tearing each other apart right now. What is patriotism at this point in 2020? Yeah, that's a good question, man. I don't know. I should have gotten that in the read ahead. Yeah, fuck. Well, I just thought of it. Well, you know, it's crazy. I think, I think what patriotism is has been warped. And I think that the war has been hijacked. And I think we're suffering from almost a fetishism with patriotism. And we're putting all of these crazy litmus tests in front of people to determine whether they're a patriot.

And, you know, you mentioned, like, you know, growing up, being proud to be an American. I am. I was growing up. I remain proud to be an American. But I've also come to learn through my experiences the first time, really, in the locker room at Wisconsin, where I met guys from walks of life that I never could have imagined growing up in a small town in Iowa. And later in the Marine Corps, I've learned that my America was definitely not everybody's America. you know, and in understanding that, that people experience America in different ways and the promises that America has made to its citizens play out dramatically differently for people across this country, we should allow for different versions of what patriotism is. And the final thing I'll say, just, you know, before letting you respond is we shouldn't conflate

patriotism with the ability or really the need to be critical of our country. It conflates the wrong word, but we should be able. They're not mutually exclusive. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We have to be critical of ourselves.

What is Veterans Day? What should Veterans Day mean? You know, how should we celebrate it? How should we frame? it. Wow, man. You know, I think, you know, I think it's, I think it's good to honor veterans in those who've served. I think that that's an important place in a country that has an all-volunteer force. I think, you know, one of the things that we have to realize is just how much of a luxury it is for a country of our size to have an all-volunteer army, right? I mean, that's actually, I wouldn't say rare, but that's, it is a luxury.

In order to keep it that way, we've got to do a better job of framing what it means to be a veteran. And so, you know, we have to win this narrative. I see, I see like today's veterans issues as a battle for the narrative, right? So the narrative is often, hey, these poor men and women, they came back, they must have suffered so greatly. We owe them so much. and, you know, some of them suffered greatly. Most of them did not. They all made a sacrifice, right?

They all joined. They all spent time away from family. Some of them are horrifically injured. You know, I've got men that I served with, you know, a guy in my squad who lost three limbs and he's alive today. Actually, amazingly plays Paralympic ice hockey on the U.S. Paralympic team with one arm. But that's not how we should frame veterans. I would prefer us to think about, okay, these are everyday Americans who made the decision consciously to serve their country.

They went overseas because we asked them to. They executed a difficult mission with amazing, you know, grit and tenacity. And they came home and most of them are stronger and better for it. We must take care of the ones who are coming home, hurt, injured, ill, and been sure that they can have the highest quality of life possible. But for the 95% of Americans who are coming back from these wars overseas, who are really truly, I believe, stronger as a result of their service, how do we now ask more of them? How do we ask them to lead in our communities, serve as, you know, that beacon of strength that we need? Maybe that bridge builder that can talk to both sides or the three sides or four, however many sides of America there are, because they've seen it all, they've gone to war with it all. I mean, that's what we need to be doing. You mentioned Clayhunt, you're basically a brother to you that you lost to suicide. More veterans have died from suicide, by suicide, since 2001, than actually in active duty. Is that true?

At least since 2011. I don't know if it goes all the way back to 2001, but it's a staggering number. You talk about all this in your book. By the way, we have any, I talked about it in the open here. with everything you've done in your life, you're also an author now, once a warrior. We'll get you the information on where you can pick that up. You, the listener.

How do you go from a guy who's seen and done the things that you've done, and it couldn't have always been pleasant, to an author, to somebody who's working in veteran advocacy spaces, to somebody who's met with Bush, with Obama, who the first time I saw you, you're in a suit, in a fucking elevator in L.A. And we, I look at you. I'm like, I know this guy.

And you're looking at me. You're like, I know this guy. I thought you were a movie star. How do you go from this guy who's caked in fucking sand and sweat and, you know, everything you've been through to you come out of the phone booth like a like a bureaucrat? I mean, you're not acting like a bureaucrat, but you got to dress like one and talk to him. How do you make that transition? Yeah, I'm so wondering sometimes myself, man.

man. I look at my life. I look back in my life. You know, and sometimes I look back at the last 20 years and I, you know, there were a lot of tragedies, man. I mean, there were a lot of hard, hard moments. I lost, lost a bunch of Marines, a bunch of friends overseas. Lost a bunch, including my best friend to suicide coming back. You know, it's, you know, lost my dad at a young age. And it's easy to, it's easy to think of, about all of those, both those decades and, you know, get mired in the bad stuff. And then I think about, you know, all the amazing opportunities that I've had along the way as well. And, you know, when I, when I think about anybody's life, you know, life is really just a series of moments, right? And in every moment that you face, you're faced with the decision. Like, you know, you can do one thing or the other. And it's like the accumulation of those that get you to where you are. So when people ask me, like, how did you, how did you leave the Marine Corps?

How did you come back from Afghanistan and start this company and write this book, do all these things? It's like, man, I, honestly, it's so many periods along the way. It was just survival. It was just waking up and, you know, figuratively putting one foot in front of the other. And I, you know, gotten lucky along the way on top of it. Yeah. But, you know, frankly, I look back in my wartime experience. And half the time, I just breathe a sigh of relief.

that I even made it back alive, you know? Veteran advocacy. Now that you're back and thank goodness you are, because you're moving mountains, you know, you talk about veteran advocacy a lot. How can we better advocate for veterans? I've asked you how we could better thank them,

but when it comes to the rubber meet and the road in D.C. or at a government level, you have been in those meetings. You have met with some heavy hitters. If you could do one thing to change as much as you could, what would you do? Yeah, I think the one thing I would advocate for is to allow veterans to repurpose some of their education bill benefits to dedicate one to two years to national service

in a non-military fashion. So we've done a great job. We've passed like some really handsome benefit packages for vets to include really, really generous education bill benefits. And I think if we allow the cost that we pay, I mean, we're probably talking at least $50,000 a year worth of educational benefits for four years. So 50K a year, if we just allowed a veteran to earn a living wage through a government grant, through a program that allowed them to not go to school because maybe that's not really for them. They're not really quite ready to enter the workforce yet, but to serve in some meaningful capacity and make a living doing it. And, you know, again, going back to purpose being such a powerful driver of a positive reintegration

experience, I think that would save lives and ultimately, like, make for an amazing return on the financial investment. What was the hardest part of this book to write that you really struggled, you know, putting pen to paper and having the balls to just go? I would say two things. One, you know, the people ask, oh, how long is the book? I'm like, 320 pages. Like, how did you write so much?

I'm like, honestly, I wrote 500 pages worth of stories. One of the challenges was figuring out which stories I wasn't going to tell. And so it was really hard for me to part ways with stories that were so deeply personal to me. You know, stories of moments overseas, stories of moments in Team Rubicon, where I, as they were happening or upon reflecting back on them, I'm like, how can I not possibly include this story? Like, it would be a disservice to that moment to the people that were involved with it. So that was, that was the first thing. the second thing though, and this was what was really hard was, and it was part of the reason I wrote the book,

it was really hard to come to terms with how I felt about the war, you know, like to actually process what, you know, a decade after I, you know, 13 years after my last firefight, like looking back on it, what did I actually feel about it? Because if, you know, in the decade since my time, in the Marine Corps, depending on the day you asked me, what did you, what do you think of the war in Iraq? What do you think about the war in Afghanistan? I would have told you, you know, I'd flip-flop on that answer all day long. And so the process of writing it really forced me to just reflect on what it all meant. And to be honest, I'm not really sure that book actually answers that question, which I think is pretty revealing about just how complicated war is.

well and when you're on the ground you don't you're not allowed to think about macro yeah well it's dangerous too you're allowed to but man it'll get you down a rabbit hole that's not all that productive for staying alive are there moments were there moments when you were deployed where i don't know if you had mixed feelings at the time but you know your your job is to encounter an enemy and did you ever reflect on maybe some of the common you might have with that enemy that's, you know, a couple hundred yards away or in a building or I don't know how you would frame it. But are you ever sitting out there and you're thinking, golly, we're out here, we're out here shooting at each other. Maybe neither of us have thought

about the macro. Yeah, that was actually one of those things that was, yes, the answer yes. There are a number of times. I remember the first time somebody tried to kill me, you know, a couple days later, you know, quiet night sitting on post, thinking about it and just thinking to myself, like, that guy wasn't born evil, you know? We think about, like, we think about the Taliban or we think about al-Qaeda and we think that they were like, they were born 24 years old with a beard and a rifle in their hands. Like, that's not how it works, right? Most babies were not. So, you know, I remember sitting there thinking like, did this kid when he was seven years old a dream about playing on the Iraqi national soccer team.

Did he imagine being an astronaut like I did or any of those other things that kids go through? Because he wasn't born evil. And then it just, that forced me to reflect on, again, perspective and like, you know, going back to, well, there's two versions of America. Like, what was his life like that led him to hate me so much that he would try to kill me? So that, you know, that happened a bunch. And then, I mean, I tell you what, when I was in Afghanistan, I was working on a sniper team. And, you know, we'd, every once in a while, we'd embed with these local Afghan National Army guys.

And we'd have an interpreter. And there was one night, I remember we were sitting up on a rooftop. It was Ramadan. And so these, these Afghans invited us to break the Ramadan feast with them. They hadn't been eaten all day. And they've made this cook to this goat. And then we were sitting up there. First of all, they were all smoking opium.

So, like, that was pretty wild. It's my six-man team. We're about to go out on this mission. It was like a big mission that night. and these guys had to like cover our insert. And I'm sitting there watching them get high as fucking kites. And I'm like, okay, well, our cover is completely blown. You know, for this.

But during this conversation, we had an interpreter there. And, you know, again, these were our allies. But at one point, one of the guys asked, you know, something to the effect of, you know, hey, are you ever going to come back to Afghanistan? Like, when the war's over, you ever, do you think you're ever going to come back to Afghanistan? And I'm like, yeah, you know, it was a question I pondered a lot. You know, will I ever be able to visit these places where all I did was violent things and maybe take my daughter there someday in the future to just explore as a part of the world?

And I don't know. But the guy said, you know, something to the effect of, you know, if you come back and you come back with a gun, will probably be enemies and I'll try to kill you. It's like, oh, man, okay. You know, just, and it just got, you know, it just gets you thinking about. It seems like there's a thin line of just, we're good, but, you know, it just could be way different next time I see you. Well, I mean, think about Afghanistan. They've been at war for 100 years.

Yeah. You know, and, you know, country, nations, empires have come and gone. They've beaten them all. We were no different. You know, we were just the most recent one. And they were allied with us for certainly not ideological reasons. mostly economic and those can

disappear in a heartbeat, man. Will we always be at war as a country? Kind of seems that way these days, right? You know, and I don't know that most Americans realize how many countries we are

conducting kinetic operations in 365 days a year. South Philippines, Niger, you know, Malawi, you know, places in South America, you know, it's low-intensity conflict, but we have people, I mean, just like remember what would happen when the green grays were ambushed in Niger, what was it, 18 months ago. I mean, Americans were shocked. How did we not know our men and women were in harm's ways? It's like, well, it's because you've been out to lunch since 2001.

What can we do as people? I mean, it's a very macro question before I finish with some fun football shit, but what can we do? Like the human race. Is it greed that drives all this? Is it fear? Like, you know, it's such a macro question.

I apologize for asking it, but I'm just... I think it's a lack of empathy. And I think it's, our willingness to dehumanize populations, right? And they go hand in hand. And you know, you can look at that on a global perspective. You can look at that in America. You know, in the United States, which is going to hit closer to home for your listeners,

it's really easy for us to say terrible things about, you know, people on the other side of a political argument or the other side of the train tracks, whatever it might be, because we have never made an effort to, gain a perspective into their life, to understand their hardships, which by definition doesn't allow us to empathize with their position. And then when we get to that point, it becomes really easy for us to go one step farther and just to completely dehumanize them. And you see that playing out in politics today on both sides. I mean, it's, you know, both sides play into that. We can agree that it is an ugly fucking game. Yeah. On both sides of it's an ugly game.

Yeah. You know. And yeah, I just feel like where there's power to be grabbed, there's always going to be self-preservation. It just sucks. And you wonder if it's ever going to slow down. Speaking of intense conflict, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Isn't that the one where you guys get a, is it a bucket or an axe?

It's the axe. We get the axe. Yeah. Paul Bunyan's axe. Hard right turn from geopolitical shit. Yeah. The Big Ten football. I always, and the people listening heard me talk about your football background.

I always have people compliment the team or the organization they hate. Do you have a compliment that you could pay the Minnesota Golden Gophers? It's very kind to them to have let us keep the acts. for as many decades as we've kept it. That's great. You didn't actually come. Hey, are you on board with the whole boat concept there?

You know, it's pretty gimmicky, man. But I mean, the guy's been successful. If I was still playing at Wisconsin, I would say, it's really cute. And when you did play at Wisconsin,

I guess the burning, question for me was I let people in on the whole Joe Thomas situation. Why does Joe Thomas hate the troops? Why would he do that to you? Why would he disrespect you like that and take your job? I don't understand that. He's un-American. I think we can agree on that. He is un-American. Joe Thomas is un-American. I was fucked up. I'll tell you this, man. You talked about, You talked about when we ran into each other in the elevator before the SPs. And you said you looked at me and I looked familiar. I looked at you and I thought, thank God I didn't make it to the NFL.

And that's how I feel when I watched D.K. MacCab, I'm to say, thank God I'm not playing anymore. I see the least fucking guys. So I'm right there with you and shit. And I did it for 11 years. Tell us the Joe Thomas story. How apparent was it immediately that he was that dude? Yes. I remember, I don't remember if I was going into my Muslim,

into my junior year. And we had a guy that played before me. His name was Ben Johnson, all big 10 player, you know, and he went on to the NFL. And I thought, okay, like, I'm going to compete for the starting job. Like I think, I think I can lock it in. And, uh, and my coach pulls me aside, uh, my office blind coach during the summer. He's like, hey, you know, this kid, we just recruited this kid, Joe Thomas, have you heard of him? And of course, I'm like, yeah, he was like the number one recruit in the country for his position. Everybody was talking about them. It's like Joe's, you know, finishing up some summer league basketball stuff, but he's going to be on campus.

I want you to teach him the playbook. I mean, you know, I think we're going to give him a shot at the job. I'm like, whatever, coach, yeah, I'll teach him the playbook. Kid won't be able to compete. He's probably, you know, he was like a beanpole. He was like 235 pounds. And, uh, so he shows up on campus and he is. He's been playing basketball all summer. He was, you know, maybe 235, 245 pounds. I mean, this kid ain't going to compete for shit. Give me a break. Two months later, fall camp starts. He's like 285. I'm like, okay, this is, this is, this is, this is a,

interesting, like three practices in. I'm like, God damn, you got to be kidding me, man. And at that point, man, I was just, I was just holding his water bottles for him. And the one thing was, I'm like, I was the guy that knew the playbook inside out. So I'm like, maybe this is my edge. This guy's probably dumber than a box of rocks. No, man, the guy's like a freaking road scholar on top. Brilliant. He's jacked again. He's back to his summer league basketball. Wait. Dude, well, he didn't look like that when he was, when he showed up, man. I mean, he hit puberty since then. But, man, yeah, he's about a transformation, man.

The guy must be doing CrossFit or something. I don't know what it is, but he's, yeah. Well, you would know if he's doing CrossFit because he'd tell you 10 times in your first conversation. Oh, gosh. Come on now. Like, listen. And for the Crossfitters, I got some mileage on on these tires.

I can't just be doing some of the shit that y'all are doing. It's just telling me about it. You actually play contact sports. Yeah. Not to leave on a low note and shit on CrossFit. We do like CrossFit. I just can't do it. Physically, I can't compete.

Jake Woodman, I appreciate you so much, dude. I really, I know everywhere you go, people probably give you the business on, you know, what you're doing and how awesome it is. And I've told you that in person before. But you really are in a dark time where we are all questioning kind of the status quo. You're somebody that I admire, man. So I appreciate you. and give people their flowers, right? You're the fucking man, dude.

I told you I'll come down and join you guys one time. I will when this thing clears up. And I hope to get you to Kelly at some point. I think we'd have a blast. I'd love to, man. I would. And I appreciate everything you've done for the community. I think at a time when, you know, the NFL was looking for leadership, you know,

at a community level, at a societal level, you stepped up and, you know, you did it for a long time. And, man, people take notice. and a lot of that relation for you. It means a lot coming from you. Hey, everybody, go check this shot. I don't read a lot of books, okay? You know, I'm not proud of that, but I'm going to go get once a warrior

because I know the author and check out Team Rubicon. They do amazing work. How can they help Team Rubicon? How can they check out the book? Yeah, I mean, listen, if you've gotten any listeners out there, military veterans, first responders,

we'd love to have you to sign up and join. Just go to Team Rubicon, USA.org. And for anybody else, man, it's been a tough year. We've spent a lot of money responding to 300 communities across the country. If you're thinking about making a tax, you know, a year-end tax-deductible gift, you know, we'll make your donation go far. You know, we are a charity. There's a dozen things more important to us than money, but they all cost money. And then, you know, last but not least, you know, go by that book. Hear the amazing stories of these, these Americans and team Rubicon.

I promise you you won't regret it. Jake, thank you. Be well. And best of the family, man. We'll catch you. up soon. We'll get a beer when this thing clears. All right. I'll count on it. Okay, buddy. Thanks, ma'am.