Julian Dorey Podcast - #38 - Grant Wiley

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Grant Wiley is a former NCAA Football All-American, actor, & tech entrepreneur. Currently Grant––along with NFL Veteran, Najee Goode, and Jonathan Ohliger––is the Co-Founder of Veepio, a mobile, direct-to-consumer, interactive Ecommerce tool. Grant is also an actor who has appeared both on screen and on stage. Previously, he was an NCAA All-American Linebacker at the University of West Virginia and went on to play in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings for 2 years, before retiring due to injuries. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 5:35 - Grant’s West Virginia Football & NFL Career background; The injury that ended Grant’s career; How to tackle Michael Vick at Virginia Tech 22:51 - The golden era of Big East football; The Rich Rodriguez era at West Virginia & Dawn of the Spread Offense; College Athletes & The Responsibility Coaches have to them; Grant’s relationship with Rodriguez & Defensive Coordinator Jeff Casteel 35:44 - Casteel’s recent interview about Grant; Grant’s discipline & work ethic; Grant’s leadership and bond with teammates on and off the field 46:46 - The death of Grant’s friend & former teammate, Chris Henry; The role of the media in unfairly vilifying athletes; The impact Death of Grant’s childhood best friend; Grant’s changes in NFL aspirations; Grant’s struggles with reason and purpose towards the end of his college football playing days; Grant’s goal line stop of Lee Suggs in 2002 1:25:42 - The brain impact of football, Concussions, & CTE; Grant’s thoughts on an NFL career that didn’t go as planned; A discussion on “Boomers” 1:38:24 - Grant’s recognition of the different experiences of others; Ego & Cancel Culture in modern discourse 1:46:05 - Grant’s discusses the mistaken narratives around his friend, Adam Pacman Jones 1:54:52 - More talk on Pacman & society’s instantaneous judgement of young stars with money; Talking with friends when they’re making poor judgements 2:07:28 - Grant’s career post football in the arts; How Grant came to love and admire creativity; Grant’s move to New York City 2:14:55 - Grant’s initial start modeling; A funny trip down memory lane with Grant’s college team photos; Grant’s introduction to acting studying with the late Bill Esper in NYC 2:20:45 -  Veepio and interactive Ecommerce technology; Veepio’s timeline since being founded in 2015; Veepio’s work with the Philadelphia Eagles and other Sports franchises 2:34:23 - Integrating 3D Technology into the real world; People’s resistance to change 2:43:20 - Grant’s empathy and his appreciation for “the process” ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ Show Notes: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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in a drunken stupor only to burst out hysterically laughing to realize that moment of realization was oh there's more for me to do this is just a stepping stone in my own personal evolution do you think you were gonna use it no I had the opportunity to use it that's what I was accepting. What's cooking, everybody? I've been sitting here for the last three or four hours trying to get this intro right. Recording, re-recording, recording, re-recording, recording, re-recording. And I'm kind of convinced it's not going to be to my liking because I'm not going to get to say everything I want to say about why I loved this conversation and why it was so, so important. So I'm going to do what I probably should have done in the

first place, which is give you the very high level and then let the conversation speak for itself. Silly me, right? I'm joined in the bunker today by my friend grant wiley if you are a fan of college football you should recognize that name grant was one of the best college football linebackers i've ever watched he played at west virginia university back in 2000 2001 2002 when they were in the big east with miami when miami the U, like actually the U, and Virginia Tech when Michael Vick was there, and many other teams. And so when I was a little boy, you know, five, six years old and first watching college football, I was a fan of the U. And I was watching the Big East. And I was watching Grant Wiley play in the Big East. So when I met Grant

back in January 2020, and found out who he was, I mean, that was crazy for me. I was like, I remember you, dude. You were a legend. But that's the thing. I didn't meet Grant Wiley, the football player. In fact, until this conversation where we talked a lot about it for the first hour and a half or so, we never really talked about his football career. That's not the Grant Wiley I know. I know the Grant Wiley who's a creative. I know the Grant Wiley who's a tech entrepreneur. I know the Grant Wiley who's one of the deepest thinkers I've ever met in my life that sometimes will take me for a three-minute loop where I have no idea what he's talking about and then boom just hit me with something where I'm like oh my god and I also know the Grant Wiley who would take the shirt off his back for anyone else and has done that apparently through throughout

his entire life so in this conversation yes we covered his whole career and it is an interesting one he did go to the NFL for a couple years had bad shoulder injuries and retired because of that and got into acting dabbled in music even a little bit got into the tech space many other things and the the life story the life arc is just beyond interesting but what i most appreciated about this and why I loved this episode was the fact that Grant took us up here. And if you're listening and not watching, I'm pointing at my head. He took us into his mentality throughout his life. He took us into his mental health throughout his life. He took us into the low moments and the high ones, but the low ones too. And when I was in here speaking with him,

I got lost in some of those moments, just locked in on the things he was revealing and how he was going about revealing it. It's hard to explain, but when you're in this studio, I hope you guys as the listeners can get a similar experience because it's pretty crazy when when when people go to those places so i hope you enjoy this episode i hope that intro did it justice and thank you to grant for coming in anyway if you're not subscribed please subscribe we are on

apple podcasts spotify and youtube and if you're on youtube right now hit that subscribe button hit that bell button and leave a like and comment on the video if you have a second to do so please also to all the people who have been leaving five star reviews with a comment on apple podcasts thank you i say it every week i'm gonna say it every week they're amazing i appreciate them and they're a huge help. If you haven't had a chance to do that yet and could take a minute to do so, I would also really appreciate you as part of that first group of people who already have. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dorey, and this is Trendify.

Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where's the news? You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. When I met you, this is what I like.

When I met you, I would have never, ever guessed who you were. You're a very subtle guy. You're extremely creative, not just in like your style and what you like, but you're very creative in how you talk and how you listen to people. It's very interesting watching you as you listen to someone because you kind of have that thing about you in your eyes where you're taking in a lot more than just what I'm saying or what the speaker's saying. And it's, I don't know, it's hard to explain.

But you were a fucking unbelievable, unbelievable all-time linebacker at West Virginia. And when I was first talking to you, I didn't know this. But tell me about that because now I see, we'll get to what you're doing now, but now I see a guy who is in a totally different world, right? But for years, I mean, I guess for 15, 20 years of your life, football was the central role of what you do. Yes.

Thank you for the compliment. It's funny when you say that. I think, yeah, but I could have been better. And that's something I've been working on for a long time. But yes, for the first- What do you mean you could have been better? guys that were better than me you know what i mean yeah in my own world i had a very successful career as a linebacker um playing in west virginia having a huge cup of coffee with the vikings and you blew out your knee no shoulder shoulder shoulder it's shoulder was a part of my transition. That was a way for me to stop playing. I could have come back. I just didn't have the gas to live in the training room.

And that was your rookie year that happened? Rookie year, got on the IR, blew my rotator cuff. I was in a one-on-one drill with my roommate who was a tight end. I beat him in a simulation to get to the quarterback a one-on-one drill with my roommate. It was a tight end. I beat him in a simulation to get to the quarterback. One-on-one drill. He pulled me to the ground. 280 pounds. Landed on an extended arm. Rotator cuff rips.

I knew it was those moments. I'm lying on the ground. I was like, yeah, yeah, this isn't, my shoulder's not right right now. Was the shoulder out? It was not moving properly out because i i subluxed and marginally dislocated my left shoulder in high school this was a different sensation whereas like yeah i can't really move my arm so you didn't so you had a torn labrum already in high school yeah tore my labrum you never fixed it here's this is some fun facts oh yeah you got it

two-time we're in the club we're in the shoulder club so high school arm extended pulling a guy down with one arm he pulls my shoulder out of place I run off the sideline like lethal weapon somehow jiggled it back into place i keep playing i was playing two ways high school this is junior year senior year going into training camp totally thing keeps happening after i thought it was you know rehab at winter while i'm playing basketball it would fall out of place as i was trying to dunk could you lift uh very little because the more you extend it it just wants to slip out and then it just gets worse and worse and worse and you're playing middle linebacker too well this is let me let me finish junior year

i'm done i play basketball thinking that i can rehab and play basketball but it's falling out of place when i'm going up to grab rebounds or dunk. So I knew something was wrong. I went to Dr. DeLuca, who was the Eagles doctor. Come on. You know him? Ah, yeah. Word to word, the frat bro.

Shoulder frat bros. The first set of scars under there, he did. And then the second surgery I had three years ago when I blew it out jerry did the big jer who's another legend over there i don't know him jerry jerry williams is he's another he's the guy he's phenomenal so uh dr deluca did i eventually went to dr deluca after my senior high school season but i could only play running back my senior year of high school did not play linebacker but i was already committed to west virginia to play linebacker did that after i re-injured i called coach kralava i was like coach as my shoulder keeps he's like all right whatever it's like just play you know play as much as you can your senior year suck it

up no he's he's an interesting character play play as much as you can your senior year suck it up no he's he's an interesting character play play as much as you can your senior year you're we're going to honor your scholarship you're going to come here you're going to red shirt you're going to get bigger faster stronger after the surgery and then you're going to start as a redshirt freshman i was like sold so then i went had surgery from deluca sat out my whole winter just getting the surgery and then preparing for the big 33 which was a dream of mine to play in since i was eight years old the big 33 is the high school all-star the super bowl of high school all-star games at the time it was Pennsylvania versus Ohio two powerhouse states with big timers going to Penn State Ohio State all around the country

West Virginia Georgia to everywhere Georgia uh so the last time we were at that because my dad would take my brother and I and a group of friends of ours to inspire us uh as my dad played college football oh he did yeah cw post okay on long island so he play or he would take us to this game in hopes that we would be inspired and and just be or be around it that's that's how you get better so i remember the last time we could go because my brother was starting to get more serious in high school and just time restraints my sister was that's that's how you get better so i remember the last time we could go because my brother was starting to get more serious in high school and just time restraints my sister was playing sports i said my dad's like the next time we're here is going to be me playing and sure enough

uh 10 years later the next time we're at the big 33 i have the 22 jersey that my brother also wore and I'm playing I played fullback in the the the game and that's just to keep the time on right that was pre-surgery that was right after so I sat out my winter senior basketball season had surgery and made it in time for july wow so i was a little i was way ahead of time yeah schedule because that's a really invasive hell yeah surgery painful there were you front side and back side just front side okay but they'd scope the back yeah so i have a beautiful scar. I love I love I think scars are beautiful scars are great man So then I get into the big 33 all of the premier players of Pennsylvania that I've been reading about because we didn't get much pub at my high school until my senior year and

Then we meet it's like Rod Rutherford was the number one quarterback One of the top quarterbacks in the country. He ended up going to Pitt. And so I'm seeing all these guys, you know, and some of us are friends to this day. And then I go to West Virginia, and I was destined to play linebacker. I always wanted to play safety, like Brian Dawkins was my guy. B. Dawkins. Love that. Ronnie Lott.

It's like I would watch them to be a better linebacker. And you were a middle linebacker. Yeah, I could play anywhere at linebacker. But primarily, when I went to West Virginia, we ran a 3-4 scheme, and I was the will. And that's what you want to play in 3-4, because you're covered. Covered meaning you have so many guys in front

of you covering the gaps and around you covering the other gaps so you have somewhat of a a free range to improvise uh you still have responsibilities but when you're fast and instinctive you want to play will and you started as a freshman though redshirt freshman redshirt so i went as a true freshman at 195 pounds earned my stripes early on in training camp just being fearless between getting my ass kicked getting up and continuing to fight and really making some eye-opening plays and then retro freshman year one a guy that was older than me ended up just focusing on his medical degree because he knew what he knew I was there I was gonna start and he was just like you know let

me just focus on being a doctor and more power toby's great guy yeah so yeah get to west virginia had a lot of fun end up starting redshirt freshman year like the like coach said and i was 225 wow yeah i put on a lot of i mean i was partying all the time eating as much as possible 6 000 calories a day just to get up. And then eventually my senior year, the heaviest I ever was with 242, which is crazy. You know what, though? 6,000 calories is a lot. Don't get me wrong.

That's a lot. It's a lot. But thinking just, you know, because my buddies were D1 football players, I saw the schedule, what they're doing. I lived in the middle of that and it was intense. Just thinking about how much you're training and everything though you know to put on 30 pounds only eating that amount with all the lifting and all the agility drills and stuff you're doing around the year that's actually like not insane no it's not insane but it's a lot it is a lot and

i didn't do it necessarily the right way i wasn wasn't juicing or using any performance-enhancing things. I was too scared. Creatine had just started to come out. Probably my sophomore, like year three is when creatine was the new thing. Creatine is that – here's a more specific question though. Is that actually a steroid or is it a performance it may be now i don't know i don't pay attention but back then it was this powder that helped you retain weight that wasn't a steroid or cat or it wasn't illegal it may be now i don't know oh it's

but when i was yeah we were we can take it We were being it was being shoveled into our diet Now what they consider a classified now, I have no idea but that wasn't until my third year and But rewind redshirt freshman year played against michael vick that was fucking awesome he was the best best in the world see if it was he the fastest person he and santana moss they and said hold on santana moss is a world-class track athlete michael vick may have been faster with the football on his end definitely more elusive but straight ahead

is like i tried chasing him down santana moss and he just kept getting further and further away from me and i wasn't slow this is i wasn't world-class track though this is back in the days of the big east though like when it was the u it was virginia tech yeah Syracuse was really good they were started to decline when I yeah my last few years Pitt was up and down Fitzgerald was there when I was there he was you played against him yeah that's right yeah but yeah I played against a lot of a lot of fun a lot of good people Kevin Jones from the area he was a number one running back in the country at the time what do you do in the open field you're a linebacker you run probably like a four six forty four five you ran a four five i'm sorry i gotta take a tenth

off that but still you run a four five and michael vick's coming at you in the open field. Stare at his hips. That's it. Stare at his hips. And if you blink, he's gone. Yeah. And you can see it. You can literally see it because he was so subtle and he was lefty. So he was smooth, subtle. But he would do this thing where he just twitched his left shoulder. Just his left shoulder, he would twitch it and you would go flying to his left

shoulder and he would dip under and around and be gone and it's like all you could as like i remember going into that game i was like if i get the chance i'm just staring at his waist because your waist doesn't lie your waist is your legs it doesn't lie and the fortunately the last play of the first half i came in on a blitz and i was at his backside normally he could feel it and he felt me too late and tried that move and i my put my face mask right like aiming for his right below his lower back and above his ass. It was like there was a target like this. I was like, I'm hitting that. And I was able to bring him down.

Yeah, that was fun. Do you know where he got his quarterback style from? Do I know? Yeah. His earliest influences. I mean, it had to be Randall that has to be in there. I mean, I can't speak to guys who were in the league. Steve Young was a lefty and moved similar in that way.

I'm sure he watched guys in the league, and I'm sure there's a whole bunch of places he kind of drew from, and then a lot of it was natural talent. But his cousin was Aaron Brooks. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Virginia. But if you remember, Aaron Brooks was a longtime starter for the Saints. He was aaron brooks oh yeah yeah virginia but if you remember aaron brooks was a long time starter for the saints he was a decent quarterback in the league

he wasn't particularly mobile he wasn't known as like a runner or anything aaron brooks down in hampton virginia where they grew up like newport news aaron brooks crosstown rival was a really good quarterback oh alan iverson yeah yeah so michael would watch right aaron brooks crosstown rival was a really good quarterback oh alan iverson yeah yeah so michael would watch right aaron brooks play against alan iverson in the crosstown rivalry and if you watch alan iverson's high school tape you're watching michael vick they are very very much the same guy which is just a crazy fucking thing because you know know, obviously I'm like the biggest Allen Iverson fan of all time. Yeah, Allen Iverson, if you grew up in this area, I'd never, one of the proudest moments of being from this area was,

I was in school training for our season and AI stepped over toon Liu in game one. And I was doing circles around my townhouse at the time because there was only a few of us that were cheering for the Sixers. Everybody was like, oh, the Lakers are going to kill him. I was like, it's AI. It doesn't matter. He's one of the greatest athlete warriors ever. Ever, man. Ever.

One of the most underappreciated athletes i've ever seen i've asked people for years now probably the last decade i've asked people the question or i just tell them name me the starting five that alan iverson had in game one against the la lakers and no clue it well a lot of people will get at least two of them. You know, they'll get Mutombo right away. And then, you know, some people get to Eric Snow. And I always have to say that in that series, in that series, they started Aaron McKee.

But normally it was Eric. We wanted to go with the lineup he took there, right? So it was Eric Snow. Maybe the best fans, maybe the best fans get me the fourth guy. And they'll get me Tyrone Hill. No one has ever gotten the fifth guy because it was that embarrassing of a lineup. Geiger? No.

Geiger was at that point the mannequin on the bench. Oh, yeah, okay. It was Jermaine Jones. Oh, yeah. Jermaine Jones, who later played in europe for years but he was the rodman dude they took i mean that's being very generous he took a team he did his thing 56 and 26 they went through vince carter and the raptors they went through ray allen glenn robinson and the bucks and then beat the lakers in a game on their turf in the finals with that lineup. And like all due respect

to Dikembe Mutombo, very good defensive player. Great defensive player. In that era, it didn't matter how good of a defensive player you were. You couldn't stop Shaq. So he was useless on defense. And Dikembe Mutombo was one of the worst offensive centers you'll ever see in your life. Allen Iverson took that team and won a game in LA. And till the day I die, I will tell people how fucking unbelievable that was. That man put some respect on his name. Put some respect on his name. Oh, boy. Yeah.

Oh, that's funny. But you played all four years during the golden era i'm jealous the golden era the golden era man that's when the as you said earlier that's when the you was the you yeah you know that the the big east was legit there were great players coming out of there but you know besides michael who who were the best that you played against against yeah i thought william green was really tough boston college running back heisman hopeful he ran strong even he ran straight up and down but it was still Andre Johnson was a freak. People know his NFL career. He was like the size of a tight end running 4-3 and fearless.

Willis McGahee was a beast. But I would rather tackle, even though McGahee ran strong and was a monster in his own right i would rather tackle him than andre johnson in the open field i think andre johnson's another guy i look at in football similarly to alan iverson i think a lot of people gave him respect and everything but you're saying not enough he doesn't get enough he i mean he played with some dog shit quarterbacks for years he played on some bad teams and that man was a phenomenal wide receiver he's a producer yeah yeah who else what was your your freshman your redshirt freshman year was 2001 is that right no 99 was my true freshman year my first year playing as a red shirt freshman is

what they call it was 2000 so coach nealon recruited me and then 2001 was rich rodriguez's first year yeah so i was a part of the transition yeah now did a lot of guys have to transfer when that happened you know i don't know if they had to transfer well did they some would say they were forced out yeah they felt they felt they were better suited elsewhere and that happens at any program new regime new attitude or there's the door that's what it is and but it's hard to understand it's hard to understand at the time i'm a we're all young kids we get told that we're you're going to be here the coach is going to be here for 10 more years um and then they're not yeah it's the nature of the beast it's hard to understand for some for others you know you get the information you make a

decision off it but it wasn't as prevalent as it is today now it's like transfer portal so you have free agency in college football which is incredible effectively imagine go to West Virginia for three years and then transfer to Hawaii for my last two. It's like, that'd be awesome. But that wasn't, I loved West Virginia. I just didn't want to leave. I thought about it, of course.

Did you get along with Rodriguez? Did we get along? We got along. There was an unspoken respect for each other because we wanted to win. I wanted to win. I also felt like I earned some respect with what I had accomplished, but it was also expressed to me that I didn't. So there's also that driving factor of prove yourself again.

And I respect it. I wanted to win. I knew he, as tyrannical and as obsessive as he was with his way, you kind of learn. It's like, all right, let's see what happens. And the first year was an atrocity. We went three and eight. it's like all right let's let's see what see what happens and the first year was an atrocity we went three and eight virginia tech beat us 35 nothing at home and that's 2000 that's 2001 okay and then that's last year yeah vic yes i don't even think he played against us that game wait 2000

no 2000 was his last year was he in the because he was in the 0-1 draft yeah 99 they went to the national championship he was a redshirt freshman his sophomore year he was injured a little bit got it

and then he wasn't there for the beatdown that we took but then the following year we go a little bit got it and then he wasn't there for the for the beatdown that we took but then the following year we go eight and four and beat virginia tech at virginia tech and i was like we knew we we kind of knew he was like stick together just listen to the guy he's got this innovative offense that has spread like wildfire throughout college football in some way shape or form the spread offense was he has a lot to do with that running game being implemented throughout all playbooks right now so that was yeah i mean now I have a great deal of respect for him understanding a little bit more about life and what somebody that is in that profession has to do in order to achieve their goals. But at the time, you're a 19, 20-year-old kid. You're like, nah, you're being mean to my friends.

It's tough, though, dude. Yeah, it's tough though dude yeah it's not it's not for either for either party it's a it's a it's an intense learning experience at the very least if you want that like if you take it as that some people still don't feel so great about it it's one thing if you're a grown-ass man professional out in the world that's different you know but when you're in college no matter where you're from good background bad background whatever what you have in common is that you came from somewhere different it's probably your first time away from the environment you know and to put on top of the fact that you're going to school and you got to be responsible you're playing a division one sport you're working a 60 hour a week job minimum minimum i mean it's it's a crazy time commitment to say nothing of

your body and that's why you know there's the whole conversation now about paying athletes which i'm very much in favor of get your thoughts on that too but you know i always had an issue with the fact that a lot of these coaches, yes, they have a job to do. Yes, it's their career, like their ass is on the line. I get that. And, you know, it's a what have you done lately for me business. I get that. But I feel like you also have a responsibility to the fact that, you know, on a college football team at West Virginia, you got 125 kids or whatever it is who all came here to play for you. Even if they came for the last coach, they came here to this university to try to better themselves, get an

education, get a degree and sacrifice half their experience more than that to actually come out on the field and be prepared to try to win football games. You have to be a little bit of a life coach, not a little bit, a lot of bit of a life coach and a person, somebody who actually understands that like, hey, maybe I'm not playing this kid right here and maybe that's my star over not a little bit, a lot of bit of a life coach and a person, somebody who actually understands that like, hey, maybe I'm not playing this kid right here and maybe that's my star over there, but this kid matters too. And I feel like I witnessed some situations at least where that seemed to get lost in the fold. A lot of guys I knew, whether it be at the school I went to or at other places where coaches are just very, very transactional about their student athletes.

And that never sat right with me. Yeah. But spending time away from it after being involved in it for so long, you realize they're transactional too. Meaning, yeah, they sign a contract for three to five years but after that third year there's a thing called the hot seat yeah and so i feel like that pressure some handle it better than others obviously the sooner the earlier you start winning the less the less heat is on the seat. But I believe in compassion and empathy. I also believe in hard work and pushing through things certain times.

Discomfort is a blessing a lot of times. And we were talking earlier about the word responsibility, right? Life is a responsibility. What is your ability to respond? I love that. talking earlier about the word responsibility right life is a responsibility how you how what is your ability to respond I love that and I heard this I'm not taking credit for it I heard this from from a friend breaking down that word life is about responsibility your ability to respond to what life throws at you so I chose to play college football. The chances of a coach change with, in my situation, Coach Nealon, who had been there for 30 years,

there was a high probability. It happened. How did I respond? Okay, get better. Learn the system. I had a different defensive scheme every year since I was there. Every year we had a different. So I got there, we were in a 3-4.

The next year we were in a 46 or something like that. So you had a different D coordinator every year since I was there. Every year we had a different, so I got there, we were in a 3-4. The next year we were in a 46 or something like that. So you had a different D coordinator every year. The last two years, or my junior year we had two defensive coordinator, co-defense coordinators, and my senior year we had one of those coordinators. What was his name? Jeff Castile.

He was a great, great coach, great person. I heard him talk about you I that's that's interesting because Castile's awesome yeah he was helpful in the remote resurgence of West Virginia's defense this year they finished in the top in some categories one he's still there he came back as a defensive analyst the coach that was there had to be relieved of his duties for comments about something or other and then jeff was upped and my old teammate jamal good brother of mine he was he was a co-defense coordinator with castile's i mean when you have a master in the room with that kind of experience, can be very helpful.

So you had a, even throughout the transition, because, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it obviously seems like there was, as you said, an understanding with Rodriguez, maybe you weren't best friends with him or whatever, but you had a clear, great relationship and affection for the guy sitting in the room with you every day. Your position, not your position. Yeah, that's, in situations like this, I felt like we rally around that because Coach Rodriguez was really focused about getting his offense going because his offense is genius.

And when you start running that machine right, Pat White, Steve Slate, you saw what happened after I left. You get that machine going with the right people in place it's unstoppable georgia found out oklahoma found out in those those years pat was the year after you left pat was two years after i left okay he i believe he he redshirted i left in oh three was my senior year then he came in either a year and redshirted and then became the starter in oh five or six yeah it sounds about something like that yeah but but you see what happens in that office we knew that too because we'd talk to the offensive guys after practice and be like yo

we start getting this thing going it's going to be hard to stop and so we just believe because we would shut it down at practice but you're at practice like you see the same plays all the time if you're not paying attention then that's your fault i'm fairly and you're not getting in the field i'm fairly certain it was castile i will go check it again but i i remember hearing a inner and an interview maybe it was like a year ago or something like that, and I believe it was him, and he was asked the question, who's the greatest defensive player you've ever coached in all your years in college football? And he said you.

Nice. He went off. Thanks, coach. He went off. I really should pull that up and listen, but it was pretty amazing to hear, also because I knew you too, and I didn't know you then, right? Like I know you in a different phase of your life, but listening to him talk about you, the main takeaway from the compliment is that he said you did every single possible thing that was in your control 1000%. So whether that was film study or whether that was practicing the fundamentals,

like you talked earlier about looking at Michael Vick's hips, there's a lot of great players who don't think about tackling that way these days and even back then too. You get away from it, you just go on your muscle memory and you've got to give an ability and all that. But this guy went through the answer explaining that every single thing that you could control and be great at, you pounded at it, pounded at it over and over again, and then led by example for the rest of the people on the defense. And I think that speaks to how you've been able to do a whole bunch of different things in your life and get along with all different types of people of all different types of backgrounds.

Because on a football field in college, everyone's from a different neighborhood. Everyone's from a different walk of life. Everyone's from a totally different background. There's different walk of life everyone's from a totally different background there's different ethnic backgrounds there's all this diversity but when the 11 of you step on that field to go stop the fucking offense that's the job stop the fucking offense so you better be able to work together to do it yeah you you better put down your differences yeah what's the point of existing at least my opinion has always been i've always been naturally in leadership roles or people looking to me very young age i resisted it resisted it less and i resisted less and less as i continue to experience and that's what we always especially at West Virginia we always look at we're but we're a misfit school there's no recruiting base in the state so we're

like everybody's from everywhere Mississippi Alabama California maybe one guy plays from the state like actually contributes or two guys maybe and then everybody else is from everywhere else chris henry was from louisiana pac georgia r.i.p baby so we uh mcafee's from pittsburgh i mean i didn't play with pet but you see owen was from owen schmidt was from wisconsin so like at any different time there's guys from from all over the place and we knew that uh we had to and that's the beauty of sport one of the beauties of sport is that you there are no barriers it's like we're here going through this thing and we're going to line up and support each other through it and you fight like brothers any brother would on and off

the field but there you eventually come to that common ground and i do believe it it's helping in life because i've seen some really dire situations uh and you never know what another person's going through. And if you have that experience, hold on to that, and don't ever forget you don't know where other people are coming from. You don't know what other people have been through. And it's a great asset to be able to sit in that and be with that as you continue to go through life. What do you mean sit in that and be with that as you continue to go through life what do you mean what do you mean sit in that just embody it like don't don't intellectualize it just understand really because every you you can get in it's easy to get into oh yeah no I know I know I know yeah it's like if you know then just know and be in it and treat it as such as you go along because

you may be able to help someone along the way that maybe just needs somebody to listen to or somebody's having a bad day but not holding them to that moment understanding that it's just this moment and if if you've seen it in the past you're going to come across it again and to just be in that understanding of oh okay i get it we don't i don't know where you could maybe i could learn more to to better be of service so to speak so that is an asset i believe all college athletes get the opportunity to experience because life happens and if you're able to maintain that and and be in it throughout life it's very helpful did you have a major leadership role off the field too i mean it's pretty clear on

the field you were the quarterback of the defense leading the league in tackles every year like clearly i didn't leave the league i don't think i led the league at all you know but i led the team i led the team you didn't lead the big east in tackles i don't know maybe we'll have to check that. I don't remember. Well, either way. The team I did a couple times. Either way, though. Off the field. Did that carry over?

A lot. Yeah. You talk about having leadership roles be brought upon you and just getting more comfortable with it over time, but throughout college, you're way younger. Did you find yourself having a lot of your teammates looking up to you for advice on things or how they should carry themselves off the field or just general life? Or was it more on the football side? That's where you're the leader and then the rest of it kind of every man for himself. I think it happens both because if you're, why not?

Meaning, if I'm this example here why the discipline translates i feel like that's why i love this discipline so freeing because if i can discipline my actions and my focus here on the field then i can it probably is to my best benefit to do it off the field. And I had fun. Don't get me wrong. I partied. West Virginia? Yeah.

Yeah. It's a celebratory culture. And I embarked upon it as part of the reason why we go there. able to balance the party and the off the field stuff responsibly, limiting interactions with authorities and such, and then it translating on the field, it's a reflection. And I feel like because of that and because of our openness, it's like my apartment was always, if anybody needed to eat, if anybody needed a my apartment was always if anybody needed to eat if anybody needed a place to stay if anybody needed anything you knew you could at least reach out or just come through and so i feel like that also um is part of leader is part of being a leader it's not just because football is just a thing we're doing it's how we're connecting it's how we're meeting it's not just because football is just a thing we're doing it's how we're connecting it's how

we're meeting it's our common ground it's like but the real story is is the life and living with teammates um becoming friends building relationships it's all part of it and i i think it's a i believe it's a lot of fun to be able to provide in those kind of ways. It's ultimately why you play sports, because you feel that connection. You feel that camaraderie. And yeah, the NFL, that's a goal. But at the end of it all, and you hear guys talk about this all the time, it may sound cliche, it's about the relationships you build

and the relationships you maintain on and off the field from this common denominator of sport. And you maintain a lot of them. I mean, you're still going back and forth to the school all the time. Oh, yeah. Like actually even guys that came after you

that are part of the fraternity. But the guys you played with, it seems like you do a really good job like actually even guys that came after you that are part of the fraternity but you know the the guys you played with seems like you do a really good job just as everyone goes about their life in different places maintaining contact keeping those friendships and those bonds i try it's i mean try to stay in touch with as many people as possible and then coronavirus happened we all started zooming oh that's cool which was fun so there was uh this is yeah we had some fun like west virginia football alumni zooms with some real characters and it's not even people you probably ever remember or heard of give me some maybe but we all uh like who are some you don't think

that we would know i'm abraham jones i know you don't know he was it was on the team he's an extraordinary character we love him and he's just got this big personality and everybody jokes on each other it's like the funniest comedians are on the team yeah and everybody knows something about each other too and there's there's very few boundaries because you know it's out of love yeah and so we get on there and things just start getting ripped and flying and and stories being told and it's fun in that way and and the core or the lockdown quarantine whatever we want to call it, opened that up to us all, and it was a lot of fun. But yes, as well, our company, VPO, we're partnered with West Virginia University.

The three of us are former players, Najee Good and Jonathan Oligar, our CEO. Najee's currently a free agent in the NFL. Got me a Super Bowl, baby. Yeah. Shout out, Najee. It me a Super Bowl, baby. Yeah. Shout out Najee. And it's been one of our goals. We wanted to partner with our institution, West Virginia University,

and then they formed Vantage Ventures. And so now there's a way to streamline and help facilitate resources and business within the state, within the university, and other organizations throughout the country with vantage ventures with what we're doing with vbo and we want more like we want more alumni more connections uh and more people to get involved in that way because it's fun it's like mountaineers it's like you know what you went through. It's like, oh, you went to West Virginia? Yeah, me too.

It's like, what years were you there? I was there in 99 to 03. Oh, those years were crazy. It's like, what years were you there? 2010? Oh, okay. Because Najee was the guy that came way after you. Yeah, Najee was, I believe his last season was 2011.

Right. So you obviously had no overlap with him on campus, but played football at West Virginia. Who's your other partner again? Jonathan Oliver. Jonathan. Jonathan was two years older than me. Right, so you knew him there.

But that's cool. He's from Delaware. Right. And then I reconnected with Najee at a game years later. He was on the IR and that I had experience on the IR and he's like, how do I set myself up for life after football? And I was like, I don't have any guarantees. I just know that we're over here building something pretty unique in New York City. Come meet Jonathan, come meet with the team. And then we were in the infancy of VPO and building out the plan and the technology. And Najee came, had D'Amico Rines, our first investor on the phone, and then the rest is history. And we've been going ever since. Yeah. And I want to come to VPO, but I love how this is just a continuous journey for you with the team.

It didn't just stop with the guys you played with. It continues with the guys who come the years after and you stay involved with the school. But back when you were playing, it's almost like you had a chance to lay the foundation for what West Virginia became. After you left, they were seriously on the map with the Pat White and Steve Slayton and Chris Henry years and then continued to be a respected football program now with a lot of great players coming through there. I just want to say rest in prayer, Chris Henry.

Yeah, man. He's such a good brother. How much younger was he? He came in my last two years so at one point slim was staying with us in my apartment because we had we had a big pretty big space and he was in transition to get on getting on the scholarship because his first year he wasn't because there was a thing called prop 48 where you were on campus but you had to pay for your year and you couldn't be involved with all of the football activities.

Why was he? It was something with grades, right? And so it's a really challenging experience. I didn't experience it myself, but you could just see if you're not involved in all the activities, you probably don't feel completely a part of the program, but you know you're about to be there as long as you get the grade your freshman year, which he did. And he worked his butt off and then had an extraordinary career and then was emerging to be one of the top

receivers in the nfl and that was sad man yeah and he was a beautiful soul some always smiles and the last time i saw we were in atlanta i was with uh another good brother of ours pack and saw him on the bus and it had been a few years since we saw each other. We were like, yo! But yeah, he's still here. He is another example, though, because, and it's sad, it takes death to realize a lot of these things and for good things to become public but you know he died shit 07 08 it's been a while now oh nine i was in i was in brazil i was in brazil and i i was it was espn i was like what and then i hit up quincy wilson our other teammate, Quincy's father played for the 85 Bears, Otis.

Just a fun fact. But Quincy, good brother, I was like, yeah, we got to do something to commemorate Chris and to make sure that we all continue to come together and build a greater foundation for the next generations because we are that like quincy and i were roommates and we were like yeah we don't we all don't stay in touch or see each other enough so we created the the west virginia legends football clinic and it was awesome we had myself quincy put it all together it was free for kids from four years old till to 14 girls everybody and then we had a chris henry memorial basketball game which i we got uh pat mcafee to to my uh mc before like the he was on his journey

he was yeah still with the colts and i we had a mutual friend who passed away recently, Murph, rest in prayer. Murph had always told me that what Pat wanted to do, which is exactly what he was doing. So I called, I was like, Pat, I was like, hey, come and see this. You know, there's going to be kids there. So keep it somewhat. Yeah. But Pat, he's an intelligent dude. He's killing it.

Happy for him. I love that guy. He's really, he bet on himself yeah i always love to see that and so then we raised a significant amount of money you know owen schmidt came back uh a lot of guys from the past from my team from from their teams and we just did put kids through drills and we always say we want to teach kids how to be athletes because we learn you know we're natural we were at the time there wasn't all that training and stuff that's going on now so we're like let's teach kids how to get into a two-point stance and

bend their knees like that's what's important not records and it's like teach them how to be an athlete yeah because we i i was i was a big big on footwork which is why i was able to make so many plays because when you limit your steps you get there faster and i didn't i had no clue what that meant until i got until my freshman year and I was tripping over my feet trying to be fast and then coach was like no move your feet like slide slide I was like oh so I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna nail this I could do this and then I just got my feet right and all of a sudden I'm the first one to the ball the majority of the time just because of feet work yeah not because i was running four two you're still pretty fast though

four five playing linebacker 225 230 i wasn't slow moving yeah chris henry's another guy though because i started to say it a little earlier but but he was a guy that was often, in my opinion, misrepresented publicly. I think he got suspended once in the NFL for weed or something, something that everyone does. Weed? Yeah, exactly. I can't believe that a player would smoke weed. Nobody does that. Weed.

But that's the thing, and maybe part of it maybe part of it was like a different time but you know he got the easy label of like oh problem child and all that in the nfl and it's amazing how it took him dying for that narrative to completely change and for people to be like no this this guy was the best and to hear about that part of the story which i didn't even know you know he's got to come on campus from where was he from louisiana bell chase bell chase or chess where is that it's louisiana i believe it's outside of new or it's it's a slightly outside of new orleans okay so he comes from there to West Virginia, and he basically has to have a year where he makes it on his own

and isn't even involved in the program, not getting any help with that, and then does it. He's getting help. It's just you're not allowed to be full on with the team. You're not full on in it, right? You're not a part of it. You're not fully a part of the fraternity. There's a lot of restrictions, or there were a lot.

I don't even think it exists anymore. There's a lot of restrictions or there were a lot i don't even think it exists anymore there's a lot of restrictions but he does that does his thing comes on is everything they dreamed of and more in a player goes to the league and was a great player playing with chad johnson and i think was that was 09 the year he was there with elcho cinco was he there no not to to was in philly he was the year i believe well no he was going from philly at that point but he was i think it was the year after yeah wow time's going fast man it feels time doesn't exist i'm here to tell you that time does not exist it doesn't feel that long ago but i love hearing from guys who are on the inside on things and can speak to them and with him you you knew him as as the kid trying to get by from Louisiana it was a freshman and

in an environment that he was not used to and and couldn't even be fully in and then went on and had this really impressive career. And I'm sure a guy like you was somebody who could look up to and a leader, not just on the field but off the field, opening up your doors to him, making him feel welcome, and giving a guy like that a shot when in reality even a lot of people in public never did. I never, and I've said this like four times now but i never saw a positive story on on chris henry when he was playing and i was a fan i mean he was a great fucking player man i think positive stories get censored now well now now we can definitely say that but you know oh nine ten yeah for whatever reason it's been a trend for quite a while now is people do enjoy

the negative side of or the shadow side of people's personalities and for whatever reason like to identify people probably to to deflect that from their own their own flaws so to speak and be like point the finger and we've all done it we've all either done it or have experienced it and for whatever reason that was what the focus was on his his early on his career that was a focus uh but we see it you know i was just looking a meme came up on instagram and i was in minnesota when when randy moss didn't actually moon the crowd like his pants were on the whole time but he was the fake what is is is indemnified a word is that the word well i'm gonna say it's the word we'll go with it no he was condemned yeah that's it i remember sitting on my couch and Joe Buck was in outrage over the fact that Randy Moss pretended. He didn't moon the crowd. 100 year tradition between fans and teams out of fun

because Randy Moss is a fun person anyone that knows him knows that he's a fun loving person and then he got fined he got fined that was the week before he played the Eagles

and so there there was another opportunity for the media to make somebody out to be something that they're not yeah or focus on the shadow aspect the negativity because how dare you pretend to moon someone? Yeah. And that's, and that's a simple one, but yeah, they made it out to be a crisis. It's the same light though. And then, you know, you're behind the scenes though, you know, these guys and you know, they're, they're important to you. They're your brothers. They're, they're people that look up to you and, and it must be tough seeing narratives come out on on people because it's not like you can do anything to control those narratives

yeah and I think that sums it up you can't do anything to control it in my position as what I like I consider myself somebody that my friends that go through this is like call them up hey yeah you good because they know you know what can you do about it other than move on but i i believe it's important to have people that can just see your human see your because i know if i was going through something like that to have somebody call me like hey how you doing yeah good simply like yeah i just laugh because it's not it's not that serious as serious as these prognosticators and everybody's a journalist now everybody's the everybody's fact checker and it those were the early days now it's on the whole now it's on gas yeah but when you find out about something like when when chris passes you know

obviously you're devastated like that's that's like a little brother to you and everything it's a shock but you know is there some anger at that too because you're like this guy this guy did so much right and you know i i know him as chris and he was such a good fucking guy and you know now he's gone tragically but he was never appreciated for that he was never he was never looked at as an example that other kids could follow even if he didn't always do the right thing you know who doesn't when you're 20, 21, 22? Did a lot of the right things and was coming into his own in the NFL at the time.

I mean, he died when he was really starting to fucking hit it. Yeah, so I was in Brazil. I didn't, I wasn't, for me, I lost my best friend early on in my college career. What's the story there he was there's he was hit by a van there were some mental illness uh implications along with that i won't go into detail this is a childhood friend yeah we we met when I started playing Pop Warner football in sixth grade he was the man at the the program in the fact and Wolverines and I got kicked off my

soccer team for being disruptive because I all I wanted to do was play at this point I just wanted to play football and i was scoring averaging like four goals a game in soccer it was just easy and boring now if i was in different environment where there's great soccer play i'm sure it would have been much more challenging my whole life could have been different but i wanted to play football so i purpose i knew i was like because we weren't allowed to play until seventh grade i was like if i get kicked off the team i wonder if my parents will let me play right inner monologue and then uh i get kicked off the team get moved to metacta wolverines and i meet tim smith and he's the man he's walking around there like he's the man and

i'm when i go into new situations i've always just kind of been like okay you're the man whatever and just you know observe and and then you know find my way and so we knew of each other from there and then a few years later i was going into my i believe my sophomore season of high school i was on a mission my brother was gone so i'm no longer in his shadow it's time for me to step on the stage and i was going to assign this college which is in my backyard and i had a parachute and i begged my parents to buy me this parachute because this is how i'm gonna get fast they're like all right you remember the parachute yeah you tie it around your waist thing this is like now there's all kinds of bands and i was like i saw this parachute on commercial i was like mom dad i need this parachute

are you gonna use it i need this parachute. Are you going to use it? I need this parachute. I'm going to use it. And my dad was good with it. He gave me a little workout to do with light weights because he knew you need to progress your way into training. And he gave me a lot of good guidelines. And so they got me the parachute. So I was on a mission. I would go to ursinus college i'd put the parachute on and i would do wind sprints on the the practice field in the in the

game field and i would envision myself running down on kickoff for florida state or or whatever college was tickling me at the time, just in my own imagination. And I would just run these sprints, and I would do hills and stadium stairs and just getting ready for my sophomore season because I wanted to start as a sophomore on a high school team. And on my way one day, Tim Smith comes riding down on his bike,

and there's this back road behind my house nobody knows about this road very unless you live there you don't know about this road and he's right now i was like i was like that's the kid from the fact of wolverines so i was like dude i was like i'm going to science college to train like probably talked like this too come train with me right and he's like all right but yeah and we're like let's be friends and then uh i went he didn't come with me that day but there then he started he got what i was on to and and we became best friends especially when he came on as a sophomore he was yeah and then we became best friends we won the championship together my senior year high school and then he was a year younger than

me so i go off to west virginia and then he becomes the man and he ended up going to lehigh on an academic football scholarship because that's what lehigh does he's a beautiful mind wouldn't study a lick could sit in chemistry take a test and get straight a's not even paying attention just got it yeah just had it and he was a a great rapper like he was he wanted to do music he was very talented he was my first dose of how to be yourself right you're very good i was very i don't know what you know i think i'm these things at the time and then here's this dude that's just bam this is me i was like i love this i want how do i you know and that's part

of because there were things of me as an athlete that he was good and then we were like this energy exchange if he's teaching me how to be my more myself i'm helping him as an athlete and then uh when i got to college it was he passed and pac-man came into my life and pac was the a whole other level of how to be yourself and instilling a sense of fearlessness and confidence which I admire in him to this day Tim passed away though Tim passed my junior year so I was getting ready to leave to the NFL I was already made up my mind I'm gone after my junior year did you get the grades back from scouts I got yeah I was on the Lloyd's of London insurance package. I was graded top three rounds in order to get that package. And then I was gone. I was like, oh, I'm going to leave after this year.

My goal was to leave after my sophomore year because Vic did it. And he won the biggest rookie of the year. I got the year after him. I was like, I'm gone like vic and then uh i got popped my hamstring against boston college really green and then uh had to stay because you can't you can barely do anything with pop tension yeah yeah that's a bad injury holy it was it's like getting shot that was more painful than my shoulder yeah shoulder and then uh yeah so he junior year we play at wisconsin the biggest game in terms of setting the stage for the nfl they have a heisman trophy running back anthony davis i think he was a jersey guy so

tim passes away that week And that was a learning experience. It was an accident. But my point bringing that up was getting to the grieving process. Because I was devastated then. I just didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know what it was. And I didn't have anyone from home or anything very familiar because I was at school. I could distract myself with football. I could just focus on the game,

the game, the game, the game, cry, cry, cry, the game, the game, the game, film, film, film. And that's what I was doing, right? We find things to distract us from dealing with emotion, especially which is changing fortunately because the conversation has changed for men especially uh women are much better at it than we are and i learned a great deal from women on how okay it is uh to feel our emotions anyways grieving after the wisconsin game i come out to the parking lot it was the first time i saw my family and we had lost could have beat them but we just didn't make enough plays typical typical of losing you don't make enough plays right so i cut yeah so i come into the parking lot i saw my mom

my sister my brother and my two my dad and my two two close friends of mine that came to the game and i just burst out into hysterical tears fell onto my mom an energy coming through me that i'd never experienced before i was just sobbing i remember i get into the bus after having this moment and my teammate because nobody knew this was going on it's not i wasn't posting there was no facebook or any of this you didn't tell anyone what was my closest my closest my roommates and some of my closest teammates but there to me i found no i wasn't going to gain anything i told my coach that was interesting uh there was nothing to gain by hey guys like this happened yeah i was just like let me just deal with it keep everybody focused and i'll deal with it.

And then I dealt with it. So I get back on the bus, and my teammate Lou Daniels, he looks at me, he's like, yo, G, it was just a game. I was like, and I'm bawling still. And I caught my breath for the first, I was like, yo, you're right. This is just a game. didn't even set it straight you didn't set it straight no cuz it was the greatest thing I could have heard for where I was in life at that time it wasn't about football. It was about life. This is just a game.

And I just so happened to be going. Learning a lesson. At this period of time. Tim passing. Rest in prayer Tim Smith. Another one. And to me it was. Wow you're right. Because all my eggs were in this football basket because i was telling people i was going to the nfl at four years old

but all my eggs are in this basket he says it's just a game i was like you're right all of a sudden this light goes off and i was able to just breathe again and then this single moment gave me a whole new perspective on how to approach life and then okay well I'm still playing this game I still love then depression more grieving drinking running drinking grieving running this cycle starts to happen and i'm in the season and football is still very much distracting me but this is where i go home for the funeral um and then but it that moment after the game really just busted my head open. I was like, this is just a game. And then as the season went on, I had an incredible season. And then when I came down to it, I was just like, I'm staying.

I was like, these are my brothers. Pac, Ito, Angel. i was like these are my brothers pack ito angel like all like these guys here slap all these listen you hear these names they're not names they're they're they're brother names right one of them one of them we know well but yeah this is what we call each other g you know what i mean so it wasn't so yeah when did you pop the hamstring? Sophomore year. It's a year before the passing. Oh, I understand. Oh, okay.

So you were talking about... I was going to leave after my sophomore year. Then I'm definitely leaving my junior year. This is the money year. I jump over the line against Virginia Tech, fourth and goal, play, blah, blah, blah. Comparing it to the LeVar leap from a few years before right and mel kiper mel kiper yeah mel kiper's calling me quite a bit my agent gary wishard's got the best

you and gary wishard yeah he had the best defensive line his his website was nothing but freaks right you didn't have an agent yet no you didn't have an agent i didn't have an agent yet. No. You didn't have an agent yet. I didn't have an agent yet, you're right. We're setting the record straight. I received nothing. Hypothetically. Which is true.

Hypothetically, I had someone that I would have gone to. Let me be your lawyer here. Hypothetically. Just the NCAA? Nothing to see. Okay, continue. Statute of limitations. Stat NCAA? Nothing to see. Okay, continue. Statute of limitations. Statutes of limitations, baby.

So, what a... Can you believe that that actually has to be voiced? Unbelievable, dude. So, I'm fortunate to have these references. Nothing but freaks. Dwight Freeney. Terrell Suggs. Jonathan Taylor, Elvis Dumerville. Like, the name.

The who's who. Yeah. He changed defense alignment contracts. So his argument, this is a great story, his argument for Jonathan Taylor, remember? Jonathan Taylor led the league in sacks. He's a freak defensive end. He's an anomaly because he didn't look like a defensive end, but he got to the quarterback better than all the other defense.

Jason Taylor? Jason Taylor, Miami Dolphins. Akron. Akron zips. Gary looks at the GMs. He's like, you got to pay him like a quarterback because he's getting to the quarterback. It's brilliant.

Changed the whole game right of contracts so this is my dad played college football with him at cw post my dad blocked for him he didn't know that i was jim wiley's son until after he looked into it. And then he's like, oh. It all makes sense now. And my mom introduced he to his wife. Oh, wow. Yeah. So you guys got some serious ties. But this didn't.

That's not what formulated it. No, no. He didn't know that until. He's like, who's this Wiley guy? This linebacker. And then he started looking into it. And then he realized thereafter that i was his teammate's son but he was just looking at me as a talent

so but so you thought you were gone i was no i was gone and then this happened tim passes and then life happens and some really dark moments uh yeah really dark moments with myself and starting to question life question my existence questioned if i even wanted to play football anymore because suicidal very yeah suicidal to an extent suicidal to the point where we had a yeah we had a weapon for protection and i would toy with it in a drunken stupor only to burst out hysterically laughing to realize that moment of realization was oh there's more for me to do this is just a stepping stone in my own personal evolution do you think you were going to use it no I had the opportunity to use it. That's what I was accepting. I knew I could use it.

But some otherworldly energy, so to speak, came through me and I started hysterically laughing. And I tucked the weapon away humbly I went back to sleep or I went to sleep and then I woke up completely sober and just so new eyes were you you were dealing with your grieving process in a couple different facets on one hand you step back from what you feel like is a hamster wheel you look at football and suddenly it's not just this magic thing that you do it's like well wait you know tackle game win lose next right over and over again you said something like that but yeah it was a toxic cycle sure that was trying to show me something but i only had these specific tools to work with but once you stepped out of that and recognized that it wasn't maybe everything you thought it was or it wasn't just this perfect utopia that

it's going to get you to the nfl and you're going to have your lifelong dream and live happily ever after there's all these other things with it that maybe aren't as nice. And then you have a moment where you lose someone who was associated with that sport with you, a close friend, and you're trying to learn how to deal with it yourself while still going about all that same shit, you know, get ready for the game this weekend, watch film, hit a motherfucker and win the game. You know, it's like you're stepping back and starting to say, well, what else is there? Right. The first time in my life. you know it's like you're stepping back and starting to say well what else is there right the first time in my life and then also accepting parts of myself that i didn't like and facing that

and then it's like once that happened because once you start what made you do that this the trigger was my best friend passing on but then you look at yourself yeah because i i started to question everything reality existence this is a game what does that mean right things i was not exposed to in my upbringing only to learn on my own three people passed away in our apartment building my one roommate's grandmother who was like his mom passed away my other roommate's father passed away my best friend growing up passed away within three to three to five months so it's like there's all this death around now i'm starting to you know gain some sort of bearings on what anything means to me at least questioning it uh and then yeah trying to figure out how to move forward with a very limited tool set only things that i knew drinking right yeah which isn't a positive no it makes it worse yeah it makes it 10 times worse uh was that your escape did you it's what it's a crutch well yeah that was one thing i know i

never had a problem a problem with alcohol right like we know as a problem but i would definitely use it to escape feeling numb myself um yeah just just overall abuse abusing myself with that with a b i feel like it's abusive to run from your problems too in in a way especially now instead of just facing be like okay what is this okay why okay and then starting to to go a little deeper into it, I feel like is actually a lot, I know it's a lot more helpful than running from it and pacifying or suppressing. But do you feel like in facing that you were a little, you entered a period of being self-destructive? Yeah. I was self-destructive. I was, that's what I knew.

I knew how to destroy me, right? Or destroy these parts of me, which isn't actually doing anything but making it worse. Were you angry all the time too? I was very, I was always very angry most of my life um which i learned how to channel and work with and express in a more productive way uh by just yeah throwing myself in the fire and learning and facing things why do i feel this way under these circumstances and just okay what works drinking doesn't so don't do it you know what i mean yeah smoking weed like cigarettes so i can't even feel high doesn't do it so don't do it. And they just trial by fire and then where's my focus?

Focus on maturing, focus on putting good things, healthy things into your body. Focus on a positive conversation with yourself, however you gotta get to it yeah focus on these things that are going to get me to where my next goals and dreams are but going back to those times it was very it was great i mean there's a there's a great quote that i got it's great a few years yeah it's a great quote i got a few years ago sometimes the greatest gifts are wrapped in dark packages it's the discomfort that what do they say pressurized coal is turned

into a diamond or some cliche pressure makes time yeah pressure and it's true it's like if you don't you spend your life not facing things not going to things when do you meet yourself is it scary to think back to that though because i mean no you know you you you describe it viscerally i mean that's that is it it seems like minus the moment you had after the game a lot of this was internalized and you're dealing with it yourself and you're continuing to go about your life as you know a big east linebacker and doing the job getting it done but then you go home and you know you're in your head again and you get exactly like you get to those moments where playground you know not a lot of people talk out loud about playing with a gun and and laughing hysterically

and then seeing if you're gonna keep yourself alive to do it again tomorrow but is there a part of you that says i'm losing my fucking mind yeah that's i was on the edge of madness pure madness and it's it it was one of the best things to happen to me to to help me change to help me ground in reality of what is and not be so absorbed and what I think it should be or what I want it to be and just okay this is what it is. It's going to take some time, but you're going to get there step by step. And I think part of being there was a result of being so focused on the future, being so focused on playing in the nfl being so focused on

making every single play i could at west virginia being so focused on those things losing sight of things that are actually important to me you weren't what no not at all i was i was present in the games that's different but you better believe i was right i was present in the games and i talked about this in our years ago when people talk about this virginia tech game i blacked out jumped over the line hitley sucks in the back backfield fourth and goal had no clue how i did it because i blacked out i was like that was the most present i had ever been in a black alamo yes and something came oh and I was like I gotta be that what is that under all circumstances I gotta find that place

and exist there and I have to pull up that hit behind Jim sorry what hit I gotta do this we got a we got to put this baby on Frank Beamer like the trip on Video games have better graphics on this. Yeah, they do. This is like what fucking 360p. This is 300 years He blacked out on this there. You are in the middle. Yes I was graceful Randall barking signals. Hands the ball off. Suggs is stopped short. West Virginia gets the football. That was Grant Wiley. That was graceful. Grant Wiley stopped Lee Suggs with 3.51 to go. We're talking about enough serious shit right now.

I got to give you some love. Arguably the biggest shoulder pads on the field. I was going to say, those were some fucking boulders, dude. I asked for smaller ones. I promise you. They said, no, they have to reach over your shoulder shoulder now you don't even have to wear shoulder pads yeah it's like all it's great so yeah all this self-destruction was the tool i want to be careful how i ask this but this is important because i'm hearing patterns that we

they're more talked about now publicly and you see football getting some and especially in recent years but you're interesting in that football and the things that taught you by the people you were around and the discipline and and you know being focused on things all these different great life lessons you got out of it to formulate who you are today it's still a rough game and you're playing arguably the most consistently rough position the two most consistent ones would probably be middle linebacker and and running back not to say the others aren't but you know that's it's a potential car crash every single play and you were a machine i mean you were i remember when you played i was i was young but i remember watching you play and you were an absolute tackling machine

that's why i was pretty sure you may have led the league a couple times there but again we'll check that later but sure either way except either way we'll with it. And the thing about that is you're taking those hits every time. Yes. You know? And your head's... It feels so good. It feels good when it's happening. Yeah.

But your head, think about that. Sound like a junkie. 10, 15 years of that, your head, body's not supposed to do that. And it fucks with your internals. I mean, your friend Chris, he was one of the first ones after he passed. If there was one good thing to come out of that afterwards, it was that, you know, they got to test his brain early on in the days of CTE. And they determined that he had it. And I think he might have been like the first one they made that determination with on modern day players.

But, you know, that's, that affects everything. And I'm not saying like CT, but I'm saying like, even when people are just taking a lot of hits that a human body is not supposed to take, and you're getting concussions, and you're playing through it, especially different time back then where there wasn't the focus on it. You know, that fucks with how you deal with everything in your life. You can lose yourself, you can have those moments where you black out. And I'm not talking about on the football field like is there a part of you that questions some of that and wonders like if if maybe i hadn't played or hadn't been in those positions or hadn't had to do that all the time maybe i could have had my head more and i wouldn't have been so

fucked up at some times in my life if i hadn't been taking those hits yeah i don't i have a lot of questions about all this information that's coming out every time you hit your head there's a consequence period that's just, it doesn't take science to tell you that. So I know, I knew, especially getting injured so often and spending so much time in the training room, I knew for myself personally, I can't speak for anybody else, that I was going to have to find alternative modalities to heal. And I was fortunate enough to get injured when I did. Now, when I'm playing...

What do you mean alternative modalities? Alternative to what we're offered, right? So CTE came after I was done playing. The focus happened after I was done right and it can't be diagnosed in life right yeah and there's a focus now on that when i was playing there it was like oh are you seeing stars no okay you can still play right and there were times where i'd projectile vomit after hitting someone and still be playing after a blackout on the field but that was also my choice not to tell anybody that this was happening because i wanted to play yeah it's the culture and yeah it's part of part

of be tough uh the the that machismo right and you have to be a dog when you're on the field so it's like that's your edge um you if you're if you're not a dog on the field you get eaten period especially at my position i have to be a sociopath at least for 60 minutes a day in a game and then for a half an hour at practice so every day you're tapping into that that part of you i feel like that on top of the collision can lead you to some really interesting decisions on and off the field i don't excuse or say i because i don't i really don't know i will assume that if my brain is bruised or hemorrhaging then i'm not thinking quite clearly but i just also don't necessarily believe i had a meter to be like oh my my head's hemorrhaging more today so this is why i thought about it like i i don't know that you can't measure emotions through that it's it's hard to be like in your head and know like oh this is

why i'm feeling this way right now because my head is doing blank yeah no no that's i don't know if that's even possible it's not maybe in certain cases but to answer your question i don't i don't i i know there's consequences from the amount of hits i've delivered and taken and when i decided to stop playing in 2000 going into the 2005 season I remember being at the hospital for the same time just like all right this isn't just about my shoulder anymore oh because you blew it out again well yeah jiggled out and I was just like this is I just had surgery like come on uh then I being at the hospital again i remember sitting just talking to myself like okay this isn't just about my shoulder anymore this is now i know i'm i have to transition and figure out a way to start healing regenerative restorative to regenerative however you know whichever comes

first in the process and this is a couple years after tim died this is this point he passed in 2001 no 2002 okay my junior 2002 so this is 2005 so you went from being i'm gone after this year i don't even care this is my life i'm going to can't even play i don't want to play anymore right to now you're in the nfl and you're like fuck it yeah because i was you you i always said you have to be you have to be okay with being in the training room you have to be as stoked about getting healthy as you are for playing in the games and i was just exhausted i was totally exhausted and i was even hoping that that year on the ir was like a red shirt year but you're in i'm in the training room rehabbing yeah and then finally having moments to think about life after football did you love the game anymore? Not towards the end. Towards the end, I was done. I loved playing.

I loved the games. Even practices were fun. I didn't like getting injured. You have to be okay with all, in my opinion, you have to be okay with all facets of the game in order to be great or good for that matter. And I knew once I was done, i was done and so i loved the decision that i made but then i started to think oh wow this isn't just about my shoulder my head and whatever else could possibly be going on it's not like we're having documentaries coming out or

or the internet was just emerging uh and so for whatever reason i started thinking about this uh so yeah to your to answer your question short sure all of everything has a consequence and a contributes lifestyle contributes to the brain trauma for sure was there a part of the competitive edge though that made you question that later you know you see some of your bodies like they they went on to have long careers in the nfl and that was always that was something built into you since you were you know nine ten years old whatever was, and you didn't end up doing that. I didn't care. You didn't care.

I was happy for them. Do you. I will continue to cheer you on. I just don't care. It wasn't in you anymore. What's that? It wasn't in you anymore. No, I was done.

I remember we had a meeting our rookie year, and this was when I first started to question and coach tyus was talking to us oh where else can you make and he's right where else can you make 250k minimum right out of college there's very few things you can do but i remember sitting there i was like i could probably sell weed. And I wasn't doing that, but I was thinking to myself, I could sell six months of weed and probably make a million. Not because I was going to do that. That was the thought, and I was like, oh.

And then I had to check myself. I was like, wait a second. Why am I thinking like this? I'm an entrepreneur. This is a sign did I didn't I never got into that I always had people not pushing me away from those things so I take it as a I should listen to them yeah now that it's legal there's a different story sure i love the legal legalization it's which is a little complicated topic but yeah i mean it's crazy how much different some of the societal attitudes were i mean that's only oh four oh five that's 16 17 years ago it's not it's not that long ago and yet you know there's such a thing around that but you know but either way back back to your back

to your the boomers the boomers the boomers i keep hearing boomers yeah every day every commerce a lot of conversations especially listening to cryptocurrency stuff like that everybody's like the boomers need to get out of the way exactly boomers they don't get it well they're not you know they are out of largely. They were at war. They've been at war their entire lives, the boomers. They were raised by war. Their friends died in war.

It's like, think about that short period of time they've been alive. It's all war. What I mean by that is a lot of their lives has been been surrounded by trauma get under the desk a bomb's about to explode right when they're in school yeah and then then they're they're in high school and they're their best friends go off to vietnam right and it's just that's what i mean i mean when i use the the term they're at war is because a lot of their lives have been surrounded by trauma they've been traumatized in a lot of ways and the changes that they've been through probably have hit them hard in a lot of ways to be unwilling to change that's what i mean but they're at war they've seen it too much yeah it's a trauma it's like

oh no another change oh wait it's really painful it's why most people don't like to change is because it's uncomfortable and so now there's these and in referencing the crypto conversations i was on clubhouse listening to educating myself in a room full of people that believe themselves to be experts on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and why the Fed won't move or hasn't taken a position in Bitcoin and you know you hear five people chime five of the speakers chime out at once it's the boomers and so that's literally I was listening that this morning so that's why it's fresh on me. But yeah, the boomers, probably a lot of people's hesitation to do things is probably fear of trauma attachments to the past. And in particular, the boomers have a lot of trauma attached to war. So you recognize things like that. You, you're somebody who, even if you disagree with people, you're always interested in, in why they think the way they do. You're not like, I was having a conversation with you recently where you, you were like, Julian, what, what is this

cancel culture? I try to stay above this whole thing. And now I'm really, I don't say i try to stay above this whole thing and now i'm really no i don't say i try to stay above i stay i don't i don't attach myself to these notions so i don't and i don't get involved in these ideas because like because i said cancel culture no cap it's like people are saying these things to me i was like i don't even know i don't know what they're talking about yeah what is this because i don't spend time on the internet looking up, but I do hear it. But your point with it, though, is that we're so dismissive of so many things. And it's kind of at a point where you get everyone publicly needs to be in one line of thought for whatever the issue is. It could be anything. It could be politics

could be you know personal life whatever and it takes away that that nuance of the fact that we all have our different experiences and therefore our different ways of doing things and it seems to me like in every facet of your life not just your personal relationships that you've had not just you know guys who you played with who you, looked up to you and stuff like that, but you are always looking at how other people came to think the way they do. Another, another moment going back to the West Virginia experience that we're talking briefly about. Yeah was draft day when i was going to get drafted the year so my senior year is over and the draft is happening i remember playing passion of christ had just come out and i was i was watching that and smoking weed and I remember we were at the table and one of my teammates he's from Bradenton Florida TG and

one of the most powerful things that's ever happened to me was him sitting across the table looking at me said you think you real and we're talking about TG was raised 12 years old. He's the man of the house. That's what it was. Providing for food, all that for his family, 12 years old. Then had a successful collegiate career as a wide receiver. And he kept looking. He's like, you think you real?

And I was like, yeah like yeah yeah i'm real yeah i'm real and it was hitting me because i had no clue what he even meant he's like nah dog he's like you ain't real you think you real and i was like i froze it's like you're right i remember then going into the bathroom and like looking at myself in the mirror like he's right i'm not i'm pretending to be who i think i'm supposed to be so having that moment tying it into what you're talking about now it's like that was another my brain exploded i can't i can walk away from this and continue to be like he's saying or i can accept it as the truth and to my benefit grow from trying to figure out what he means if I'm understanding this correctly the connotation implication whatever of what he was saying was that he was pointing out that you had a front

on that you had it figured out yeah like you knew how things were yeah you knew how everyone in one hundred opposed supposed to be 100 100 he was telling you we're not all like you're not you don't he's essentially he's saying you don't have a clue who you are or what's going on and i realized i i accepted at that moment that it was true and for right away no not right away I told you I resisted I was like yeah I'm real I think I know I'm real you know what are you excited when you went into the bathroom and he's so right I knew as I he's so right and here's the passion of the Christ on on repeat for whatever reason at that time.

It's like all these things swirling. I'm high. I'm running out, hopping on a dirt bike, going as fast as I can. And my dream's happening, right? I'm getting calls. Yeah. But at that moment, I was like, he's right. And then, okay, let that sink in.

And so, then taking these little nuggets of moments in my life and allowing them to work for me is like, these are, something's talking to you. Something's trying to actually help you. And you may not know it now, now right but just don't give up on it and so carrying these nuggets with me it's like how can i not look at somebody else and be like oh you might just be where i was you know what i mean yeah you're where you are and i respect that and i accept that and there's somewhere we fit into this picture with each other because we're here right now right just like we're having this conversation there's something here there's something there and so i work work to say, kill the ego, no judgment. It's like, it's impossible.

These are impossibilities. Judgment is there to help you survive, right? Your egoism, it's been termed ego by modern or contemporary psychologists, right? But it's a mechanism inside your system that's helping, that's there for you to survive. Maybe not be overwhelmed by, but there's stuff, it's, these parts of us weren't put here to work against us. It's a figure of how we, how can we utilize these in a healthy way? And so, in approaching other people, sometimes it's intuitively and fortunately and then other times it's having these moments with like tg or or lou you know putting the mirror to us like

yeah that's how can i not be grateful for for the those moments and then if if i'm still conscious of it have the ability to bring that kind of mentality and openness to any relationship because it really is about how we're relating to each other in a given moment it's not what the media is saying it's not what other people try to put on or depict uh personalities and throw stigmas on to because that's what we see all the time but it's actually what am i what am i giving and what is being returned in in this in this relationship well i mean i don't think you saw and i've heard you mention him a few times in in this episode and i haven't asked about it but i don't i can't think of many athletes in the public sphere who you could say had more of a stigma cast onto them than pac-man yeah pac-man jones and i and and that's true because of whatever situations have come up in his experience from the time he was born to coming to west virginia and then to

having a 15-year career in the nfl 15-year career and he was. And he was great all the way through. Phenomenal. And to me, he's brought so much positivity and lessons and learnings into my life in the period of time we're closest at West Virginia. And we continue to be closest. So no matter what is being put in the airways, how are people to you in the moment? And that's why I say I've been fortunate to have many teachers, many coaches that have showed up for me at times that I needed them most. Just like two teammates teammates pack comes into my life right after my best friend passes it's like one level of fearlessness here to show me how to be my authentic self and then this other level pack comes in my whole other level she was a couple years younger than there's two two years younger than me got it and i'm just like wow and very very similar dynamic of

an exchange of energy here i can help you i can help you put yourself in a position to go to where you want to go because i'm doing it for myself let me do that and then your energy, your ability to be your true self is like that's all we were asking for. Now, here's an important line on stuff, not to get off pack for a second, but sidebar here. When you're talking about being yourself, when you're talking about people being from different walks of life and different experiences, I agree. There's got to be – especially in society today, we need to have a much greater level of empathy for people of all backgrounds, good and bad, to understand exactly what puts them in the frame of mind they're in. I get that. slope with it is when you start to get to a point where you you preemptively write off and excuse things just as a result of what someone's experience is and you take away potentially where there is a level of personal responsibility and how you are in the world and how you treat all other people and how you behave in society or whatever and so i guess what i'm trying to say is you don't want to blur the line to where it's like hey i'm just so good at understanding that someone else didn't

have it as good as me or had a fucked up life or whatever so whatever they do is fine versus hey i can understand someone and also know that like just like me where you know i fuck up on things they may fuck up on some things too and just because they're from a different situation doesn't mean i'm going to excuse that understand what i'm saying there yeah i also believe it has to do with a dynamic of your relationship to the to a person sure is it are you that close that you can is it yeah do you have the right you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you know that person well enough?

Are you actually looking out for them or is it a selfish, because you think you know better? Especially when you don't know them at all and you're casting judgment, you know, to someone from the public. It's so easy to do because everybody, or not everybody, a lot of people like to deflect their own flaws or shortcomings onto others so the attention is no longer on them. And that's what we see happen quite a bit. And this particularly in the media, it sells because people... Clicks on downfalls and it's tragedy porn yeah i i feel like with a person if if you're enabling them and cheering them on to put themselves in compromising situations you're as much as the problem but if you're like hey hey brother like come here let's are you okay because it's usually some things are usually stemming from somewhere else but i but then i always ask myself is like

well where am i like who am i am i like am i doing enough on myself to be seeing this clearly to be able to help someone? Do I live in a glass house? Yeah. So instead of making a judgment, it's like try to understand. At the very least, try to understand and ground yourself, which takes years of obviously screwing up. And if you screwed up for years, you know you're not alone. And you know it's not going to be the last time. And I think, too, once you start becoming gentle on yourself.

Remember you said, oh, you had an incredible career. I'm like uh well i can name about 35 plays off the top of my head that i missed that i should have made to this day meanwhile there's 400 however many tackles were made or plays made it's like that's so i believe most importantly you know focus on yourself focus on yourself first and if you have the capacity to hold space or offer advice that somebody's willing to to receive, then do so. You were a guy who had that capacity, though, have it. But early on, it seems like given your role and who you were,

not just what you did on the field, but who you were off it for all these guys. You talk about your door was always open. Everyone else had a chance to eat first. You were that guy. You were the open arms guy to everyone and so it you know we're did you come to a point where you question whether you had that capacity and and if you were focusing on yourself enough first and then have to step back from that or was it always just like no that's that that's my mo i'm i'm here to make

sure everyone else is is taken care of and, you know, have a chance to build relationships with people who are just diverse, all different. No, I was, my upbringing was similar in that way. We always had, I always had friends and people, yeah, friends of mine that were in need, we would look out for because they were our brothers as much as my brother and my sister. We always had a home that allowed that. And so carrying that same mentality to school, it was on an even greater level because now we're people from all over the world essentially. And I didn't take time enough to myself doing so much of that i was so out of balance that it would get expressed like i was probably in not always the most pleasant quite and then a total sociopath on the field.

So yeah, I think it's healthy to question yourself. Like, what am I doing? Why am I doing so much of this and neglecting so much of that? And then that eventually compounds in some way, shape, or form. And it gets expressed. Whether we're conscious of it or not and it gets expressed whether we're conscious of or not it gets expressed and just that led me to trying to find a balance even even to this day it's like am i focusing too much on that where do i need to you know let the cycle of energy move to now yeah while being committed and consistent within each pursuit of interest who's the adam pacman jones that you know this is my brother i yeah he's uh he's just like all of us figuring it out

and providing the best he can for his family and doing a hell of a job does it bother you? I asked about this with Chris Henry earlier different guy, different case he had first of all I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but to me, Adam Pacman Jones is one of the greatest athletes I've ever seen in my life.

He was an absolute freak, and he literally just retired like a year or two ago and had this long career that somehow, given all the stuff that was around it too early on, you know on lasted as long and successfully as it was. So there's no question what an incredible player he was and also extremely underrated a lot of his career. I think he only made a couple Pro Bowls, but there were years there where he named me a better defensive back in the NFL. Just an incredible player. But he had all this attention that was media whoring around him, just trying to create a worse narrative. And I always think of it this way, speaking of walking in people's shoes, I don't know a hell of a lot about his backstory. Maybe I've seen it in the past before, but I don't remember it.

But to be the sixth overall pick in the draft at age 21 and now have to be a professional and go out there them good bad whatever and make their own judgment and say oh well if i were like that i would be like this or i would never do that kind of thing or whatever but maybe it's me getting older and and seeing maybe even knowing some of these guys and understanding like how hard that is and haven't gone through periods myself not having a lot of money but knowing you know how reckless i was at 21 22 23 you know it gets to a point where it's like who the fuck are you to just cast judgment on people yeah you know they're on a bigger stage than you because they're the best at what they do and they earned it to get there but like you know everyone's got to kind of grow up and and

i think some of these guys especially like a Pac-Man or someone a great player like that, they're forced to grow up in a spotlight and they're forced to be held to this other standard. And they're also open to all these narratives and interpretations of weren't the most positive thing to see in the news as far as some stuff he might have been involved with. But it really strikes me how you speak about him because there are a lot of people in this country who are fans of football who clearly have the wrong idea of who he is as a person. And also don't respect the fact that regardless of anything that happened early on in his career, I mean guy had a 15 year career in the nfl and was great all the way through i think he got a little injured his last year but he was i think his pro bowl seasons were like some of his last seasons actually and you know that's a hell of a story yeah he's he's earned it. I don't really focus on other people's opinions about anything. I listen. I'm somewhat aware. But in my doings with my relationships,

I just focus on how we are with each other in any given moment. It's a waste of time. To me, it's a waste of time to try and even figure out what other people are thinking or stories they're trying to project for whatever reasons. So I don't really... Yeah, we enjoy each other's company, and we will continue to.

That's awesome, man. I don't, other people, I mean, look at history and how all the stories, look at the story we're living in now. All of the stories. Look at the story we're living in now. All of the stories. Everything's possible now. More so than any other time that we know of in history. What do you mean everything's possible? Just every story, okay? Every story possible, you can go onto the internet and find data or find corroborating stories to back up the point. Regardless of which.

Regardless of if it's true or not. You can find anything you want. Think of a topic. Think of a twist. And you can find something to back it up whether it's true or not so do you think the media really twisted with him i don't in in regards to to as far as how they presented him i mean they and i remember i think i know vilified him yeah then they did i don't specifically i don't know what specifically you're talking about i just focus on how i am and how he is when we come together and you always knew where he stood what's's that? I'm saying, like, it seems to me, like, regardless of whatever's being put out there,

even if he is fucking up early in his career in some ways, whatever it is, you always knew him as your guy and this is who he is as a person, and that's it. So I'm comfortable with that, and fuck what other people say about it. Yeah. Who's the media yeah they're the media my i don't my relationships are my relationships with the people specifically and i want the best for them and that's where i leave it at fair i mean is the media fair to anyone no to the owners they gotta sell yeah that's what they gotta do so i don't

i like i i love having these personal relationships and not caring what the media has to say. Because they're going to say whatever they have to say. So it does not interfere with my perceptions. Well, I don't even mean to refer to him specifically. I'm speaking in general when I say this though. Just because that is the case, sometimes people do stuff. It's not just of you that's like well you know if my friends are fucking up i'm going to tell them they're fucking up if you're a friend if you consider if you actually want the best for for someone i feel like there are times where you have to say certain things sure just like with a family member yeah they i mean you are

to me every on some level everything's family you why wouldn't i if if if if there was an issue with somebody abusing substances or or whatever i mean we we all have relationships that have done certain things. And yeah, if you care about somebody, of course, I believe. I want somebody to say something to me. And I knew there was a time when I wasn't going to receive it, but it happened to me. And I was just like, whew. And then I learned- What happened? and i then i learned what happened just my for instance enjoying pain pills right because they were plentiful in college point no

not in college and just smoking a lot of weed unconsciously because there's a lot of wonderful benefits for marijuana cannabis cannabis great deal of benefits from the compound the plant many compounds in a single plant but i was at a place where i was using it to numb myself along with pain pills that i just had like vicodin and stuff oxycontins vicodins whatever the stuff that makes you go yeah gives you dumb face this is post your career this is a little bit during and then post and I've been fortunate I don't have an addictive personality but I did want to numb myself and I found a very effective cocktail with cannabis and pain pills and I learned a difficult way by going through withdrawals experiencing these things and and

now I don't even you couldn't make me take a pain pill or pay me to take a pen pill and I don't even smoke weed anymore I do you know CBD edibles and stuff like that because of the health benefits but i learned from overdoing and going through withdrawals the negative repercussions of not being conscious with these a sacred plant and then pharmaceutical grade drugs drugs and when i was confronted i went to complete denial which is who confronted what you do an ex-girlfriend of mine and i just i just went off because i had no communication skills or lack i had a lack of communication skills and i wasn't being honest with her or myself and so i do it any or a typical reaction is to explode deflect and deny right it's it's uh that's 101 for a person with no tools and so i did that and then i learned i was like okay that's i just

pushed away somebody that loves me and is actually trying to help me and you know what i've actually provided that for other people and i'm rejecting that love i was like and then it happens to me in other situations with friends i believe it's our duty on some level not to be the all-righteous one that just does everything right and bless us you know what i mean and put on that disguise but i do believe if you care about somebody you should look out for them be like hey maybe you should you know you're right what's going on you're using a bit more than normal or or whatever you see and so i learned a better way to communicate because it was just thrown into my face as an accusation and that's not always the best way

to do it uh with people and so i don't but i yeah for sure 100 if you care about somebody and you see that something's off and they need somebody to talk to i think that's a good thing and you were confronted about that then a year or two after my rookie year was over oh it's during yeah still during because i was on surgery but coming out the other side of that and then and in your career you know where was your head at because like you you said i was on a mission well you weren't for football anymore no i was on a mission to get as far away from football as possible yeah really you really shifted. I had no choice. I mean, no, I had a choice. Stay in that world and be

the thing that live in the box, right? Because there's only a few things you can do in the box. It's the football box. And that's part of my self-destruction. That box. And then I started I Love these other interests like art. I love to express myself. I love to perform

Football is a performance. What is an art performance? What is acting? What is producer? What are all these things? Have you ever thought about that have have these disciplines I was terrified of them what is technology what is building a business hmm interesting but had you ever thought about that yeah I was like growing up yes I was thrown into talent shows against my will and then I would do really well defining against i didn't want to do it no but like your parents making you do it or parents peer pressure fear so scared i gotta do it you know what i mean this is terrifying let's do it again like that and and that like it's going back to the discomfort be uncomfortable and learn something about yourself even if you don't turn into a star at least you or whatever you consider success right it's the only way you're going to learn and i remember

driving off into the sunset in mankato minnesota on my way to the hospital to get my shoulder checked again right leaving camp i was running i was like there's so many things i want to do and now i can do them and it felt like this huge oh the football oh sorry table the football monkey was off my back so to speak so i can now focus on being a human and not just a circus animal and that was that's my own mind. That's how you viewed yourself. Yeah, because you're going to training camp, going to lift, and it's great. It taught me so many things, discipline, following through, execution, all the things that you need to be successful in anything or get somewhere. But because I started to feel I was in this box i needed to break out okay what am i

afraid of public performing emotion like all the things i was like wrote down a list of all these things like i'm going at all of them and i'm going to continue to because I know there's some gems in there for me. And so I did and continue to. And now I'm just going to keep doing it. There's a clear – you said it yourself earlier, but to reset it, there's a clear line in the sand with that moment after Tim died. And you get your teammate to just say, it's just a game, man. And I guess it seems to me from the outside,

like whether you realized it or not, football was your identity. Yes. It was everything. There was really nothing else. It was like, I'm Grant Wiley, football player. I'm Grant Wiley, number six even even better more specific right like that's what i do that's what i'm here to do i eat cheat i eat sleep and shit football and that's it like that's how my life is gonna go i'm gonna get that dream in the nfl i always always wanted to have fuck i'm leaving at

the end of this year anyway and like this is how it's supposed to be. And then after that, your mind kind of, you know, you struggle with your own way of dealing with grief. As we talked about, you struggle with then figuring out what the meaning of everything it is. And therefore, what's my meaning on this earth? Like, okay, why am I just doing this one thing, playing this game where I run downhill and try to hit the guy with the ball every play? And now, wait, what else? What are some other things I've never admitted to myself? Like, hey, that would be really cool. Oh, my God, could I even do those things? If I go to just focus on football, go to the NFL.

And then by the time you get to the NFL, I mean, it just seems like you were, you know, a last breath chugging engine, not because you didn't have it, like you couldn't do it but because that wasn't there anymore that drive to like be this thing wasn't there and then you compound the injuries with it and you see the realities of what it is to have this as a career and continue to do this to yourself and continue to run downhill every play and it's like damn like that there's a lot more to it than that so i'm to go look at things like you mentioned acting, you mentioned art. I know you and I have talked about music before too. I don't know if you said that, but you know, even soiree into that, like you go, you retire from

the Vikings and say like, I'm done. And as you put it, your goal is to get so far away from football as far away from as possible. Like what, what did jump into like how did you just did you even know what else there was out there like how you even go about becoming an actor or did you just have to say fuck it and figure it out i moved to new york city that's it that's it it's like everything i want is here everything i can conceive of at this moment in time is here. So I lost 60 pounds, 65 pounds. At around 45, I moved to New York City. 45 pound loss. Yeah. And then I was like, all right, I don't really know anyone here.

I'm not using the NFL card ever again. I'm going to learn and along the way the people I am going to need and that will need something from me will show up. And I'll just continue to grow and learn and take the next step

and take the next step and the next step usually shows up jerry seinfeld talks about this a lot if you just keep going the next step shows up for you yeah and if you just don't give up and you continue to develop and focus and stay disciplined it shows up for you and i've seen it in building vpo it shows up for us it shows up in in acting and performing it shows up for you whether it's through someone or something you see on tv or the inspiration shows up if you're if you're still open and uh paying attention like marlon brand Brando staring at me right now yeah there was a guy who kept iterating so what you sink into first like like when

you when you got there what was your first pursuit acting I said I'm gonna no one's going to believe this no one's going to believe this, but I'm going to model. This fat, 20-inch neck, 19-inch arm meathead. I got to get your last pictures. What do you mean? You don't have to. I have to, Grant. This is a show.

We're still here to entertain. I don't care to. I have to, Grant. This is a show. We're still here to entertain. I don't care. I accept it. But you had lost a lot of weight, though, so you didn't really look like this. Oh, there we go. Is that your last picture? That was my... That's your senior picture.

There it is. Is it? No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Oh, wow. That is my senior. It says senior picture. There it is. Is it? No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Oh, wow. That is my senior. It says senior picture. But you had lost a lot of that neck.

Can you just... Look how tight the goatee was. The goatee is pretty solid. It's got very early 2000s vibes. I spent a lot of time... You know why I had the goatee? Why? Because I looked fat fat you were hiding the

chin i was fat look at my face i'm fat yeah but yeah i mean yeah everybody says yeah you're a football player it's like no you don't have to be like that jonathan villma didn't look like that yeah but jonathan villma was six two and a5 and automatically had longer arms. He is not 6'2. Come on. Jonathan Vilma is 6'1. That's genetics. But we're two different people. Yeah, that's genetics.

But the truth is the goatee was to try and hide the under face skin. That's the best one. Right there. If you're listening now, watch it. That's a badass picture. That one was going into my junior year and I purposely...

Moved your head like that? Oh, that was... So when I was growing up, I would see these... My dad had these... We would go to Delaware games where my uncle played. So we have all these programs. And my brother and brother and i would look through it and be like this guy looks so badass

because if he's sitting there like this like his neck cocked back so it's kind of a joke but at the same time we were i was trying to look like like a killer yeah that's that we always thought that that's a memeable picture yeah and then i got the scar under my chin peeking through the goatee. Oh, yeah, you did. Yeah. I see what you're doing. Yeah, I know what it is. But anyway, not to get off topic here, you were like, all right, I'm down 45 pounds.

I'm going to go model. Because a model is not acting. No, and I was never getting my picture. You have to be in the getting your picture taken to look at yourself constantly you practice your blue steel yeah like all that and you have to do that it's just part of it and i was never into that i was always like you know what let me just go on these castings and maybe i'll get something here and there but i'm definitely going to learn about the industry and that was really the goal was okay let me get an agency no matter who it is

and just start pounding pavement and going out and figuring out how does the city operate what do i need to do because the ultimate goal is to is to be in t to be in tv and film right and theater okay so you were so yeah and i was just like let me i need to i need to be in TV and film, right? And theater. Okay. So you were, so I, yeah. And I was just like, let me, I need to, I need to be on pounding pavement, figuring out like learning from other people. So it wasn't just random. You were looking at it like,

okay, that's a pathway. Yeah. I was like, I need somebody sending me out so I can meet. What is this casting thing? What is the process? And you learn and you build confidence and you get rejected and all those good things that teach you

and so i was like i just need to be getting out there i don't even look like a model like i knew that i wasn't that delusional i was delusional well not that delusional well i understood that this this part was really about learning and and figuring out is this even things that i want to do and then through that i met a guy that introduced me to the william esper acting studio and i was able to study with a master teacher just a a master of his craft in william esper for for two and a half years wow and rest rest in prayer bill esper he changed my life helped change my life his in my exit interview he looked at me he was and i'm still in this good can am i good or bad and it doesn't exist in art you work you develop and it is right it's not as there's no good or bad it's it's you work

you develop and you keep putting yourself out there unless you quit it is it is there's no good or bad it is way different from the world you came from because in football football yeah you either make the tackle or you don't right you win the game or you lose. It's very black and white, at least in the final box score. Whereas when you go to a full creative mode, like you talk about yourself as a performer on the football field, and then it's performing and acting. That's right. That is a parallel in a way. But the performance and the area of your brain and and the focus on it they're two entirely different things and they're very similar very different at the same time yeah and then

it's like vpo's its own art you mentioned that that was an interest though right away because when we first brought this up you were like oh i just went to new york city and i was like acting music technology or whatever but did you did it take years to get to start doing work on in in the tech sector yeah i mean jonathan and i met at west virginia we knew we were both in new york city at the same time but we had in each other's contacts and then we bumped into each other on five different occasions the fifth being at 30th Street Station when he was coming back to New York from an Eagles game and I was going home to see my folks mmm like and then we're just like all right dude let's meet so we go to Joseph Leonard started me up for brunches and I was we're trying to figure out how do we bring all these resources and our experience together to build something leveraging everything and jonathan's brilliant in business he was building

high frequency high frequency trading platforms um for quants uh and i was building my network in art and entertainment i had just done train wreck uh the film small part but it was huge to me i was like i was just a meathead like trying to rip people's faces off what was your role in it i just played the hot guy she was kicking out of her apartment and i was like this is to me it was monumental i was like like where have i come from you know what i mean just from a i'm from trap pennsylvania yeah bloodhound gang some of them grew up in the hood and then ben margera and then westchester so there's people you know things happening but to me i was just like i'm just okay then we got we got the funding at the same time i was like all right now i have a few credits i

know how to prepare i'm i need to develop more let me discipline myself and continue to develop as an artist actor performer produced a film that won some awards in 2016 called turtle face what was that it's on amazon now what was that about so our good friend david thigpen wrote a story takes place 85 south carolina in the sticks a young boy a young man is pimping out his blind sister to make money and a father who's got a son that his nickname is turtle face because he's not good looking wants to help his son reach manhood so he brings his son to the young prostitute so he can be a man quote unquote and it sounds pretty gruesome in a way, right? But it's actually a very sweet story. How does that get sweet?

You just have to watch it. But it's a sweet story because they're two innocent people. He's dealing with the fact that everybody calls him Turtle Face because he's not attractive. She's blind, being pimped out by her brother. And it sounds like something, but when you watch it you just see how it unfolds so one uh audience choice award at the soho international film festival in 2016. so so Jonathan and I amidst all this are having meetings and bringing certain networks together doing a lot of research and can you tell people what you do at VPO it's it's it's pretty damn cool

yeah so specific uh yeah I'll get I'll get into it so as I said before I've reconnected with naji at west virginia as linebackers he's on the ir spend time on the r i know what it is and then naji comes new york domico ryan's he gets on the phone he invests what year is this this is 2015. okay we incorporated I believe this is 2016 that we get the the initial funding outside of our own time and money so then now we are 2017 we partner with the Philadelphia Eagles because they want to figure out how to deepen engagement and better engage with their fans in their mobile application. VPO is an SDK, software development kit, that integrates into mobile applications and enables the publisher, in this case the Philadelphia Eagles is the publisher, the ability to make their pictures and videos interactive for a better fan experience,

deepening fan engagement, and telling better stories, all while keeping the fan in the ecosystem of the Eagles, whether it be social media handles, selling merchandise, or delivering better engagement for their existing sponsors and new sponsors. Okay, so let me use an example and tell me if this is applicable. Let's say Saquon Barkley on the Giants. Yes. And we're on the Giants website right now.

No, mobile app. Mobile app. We're on their mobile app. Mobile first. So it's like the giant's mobile app correct okay so we're on there and they have a highlight reel of them you can click it and maybe part of the click while the video is playing you can click to go to his instagram profile part of it is you can click and buy his jersey or buy his armband or something is that you guys do all that yes and you and the technology is applicable outside of obviously just like a mobile app for a sports team

that's just where you've started partnering with some of these teams on it so we're mobile first first and foremost sure so we are designed to integrate into any mobile application whether you're a sports team or you're a social media platform or a video platform what about if I just went on Safari and went to a website can you integrate with the website we have we have not focused our attention on the finishing the web got integration but we with proper funding, which we're in the process of, we can finish the web version so you can have a seamless exchange from web, mobile responsive web, to mobile application. We're focused mobile first, obviously, because there's five plus billion phones you sound like that it's high it's a lot it's a lot of phones yeah there's a lot of phones out there and people are on them constantly so it was in our best interest to make the decision to go mobile first

and and build the sdk for applications specifically with sports because there is a huge value to having your fans engage with your mobile application the eagles you're not allowed to enter the eagles stadium without having the mobile ticket open wait so if i want to go into lincoln financial field now because this whole last year with corona like there wasn't even anything happening so it's hard to even say like i didn't go to a if I want to go into Lincoln financial field now, cause this whole last year with Corona, like there wasn't even anything happening. So it's hard to even say like I didn't go to a game. I can't use a physical ticket though. Right.

Contactless ticket entry. So you have the code on your phone. Beep beep. Now I'm pretty sure that's what I used last time when I went in the last game I went to was falcons the year we won the super bowl um i'm pretty sure i used a mobile but i didn't realize that they were just completely not allowing any physical tickets yeah that's pretty crazy but not really i guess yeah most i mean everybody i know this they started with season tickets

a few years ago and that's just to capture data, obviously, more than anything. Right. And it probably implies that they're policing scalping a little bit or two. Yeah, probably. But back to VPO. So VPO. So now, specifically with the Eaglesagles we're integrating the eagles application so you go to their photo gallery and you click on let's see it's their social media uh post for the week and

they grab a a handful of of players posts from social media and now you click on the picture of say rodney mcleod who's also very active in the community. So for the players, this works because we can link their social media and social justice causes and foundations to the media. So the fan can click on Rodney's specific social justice cause to donate to that foundation or the fan can click on his social media handle and then see or follow him or view the rest of his social media pictures or see what he's posting with his wife which then automatically adds marketing free marketing into feeds so for instance in pictures we've added seven seconds of dwell time what does that mean so that means people spend seven seconds more on the photo than without VPO that's a lot it's a lot that's a lot with video so to your point of Saquon barkley right let's say it's miles sanders his old teammate

on the eagles miles remember that long but he had an 82 yard run yeah not not long ago it's the steelers i think right right great run yeah so if he's running into the end zone and we make his jersey interactive while he's scoring you could click on his jersey, and it takes you to the Fanatic site where you can purchase the jersey on his highlight of him scoring. Revenue. Revenue generator. Right. So we've also added 26 seconds to video viewing, which to advertisers... It's gold.

Yeah. That's gold. I mean, advertisers are looking for two seconds of people's time. Right. In today's environment with all the decision points we have and all the different feeds we have all day, every day. And we still have lives we have to apparently get to. Eyeballs and attention. When you're talking seven seconds on a still picture and 26 seconds on a video, that's tangible.

Now, are there – I want to be careful how I say this because I don't want to say anything I'm not supposed to. But are you allowed to talk about some of the other partners? We have some. I'd rather not personally because it's more effective when it happens but the eagles to be clear they own a small stake your eagles are our passive owners of our company so you can talk about we also are partnered with the broncos as well as jacksonville jaguars and we have some emerging relationships that we'll talk about we'll have to do this again uh got it but yeah it's it's

i mean as you know it's like especially been doing this for so long it's keep the energy on the on the relationship and and watch it prosper and then when it's time to announce it we'll announce it but we do have other other sports organizations as as leagues, as well as sponsors that are understanding COVID's been a blessing in some ways because it took fans out of the seats. So now it's moved the attention to digital and ml bam years ago made a huge uh exit to disney um who did major league baseball advanced media oh yeah they were the them as a digital organization for the the websites and owned digital channels became worth more than major league baseball itself because of the revenue that it was bringing in and that kind of showed or didn't kind of show it showed everybody's like wow these digital channels are are really worth something now how do

we get there we believe we've created a solution that optimizes content, which also gives you intelligence on the back end to make better decisions in what, how you're delivering sponsorship within content and to whom. How, like how deep does the data capture go does it capture where someone's finger is at all times on the screen do you guys have that ability we have that ability wow we have not gone live with that ability okay but that is that's game changing part of

i mean that's why the phone is so extraordinary one of the reasons do you guys have patents i assume yeah we have this stuff we have patents pending um which is something i won't talk about until we get it okay i got you yeah now another question on it though just looking next gen on it i know i had anthony fenuen here who deals with volumetric yes with the 3d sore okay so you listen to that one i love yeah i was what they're doing is awesome it's amazing yeah now they're they're in that world so they're thinking about where we're gonna be with things you know where we're in the mobile app 2d world now they're looking at where the 3d world's coming so instead of even watching the game on your phone like a lot of people actually do now we're watching the highlights on your phone we're watching the

highlights right here in front of us on the table now how integratable i don't know that that's a word but it we'll go with it is your technology like are you guys looking forward to okay right now we're having them integrate with 2d video and and photos and stuff but we want to be able to do the same thing when it when things are in 3d so instead of i don't know how that would work because it's not a physical screen you know like how do you even deal with that? The visual that's coming to my head is Minority Report. And I don't, or I believe you can touch light. I don't know how to code it. But if they're able to make a 3d visual our sdk can be made 3d or can appear in 3d now i i believe already has that

ability okay i feel like any if you can make a 2d visual 3d right which is what they're doing then our overlay is essentially just a 2d visual that could then be made i don't know how necessarily that would be something for our our cto and programmers to to discuss and figure out but we want to be as versatile and as agnostic as possible to evolve as far as possible as a company. What's been the biggest hurdle for you in getting partners? Cause now you, you have a good number of partners, but there, I know there's still plenty you've talked to who maybe haven't jumped on board yet. What's been the logic behind it? Because to me, you know, I've known about vpo and what you guys are doing for over a year and i'm as far as someone in the outside world i'm pretty familiar

with it compared to the average person i guess but it kind of seems like a no-brainer especially i didn't even know the data was that deep i didn't know that it was like 26 seconds on video i i didn't remember the time and maybe that's improved over time there's other engagement metrics that are that are pretty impressive so why would you say no to that that's my question just like i i believe it's similar to the idea we talked about earlier of cryptocurrency people are they have jobs right at these organizations and the goal is to win the super bowl or whatever championship whatever game and make money so and make money but it's taken time and the maturity of the internet and the maturity of of digital properties to get to a place

because i do believe it's about timing and we're at that timing now is there something specific holding people back i i believe if there was it's changing because we're hearing it we're hearing people ask for what we're offering, which has been different than the past. And that's why I say COVID has been kind of a help to us because they're able, you have to look at things differently. If people aren't in the stands, then you're not going to get the same advertising dollars as if they were. So that money's got to be redirected. What solutions exist from a digital standpoint and monetization

to help facilitate that redirection of capital? And we believe we have a solution. It's crazy man and it's it's uh but yeah to answer your question in terms of what's holding people i it what took boomers i just think that word's so funny i love boomers i love boomers but it's just funny they just like instagram popped off and they're just getting onto facebook yeah and i do believe a lot of people are in these positions and you know some some deals are complex some relationships are complex with deals and that could potentially get in the way or they don't see things the way you do right and and we've been on it for longer than 2050 like we had been thinking of this stuff

and working with the web version just trying to understand like where is this going and people in the past even before we were corporate or like this has to be mobile first they're like no this is grassroots web like from old ad people that did well in advertising and and publishing in believe it or not this is changing behavior so it's also humbled us too to really dig down even further and you know make sure we know what we're talking about and we're able to there's a great podcast what What's his name? It's from The Knowledge Project. I've heard of that. I think it's podcast number 77. Okay.

I believe. We'll check it out after. And it's a super successful investor and technologist. And he says you have to live in the future. Yeah, with technology especially, man. It's like you look at anthony for instance people probably were looking at them sideways when they said this is what we're doing this is what we have and now they've been living with it for so long it's now other people are

taking acknowledging it and now like okay you know and know, and I feel like we're, we're at a similar, I'm two different, two different things, but at a similar point in our growth. Yeah. I agree with the takeaway that COVID is, has opened up some eyes that previously would have never opened. I think you're a thousand percent right about that. It's amazing though, that even when people start to accept the fact that they're starting to see things differently and that it's a new world they'll still be resistant to change on stuff because it's just inherent in them we we don't as humans we like what we know we don't like what we don't know because we fear what we don't know because

we don't know what the outcome of it's going to be and it applies to everything including stuff that should just be viewed as an opportunity it's not like evil or you know like people are going to die with what you're doing you're offering a product that like hey you know if it doesn't work out you can quit you know it's it's not like you're you're locked in for life it's this type of decision but we're you're still going to see people who are afraid to make that leap because they're like well you know no our app functions well but the same by the same token back in 2010 they're like yeah we don't need a mobile app you know we we don't we don't need to get into this iphone culture you know you learn to just accept things after they've happened it's it's and you know the most extreme examples are i'll cite this one all the time,

you know, my grandfather back in 2009 saying, I will never have a goddamn iPhone. You know, not that he uses it much, but he's had an iPhone since 2015. Eventually, you get with the program. It's just, the world doesn't go backwards. You can't unring bells. When they get rung, that's it,'s it man you know i feel like that's

been a a theme throughout this whole conversation yeah change fear acceptance and it it doesn't stop anywhere for anyone and it's a it's a uh yes something we accept and move with or watch it yeah that's why you're an interesting guy grant you you have a you have a very artistic way of approaching how you talk let alone how you look at things. And I appreciate guys like that. And I always, when we talk, I know that one third of what comes out of your mouth, I'm going to be like sitting here going, wait, come again? What do you mean by that? Because you're kind of operating on a different wavelength.

But it's a beautiful thing. And I think one of the main things about you that comes across in everything you do, and I hope it came across in this conversation it did to me, is that you have an overwhelming amount of empathy. And it's not just, it's not like empathy and how we hear it tossed around, just like, oh, seeing it how other people see it, which we talked about today. It's literally in how you, I'm going to say this wrong, but like how you express yourself and how you go look at new opportunities, like for yourself even, like how you go and you move to something, move to create, to a creative realm, like acting and music and, or modeling,

things like that after doing 20 years of football you're just kind of like wow that's it's interesting because I see some of that stuff in me as an interest but also wow that's so different let's dig into that let's see what those people do because it's definitely you know the performance aspect may be the same but the the art side of it or however you want to label it is different and you you've lived your life jumping into different things and doing them for long periods of time. You don't really have anything on your resume where you're like, yeah, I did that for five minutes. You've been doing these things. You played football for 20 years or 15 years, whatever it was.

You went in and you're still an actor. You've been acting now for 15 years. You've been involved in music. I mean we can look at it on here for at least on the side for eight, nine years. You've been working with technology companies including VPO for nine or ten years. VPO has been around especially since like 2016, 2017. You've been doing stuff and you dig yourself into things and there's there there are things that have clicked for you and there are things that are gonna click and a lot of it has to do with putting yourself in

situations where you're like hey let me let me see how this is let me not make assumptions on it let me let me see where my role is in this and then what what seems to end up happening to me is that you you suddenly get that understanding and then you appreciate the process of whatever it is. Yeah, that took me and continues to take practice. And you hear this all the time now. It's all about the process. Yeah, it is overused. You're right. I don't know if it's overused.

It is, though. Certain things are funny to me. And it's overused. It is, though. Certain things are funny to me. And it's usually true. Because it is. One of the biggest lessons I learned playing was that I was so focused on the end result that I missed a lot of the in-between. And that was great. I'm grateful for that.

Because now, what am I doing today? Okay. I'm going to get up in the morning. I'm going to do my meds and then I'm going to get on the train and I'm going to go talk to Julian and that's what I'm doing. And then afterwards I'm going to go home and I'm going to be with my family and that's it. Instead of, okay, I'm going to go home, then I'm going to read this, then I'm going to read this, then I'm going to work on this, and I'm going to visualize. And I'm going to visualize what my future's going to be. And so it's been that moment that you played at Virginia Tech

was my mind finally slowing down. And being in, I have one job to do right now and that stopped lee sucks from crossing the goal line but at least you're present now yes at least you're present no no but i'm saying that that single play sure was a like an awakening to oh it's just it's being present holy moly i started doing muay thai right after gyms reopened in uh in new york i have no idea not even a little bit of martial arts other than what i've read and watched of bruce lee who i admire yeah and so I'm like alright it's time to suck and I'm gonna love sucking

and these small moments of doing the right motion and technique blurs out all the suck and then it's okay my hips are finally starting to turn and it feels so good i'm not quite there yet

but they're starting to turn oh i'm not throwing punches i'm throwing my arms finally i'm not trying to hit hard my arms are just throwing it's like these little things like appreciating these little things whereas the footwork thing i didn't appreciate my footwork with football until you know we're talking about it now yeah because it was that that got me around and so it is i feel like falling in love with the process but also just falling in love with small things in life air water fire earth it's pretty cool i can't think of a better place to end it than right there that's beautiful okay we got we got the we got the oxygen throwing at the end. Appreciate the oxygen around you. Thank you, Air. Grant, thanks for coming down, brother.

Thank you for having me. This was a good conversation. I think there were a few moments I'm going to go back and listen to four or five times over. I think there was a lot of value in them. And I think your journey is a very, very admirable thing and something that a lot of people could take your story and take a lot more out of it for themselves as an example. So I appreciate you sharing it here. I want to thank you because I know this is going to be,

you're just going to continue to get better, and this has been a lot of fun. And I say that from meeting you not so long ago to all of a sudden here you are full go yeah and it's just a matter and you're gonna keep going keep going man and i was able to be on it yeah man we'll do it again sometime and these conversations live forever online so cool you know you get to spread that story one day in the future maybe to a lot more people but thank you for doing it and uh everyone else give it a thought get back to me peace