The Daily Stoic - The Heaviest Crown in America: The Quarterback’s Throne | Seth Wickersham (PT. 1)

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

In America, kings don’t wear crowns, they wear helmets. Being an NFL quarterback is the ultimate crown and it never comes free. Today, award-winning journalist Seth Wickersham joins Ryan to pull back the curtain on football’s most scrutinized position. They dive into why players can’t walk away, the intense loneliness at the top, and how the pressure can consume a player’s life.Seth Wickersham is a senior writer at ESPN and the New York Times bestselling author of It’s Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness. Focusing primarily on longform enterprise and investigative work on the National Football League, Wickersham has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting, and his stories have been anthologized in the Best American Magazine Writing, the Best American Sports Writing, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists, among others. Released in 2021, It’s Better to Be Feared was named Nonfiction Book of the Year by Sports Illustrated and Best Sports Book by the National Sports Media Association. Follow Seth Wickersham: X & Instagram: @Seth.Wickersham📚 Grab signed copies of It’s Better to Be Feared and American Kings: A Biography of a Quarterback at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com🎙️ Listen to Seth Wickersham's first interview on The Daily Stoic Podcast: https://dailystoic.com/seth-wickersham/👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like The Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show, but not listen to ads. Well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic.

We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, completely ad-free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive

bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20% off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show of descriptions to make those ads go away. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students

of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. This is more an American phenomenon than any of other. country. But if you have a kid picture themselves as a professional athlete, how many of them imagine themselves, like, in an instant, they're a quarterback in the fourth quarter leading their team down the field and they throw that pass, right? That's the dream. They're not, most of them

are not imagining themselves as the center. They're not imagining themselves as a small forward on an NBA team. They're not imagining themselves as a catcher on a baseball team. You know, a quarterback, it's the dream. I think it's interesting that among all the sports, right, it's one of the only ones where the head and face of the person is covered. And yet the names, they are cultural touchstones. Steve Young, Warren Moon, Peyton Manning, John Elway, Tom Brady.

Unitas. Quarterback is where it's at. What that says about our culture, nonwithstanding, it is the thing that people aspire to. Probably more than they aspire to be an astronaut these days or a senator or some other thing. I've been a fan of today's guest for a very long time.

I had him on the podcast back in November of 21 to talk about his book. It's Better to Be Feared, the New England Patriots dynasty and the pursuit of greatness. I'll link to that in the show notes if you want to check it out. The book and the conversation is obviously about sports a little bit, but I think ultimately a conversation about greatness. How can you achieve and aspire to greatness without being caesarified to borrow Marksorius' turn?

And the danger and the allure of wanting to do something of which the odds are so stacked, against you. I was really excited that Seth came out to the studio to do this one in person, and I think you are really going to like it. And I think Seth can relate, and this certainly informs the book, to the idea of greatness and aspiration, as I pointed out to him, and he sort of shrugged it off. There aren't many sports writers whose names are known these days. I mean, sports used to be so popular in writing about sports that sports writers themselves

were famous. But there's a handful of them who have broken through. I had another one on the podcast not too long ago. Wright Thompson, who was friends with Seth. But Seth Wickersham is one of the great set, what he does. And that's why I think ultimately this discussion of quarterbacks, this discussion of sports is ultimately discussion about life, about mastery, about drive, about ambition, about greatness in all different forms.

And we start this episode by talking about, about why someone would walk away from all that. One of the only times that anyone ever has done that, the Cincinnatus of football, if you will, Andrew Luck. Like I said, I think it makes ultimately for a much deeper conversation, you don't have to like sports to do this, you don't have to like football to like this episode. I think you're going to get a lot out of it.

He's a senior writer at ESPN, the New York Times bestselling author of It's Better to Be Feared. He mostly works in the long-form medium, you know, not little tiny, you know, guess who won this weekend kind of things, but primarily does long-form investigative and narrative pieces. It's been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and his stories have been anthologized in the Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and many other places. It's Better to Be Feared was a nonfiction book of the year by Sports Illustrated, and you can follow him on Instagram and on Twitter, Seth.wikersham. You can grab signed copies of It's Better to Be Feared

at the Painted Porch. They didn't have American Kings yet for us to have him signed. But it's a great book. You should definitely read it. I think you will really like this episode. And enjoy it. I remember I saw, you know, your books in Sean Payton's office. I know. Yeah. Yeah, that's been cool. I met him once. So I spoke, I spoke, I spoke to the the NFL owners meeting like five no seven six seven years ago okay that was like the weirdest room that i've ever talked to you're like okay it's 32 billionaires yeah plus their families plus every gm yeah plus every coach yeah and like it's still like a work conference for it was a it was a strange it was a strange room i mean those are my those are that's my beat you know yeah yeah yeah yeah it was it was interesting

the board room yeah and i guess they do it what like twice a year or something like that They do them more, but they only do the big one, like once a year. Yeah. And then it was like, on the other hand, like, like every other conference. There's something equalizing about it. It's like they're there. They had badges. You know, they're sitting there.

They're like, they like some of the speakers, not some of the other speakers. And then there was like, there was like a get together after, you know. And then like, I remember I went up to Belichick after. Uh-huh. And like he was like, because you probably knew him from. Well, he knew my work. Yeah. We'd never met.

But like, it was like clear that his then girlfriend. and not the infamous one, but was like, no, you have to go for a little bit. I want to talk to you know, like, he probably wanted to be in his room, like watching a film. She was like, can we do something? You know, it was like, so it's just very weird to see the kind of like human element. And it's like, totally. Some of them are friends. Some of them hate each other. They're all like in a, they're all in an arranged marriage that none of them want to get divorced from. Yes. But they all kind of secretly hate each other. Yeah. And like even the inequality amongst them, It's like, you have Stan Cronkey who I've gotten to know a little bit, and it's like, he owns like five sports teams.

Yeah. And then you have someone who like their great grandparents bought the team for $100. Totally. And that's the only, that's the entirety of the family wealth. And so like that just, just like that there's social dynamics, like to the outside, they're all the same. They're all the one percent. They all, and you're like, actually no, there's like clicks and groups and totally different approaches and insane. Well, and they, the ones who bought their team.

remind the one subtly all the time that they inherited theirs. Oh, right. Which is a really interesting, like, class dynamic. Yeah. And you have situations where, like, the bears, you know, they have like 40-some McCaskies who own the team. Yeah. They limited how many of them can be on the field before a game because there's so many. There's not enough tickets. Yeah. It's like it became a problem. Like, there's too many people. So when do you write? In the mornings. What's her schedule? Like I dropped my kids off at camp this morning, came here, I wrote for an hour, then we had a staff meeting, then I have this. I might do a little bit of writing in the afternoon and then we have like a book club for the bookstore this afternoon. That's my day. I don't have to do any like reporting those. I don't have to like spend a lot of time like on the phone. Do you know what? Like my writing is like if I'm sitting there, I'm writing. You know, like. But that's a whole different mental exercise and mental gymnastics because it may not require the travel. But like one thing I've realized about about books and write Thompson and I kind of realize it at the same time, is that they're all essays. All the good ones are essays, whether they're reported essays or not.

Sure. They have to be, you know? And so you have to be constantly on that thinking level. And that's a hard place to get to. Yeah, I've likened to it's like, you know, sometimes like you close your laptop and you come back to a couple hours later and it's like burning hot because it somehow didn't shut down. That's what your brain is like when you're mid, like when you're in the middle of it.

There's a part on a book where you like, you've gotten it. Yeah. You're like, oh, I'm actually going to finish this. Like, it's going to come together. That part's fun. But it's the whole, like the first maybe like two thirds, maybe a little bit more than the first two thirds where you're just like, it could fall apart at any moment and you could come up short at any moment.

You know, maybe it's like in sports where it's like, oh, shit, I think we're at basically an insurmountable lead. If we just don't fuck this up, we're going to walk away with this. And that kind of pre-celebration energy. Could be the Falcons, could not, you know. Not that. I'm talking like in the fourth, like in an NBA game, it's the fourth quarter. It's like two minutes left and you're up by like 15. Yeah. Oh, okay. As long as we, we'd have to do a lot wrong in a row. So as long as we just don't fuck it up. Yeah. We got this. That's a good feeling.

But most of it, it's nail bite or the whole way. I grew up in Alaska and I do a lot of extreme skiing with some of my buddies. And it reminds me a little bit what you're saying of that. Yeah. It's like the first 20% you're like, this is hit or miss. Yeah. Like we might be, you know, you know, sledding down, you know, who knows? And then once you get to a point, and you're like, okay. You can look up, you look like, I've made it a good chunk of the hard part of it's behind me. Again, it's not that it's easy from here, but like, I'm pretty sure I have this. That's a good, that's a good feeling. Yeah. There's a thing that entrepreneurs talk about, so you get like the first bump of your media attention. That's really exciting. And then it's like

the, you immediately go into what's called the trough of despair. And that, like, you spend most of a book in the trough of despair. Just like, what did I sign up for? Am I literally capable of doing this? Is this the worst idea ever? You know, all that. That's the shitty part. Yeah. There's another shitty part after you finish, but before it's out, where you're like, there is a conceivable chance that this could sell zero copies. Like, you know, they're like, we're talking to these media outlets. I'm there. And like, none of them have committed yet where you're just like, and then did you do the audiobook? I did. Yeah, then you have to go read it. Like I'm about to do my next book in here. I do them in here. And like, I just want to kill myself after it. I'm like, this is the worst fucking book. Thank God. It's not just me.

No, because there's some points you're like a hundred more pages. Seriously. What more do you have to say? You hate your, you hate the book just because it's taking, it's taking a lot out of you. And then you're only spending more time with it and getting no external validation whatsoever, right? So it's just your, it's you and your inner monologue, unless you're a delusional narcissist, that monologue is mostly about all the things that are wrong with it. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely true. And then there's the other part, did you ever see swingers? No.

Okay, so it's a funny movie. Yeah. You have to be careful Googling it because, like, some other shit comes up. But, you know, it's about young actors in Hollywood in the 1990s. It was like John Favreau's and Vince Bons. Yeah. So there's this part in it, you know, John Fabro is heartbroken the entire time, and he's like having like this heart to heart

with Ron Livingston, and Ron Livingston is talking about heartbreak, and he's like, you know, it hurts all the time, and then it hurts a little less, and then you kind of miss the pain. You know, and Faber is like, you miss the pain? What the, like what? And he goes, yeah, because you lived with it for so long. And then that, I feel like that's a part too. Totally. No, I mean, I'm just finishing a four book series.

So I've been with this series for seven years, six years. and so and I've had these different periods what the weird part about is it's like each book is a microcosm of the whole series but it's been this weird thing where it's like you work on one is it good and then it comes out it does well then you have the elation but then you go right in

the shit of starting the next one so this is like this is the last part of it and then I'm done and there's a quote I have it's from Gibbon where he's talking about finishing the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and he says it's like

taking leave of a of an old friend or something like that. And there's something to that where you're like, you're like, you miss it because you spent so much time with these people and these ideas and this thing. And then you're going to go off and do what next? That's a weird feeling. When you're busy, when you work hard, when you push yourself, one of the things that's really important is recovery.

And recovery is. not just about rest. It's also what you put in your body. So you take advantage of that rest. So get what it needs to recover. The creatine is one of the most essential nutrients for your body and brain to do that. It supports strength and power and recovery, even memory and mental sharpness. And now, thanks to Momentous, today's sponsor, is easier and more refreshing. Their new creatine lemon delivers the purest creatine on the planet in a naturally flavored lemonade-style powder. And like with all the momentous supplements, it follows the momentous standard. You know, Momentus is not just another supplement brand. They built their entire

reputation around doing the fundamentals with precision and they back it with science and transparency and trust. If you've been thinking about taking creatine or if you've taken it and dropped out or you've tried it and you didn't like it, this is your moment to get back on track with a formula you'll actually enjoy. It'll make you feel great and help you recover faster and better. Just head over to live momentous.com and use code stoic for up to 35% off your first order. That's code stoic at live momentous.com. We've been hiring for some positions at daily stoic lately. And when you have roles you're trying to fill, it can be difficult, right? You want to fill the roles quickly, but you also want to find the right people. So that's really a question. How do you find

amazing candidates fast. Well, the answer is just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. With Indeed's sponsored jobs, you stand out and hire fast. And with sponsored jobs, your jobs, jump to the top of the page to help you find relevant candidates quickly. How fast is Indeed? In the minute we've been talking here, 23 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer, speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job more visibility at Indeed.com slash daily Stoic. Just go to Indeed.com slash daily stoic right now to support the show and say you heard about

Indeed on this podcast. Deed.com slash daily stoic. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring. Indeed is all you need. I wanted to start with Andrew Luck. Sounds good. Because, as you say, it's like they're basically American gods. It's like the penultimate of American sports. You make ungodly amounts of money, famous, everyone wants you, all this stuff. And here you have a guy who walks away from it.

Is he the sane one or is he the insane one? Andrew Luck is fascinating because he doesn't know. You're not supposed to do that. Yeah. Well, he doesn't know the answer to that question. Right. is he the one who got out at the right time or is he the one who turned away something that he'll never have again and he knows that. I spent a lot of time with him in 2022 for an

ESPN story and it was the first time he'd spent anyone with a writer since he retired. And we first started meeting, I want to say February. Story came out that December. So we met a lot. Yeah. And part of hanging out with him was watching him replayed this. decision in his head, knowing that in his heart he made the right decision, but he was still uneasy with it. I think what led me to writing the book is like being a high school quarterback in Anchorage, Alaska, you know, in the 90s and losing out on the starting job on varsity, you know, my entire identity was geared towards this thing.

And you don't play quarterback, you are one. Yeah. And he was one. And his entire identity was wrapped up in this thing, but he knew he had to get away from it. Why? I think that he didn't like who he was as a quarterback. Huh. On the field or off the field?

Oh, 100% off. On the field, I think he was very happy with who he was. But there's no roadmap. And that's one of the most interesting things I found about this, like spending time with current high school guys, you know, from Arch Manning to others. But, like, there is no way to do this. Yeah. Even though they've kind of tried to make there be a way to do this. And so there's no way to tell if what you're doing is the path to greatness.

And he came to the Colts. Peyton Manning had been there. Peyton Manning ran the entire building. Yeah. Andrew Luck was 22 years old. And he thought, well, that's how you do this. And he basically tried to do his version of that with very little guidance. And when he realized that to get to game time, you cannot have any doubt.

Yeah. It's almost like you have to create like a fragile ecosystem around you where, you know, you're at the center of it. It's Andrew's world. And everything kind of revolves around you. And that's the way he did it for a long time. And when he got hurt, he started to realize the fatal flaws in that mindset in having like almost kind of like, reverse engineered his entire life to win football games, once he was away from the game, he started to realize that there was limits to it. And he didn't know elements of himself at all. Do you think that's a failure of like the system or culture, or is it just inherently any elite performance is going to be inherently isolating because by definition of being the greatest or in this small minority, no one knows what it's like. And you're distant from everyone. else. I don't have a great answer for that. You know, for ESPN, I spent a ton of time with Alex Honnold, you know, who obviously did Free Solo. And he reminded me a lot of a quarterback

in the sense that, like, people thought that he was this daredevil who was indifferent to death and didn't mind if he died. And when really it was the opposite. What was interesting about him was that he was so scared of dying that he memorized every single dimple and pebble. And shift on El Capitan and so that when he finally climbed it without any support system he knew every single move

that he was going to do. It took him years to do that. And that reminds me a lot of quarterbacking where you have to be obsessive on that level to be successful and you have to tap into a part of your personality that either you need to get up to speed or

pre-existed. Well I just mean like there's probably what? 10 sports right named sports writers you know what i mean like there's there in any given field there's only so many people doing it so you must have some sense of what it's like like you you have to turn herself kind of there's something fundamentally unbalanced about being one of the top people at the thing that you do probably you have to become unbalanced to get there and then there's something unbalancing once you're there because you're like there's no one who's like let me show you it goes because they want your spot or they know you you want their spot. Yeah. Or they're dead.

Yeah. Like being like number one on the call sheet, as they say in Hollywood, the conductor stands alone. That's just how it goes. It is. And you have to be broken in the right places and healed in the right places. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, you end up like kind of flaming out. And I think that like when it comes to Andrew especially, you know, he not only began when he was hurt and his shoulder was bothered. him and, you know, he didn't know if he was going to return to be able to play. His wife, you know, was on the verge of leaving him. She was his girlfriend, you know, but like she was on the verge of leaving him because they had dated since Stanford and he simply wasn't communicating anything with her. And here he was facing all this fear, identity crisis, pain. And he had to learn

how to tap into that part of this personality. Be a person. To be a person, to be a husband. And I think that, like, once he did, he made it a point to see if he could make it, you know, he played that final season, the 2019 season, 18 season, and he won player, you know, comeback player of the year. And he had proved to himself that he could be someone that he liked being around and be good. And be good. And he wished he'd retired right then. But it's hard, it's a hard thing to walk away from. Well, there's that line in Hamilton where King George, when he hears that George, when he hears that George Walker. Washington is going to walk away. He goes, I didn't know that was a thing a person could do.

Yeah, exactly. Which is, it's a great line. And it is, I mean, the real line is, is crazy too, right? King George does hear that George Washington is going to return to his farm. He goes, what's George Washington going to do after the revolution? And, you know, one of his events is, I think he's going to return to his farm in Mount Vernon. And he goes, if he does that, it'll be the greatest man in the world. Like, you're not supposed to do it. It's not supposed to do it. You can't walk away from the thing that everyone wants. And so there's something truly majestic about it when people do it. And then there's the other part of us that's like, wait, you walked away from being a professional football player to preserve your marriage. You know, there's like some other part of us that finds it deeply shameful also. There's something beautiful about it. And then, like, we're mad that Obama is not more politically engaged. You know, like you're not supposed to walk away.

Yeah, and that has to do with our, like, American obsession and American ambition. You know, the first question I asked Andrew Luck when we started talking was I asked, you know, why did you become a quarterback? And his answer was he laughed that Andrew Luck laugh of his. And he said, well, I don't think I had a choice. And it was because, you know, once you're, you've shown promise at being able to do this uniquely American thing that has this obsession around it, like you're on a track. Yes.

and you're going from high school. And he's a Texas quarterback. People forget that. Like all the phenomenal Texas quarterbacks over the years, he's one of them. And you know, you're in that culture. And it's like a tractor beam that takes you in. And I don't think he really stopped to think about what it had done to him and who it had kind of turned him into until he was injured.

Right. Yeah, you become a machine. You turn off some part of yourself to get that level. Or that's what we tell us. Or it refused to acknowledge that it even exists. Yeah. And, you know, I think that, like, quarterback has become so big that I think that to do it now, you know that the celebrity and the fame piece of it come with it.

Yeah. And so I think to do it now, you have to have that whole in your person. You don't want that from the beginning. It's not a, like, I just want to be a quarterback and I don't like the fame part. Like, you knew that was the bargain from the beginning. Like, Steve Young and I at one point, like, talk. about all the hats you have to wear as a quarterback. And I think we stopped at like 24. Wow. You know, from matinee idol to field general to, you know, astonishing asshole, to amateur

psychologist, to, you know, spokesperson of a multi-billion dollar organization, all these things. And oh, by the way, you also have to be able to throw the ball through windows that nobody else can see, much less take advantage of. But I think that like to do it now, you not only have to be able to have the ability to throw, but you have to have that hole in your personality that requires There's constant adulation and reassurance and love that's very similar to a politician or a lead singer, something like that where it's like that just kind of has to be part of the equation at this point. And what is that doing to people? What does that do to teenagers when we're so obsessed with spotting genius early without really understanding what makes the genius in the first place? That is going to be really interesting to see.

when it's not like you're given time to develop a fully rounded out personality with diverse interests and connections because you have you have been specialized since you were 10 or earlier. Absolutely. And like. So you don't have the things that would actually help you manage that thing. Like in music they call it LSD like lead singer disease. Yeah. Like you're catching this quarterback disease at like 10. I just ran with my buddy on Town Lake Trail here in Austin, did 10 miles in roughly 70 minutes.

And then I ran with his brother, his twin brother. This is my best friends from middle school. I ran with his twin brother when I was in Greece. He was there with his wife's family. We ran outside Olympia. And then in between these two runs, I ran the original marathon. I ran from Marathon to Athens. And you know what shoes I used?

I used today's sponsor, Hoka. They actually have a new shoe, the Rocket X3, which is a race day shoe that's engineered for speed when every second counts. The Rocket X3 is built to meet the demands of race day. It's lightweight. It's responsive. It's tuned for speed. And it's got this carbon plate in there that enhances stability.

And it's got the high rebound Piba foam that cushions you against the road. It's grippy rubber outsole helps ensure a secure connection to the road, and it helps runners stay fast and focused from start to finish. I think you'll really like these shoes. The carbon fiber plate, seriously, it's something you kind of got to feel to believe, like you go, how could a shoe really make that big of a difference, especially if you've been running a long time, and then you feel the sort of spring of that carbon fiber, and it is crazy.

Try the Rocket X3 for yourself at Hokit.com, And you can check out this cool video I did about the Marathon run, which Hokka is sponsored. I'll link to that in description. Or you can just go to dailystilic.com slash marathon. One of the characters in my book is a kid who's at LSU now named Colin Hurley. And he was on the fast track. And he wanted to be the youngest person really to do just about everything in the space of quarterbacks. He didn't play middle school football. He went straight from like sixth grade to

starting on varsity. And he graduated high school and started at Louisiana State when he was 16 years old. When he started, not started, but he started attending. And when he got to campus, until he turned 17 years old, there had to be a football staffer on him at parties because legal age of consent is 17 in Louisiana. And I mean, this is, you're talking about like a college freshman. who, you know, barely has his driver's license. And you think about even the parents that would subject their kid to said situation. And his dad is an interesting guy. He's a loving, hard ass.

His name is Charlie. And he was a former cop and homicide detective in Miami. And so he's seen everything. And he had a premonition for so long that this might not end well just because of how young, his son was in this dangerous world that he was entering. And, you know, last Christmas, Colin returned to campus with a car. And his dad didn't want him to have a car, but you're getting an IL money. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to LSU. You know, if you want to get a car, what are you going, what are you supposed to do? And he wrote a note to his son, or he wrote a note in the, and he put it in

the glove box. And it was like, in case of emergency, please call me. And it was Charlie Hurley, and he gave his phone number, because he knew from life that that's where cops look. Yeah. And two weeks later, you know, Colin was in a near fatal accident at 3 o'clock in the morning when he ran his car into a tree right on the edge of the LSU campus. Jesus Christ. The inability to turn stuff down when everyone is throwing it out. I think that's what you think about the Washington thing.

It's like, what do you mean you're resigning your commission and going home? what do you mean you don't want to stay president for like we're we're just not good at walking away i think about this do you listen to mark marron's podcast oh he's like basically the he started the podcast is his thing he's like the biggest one was the biggest one and he's walking away after like 16 years and people like what are you doing you know like you're not supposed to stop like and part of what he's talking about is like nobody ever quits and they're that that would you're not supposed to turn down millions of dollars on your kids' behalf because they might get in a car accident.

You know, like, even though at some level, we know it's not healthy or good, but you just don't. Everybody gets swept up in it. And even being around, you know, it, I got swept up in in a little bit. You know what I mean? Because, like, I'm trying to learn in this book, I'm trying to give readers, like, the clearest eye possible of, you know, what it means to be a quarterback and what it has meant and in all the great ways and all the cruel ones. And, you know, even when, you know, red carpets and VIP treatment and all of those things, you know, witnessing it up close, it's easy to get.

There's an energy to it. There's an energy to it and there's a seductiveness to it. And then when you're not a quarterback, even if you retire on your own terms, you still live with that. And the hardwiring that you had to create within yourself to survive, I think, is uniquely ill-suited. with, A, being content away from the game and, B, a lot of everyday interactions. Like, John Elway, one of my main characters, he was my guy growing up. He was the first quarterback who was number one out of high school, first pick in the draft, first ballot Hall of Famer. And so I knew that he had to create something within himself to withstand that.

Yeah, to say, I deserve this. And to survive it, you know, yeah, and we were talking. at one point and he was just talking about how warped you get and how because of the things you go through, you're almost like incapable of feeling empathy. Like his son, Jack, was a quarterback in high school. And you think about the pressure of being a quarterback in Denver with your last name, Elway. And his dad was the offensive coordinator. His dad was retired. And Jack was feeling the pressure very understandably. He was a good quarterback. He got a scholarship to Arizona State.

and he walked away after a year. He was just kind of burned out. But when he was in high school, he was feeling that stress. And, you know, his dad, of all people, you'd think would be the one who would know what it's like to go through that and could empathize. And he couldn't do it. And he told that he had to turn off that part of himself to be able to do it. So the idea that someone else would struggle with it, it's like, wait, I had that option. I think about this, like, there's a strain analogy to be sure. But like there's an argument that people who think that being gay is a choice think that in part because it's a choice for them. You know what I mean? Totally. Like you've turned the like what do you mean? I'm turning off weird things that I feel inside. Why aren't you doing it?

So to see someone who's just like themselves or struggling with themselves, it's like, what do you mean? So there's this kind of for people who've gone through some form of adversity or harrowing experience to show something, you'd think it would turn on empathy, but it turns off empathy because they had to turn it off to be whatever weird thing they are themselves. Yeah, I mean, to survive that winnowing, where you go from one of 16,000 starting quarterbacks in high school across the country to, you know, one of the top 10 in the NFL to one of the three who make it to the Hall of Fame. And, you know, those are some vaguely sociopathic tendencies that you have to turn on and nurture. And, like, there's not a lot of outlets.

and support system to help you regulate that. No. And so it was interesting because he, you know, he told me flat out, I didn't care what my son was going through. He was like, I figure just compete on the field and let the chips fall where they may. His son goes off to Arizona State, decided it's not for him after a year. And at Elway's 50th birthday party, his son comes up to him and he says, you know, I feel like I've let you down.

And, you know, John said, no, you didn't. And then Jack said something really interesting, which was, um, You know that he missed it, that he missed being a quarterback because, like, you can't, you can't not once you, once you kind of get a, it's just unlike any other job in sports. And it's like that for a, for a lot of different reasons. But like, again, it's something that like, once you've done it, that piece of you is always alive. Yeah. I was thinking about, when I was thinking about, like, what, how do you prepare someone to be a quarterback? Not how do you make them be able to do it on the field, which is, I think your point is that that, in some way, that's the one thing they

all can do you get to a level and then that's actually not that important anymore it's this other stuff that you can either do or not do well yeah i mean when i was playing you know i was just fascinated like how do they fit the ball into that window yeah and then at the end of the book you know that's what made me want to be a quarterback and made me want to study that and then you know at the end of this process i kind of realize that's the thing they have to be able to not think about but also it's like you go to the comment they can all put the ball through the window yeah so like there's something else that either makes you, it's like, yeah, I was actually thinking of Tom Wolff the right stuff and I was reading your book, like you either have the other right stuff or

you don't. Yeah. But I was thinking about like, how do you prepare someone for something so inherently alienating and strange and isolating? And the president, what I write about is there's this, so Hadrian is the emperor of Rome and he doesn't have a son. So there's this period in Roman history where the emperor picks his, his air. And so he sees something in this kid. but he thinks he thinks the kid has it, but the kid's too young. So he adopts an older Roman senator named Antoninus on the condition that Antoninus in turn adopts this boy, Marcus Surrealius. So he sets in motion this succession plan that, you know, he probably thinks it's going to be like a couple year, you know, process. Instead, Antoninus lists for 20 years.

But it's, so Marcus Aurelius has 20 years of on-the-job training. You know, you think about the jockeying back and forth between, you know, the first and the second string quarter. back and how much they hate each other. Now imagine, like, you're the future emperor and there's this other dude in front of you who's emperor who's not your dad. You have no, like, you should, you're both going to hate each other. But how does this sort of partnership? It's remarkable historically in that it's totally unprecedented before and since. Like, they not only don't kill each other, but they work together and then they both do a good job. But there's this interesting passage in meditations where Marcus Reelius, he's writing to himself, obviously, he's now

the emperor. And he says, you have to take care not to become Caesarified. He says, you be careful that you are not stained purple because the emperor wears a purple cape. And so he's talking about this thing that we know, the way that power corrupts. And he seems to do a pretty good job. But it is, it's just fascinating to me that there doesn't seem to be any process by which you can prepare someone to have a job like in the case i think there'd been like 15 emperors before him how many you know like multi-season NFL quarterbacks have there even been probably what a hundred maybe 200 like not that many not that many and so you're like you're being groomed at eight or 10 for the potentiality of doing a thing that as a rule almost everyone fails at and it ends

although it could end financially lucratively, it ends badly for everyone involved. It's just, it's crazy. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode. Thank you.