The Dale Jr. Download - 378 - Greg Olsen: Show Your Scars

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

The NFL and NASCAR combine as a pair of well-known 88's, three-time Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen joins two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the table of truth. Olsen opens up to Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis about his journey from a local New Jersey football family to playing in the National Football League. The two athletes met years ago, and forged a solid friendship through shared charitable endeavors..Thanks our new sponsor Ally, Olsen walked into the Bojangles studio ready to hit the ground running. He detailed the ups and downs of his football life and the values instilled in him by his father that he took along with him every step of the way. Dale Jr. and Greg share their thoughts on the psychology of raising children in a sport and that there is more valuable lessons to be learned by a young mind than just winning a game. Pro football player Olsen is now coach-dad on the baseball field for his children's teams.. Olsen talks about the process of being recruited by colleges during his high school football career and the realities involved in the process. We learn that his father made Greg do something very difficult to let down the coaches from the schools that he wasn't choosing. In doing so he taught some valuable lessons. He also reveals his tenure with Notre Dame and the tough decision to vacate the famed Indiana-based academy for the palm trees of Miami beach and the University of Miami Hurricanes.Curiosity over the combine events that scout college players before they are drafter in the NFL, Dale Jr. gets Greg Olsen to open up about his experience at the event. It's a rare peek into what really happens between player reps, scouts and teams during the NFL Combine. It also lets us in the killer-instinct and mental game that Olsen used throughout much of his football career. The 6-foot-5, 255-pound tight end offers his memories of getting drafted by the Chicago Bears in the first round. Then a few years later, one of the worst trades in Bears history sent Olsen to the North Carolina to play for the Carolina Panthers. Olsen saw the majority of his success in Carolina, and gives us a look behind the curtain of NFL locker room life. What was it like playing with star quarterback Cam Newton? Was the polarizing figure a distraction? Olsen also details getting released by the Panthers and the many difficulties he faced in his year with the Seattle Seahawks, from the CoVid-19 pandemic to coaching, that helped lead to his decision to retire from the game.The biggest fight Olsen faced didn't come from a linebacker or a free-safety. It came from within his family. In 2012, he and wife Kara gave birth to twins T.J. and Talbot. T.J. was born with a congenital heart defect that required multiple surgeries, including three open-heart procedures. In 2021, his heart started to fail. T.J. received a heart transplant and is now an active nine-year-old boy. Olsen opens up about the decisions to share the incredibly tough journey with the public.OPEN SEGMENTBefore Greg Olsen came into the Dirty Mo Media Bojangles studio, Dale Jr., Mike and the gang unpacked some feelings about the recent news of North Wilkesboro Speedway coming off the Lost Speedways list to host racing again. They explain how it’s now up to the fans to prove that North Wilkesboro, and other small market tracks like it, are viable racing facilities, by showing up to the races. Dale's ready to tailgate, are you? The revival has Dale Jr. so excited, that he is even thinking about hopping in a racecar himself at the historic North Carolina track. Wait, what? It's a revelation that had us all floored.ASKJR presented by XfinityHanna Newhouse brings fan questions from @XfinityRacing on twitter about: Dale Jr. joining the Fox broadcast team for the Talladega race. Cruising the Talladega infield The time Dale Jr. drove a Petty-43 Ford at Nashville Fairgrounds Dale Earnhardt's role in the motion picture "BASEketball.” Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production This is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey everybody from the Bojangles Studios. It's Dillenhart Jr. Another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. My co-host, Mike Davis, is here.

How's it going, Mike? It's going well, buddy. All right. He's back from the Keys, man. You went to the Key West, one of my favorite places. One of the places I went, yeah. Well, sorry.

It was amazing. Yeah, you did. You know, I only noticed the Key West part. I knew you. You had other things. you did. It weren't that interesting to me. But I saw all the... I'm just kidding. I saw all the pictures, man.

Looks like you had an awesome time with your family. It's much needed to be able to get away and do that. It was amazing and exhausting. And now I'm tired because of vacation, right? I mean, that's the way it is with kids. But went to the Everglades, did a food cuisine tour in Little Havana in Miami. I mean, we went to everything. Went to the Space Shuttle, Kennedy Space Center.

Dude, we just, we packed it all in. I know. It's kind of like multiple variations. locations all in one, but pretty awesome. Bravo. Good job. That's tough to do. A couple kids. Anyways, Hannah Newhouse is here. Matthew's here. Everybody's on deck. We got a great show for you today. Greg Olson is coming here as the guest tied in from the NFL. Recently retired. I don't know how retired. We'll ask him. But I know he's kind of interested in doing TV work. He's done some booth work here, and we'll ask him about that as well. But he's been a friend of ours for a long time. We've worked together with

our foundations and some of his charitable initiatives. So I've gotten to know him through those. And he's a cool, cool guy. Can't wait to get him here at the table and see what he's got to tell us. It's always fun to learn about some of these non-N NASCAR guests that we have. What do you think? I love this because I think you booked this guest on Twitter, didn't you? You and Greg started rapping back and forth, and you're going to be on his podcast later,

and we've been looking forward to this for a long time. Greg Olson's been on our list because of all the friendships you guys developed. And also, he was really dang good. He's been in a Super Bowl. He's a successful football player that now is doing TV. You guys have a lot in common. So we're going to have a good conversation. And so let's dive right into an open segment here.

We've had a big announcement at North Wiltsboro. And if you haven't been on social media or you haven't really been paying attention there, there's a lot to be learned. We've been working to try to help find out what the future or purpose could be for that property for a long time. I don't have any monetary involvement, no ownership. I just have a passion, and that's all I own in the whole thing, is just a want to to see this track do something, right?

What does that even mean? The owner of the track, Marcus Smith, has been on this show multiple times and teased the possibility of something happening with the track or the property. We've watched the conversation between him. him and Marcus, the other Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. He's, you know, he's teased being a part of a project, if anything were to materialize. He'd certainly support it with Camping World and some investment there.

Who knows, right, where this all goes. But they did announce that there will be racing at Northwestville this year. So I'll try to spell it out best I can. Marcus has brought in a promoter to help organize a month of asphalt race. racing in August. All right, pretty much every day of the month, except on Sundays, there will be track activity. There will be main events on every Wednesday and every Saturday. They will be rotating classes in and out of the racetrack.

So I think they have like, you know, some four-cylinder class coming in the first three days. And then they got like a late model, super late model. They got street stocks. I'm going to probably go to the street stock race. It's on a Wednesday. We're working on the weekends and NBC on the booth, right? So I can't go on the weekends, but there's Wednesday features that I can go to, so I'm going to try to do that.

There's a late model stock race that is the final three-day activity in the month of August. So like I said, every day of the month, except on Sundays, there'll be track activity. And the last class that's going to be there in August is the late model stock class, which we have cars. You own a couple of us. And so Josh Berry may plan to enter the race. We don't know whether we'll enter Carson or not. He's going to be racing that weekend before on Saturday in the cars tour.

We don't have enough cars to really kind of do everything we want to do. I want to race. What? Yeah. You going to race? I might. I might enter. Hold on.

Hold on. and I've never really, nothing's ever really kind of made sense, right? Where do I go? They've got a tire shortage this year. There's all kinds of reasons why it's been kind of iffy on whether I should go do anything or not. I've tested our late model cars at Hickory at Florence Motor Speedway over the last several years. They're a bunch of fun. We racing the cars tour, have raced in the cars tour.

Everybody knows we've, you know, we've raced in the late mall stock series for a long time, but I've kind of looked for an opportunity, and this seems like the park. perfect chance, right? Yeah. I can go practice. There's practice qualifying in the race over a three-day period, get a little bit of track time. I want to support what they're doing at North Wilsonboro because I have kind of been involved in this conversation for so long, so I want to do what I can to make what they're doing

this year a success. So I'll let you know. I'll announce it more than likely on this show if I actually officially am entered, but it'd be cool. And I tease this on Twitter that if we got the Sundrop car, I race the Sunrop car. Oh, that's right. Yeah. The green.

At North Wiltsboro in 1993. Yeah. It'd be cool. If Sundrop would okay us putting their logos on the car for this event. I mean, that would definitely push me further toward, you know, getting online and logging my entry. So, yeah, I'd love to run the late-mile stock race. again, a whole month of pavement racing at North Westboro. Tickets are on sale now.

Yeah, I was going to say, I have North Wilkesboro Speedway pulled up right now, and they went on sale to the general public on Tuesday, April 19th. So that is today. They went on sale and you can get them on Northworkspo Speedway.com. Northwoldsporespereway.com. Great job. And I hope that people are buying tickets. Go there, look at the schedule.

See what days you think you might want to go check it out. This is the last time you'll get a chance to see anything racing on the surface that's there now. On the pavement, right? What's that late model stock race is over on August 31st? They are going to tear up the current surface and take it away. It's out of here. All right. They're going to race on dirt the entire month of October.

Basically everything they're doing with pavement in August, they're going to do it with dirt. you're going to have super late models, crate late models. There are all types of dirt cars that are going to go compete on dirt at Northwestboro. I am not going to miss that. Again, we're going to be working the booth in NBC so I can't go on the weekends, but there's Wednesday features that I am going to be tailgating my ass off at. So you can bet that I'm not going to miss some of the action that's happening at North Wiltsboro.

this August and this October, two full months of racing. And then I think that they say they plan to repave the racetrack. Right. There's a renovation project that will happen after all this. There's some federal money that's supporting some of the initiatives and motor sports in the state of North Carolina. There's opportunity for tracks like Rockingham, North Wiltsboro, and a lot of these local regional tracks like Hickory and Tri-County that can benefit from some of these monies that are coming from the government.

When that is all, you know, when that's starting to work the way it's planned and the money's coming in to North Wilkesboro, they plan to renovate this racetrack and they plan to repave it, they plan to bring it back to a certain level of regular competition and they want to turn it not only in, you know, they don't, they want to have motor sports there, and Marcus even teased the opportunity that there could be a truck race someday. He thinks that the infrastructure as far as the seating, the ability to get in and out of the racetrack, as far as traffic flow and whatnot, it would be able to support a truck series race.

He says that it's maybe a too small of a facility support, Exfinity, or to support Cup. I'd argue that Xfinity and truck kind of the same crowd. Hey everyone, it's Mike Davis here. I want to talk to the listener right now from me to you. And Matthew Deunner, you're here as well. Let's have a conversation.

May 29th is the Dirty Mo Media Ultimate Experience. It's the sweet experience. We pack it so much. We've got everything in this deal. We've got radio headset, parking space, access to bathroom, food and drink, all you can eat and drink. Food and drink.

Yeah. Beer, beer, beer, beer. Beer. Also, we do a swag bag full of shirts, hats, just water bottles. And I believe Brett Griffin even puts in a shot of fireball. We take care of you. And Jordan Taylor. You buy a ticket test. We're going to take care of you. You're right. Jordan Taylor's coming. It's crazy. I'm going to add something else. You ready for this? Yeah. What you got? Me? I'm going to add something else. I'm going to say that if you are here on Saturday or Friday, I don't know, I want to talk to the people that. buy a ticket to this, I will give them a tour of junior motorsports here if they want it. If they want it, if you bought a ticket and you want to come by and see a shop, and I'm talking an exclusive tour, like not the stuff that everybody goes. The studio is part of it where we record the Dale Junior download.

I'm going to throw that in. So I'm telling you, this thing has got so much value, but time is running out. You've got to buy a ticket. There's just a few left. But I'm up in the ante. I'm saying, hey, buy a ticket. and if you are here before race day, I will show you around Junior Motorsports.

We'll get it coordinated. How about that? Is that a good deal, Matthew? I think that's great. The bathrooms and the beer, you had me. I had you at the food. I had you in the bathrooms and the food. Big surprise.

And the beer. If you paid attention to our social feeds, we did this at Las Vegas. It was a huge success. Everyone had a great time. They said, we are coming back, do this again. We're going to do it again at Bristol in the fall. But right now, the Charlotte ticket is on sale.

Go to dirtymomedia.com. Right now. There's just a few left. You've got to get in on it now. Dirtymodea.com. Go to the Ultimate Experience tab. Go buy your tickets there, and we'll see you at Charlotte, May 29. I'd like to turn it over to Marcus for today's news announcement.

I've said a couple of times that we're going to be racing at North Wilkesboro Speedway sooner than you think. And today we're here to announce that we're going to be racing at North Wilkesboro Speedway this year starting in August and again in October. So what happens beyond this year really determines, I think it's determined on how much support they get in August and October this year. So go, go support this, please. I would go one more about that. I think race fans, hardcore race fans, which I am one,

we're sort of on notice because something unusual has happened for once, decades of complaining and saying that corporate America has taken away our sport and they've taken them out of smaller markets and put them other big places, you have a chance to prove them wrong, right? But you can still prove them right if you don't go support it. And I'm like, I'm telling you, if this thing isn't packed all the time, then you're sort of proving them right. Like small market little racetracks that we all grew up with and loved can't make it in today's world. And I think that race fans are on notice. It's like, okay, we heard you. There was governmental funds that came in. This thing caught momentum when the irasing and the, you know, the weed

whacking and the stuff a couple years ago, it started getting momentum and then the local officials started getting excited. And now we have a pathway to racing, returning, and it's going to happen. If this thing is a quarter full or a half full at best, this thing will have proven corporate America right. And, you know, or if you pack it out and you plan, your vacations. You know, where are you going to spend your money? You're going to spend your money, you know, on Charlotte Hornets tickets, season tickets, you're going to go support something that just was dead and was not even on life support. It was dead. We went there. I was like, there's no way that this thing, this thing will only survive in the Sim world. And that's what

we thought. And yet here we are with racing. I think race fans are on notice. And we can mess this up if we don't, if we're not careful. Yeah. So, you know, they're going to do what they can to get the track presentable, get the facilities and the property presentable for what's going to happen this year with the pavement racing and the dirt racing, it is going to, you're going to have to be willing to compromise that it's not the renovation that is planned for the future. When you go to watch races there, understand that it's, you're, you know, it's going to feel throwback. It's going to feel old school. And it's, you're going to have to run. as a tailgator, which I kind of look forward to.

Absolutely. That's the, that's the charm. Yeah, I know. It's going to have some charm. That's the charm. You don't want to sit there and have the accommodations of Las Vegas. You don't want a neon garage at Wilkesboro. You want to have your pop-up camper or your tent, whatever it is.

You know, let's leave the entitlement somewhere else. Go and appreciate that racetrack. And by the way, when you go in the facility, and we know this from a couple years ago, you fall in love all back over again. again, man. It's got a feeling. It has a feeling. And dude, I think the thing seeded when when you had the conversation with him on an airplane. I don't know where y'all were going. Vegas. Is that right? And you were like, hey, let's clean this thing up for irasing. And he came out there with us. It was cold. It was rainy. It was December several years ago. And I'm not saying

that's why we're here today. But that started a chain of events that picked up momentum in conversation. I racing, you know, the pandemic, I racing, racing at North Wilkesboro, you know, and being televised life, it all picked up this momentum. And here we are, well, we can go racing at Wilkesboro again. It's going to happen in a few months. It's amazing. Yeah. We got to support it. We will.

And we're going to send our cars to the late model stock segment on the pavement racing at the end of August. We're going to go on some Wednesdays and buy us a ticket and enjoy the action. It should be something to see. I just can't even imagine what that place is going to look like with cars going around it. And plus, even when they tear it up and make it a dirt track, that'll be visually really cool witness. And hopefully the progress that that racetrack continues beyond that. And it real, again, it will be determined on how many people really support what's going on this year. If nobody comes, it could make, you know, Marcus and his team, you know, second guess really what the,

the what the success of that racetrack could be going forward. Now, what I wanted to say was, is Marcus has an intention to turn it into a event space. You know, the racetrack portion and the competition in motorsports there is really only a segment or a small part of what he visualizes as the future of that property. He wants to have festivals, music festivals, car swap meets, all types of, you know, basically the things that happen like at Sharmer Speedway when they're not racing there, they have concerts they have festivals they have auto fair and all that type of stuff he wants to be able to provide that for that area of western north carolina and north wiltsboro speedway sort of be

a place where people can be able to celebrate some of the things that they love pretty cool and we'll have to see how it goes going forward but i'm excited about that i honestly never thought it would happen oh no when we left there a few years ago i mean listen the thing looked dilapidated I mean, the garage was half. I'm actually curious to go see it right now. Right now, I believe it. I want to see how different it is from when we were there a couple years ago. Well, I don't know that it's changed a bunch as far as visually.

I know they got rid of the part of the garage that collapsed. It was down, right. But the other half is still there because it's still functioning as a, you know, a shed, a lean-to and keeps all their equipment stuff out of the weather. But it's not going to really look a whole lot different. I think that's okay. they're going to paint a, you know, put a fresh coat of paint on it. Now, when they go back after all this is done this year, and they might, you know, they're going to gut some things and get rid of some stuff,

and visually, then it's going to really start to change. I have to come in, put a safer barrier and all that good stuff, and that's going to make things look a lot different. It'll look more modern and so forth. But that's exciting news. It's exciting news that you're thinking about racing the late model there. I can't wait to hear about this. I love to get some laps in.

Man, and hopefully we're competitive enough to make this. show. I expect that they'll get probably around 40 to 60 cars show up for about, you know, 32 or 36 spots. Hey, if it happens, maybe call it Wesley Cheryl. Maybe call us already called me. Call up the old band. Get them back. We're way ahead of that. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it. I'm sure that you all saw the announcement this morning. Allied and me are becoming partners. We've worked with Ally before. Yep. We've enjoyed. We've enjoyed. doing some of the things last year. We designed the race car for old Alex Bowman.

That's right. That's right. Me and Ally, we're going to partner together and do some cool things going for, but they're also going to be supporting Dirty Mo Media. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, they're going to sponsor the guest segment this year. So happy to have them on board and participating in this. It just really kind of solidifies the partnership that you guys started last year.

It's going to be special. Yeah, I love everything that Ally is doing all across the motorsports. They're kind of involved in a lot of different things, and it's fun to learn about this company, what they do. It's important to have allies in life. That's right. Right? And we're certainly going to enjoy Ally being a part of what we do here at the Dell Jr. Download and helping us bring our guests in. Like I said, I'm going to be doing some things with them in the future that are going to be cool,

some new announcements coming out in the next couple of weeks or so about what that is. but for now we're proud to have Ally helping us bring in our guest segment each week. That's right, and today is going to be Greg Olson. I am pumped about this. Greg Olson, we've watched him play football for many years. I started watching him back when he was with the Chicago Bears. So when he came to Carolina, he became one of our own, right? And now he's coming on the show.

We've had him on our list for a long time. And so I can't think of a better first guest for the first ally guest segment than Greg Olson. We've got to get him in here. Let's get Greg in here. Welcome Greg Olson to the Dale Jr. Download. Wharton under pressure throws and to paint shutdown Greg Olson. You know, it definitely was tough. You know, in the past, you know, I was, you know, one of the focal points of the all

found out that this was in the works. This was one of the teams that I would have picked. There he is, dude. Freckin legend. What's up? This is real now. What's up, buddy? How are you good to see you, man? What's up?

Man, I was just picking your sister's brain on all things racing. Is that right? Fascinating. This studio is incredible. Man, I appreciate that. We've evolved. I have like a closet in my office. Well, that's where we were for years, just in that booth.

I need a race team. I think that's the lesson. I think that's the lesson that I'm learning. If you want a nice studio, you need a race team. No, you need a lot of merchandise that once you retire that you don't think you're going to sell. And so you reduce the store by half and then create a studio. That's what happened. I think Dale sends sells a lot more merchandise than I do.

I think you need a merch store. I don't necessarily need a merch store. store. So Greg Olson, what's been going on, man? Oh, man. Just I think the same thing everyone's doing. Just everyone, I feel like the world now has like picked up since COVID. Everyone's trying to make up for two years of sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Yep. Then now everything's in like warp speed. I agree with that. Yeah. You know, between the kids and, you know, the school thing is pretty status quo. But now kids are getting older now. They're all in sports and two of them are playing travel in the spring and my daughter plays soccer. So there's not a weekend that we're home. Right. You know, we're your hands on.

On. On. On. On. On. On. So give me a normal week for you. Yeah. So, I mean, last night, so typically Mondays, my older son has practiced. So his, he plays, like, pretty competitive travel baseball in the spring and, you know, spring summer. So they practiced three times a week. And then, you know, not every weekend will have a tournament, but a good amount. So like this week, particular, we got back last week from, we went to the beach for Easter. And it was like our one non-baseball weekend of the spring. So we got. He had practice last night. My younger son will have practice tonight.

Both boys will have practice tomorrow. My daughter has soccer tonight. Then Friday, me and my older son will leave for Savannah. We go to Savannah, Georgia for a weekend baseball tournament. My wife will stay back with our daughter, do soccer in the morning. Then they'll fly and meet us in Savannah to watch hopefully Saturday afternoon and Sunday games. And then we'll all drive back together and go back to school Monday. Next weekend, we'll do, next week we'll do all the same except my younger son's going to Pigeon Forge,

Tennessee for a nine-year-old baseball tournament. So we'll drive down to Tennessee. So it's crazy. We're ridiculous. That's wild. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So when you were playing, none of this was really, you know, the kids are at an age now to where all this is kind of ramped up.

But when you were just recently, right, playing, how was, how are you making that work? How are you making it work with family, so many kids and your family, plus what you have to devote to the game? Yeah, it was challenging. And I think, fortunately for me, like in the bulk of my. career they were younger right you know they they were you know when I retired Tate was eight so they were just kind of getting in so the sports thing we were always very busy in the spring so we always kind of gravitated towards the soccer with my

daughter and baseball with the boys because spring was this season I was around so I think just by the situation we were in I was around we could do more we could play more challenging tournaments we could travel we could do all that stuff because in the fall it was typically just played local you know flag football local local basketball just because my wife was here by herself. You know, I was gone through the week and on every weekend. I wasn't around to take them to practice. I wasn't around to take them to tournaments in Savannah.

You know, we just couldn't do that, you know, for, you know, 10 years. So it was, uh, spring was always the season. We always tried to make up for all the lost time from the fall. And, you know, I'm gone on the weekends in the fall now calling games, but Monday through Friday, I'm taking the kids of school, taking them to practice. So we're, we're making up for some lost time. How did you manage the guilt, I guess, that you, out of head as a father not being able to be there. I know you're playing, you're working,

but I'm sure there's days when the wife's like, well, you're kind of doing what you want to do, right? You know, you're enjoying what you do. You're not really working, right? I used to, man, I'll tell, I'll be honest. And my wife knows this, and I joke. Like, I used to love going to the facility, going to off-season programs. Like, it wasn't a chore to me. Right. So, you know, it was, I would, like, if practice, she'd always joke, she's like, do you have to be there an hour and a half early? Like, I'm like, yeah, like, I got to go in the locker room. I got to have breakfast with the boys. Like, we got to do stupid.

The wait room. We got to, like, that's the fun. Like, once eight o'clock starts, that's the meetings. That's all, like, yeah, I want to get there at seven because that hour is like my time and hanging with your buddies. And she's like, well, who do you things doing all this? I'm like, I get it. It's not. And now that I'm retired, you see the other side of it and you're around more.

Like, it is not easy doing the normal day-to-day juggling of three kids and all that comes with it. So I, yes, I'm making up for a lot of the times where I was off doing my own thing. I'm paying that. I'm paying that back now. I see it. I see it on social media. You are the perfect person to ask this question too. I need help.

You're going to help me. Oh, gosh. I don't know how much help, but I'm ready. What is your philosophy in critiquing your kids performance after a game? Oh, man. How much time we got? No, I need it. I mean, listen.

Because I got my daughters. My whole podcast that Dale's nice enough to join me on later is literally on all these things. because I can't tell you the nights I've laid in bed, like after coaching my kids or just being there as a dad and maybe I came down on them too hard or maybe I criticize me too hard and then I'm laying in bed and I'm like, am I ruining this for this kid? Like it's really hard for me to turn my brain from the way I was wired, right? Where like nothing was ever good enough continue to find ways to improve, challenge yourself, motivated, internal motivation. Like that was what fueled my whole life from the time I was a kid. So it's the only way I

know. So I'm like projecting that onto my eight, nine, 10 year old kid and I'm saying like, is this the right way? And I've had to do a lot of like soul searching and a lot of like changing the way I'm wired because it wasn't in the best case. And and I'll be honest, I push my kids to the level they want to be pushed to. And I think that to answer your question, that would probably be my biggest piece of advice, something I've learned the hard way and also something I've learned from conversations with a lot of other people that raised kids in sports or just kids that were into piano or whatever it was, push your kid to the level that they want and are able to be pushed. And that's different for every kid in your own household.

I have three kids that have very different levels of interest, very different levels of competitive spirit. So I try to gear my feedback and gear my intensity based on each individual child. So yeah, but kids need to hear the truth. I'm a big believer that not everything's okay. If their effort was not. Effort. Effort's my biggest thing. My pet peeve is what.

You know, you hear your kids talk about, I want to play college. I want to do this. And then you got there and see them coast. And like, that's my thing. I don't care if you score goals. I don't care if you just try, right? Oh, effort and attitude. You're going to strike out.

If you bang your helmet, you smack your bat, you're going to catch an ass chewing. I have no patience for that. Like, you are not going to go out there and like, act like that you're not going to when a coach talks you you're going to look him in the face yes coach you might not like what he says he might not be right but he's your coach you're going to learn that you're going to deal with like those are all the lessons through all of this that in my opinion is what it's all about i always joke on our show i said like if the idea of youth sports was to just create professional athletes we should just shut it down right like that's not

we're not making enough of them it doesn't it doesn't matter this is about learning lessons This is about accountability. This is about learning how to fail, how to succeed. And I believe, and not everyone agrees with me, but I believe kids need to hear the truth. Because you know what, the next time your kid comes home and you tell him, great job, he's like, Dad doesn't just say good job.

I must have really did. And it reinforces that behavior. And it reinforces that work ethic and accountability leads to the results they say they want. To me, that's the connection that we need to make. And if everything was good and everything was great, then nothing is good. And I believe that. I go to some of the local racing here where we have five to 12-year-old kids competing.

You make assumptions when you're watching the garage, the families, all these kids getting in and out of these go-carts and racing, and you can kind of see where there's the family that's not worried about results. They're worried more about the reaction the kid has to losing or winning or the cart-breaking. Yeah. And then there's the family that is driven solely by results. And there's a disregard entirely for how the kid reacts, right, to losing the winning. And which is pretty interesting, you know, now that you discuss that,

all kids have flaws and things that can do better and personality, things they got to understand, right? And my niece, I don't think Kelly would mind me sharing this, but my niece, didn't know how to handle losing. She'd never lost, right? This is her first experience in losing, right? She goes to the racetrack. She's six, seven years old, and she keeps running second to this girl,

this little bit older girl. And she's stomping her feet and doesn't know how to respond. Some of it is what she thinks, you know, I should be doing. This is probably what my dad wants me to seem mad. Yeah. Or, you know, that this matters.

Being mad meters means I care. Right. And so it was fun to watch her kind of go through that process, and it helped her mature at a faster rate having those experiences. And she learned that running second, yeah, that's, you know, you want to win, but she learned how to handle it in a more professional and mature way, which I didn't never think about when she said, man, my sister said, I'm going to get my girls into racing.

I'm like, really? Is that what you want to do? Like, what's the goal? What for? And when that started happening, I was like, oh, man, this is great. Because she does need to mature, right? She does need to, like these are great experiences that she's going through. And it's interesting because when I think about Mike's kids playing, I'm like, did they score?

Are they good? Did you win the game? Like, that's the question that you asked anybody that was like, well, we went to this tournament. Well, how did it go? Did you win? No one says, oh, how was the tournament? Was your kid's attitude good? Yeah.

Right? Yeah. The thing that we always preach, not only with our kids, but then the kids that, you know, the teams that we coach, so other people's kids, The wins and the losses is the byproduct. It's the byproduct between how you act. It's the byproduct between how hard you work. It's the byproduct between your effort each week and your attitude and how you approach practice and how we push you and how you respond.

All of those little things add up when I promise you we'll win a lot more than we lose. But we're not seeking the wins, right? We're not selling our souls bypassing steps A, B, and C, because the end result is we have to win at all costs. I tell the kids, if we do all these things on a consistent basis and you control your attitude and you have great effort and you have great coachability and respect for your teammates and you deal with adversity and all those things we've touched on,

the wins, you're going to find yourself having a lot of them. It's a byproduct. It's not the starting point. It's the finish line. And I think all those things that you were just sharing there, those are what we all go through, right? And these are lessons that whether she grows up to be a professional race car driver or my kid, that's not the point, right?

The sheer odds of any of them making a living out of these sports is minuscule. But it's the best way to teach a six-year-old how to act, how to deal with adversity, how to deal with, you know, quote-unquote failure. Because I'd rather my kid struggle with that at 10 years old and deal with failure and deal with setback than when he's 20. Oh, yeah. And the first time you deal with adversity and the first time you deal with a roadblock in life, it doesn't have to be sports, it could be just anything.

Your girlfriend breaks up with you. You don't get into the college you want. whatever it is, if your adversity comes later in life and you have not built a track record of dealing with it at a younger age when the ramifications aren't as serious, you're going to have a headache on your hands. You're absolutely right. I remember the first time I got my heart absolutely destroyed when I was 12 years old. I am so glad that that didn't happen when I was like 18 or 20, right? Yeah. I'm glad I like to use that as an example, man, I was heartbroken over this. it was silly, but now looking back, it's like glad I went through that at 12 and didn't get to 20 and go,

wait, what's going on? You know, wait, we're not together anymore? What the hell? You know, just have this whole meltdown as an adult. It's all relative, right? At the time, it was the biggest deal in your life. Yeah. But as you age, certain things become bigger priorities.

And that's, sports is no different. Yeah. Don't you kind of want to know who this year? I kind of want to know where she turned out. Where is you now? Mike to bear his soul. Your turn, Mike. I mean, where is she now?

That could be a segment. Right. Wait. Let's get her in here. No. Moving on. We're moving on. I remember riding in the truck with my dad on the way home, and he's like, what's wrong?

I was like, oh, dude. I was upset. It was rough. Oh, man. But, you know, as a 12-year-old, it's a good lesson to learn. Absolutely. Hey, do any of your kids have that Olson athleticism? Are they good?

Are they competitive? Yeah. Do they have the same competitive stuff that you have? So we talk about every kid having their own kind of demeanor and their own approach and attitude. So my, the best, my boys are going to hate me for saying this. So I have a 10 year old boy, and then I have 9 year old boy girl twins. And my daughter is probably the best, just pure athlete. Like if you just threw kids out on the playground and said, hang from the jungle gym, run, pushups, she's tall, she can run, she's strong as hell, like muscular. She just,

she plays rec soccer because her friends are on the team. And when she's out there, She can run around and she'll score a goal and she'll have success. She won't touch the ball again until the next game. So I lay in bed with her tonight. I'm like, her name's Talbot. I'm like, Talley, like, do you see that you're having decent success? You're not the best player, but for the amount of time you practice, you're doing really good. Like, could you imagine if you put more time in?

And she's like, yeah, I want to get better. I want to play. But then she doesn't. Her goals are different. Yeah, you know, she likes playing, but in between, it's not like on the top. of her mind. And that's okay. So we don't sign her up for a competitive travel team. She doesn't go to three lessons a week. She practices once with her team. She plays a game on Saturday. She has funds with her friends from school. And she's happy. And then her twin brother is kind of in the middle.

Like he wants to do it. He's not like life and death. Like it's not all he thinks about. He plays on like a local little travel team and you know, they play a little bit of a higher level than like what my daughter's doing. But it's perfect for him. He practices twice. a week. They play sometimes weekend tournaments that take up the whole. So it's like kind of a middle ground. And then my older son's team goes to Houston, Texas. They go to Florida. They go to Savannah this weekend. They go all over the, all over the country. In essence, it's 10-year-old baseball. And he really likes it. No, he's practicing three, four times a week. And I tell him, I said, listen, you're not doing this for me. I already played my weekend tournaments. I already play

if we're going to sacrifice this as a family and we're going to all fly around and try and go watch you play seven baseball games in a weekend, you have no choice but to be all in. And if I see you're not all in and we're just going through the motions, you're done. We're going to put you on a local team. We're going to play here in Charlotte and we're not doing this. So like he understands that if what he says he wants to do, we'll support. And it's kid led, parent supported, but the second it's no longer kid led, we're done. So it's servicing the needs of every kid is, is it isn't.

I grew up with all boys that we all played football. like both my brothers and I, we all went and played football. Our dad was our football coach at the high school for 40 years. Like it was very simple. Like we grew up, we played seasonal sports. But when it was football season, we played football. We all went to college to play football. Like that was the path.

It's very different nowadays. It's very different. What do your sons say to you about your career and their thoughts about the game of football? I think it's a great question. I think my older son will play football. He loves it. He wanted to play years ago. So he'll turn 11 this summer.

He'll play tackle football for the first time this summer, this fall. Is he like chomping at the bit? He's wanted to play for a long time. He's not a big kid. He's not like the most like, wow, look at that kid, run. He's a good, solid athlete. He's not like off the charts or anything. So I'm going to be curious to see how he does.

He wants to do it, which to me is all that matters. If you don't want to play football, don't play because it's going to be miserable. My younger son, I don't think my younger son will play. Obviously he has a lot of health concerns that are a little often, but even just his personality, he's more suited for baseball and golf and just a little more, you know, slow pace, which is great. But, you know, the thing I always try to, and you could probably relate to this, I'd be curious your approach, but like I always try, like my kids, when they come home

from a game, they're always like, dad, why did I struggle? Like, I always try to be very transparent with my kids that like everything you saw, Like not every play was a touchdown. Like I try to show them my failures and make it seem like, listen, now sports is not just everything is great. Everything goes according to plan. Every race you win, every game you win, every pass you catches, the highlight reel. Like, no, I had a lot of really bad games. So like trying to share with them, like they think they remember my careers like my dad played in the NFL.

We were at Super Bowls. I watched them in the Pro Bowl. I watched all these, you know, they were six years old. They don't remember it would be dropping a pass. every pass I caught was in their minds, but that wasn't the reality. So I try to share with them my experiences through sports, so they have a little bit more of a realistic expectation of what sports is. And so I try to share with them every bad game, every bad moment,

and be like, hey, these are going to happen. And if you can't handle them, sports isn't for you. Yeah. I'm imagining that you lived your life and there was this very, very slow, linear sort of path to where you ended up in the NFL. right but for everyone else that's looking at you we imagine you had this sort of moment where you're like whoa you know i can i'm better than everybody here yeah you know it's it's interesting i grew up and i know the i don't pretend to know the origins of the racing world and how you know your

career start and your path the football trajectory it's a little different nowadays but when i was growing up everyone's path was pretty much the same right like we grew up in a small town like a relatively suburb of New York City in northern New Jersey, right? We never left our area of North Jersey. Like we weren't traveling around and playing tournaments out of town. We weren't playing football team. All I knew was football in North Jersey, right? So we grew up in our town. Our dad was the public high school football coach. We grew up as his water boys, as his ball boys. We entered high school. Like growing up, we played, you know, Pop Warner or whatever the equivalent of that back home was. So like, we just did what everybody else did. And like, we were good. We were around football.

We, you know, my summers when everyone else was at, you know, sleepaway camp or at the beach or whatever, like my dad was working Rutgers football camp and we'd sleep on his dorm room floor. He'd be at Penn State football camp and we'd sleep on the floor. From the time I was six, seven years old, like that was our summers. That's all we did. So we just grew up around it. So like as kids, we had success and me and my older brother were only a year apart. So we were always on the same team and he was the quarterback. So like, we were good.

I don't think I realized like, hey, I could make, I never aspired. to be a professional football player. I never even thought about really going to college. When my eyes opened for the first time, I was going into my sophomore year in high school, and my dad took us down to the university in Miami. And we went down to like their high school. At the time, they would run week-long football camps.

Now they do like a day or two showcase type things for recruiting. But it was Monday through Friday. You stayed in the dorms and you practiced twice a day. It was like a real no pads, but it was like real camp. And after that camp, Miami called my parents over. We had a little meeting. And they offered me and my brother,

scholarships, like right on the spot as 15-year-old kids in t-shirt and shorts, little skinny white kids from New Jersey that had never been outside of New Jersey now. And that was probably the first time that I was like, if I do this right, like if I really pour my heart into this and really put in the work that goes in, like I can do this. But growing up, it was, all I wanted to do was play with my buddies in school and make the high school team and play for my dad. Like, we never really had aspirations outside of our hometown. really or outside of New Jersey in general. When did the numbers start to get people's attention?

I was like again, growing up, we were always good. Like our teams were good. I was competitive. I was big, right? I was tall. I could run. Like I could, that was always, I was like a skinny little kid.

But by the time I got into high school, I, you know, I started getting scholarship offers, you know, I was a ninth, tenth, grader. Really? I had the benefit that my older brother was a grade ahead of me. So like when teams would come in to recruit him, did like, who's this kid catching passes? And my dad would be like, well, that's his younger brother.

That's my youngest son. He's only a sophomore. And they were like, you know, as a sophomore, I was probably 6'4. You know, 210 pounds. You know, I was tall. I could run. So like, I had the advantage of all these coaches from around the country were coming in to see him.

And then they're like, who's this little kid, this skinny kid running around? They're like, oh, that's my youngest son. So, like, I had the ability to kind of draft off my brother a little bit. Is that unheard of, like, though, to get at that time, You say everything's a little different. And we got, you know, when I raced for the first time, I was 12 and that was young. And now there's five-year-olds. And if you're not starting then, you know, you're late.

You're too late. Your weight. So when you're getting offers as a sophomore, that was pretty unique, right? I think the top kids in the country were getting offers at that time. What offers? I mean, my first ever offer was University of Miami. So I got off to a good start. And what does that mean?

So the way it would work back then is, and again, It's just so, it's so crazy to see how, and again, it doesn't feel like very long ago, but it was 20 years ago. The way it is now, everything nowadays is all like showcase events, right? So it's one or two, and they're hosted by Nike and Under Armour and Elite 11 and Manning Passing Academy. Like, everything's a showcase. And in the summer, these kids are out there trying to chase their scholarships and chase their recruiting off of non-high school football. They're playing on seven-on-seven teams. They're playing showcase events in the summer.

And it's almost like the world of AAU basketball has been for a long time. We're like, you know, you watched LeBron James play in high school basketball, but like you really watched him his AAU team in the summer when they were playing, you know, Carmelo Anthony's AAU team from New York or whatever the case. Maybe football's kind of gotten into that now. But back then, you got recruited off your high school, like your high school tape. People would come into my high school, sit down with my dad. He would have like spliced together like old VHS.

tapes. There was no digital. There was no online, you know, clouds or anything. My dad would literally sit there with two deep, with two VCRs and stop and play and record and cut up and splice it up for every player in his team. So coaches would come in. That was the traditional recruiting process back when I was coming up. But then in the summers, once a summer, we would go to a college. And it was Monday through Friday. So we went to the first one like I was saying down at Miami. And the Miami coaches are running it. And there's teams from all over the country. And then by the end of the week, by like Thursday, Friday, they've kind of selected, all right, these are kids, anybody can go.

You just pay and you can go. But like, these are kids that are like college type prospects and like you'd find yourself in like a different group. When it was one-on-one pass routes, like the kids who could really do it found themselves on one field and that had all the coaches and then like everybody else was on a different field. You know, that was the process back then. And, you know, I was fortunate to get offered by a lot of teams at a young age, like I said,

because a lot of them were there to recruit my brother. And I was able, you know, once Miami offered you in the early 2000s, if you could go to Miami, every school in the country, everyone just kind of follows. So when you get the offer, like you can accept it in that moment? Yeah. Okay. So the way it works is, and again, this was back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Now there's different signing periods and the world has changed because it's not as binding.

So my case, when you get offered, you can accept it, but they just call it a verbal offer. Like I accept, I'm going to come play for you, Dale. You're the head coach at South Carolina. I'm going to come play for you. But until I sign that, what they call the letter of intent on National Signing Day, so you're a senior in high school. It used to be in February of your senior year.

You would actually sign the letter and you would fax it into the NCAA clearinghouse and it was official. That's where you were going and your scholarship and everything kicked in. But all that, so if you got offered as a ninth grader, for three years, it was the Wild West. So even if you had committed to Miami, every school in the country was still coming to your house. Absolutely. There's no rules. There's no, okay, he's committed to Miami. I'm going to step off. This is cutthroat. And you're still making visits, I'm sure, right? Oh, yeah. I made, so when I was coming out of high school, I visited Miami, I visited Miami. I visited Notre Dame, which is where I actually signed. So I signed my letter of intent with Notre Dame where my older brother had gone the year before. So I signed with them out of high school, went there for the summer, decided it wasn't for me. I really wanted to go to Miami. And but back. then when you transferred you were ineligible the days now of like bouncing around schools and transfer portal that didn't exist so i was ineligible my freshman year did you wait till signing day to make the

decision yep did you do the whole hat dance no i didn't my dad wouldn't let us do all that he didn't like that my dad didn't let us do all that so go ahead you get this offer from miami and then all these schools started hey who's this guy and so then the coaches like come to your house and you're making visits what was the what was the most uh uh I guess interesting. Was there any visits where the coach was awkward or anything weird happen? So my dad, so the situation we were in was a little weird because my dad was the coach. And he, once I was gone, he would have to deal with all these coaches the next year and the next year.

He wanted these coaches to have a great relationship with his school and come through. He wanted his other kids to get recruited that weren't his sons, right? That must have been weird. So he had a lot of relationships with these coaches for 20 years before they ever started recruiting his own children, right? from previous schools or bouncing around the coaching. That must have been insane for him. It was a crazy time. We were very fortunate that he was kind of driving that ship for my brother and I,

and then my younger brother was 10 years younger, and he went through the whole process. He was a national crude as well. But my dad had been through it so many times with everyone else's kids that by the time we got in it, we had a really good idea of what it looked like. I remember, so Tyrone Willingham at the time was the head coach university in Notre Dame.

He came my senior year. I don't think I had, committed yet or maybe I did verbally commit to them. This would have been winter. Yeah. So I probably was verbally committed to Notre Dame at the time. He came to watch me play basketball. It was at an opposing team's gym. And when we used to go play basketball by that time, like any gym we went to, I wasn't a good basketball, but the entire opposing crowd would come and they would taunt us. And, you know, it was a like spectacle when we would go play basketball because it's a long story. People hated us. But so Tyrone Willingham, I'll never forget. He's sitting, Tyrone, my mom, my dad,

my little brother at the time who was like six and they're sitting in a local high school gym in New Jersey opposing team and it's packed to the walls and it's wild. I mean it's back and forth and it's screaming. They're taunting me. They got chance. I mean, it's a whole thing. And I'll never forget Tyrone Willingham is sitting in the stands. And I remember at the time thinking like, why is this guy here? And I think back like you're the head coach of Notre Dame and you're sitting in a random basketball gym watching some high school kid play basketball. He wanted you. He got me for three months.

He should have come to two games. This is what they're doing for Arch Manning right now. They're going to his basketball. Yeah. That's been going on for the difference is they can give Arch Manning a million dollars. That's the difference right now. Nobody gave me a million dollars. Right.

I wish they did. Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to have the NIL back then, right? So it's just, you know, I can think of those guys coming to my house. I can think of Phil Fomer from Tennessee calling. me on Christmas morning my junior year to tell me that the coach who was recruiting me was stepping away and that he would be taking over. It's Christmas morning. Our phone rings and it's at University of Tennessee and my dad answers the phone. Hey, Coach Fulmer. Like what? Like it was a, it's a, it's a,

and there was no cell phones. Yeah, right. So you had to be home. If Phil Fomer was calling your house at 6 p.m. You had to be home to answer the phone. There was no like, hey, coach, call me on the cell because I'm out with my buddies. Like, no, no, you were home. So you were kind of wandering around the house all the time. And you're like, I just need to commit to a school so I don't have to keep answering all these phones. I almost wanted to get over with, you know, in the beginning, it was cool. And then you're like, I'm over this. This sucks. I'm ready to move on. When you said, okay, you go to Notre Dame and you're there and you're like, okay, this ain't for me. What were you personally experiencing that made you think, man, I should have did this other thing. Yeah, you know, I always had in the back of my head,

Miami was always where I wanted to be. They were the first school to offer me. Why did you? My older, you know, so again, my brother was a senior when I was a junior in high school. He went to Notre Dame in Tyrone's first class. So then my senior year in high school, after my games, me and my parents would get in the car and we'd drive to South Bend and we'd go watch. I got to know a bunch of the guys on the team. It just felt right. Like I'd always known playing with him. We'd always been on the same team since we were kids. And it just felt right. But like in the back of my mind, Miami was much more my style. It was the first school that offered me, they were like they were Alabama of today in the early 2000s. They were,

if you got recruited by Miami, it was, I don't know, there was something about, that Miami culture and that Miami way that just connected with me from that camp I went to as a rising 10th grader. But I was like, you know what, playing with my brother for my family. What a cool, like this has been like our lifelong dream to play together. My family can come watch us. And then I just, I went through the summer there and it just, it just wasn't a fit. I just, I didn't connect with it. It wasn't the environment that I felt like I could thrive in. And I remember I was there for freshman orientation. My mom was out there with us because my dad was back home coaching and I call my dad. I was like, I think I'm going to leave. He's like, you just got there.

I'm like, I went through training camp. I went through all, and it was doing fine. And I was like, I don't know. I just, I don't see myself here for the next four years. So like, why fight through year one if I don't think this is like a long term thing? And he's like, well, where would you go? I was like, Miami. I was like, that's where I should have been from the beginning. And, you know, it's time that I make the decision that's best for me. And they were super supportive of that. He's, I said, well, before you, before I leave, like, call Larry Coker at the time was the coach. I was make sure they have a scholarship for me. Because we weren't going there unless I could have a scholarship.

And fortunately, they had a scholarship available. There was some clearinghouse stuff. So I got in the car with my mom the day before school enrolled at Notre Dame. We drove back to New Jersey. I had to spend like three or four days back in New Jersey waiting for the NCAA to clear me to transfer. And me and my mom got on a plane, flew to Miami and rolled like a week into fall semester of my freshman year and never looked back. Is Notre Dame, wait, is Notre Dame calling you going, hey, what the hell? It was a tough, that was a tough meeting.

I went into, basketball games. Yeah, I went into your basketball games. That was a, that was a tough. One thing my dad always made us do, and I'm thankful for it now, but he made us call every single coach who recruited us to tell him we weren't coming. Oh, no. So these guys recruit you for like two years, right? They have dinner at your house.

You know them by first name basis. You've been on campus. They've been in your high school. They watch your track meets. They've been at your basketball games. And then my dad said, hey, yeah, you want to go to Notre Dame? Great. That's an easy call.

Like calling Tyrone and telling him, hey, you're coming there, coach. I'm so excited. Like, that's an easy call. You need to call Miami. You need to call Michigan. You need to call Bobby Bowden. You need to call Phil Fomer. You need to call all these prominent guys and tell them that you're picking another school.

And it's going to suck. And they're going to make you feel bad. And they're going to guilt you. But you're going to learn a lot about these guys and what they say back to you. You'll learn a lot about these guys when you break bad news to them. And looking back, there's been a lot of bad phone calls that I've had to make and tough calls. and I'm thankful. We talk about lessons you learn as a young kid that seems such a big deal at the time.

I'm thankful that I did that because it's made that lesson a lot easier for me now. That's a bad ass sound bite right there. You learn a lot about somebody when you break bad news to them. But boy, that makes so much sense. Larry Coker said, you're making the worst decision in your life. I can't believe you did this. We were the first school on you. When I transferred, what I've ever gone there?

Greg, we wish you nothing but the best if we can ever do anything for you in the future. We've loved getting to know your family. We've loved getting to watch you. you're going to have a great career. Don't ever hesitate if you need anything. You hang up and you go, that's a guy. Whether he's saying it or not, it sounded genuine that they had your best interested art. You logged that in the back of your brain, you know.

Did you have to sit a year, though? I did. So you transferred right away. You got cleared by the clearinghouse, but you still couldn't play your freshman year. Yeah, so I'm on the scout team. You're going to love this. So I'm in the scout team at the University of Miami. My first ever practice.

So they had already played a game by the time I got there. They opened up on a Thursday night. I watched it from my house in Jersey. They played Louisiana Tech on a Thursday. I got there Friday morning. Me and my mom flew in Friday morning, did, you know, admissions, did all that stuff. So I go to my first practice Saturday at the Orange Bowl. They did like a special practice because it was the off weekend.

And I break the huddle. I'm on the scout freshman team, you know, running the opposing team. And we're getting ready to play at the University of Florida playing UF. And you're playing against the ones, right? I'm playing it. Okay. And our ones were Vince Willford. Jonathan Vilma, DJ Williams, Sean Taylor.

We had, I want to say, like, eight of the starters in the next two drafts were first-round picks. So I'm breaking the huddle and I'm turning around and these guys are looking. And this wasn't the day where it's like two-hand touch. There was no regard for the freshman scout. If you got hurt, we had, there was 130 guys in the roster. Okay, so you blew out your shoulder. We got four more five-star recruits behind you.

that can be the Florida Gators tight end for scout team. We'll see you in the spring. There was no regard for anybody in those days. So I learned a lot about myself that first year. Like you talk about if you really want to do this or not. I had to decide really quick if I really wanted to do this or not because this wasn't North Jersey anymore. Yeah.

That being down to South Florida, Miami, and it's a different world. And these are a different breed of athletes. These are a different mentality is different, the aggressive. It's just a different world down there. And it was the best thing. that ever happened to me. I wasn't going to play as a freshman anyway. They were so good and talented. So it was the best thing for me. Took a year scout team, had a great spring ball, and then my red shirt freshman year, split time with another kid, played 50% of the snaps, kind of got my

feet wet. Then the next two years took over as the starter and ended up leaving. So not playing my freshman year was the best thing that ever happened to me. Wow. So you have is the, is playing on the scout team in my head, you know, and pretty much anybody, listen to this when they think about going to school in Miami and you know it's it's Miami you're a college student yeah like it's there's there was a lot of perks being on the scout south beach right there's all kinds of cool shit happening around you and how are you how are you how are you was the scout team the one thing that kept you motivated or plugged in or or grounded i guess to to your future yeah you know one thing the one thing that my i learned very quickly

And it was probably that first practice. I learned very quickly that I was never going to out athlete anybody, ever. High school I probably could. But I learned really fast when I got to Miami and carried forward throughout my entire career in the NFL. Like I was never going to just step on the field and be the best player. It just wasn't in the cards. It's not the hand I was dealt. I realized that I was going to have to do things, live a lifestyle, live a commitment level,

that other people that were more talented to me weren't willing to. That was going to be my edge. Because if I didn't, I was going to die. If I didn't, I never would have played. If I got caught up, if I didn't do every single thing, every workout, every practice, if I didn't do everything at or above expectation level, I wasn't going to be good enough to play. Were you alone doing that? No, there was a lot of guys there.

There was a lot of guys in the same commitment level. There was a lot of guys that had that same commitment level at Miami because it was their only opportunity. different than me. Like I grew up, I didn't have to play football. Now I wouldn't have went to the university in Miami. I would have went to a New Jersey state school where my parents could afford.

They were school teachers. But there was guys down in Miami where football didn't work out. There was no other options. So their level of commitment and their level of like this has to work was the end result was the same because it was both things that

almost every single guy that made it through that program. If you didn't have that level of commitment instead of you, it was going to be a miserable experience. because it sucked the workouts, the heat, the practice. It was hard if you liked it. If you didn't like it, you were going to quit.

To your point, though, the distractions in South Beach. Yeah, don't get me wrong. Now, we had a lot of fun. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say, like, we didn't go out and have a great time. But it never got in the way of what I knew needed to be the prime prime. Don't get wrong. We went out to South Beach. We went to nightclubs.

My freshman year, I had the best fall semester of all time. I always joke of my wife. Like I met her the spring of my freshman year and actually had to start playing. And like all my fun, I don't, I say this to her jokingly. But when she hears this, she probably get mad like, like all the fun kind of ended at that point. Right. Because now you have like responsibility. I got to play.

I got a girlfriend. Right. But like my fall semester, you're a single, you're 18. You're living on campus. I had a dorm room to myself because I had transferred in. So they gave me a dorm that was unoccupied. So I didn't have a roommate. I would practice, you know, during the weekend practices were hard, but it was fine.

Friday morning, we'd have non-travel. So like anybody. who wasn't traveling to the game would work out at six or we'd work out at six be done at 7.30 we'd go from I'd go to class at like eight to 12 and my my weekend started at noon on Friday so you'd go back to your dorm you'd take a nap you'd do whatever college guys do and hang out and then we'd go to a buddy's house on Friday we'd get up Saturday we'd go to South Beach go to the beach walk up and down you know go to the ocean so like our weekend was three days long we'd want the away games we'd be like go go to Tallahassee

Go to Blacksburg, man. We'll see you guys on Sunday afternoon. So from Friday at noon, when class ended, until Sunday morning run, like, we were living the dream. Home games. What was that like? We'd have to go to the game. So that kind of got in the way of our social calendar. You know, we were the guys on the sidelines that were like, you know, it was kind of embarrassing, too.

Like, I think back to those days, you're on the sidelines, but you're in, like, shorts and like a jersey. And it's like, I'm on the team, but I don't actually get in. They don't give me a helmet. You look pads. That was kind of embarrassing. Thankfully, it only lasted one year. But we used to love the away games. Like, I've seen enough football games.

Like, go to the away games. We'll see on Sunday morning for the run. And the seasons aren't, the season doesn't last very long. So how are you staying focused, you know, months removed from the season? In college? Yeah. So. I just feel like that I wouldn't work well in that environment.

Some guys didn't. I would get so derailed. Some guys didn't. You know, some guys would show up drunk to workout. Some guys would miss, you know, in the spring we do, they call them like Matt drills. You hear them like people talk about that throughout the country. We didn't call them that, but that's in essence what they were. And they're like 5.30 workouts for two weeks. We were fortunate we could do them outside. Most people have to do them indoors. But like we'd be outside. Grass is wet. It's 5.30 in the morning. Guys would be rolling in. You know, if it was a Friday morning, guys would be rolling in. Thursday night was like the big night in Coconut Grove or like it was half-price drinks. Guys would be rolling in. And some guys could do it. it. Like some guys could live that double life and it didn't take away. They were just either uniquely talented or they could just, they could pull it together when they needed to. And I saw countless guys with all the talent in the world that tried to live that tried to live both lives at the same time and just ended up getting passed by or dropping out or getting cut or whatever it was. It derailed a lot. It's not an easy place for everybody to go to school. It's a blast. It's fun. We never really had an

offseason though. Yeah. Right. So like we, we didn't go home for Chris. break because we had bowl prep. So we'd go. What's that? So like we'd get ready to play your bowl game. So like when school ended in Thanksgiving, say. You're still practicing. We'd stay on campus. We'd be the only people on campus because we were practicing because we'd have a bowl game. My first couple years were like New Year's Eve bowls because we were good. My last year was a little earlier. The earlier you play in December, the shit you are is kind of like the rule. You want to play as late as you can. So we would be on campus for like the entire month of December, but we wouldn't be going to class. We would just be practicing and then just hanging around. So like we never really

got breaks and then you'd come back in for spring semester. You'd immediately start up morning workouts. You'd work out four times a week. Go to class. And then spring ball would start up. So then you'd have warning workouts class. And then the afternoon you'd have spring ball. So you had like 17 full practices and a spring game. But then during the summer when summer when summer school broke, when summer broke, we'd all be in summer school, both sessions, training, workouts. Then that would roll right into training camp, two a days. Then school would start. We'd be in the fall and the season.

So, like, it was a year round. There was no real break. You know, it was a, I always say, like, to my wife and, and her sister and husband, we all went to school together. And I always say, like, your college experience was very different than my college experience. And if I could go back and do it all over again, like, I would love to go to college and just experience it like everybody else, you know?

How much, how much did you allow yourself to think about pro football at that point? Again, similar to what I was saying about being in high school, when I got to Miami, I didn't forget NFL. I didn't know if I was going to play there. Okay, so you weren't convinced that you. Oh, God. I remember calling my dad after those first couple practices at Miami and he's like, you know, how is it?

And I was like, it's awesome. It's beautiful. It's like palm trees and you're walking a class. It's 90 degrees every day. It's beautiful. The team is great. But like, I don't know if I'm good enough to play here. Like these guys are incredible.

Yeah, but once you were junior. Once I got going, I was like, I can do this. Did you stay through your senior year? I left a year early. So you left after your junior year? Yep. And because your stock was high enough, did you know where you were going to get drafted? So I almost came out after my, so I was a red shirt.

So you get five, in those days you got five years to play four. So I took the first year, it doesn't count. So my second year in college, in essence, they call it your red shirt freshman. So I'm a freshman. That's year one of my eligibility. my clock starts. So I played that year as a like reserve kind of guy in and out. Then the next two years, my sophomore and junior year,

I was the starter, the every down player. I almost came out after my sophomore year. I thought I would have had a shot to get drafted in the first round. We petitioned to a couple guys in the NFL that I had known from some of my other stops getting recruited that were in the league. Petitioned. Like reach out to them on a fishing, be like, hey, what do you think? What do you think?

If I came out and they'd say, oh, you'd probably be a third rounder, you'd be a second rounder, you'd be a fifth round whatever so i was like yeah to leave miami we're going to have a good team we thought come back play another year i got two years to leave two years of eligibility on the table i didn't have my degree yet so we ended up coming back my last year was kind of a mixed bag the team we didn't have a ton of success our coach ended up getting fired we had a couple off-the-field things with some guys who got we had like one guy who got shot and killed so like it was just like a turbulent year all around we had some coaching changes so that was my junior year after that year, about halfway through that year, I was like, I don't care what round I get drafted in.

I'm good. I'm going to graduate in December and I'm gone and decided to leave a year early. I'm curious what your major was when you went to, did you have your major decided when you went to Notre Dame? Not yet. When did you decide what your major was? So I majored in, so that's a good question. So I major, so typically, you know, you look back, all the athletes when we first got there were pretty much put into, you know, basic like liberal arts sciences. You know, like you took generic one-on-ones, generic freshman courses. And they typically gravitated in the arts and sciences building because of the times of the classes. You know, the business school and architecture school and the engineering school, more of the advanced schools, you know, people probably don't like hearing

that if they're in the arts and sciences degree like me. But like their schedules were harder. So it was, you know, they had afternoon classes. So we had a lot of guys that were in the business school getting like real degrees. But like they would be late to spring ball. They'd have to move a, it just they tried their best to keep guys in classes and part of the schools that coincided with being an athlete. And listen, we were all there. I got my degree. I graduated early and all that. Like, once you got through your freshman and sophomore year, you're like, you were there to be a football player.

Like, I wasn't at the University of Miami because I was going to win a Nobel Prize, right? Like, I was there because I could play football. And I was using football to get a degree at a school that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford to go to or otherwise would have been able to get in academically. So, right? So there's that like dual prong. a poach. That's just the truth of it. Like everybody, you know, I don't, it doesn't. Yeah. So I'm comfortable saying that. Like I was there to be a football player and I was, I got a degree as I went. In what? I got a degree in criminology and political science. So I got a major in criminology and I got a

minor in political science. So I got like a real degree. Now, if football didn't work out with those two degrees help me get a job, probably not. I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have been a coach. Right. Like I would have been a coach like my dad and okay. A coach with a criminology degree though. Yeah. It would have been like doing crime. scene investigations. You know, I, I don't know. And I enjoyed. I took some cool classes, had some cool opportunities.

But like, getting a degree was important to me. It was something that I wanted, I knew if I didn't get it before I left, I'd never go back. Right. Yeah. And I was fortunate enough because of all the summer school and all the extra classes to get it early. Don't jump way too far ahead here, but I wanted to know if at any point in this part of

your life, did you ever consider broadcasting or being an analyst? You know what? No. I imagine not. No. Yeah. I probably would have been a coach. If football didn't work out,

coaching would have probably been the next logical path. Yeah. Yeah, the TV thing really didn't come until way later in my, way later in my NFL career where it was just an opportunity to go out there and audition and that kind of just got things rolling. So when you decide that you're going to leave, you know, your college career and getting the NFL, are you, you know, is that a pretty smooth process? You know, sometimes,

Guys are on the fence about leaving. Right. You know, because everybody wants to know, like, where am I going to get drafted? If I'm not a first rounder, I'm not going to leave.

Like, obviously, that's part of it. You don't want to leave school early. At the time, getting drafted in the first round was a lot more significant than it is now. Like,

the money was a lot better. Granted, I was at the end of the first round, but like, it was before they redid the lucky contract scales. Yeah, they redid that with the CBA. So I was pretty determined,

like, coaching change. I touched on all that. Like, it was just time for me to go. Like I graduated in December. There was nothing left for me to do there. Like it was time for me to challenge myself and move on. And whether the NFL worked out or not, like it was just time for me to take that.

So typically what guys do is you sign with an agent. And the biggest decision you make, at least in my opinion, is where you're going to train for the combine and your pro days and all of your, you know, evaluation. So I was able to stay right down there in South Florida, this awesome trainer that I would, you know, went to for my first five, six years in the league. and then followed a lot of his training, even though I wasn't down in Miami, and I would just do it here. And it was every day. So once I got done with my bowl game,

I announced that I was foregoing my last year of eligibility, signed with an agent. Two days later, I'm living in a condo in Aventura, Florida, driving to Davey to go work out at this facility with other guys preparing for the league. And it was seven days a week. And it was every morning, all day.

They gave you everything you ate, everything you drank, every workout, every run, exercise, you name it. It was all done there morning to night. And that took you from, you know, January to the combine was the end of February. So it was like a seven, eight week process. Is the combine similar to what we see today? Yep.

It's not as big of a deal. It was my year was like just starting to be televised. But as far as the exercises and the running, it was all the same. Yeah. Does the combine look as anxiety ridden as? It was the worst week. It looks terrible. Awful.

Yeah. Is that where you take the wonder lick? Yep. You take. So what people don't. see like what they don't see on TV that makes what they do see on TV in my opinion even more impressive what these guys are able to do is before you see guys run jump vertical broad 40 yard dash position drills catch the ball all that

the previous two and a half days you sit in you know hospitals and they MRI and cat and scan and x-ray and orthopedics snap every joint and they literally from your tips your toes to your head they evaluate and and and you What you do and what you do, you're in two different teams, you don't share that. So you're orthopedic. If I broke my elbow, say, in college five years ago, and you asked me, how does it feel? They're going to scan it. Then your ortho is going to check it.

Then your ortho is going to check it. And every team's ortho is going to come through and check it and spot check it. And I want my own set of MRIs because they don't share anything. So you're doing, you're there for hours. And the more injured you were, the more tests you have to take. So you're doing that for an entire day. You mentioned like the Wonderlic personality tests, intelligence scores. You're taking all that.

And then at nighttime, they call them, it used to be at the hotel in India. I don't even know if it's still there anymore. They called it the train yard. And there was these old, like, train cars that were in the hotel that had been turned into like rooms. But the trains used to like go through the hotel lobby. And, you know, it doesn't obviously anymore. So you would sit in this like big cafeteria, team scouts, name it.

And then it was just like a free-for-allie. all. And I'd come up to you and be like, hey, Johnny, I'm Greg with the Panthers. You have a couple minutes. And I'd pull you aside and I'd ask you questions, what's your mom do? How's your dad? What do you do? What do you think your best attributes are? And I'd put you through a 10 minute. But you would do that for three hours. And then you'd have your actual team meetings where for 20 minutes and then they'd blow a horn. It was like, what do they call that? Like chain date, like speed dating. It was like speed dating. It was like speed dating. And they'd blow air horn and you'd move to your next. And we had like little passes. and it would say like, all right, 715, you're with the Panthers, at 745, you're with the bears, at 830, you're with the chargers, and that was your night.

And you do that for like two, three nights. Then the last day, you go on the field and you're asked to run and jump and catch balls. After, for two days, you sat in chairs, you did interviews. You're like emotionally and mentally exhausted. Okay, now you need to go run 4-4 because your entire career is on the line. Yeah. And that's the part we see on TV. That's crazy.

It sounds like they try to break you down mentally. to see where it is. Is that it? 100%. Almost like like seals training or boot camp or it's like they try to get you exhausted and then see what kind of person you are when you're not. They want to see who can compete. When pressure is high and the anxiety's high and all I used to say this all the time.

Like yes, they want to know how fast you run. But they want to know when it's hard. Who can compete and who after three days of being poke prodded and asked questions and you're annoyed and you're waiting in line. You've sat in a waiting room for two hours waiting for an MRI. who can talk to the doctors, who's polite to the nurses, who doesn't lose their mind when they lose their spot in line. They want to see how people act.

It's as much of like a social personality experiment as it is a physical evaluation. That's so interesting. Did you know the Bears were going to draft you? No, I never met Jerry Angelo, the general manager, or Lovy Smith until the day I showed up in Chicago after they drafted me. So they were not one of the teams that poked and prodigy. I met with like some of their scouts. Okay. They were the 31st pick.

There was a lot, you know, I, to be honest, I thought I was going to go earlier than that. So they were second to last. They had lost the Super Bowl that year to Indy. So they were 31st. So I don't know if they thought I would get that far. I don't know why. They obviously liked me enough that they ended up drafting me. But no, I didn't spend a ton of time with the bears.

So I was psyched when they drafted me. I wasn't psyched. I thought I was going to fall out of the first round, which would have been tough. Yeah. But fortunately, I didn't and went to a great place. So what kind of contract did you sign? So back then it was all slotted for the most part. So in the first, really in the rookie drafts, rookie draft picks in essence just signed like slotted contracts.

And you like you'd take the 31st pick from last year and you'd get like a couple percent. Now you would negotiate it and that's why guys would hold out and not show up the training camp and all that. We were the first, my year, I was the first guy that signed his contract. Like I was big. Like I wanted to be there in camp. I wanted to get off to a good front to, to our. you over a couple bucks here and there over four or five years to me was not the way I wanted to start my career so it had to be a five year contract to be honestly I don't remember how much it was

for but like it was whatever was somewhat in the ballpark of the previous couple years 31st pick because I wanted to be on camp I wanted to be at camp I wanted to be there on time I wanted to get off to a good start and um it worked out did you see guys at the combine fall apart oh yeah yeah what was that I like took I remember those days is like so you spend all your time with the tight ends right they break you up and say like group a tight ends and group B because there's 25 of you however maybe 30 I don't remember how they were so they break them up into like manage you know and then you stagger like well group A is at medical group B's at cycle I or whatever but like I remember going there and my and like people like I've

talked to later like man we thought you were such a and I was like I'll be honest with you like I wasn't there to like make buddies sure like I went to there to like make buddies sure like I went to that place. I wasn't regarded as the number one tight end. There was another guy that was ahead of me. Who was it? Zach Miller. Okay.

Got drafted that year by the Raiders after me, for the record. Wow. But who's counting? You know, but like, I remember vividly going there and I'm like, these next four days, like, I'm here to, like, kill people, right? Like, I am here to, when we leave, like, there can be no question who the, if you take a tight end, I can't take, I can't tell you not to pick a quarterback, or you can pick a whiteout.

If you pick a tight end, it's going to be me. Like, that was my mentality going into it. So, like, I remember being there and everybody else wanted to be like, buddy, buddy and share stories. And I'm like, I'll call you next week and we can become best friends. But, like, for the next four days, like, I'm trying to kill you. I'm trying to embarrass you in every single thing I do. I'm going to stand in front of you in line. I'm going to run faster than you.

I'm going to try to slit your throat in everything I do. And then we'll try to be friends next week. Yeah. That's the way I would, when I watch it, that's the way. I feel like everybody would be, you'd assume no one was friendly. You're competing, right? You're all fighting for fighting for that draft position. 100%.

And you're respectful, right? Sure. You're not out to sabotage a guy. You're not out to make a guy look bad. But your only focus for those four days is selfish. Did you ever see anybody try to make somebody look bad? No, I don't think so. I mean, on teams there would be instances where guys, you know,

would try to make a guy look bad in front of a coach or, you know, if a guy, you know, especially if he didn't know his player. Hey, coach, isn't he supposed to run a day? I've seen that. But like at the combine, and maybe I was oblivious to it, but it was more like I was there for myself. There's not many opportunities, I guess, for you to really influence another person's experience. Now you can make them look bad because you look great, but that's not your fault.

Yeah. When you ran your 40, was that as a tie-in? I mean, is that a critical moment as it is for like running backs and so forth? It was a big moment for me because going into the, the combine, right? So I'm a 6-5 white guy out of Miami. Is he at the time, you know, is he Kellynne Winslow? Is he Kevin Everett? Is he shocking? Is he that athletic? That was the thing. The Miami tight ends have come out. We're like freak athletes, right? They were four, four, four, five guys. They were fast. They were athletic. They were athletic,

tight end type deal. So the knock on me, not the knock, the question for me that every team had asked me, like, how fast you're going to run? And I'd be like, I guess we'll find out tomorrow. I don't know. Like, I wanted to say, I'm going to run faster than anybody. But, like, I didn't know. Like, you didn't know. I knew what I tested back in Florida before I went in, like, our mock combines, but I didn't know what I was going to run after three days of standing around when the lights came on. I didn't know. It was a 20-year-old kid, you know? Wait, wait, wait. So, when you run the, like, you ran 40s your whole life. Like, you know how fast you run. But there's running 40s and then there's running combine 40s. Help me understand. You can run like,

do you have like an average in your head? Like, man, I, I, I, I should be able to run this. Yeah, my goal was I needed to run like 4.5 something, right? Just be like under 6. It could be 4.59. Just like have that 5 after the decimal. Wow. Like that was my goal going in because that gets people's attention.

Yeah. And the other thing that was against me is I wasn't that big, right? So there was a lot of tight ends, 260 pounds, 265 pounds. So for me, to be 250 pounds on a bad day, I could have been 248 pounds in college, it's not, I was big, I wasn't that big. So if you're not going to be huge, you've got to run something that gets people's attention or else you're not that big, you're not that fast. What, you got to hang your hat on something, right? So I needed to get everyone's attention. Like going in, I might train. I was like, here's two things that need to happen. That scale needs to

say two, five something. It could say zero, could say five. But it's got to say 250 something. and that 40-yard dash needs to say 4.5 something. If we can have those two things, I'll be in good shape. So we went in, and I'll never forget, I ran my first 40. My trainer would sneak in to the top of the dome. It was in the old, I don't know what they called it back then. It was the Colt Stadium, whatever they called it, the old stadium.

Oh, yeah. And they call it something different now. I don't know what it was called then. It's now Lucas Oil now. I don't know what it was then. But anyway, I ran, and he's like, after your first 40, we'd run two. check your phone. I can tell you your start, your hand, whatever.

And I'll tell you your time and reset before, you know, then you'd have to wait like 10 more guys, 15 more guys come through and then you'd run your second 40. So I come back and I'm like, that felt good, but you have no idea what your time is. They don't like flash it on the screen or anything. You just run. You walk back and you're like,

I have no idea what I just did. I got to do it again, right? It's not like a track me. Like a qualifying lap almost. Yeah, but, yeah. You don't know. But you don't know. You have no idea.

Yeah. Okay. So there you go. There's that. So I go and I check my phone. And he writes, don't run again. Oh, it was good. Yeah.

And I was like, so I'm like, what? Like, no. I was like, I have to run again. So I write him back. I'm like, no, I got to run. So now my agent's texting. I'm like, all these people are texting. So long story short, we finally decide like go run again, but just do the exact same thing.

So now I'm like, holy shit. Like, what did I? I do the last time. I'm trying to like recreate. They didn't tell you the time still. No, and I knew my time. What was it?

So like, I think my official time was four or five one. Oh, God. But what helped me was at the time, it was like a real like bootleg version of NFL network. Like they, it wasn't as sophisticated as today. So like the broadcast,

not the network itself, but like the coverage of the combine. So when they would run those unofficial times, it was like some guy sitting up in the press box. Oh. With a stopwatch. And then that's what they'd flash on the street. screen. So like, you know when you see them, have you ever watched it? Yeah. They run and then a couple

seconds later, they flash unofficial first attempt, four point. But all that is is a guy works with NFL network who's doing it on a stopwatch. It means nothing. The teams do their own and then there's like a laser, like a laser finish that gives you your official time that they release the next day. But on the TV they flashed like 4.48. Oh, wow. Yeah. So people lost their minds. Now granted there was no Twitter, but like people lost their mind. minds. So that was the first number. It wasn't my real time, but that's the first number that people on TV saw. So like from that time, it was like Olson's fast. It didn't matter what the real time was. What happened? That's when it was like, Olson's fast. You can draft him in the first round.

That was like checking the box. Wow. So you went and ran again? I did run again. And I want to say it was a similar maybe one or two hundredths of a second difference. What did you weigh? I think I was like 253. So mission accomplished. Two 53, ran four, five. something and the rest of the history. The night of the draft all the way until the moment, it happens you don't know you're going 31st of the Bears. No, and the best part of my draft day, so I'm down in Miami, we're at the Shore Club. We're doing like, we're doing like a real, I mean, to talk about Miami.

I look back on that. I'm like, what was I doing? Like, I don't even know if I've been back to the Shore Club. It's like, you know, very Miami Beachy, but it was fun. And so we had our whole family down there. We had like a little draft party with our family and friends, whatever. That was back when every draft pick was 20. minutes. So like you'd be on the clock, you'd have 20 minutes. Meanwhile, you'd had six months.

Yeah. And you'd have to wait 20 minutes between picks. So you do the math. I was the 31st pick. The draft started back then on a Saturday at noon. I got drafted at like almost six o'clock Eastern. That was the last draft. Then from then on, they started like the, then now they've moved to like Thursday prime time, the first round and it's only maybe 10 minutes or whatever it is between. But it took almost six hours to get drafted. And you just sit in front of the TV. And you just sit in front of And you're like, all right, this is a team that interviewed me. It's the dolphins or whoever it is. And you're like, and with the 12th pick, the Miami Dolphins select,

and I think they took like Ted Ginn. Ted Ginn at Ohio State. And you're like, all right. And then you're doing the math in your head. You're like, all right, the next team that I got a chance is 17. And you just start. And it's just an exhausting process until finally your phone rings. So the phone rings.

And it was crazy because on the TV, the chargers were up. They were the 30th pick. So my phone rings, the Chargers That said Pick is in But they hadn't announced it yet So my phone rings And we all think it's the Chargers calling me And I'm like the Chargers

They had like Antonio Gates Like you know They're not driving to me But that's who was on All we can go by in those days Was what was on TV And you know You weren't like following around on Twitter

Like it was just happening What you saw on TV And it was the Bears They're like we have the next pick We're going to select you We're thrilled that you lasted this long we can't wait to get you to Chicago. They had just come off the Super Bowl.

They had just lost to Peyton Manning and the Colts three months earlier in that Super Bowl. So I was stoked. And then the next day, Sunday evening, I flew there Monday morning, did my welcome press conference and all that. And then that next weekend you have rookie minicamp. So you go back and you do a three-day mini camp and you hit the ground and you're running. I imagine that after everything you've been through in college and going through the draft process.

And so when you go to your locker for the first time or you're in that room and you're putting on this NFL uniform, was there ever a moment where you got like, where you got overwhelmed, right? And you were kind of thinking, damn, how did I get here? Yeah, and what's crazy, you talk about the locker room. In Chicago, you're not allowed in the actual locker room as a rookie until you make the team.

So you're in the basement. They have like a rookie basement. it's like a tradition for however many years that until you make the 53 man roster you're not allowed in the locker room so when you first get there it was actually kind of nice looking back it was actually it prevented a lot of what you're saying

like it was not overly threatening because everybody in that locker room was like you you were a first round pick so like your chances of making the team were a lot better so like you almost felt like you were the leader of the group and everyone around you would like come to you so like it was actually kind of a nice transition it felt more like college

but you're in the basement no name. You're just like an afterthought. And we had our first rookie mini camp of just college kids coming in. So that was nice. But really the first moment where it's like,

all right, this is real is when you had that first, you know, OTA or mini camp with the veterans. And like Brian Erlackers lined up across across the line from you. And you're like, okay, this isn't college anymore.

This is like nothing you've ever done before. And it's like that same eye-opening experience that I had at Miami. It's like, okay, you want to do this? This is what you signed up for. No one out here cares. No one out here feels sorry for you. No one out here is going to say, oh, it's okay.

He's just a rookie. When you're a first round pick, you have a target on your back. You're expected to contribute. You're expected to do something early. And again, it goes back to what we've said before. Like, if you don't learn to embrace that at an early age, and that's your first time facing that, like, it's daunting. And thankfully, along the way, I had a lot of those moments that, like,

made you ready for times like that. In preparing for your first season as a rookie, when in those moments of mini camp and training camp and so forth, are you feel like I'm, all right, I'm bringing something to the table. Is it during the scrimmage drills where you're like able to kind of show, okay, this is what I can do on a field of football players? You know, it's funny to say that. So we used to go to training camp at Olivet Nazarene University, which is like a small college in Illinois.

and so like there's tons of fans. It's like a destination. It's like a Chicago bear tradition that like people go to training camp. It's like a summer vacation for these people. They're crazy about the bears. So every practice, there was 15,000 people there. So like you learned quickly like you're playing in front of people.

Every day there's an article written. Oh, rookies who's playing, who's not playing? And really like when it first kicks in like, all right, is like that first time after practice when like one of the veterans come over and says like, and like brings you into the group and talks to you and you're like, all right, these guys are like waiting to see what you're going to bring, waiting to see like what you can do for the team. Are you going to be a loud mouth?

You can be a know-it-all. You can be like, or you can be a guy who comes in, keeps his mouth shut, puts his head down, works. And then like once you earn that respect of those guys, the Erlackers of the world, the Lance Briggs, the, you know, those proven veteran guys on the team that we had, like that was a great feeling. Like you'd go back to your dorm at night and then like, these guys are accepting me.

because they're seeing what I'm doing, and I'm, like, earning their respect and I'm earning their trust. And, like, all of a sudden now they're including you and they're talking to you and they're going at, like you feel like you're one of the guys. Do you remember who the first one, first vet was? You know, Erlacher had a really unique way. You know, he was one of the marquee names and faces of the entire league when I got drafted, you know, especially coming off the Super Bowl.

And I'll never forget, you know, just being in the wait room, you know, as a rookie. And, you know, some of the veteran guys had a little more. privileges than others. And like if they didn't want to work out with the veteran group, they could come in earlier and get their workout done when the rookies were in or whatever. And I remember one day like laying down on one of the benches or whatever. And I looked up and it's like, hey, do you mind if I work in with you? And I look up and it's Brian Erlacker.

I'm like, you can have the bench. Yeah. He's like, no, no, I'll just work in with you in between sets. And I was like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, no, I'll go over there. Like, you can have it. And he's like, no, no, no.

Let's do it like, let's do it together. Like, he didn't know me from Adam. You know, and he was a guy for his stature to like look after a rookie who he didn't know and just make them feel comfortable. And like once Brian Erlacher shows like, hey, no, this guy's cool. Like this guy, he's one of us. He can play. He can bring a lot to the team.

Then it just kind of falls into place because once he sets that bar and it was something that I always tried to keep in mind as I got older. Like I never wanted to be the veteran guy who made the rookies feel scared enough. They're nervous enough. Like, yeah, they need to be challenged. They need to be pushed. They need to be held accountable. They need to earn that respect.

You don't just give it. But you also don't have to go out of your way to compound the anxiety and compound what they're feeling. And I learned that at a young age from, you know, guys like Brian and the way they treated, not only me, but just all the young guys. And that made like a lasting impression on me as a young kid. Being a fan of the NFL watching a big fan of Washington since like 1982, and you pay attention to the depth of the roster.

And so we watch a lot of players, and you kind of get these guys that you become favorites of during the offseason. You want them to make the team. They seem like they got a little something special about them, but they're fifth or sixth on the death job, right? They're going to get cut. So you being a first round pick, if everything goes well, you're going to be fine, right? I'm sure you didn't feel that way in the moment. But now that you've been through your life, you understand that. are the guys you're all rookies in the basement of this place is the guys that are on the fringe

of the of the roster are they is there this sort of weird weird sort of chip on everybody's shoulder that's sort of around the fringe that's like you know we can't be pals I got to beat you to get here yeah yes typically there wasn't a ton of rookies at every position yeah you know so like I think there was only like one other tight end that was there with me as a rookie. So, like, I almost, the rookies almost felt like made like alliances. Like the rookies were like the connective tissue that like kept guys into it and kept guys, you know, feeling comfortable.

And they could kind of relate and share because they were all in very similar positions. But yeah, I mean, there was veterans who when guys came in and rookies, especially if they were drafted at your position or high pick. Yeah, they weren't going out of their way to make this easy for you. Right. I was very fortunate that I was always around guys who were very good to me and very, open and welcoming and never took me as a threat. So I was very fortunate, but that's not the case for everybody. And I get it, right? Like, it's not easy to stay in the NFL and who wants to help the

guy who's coming to take your job. Like, I get that. I, I always, my approach was always, I'm going to do everything I can to help the young guy, even if he's at my position, but you're going to have to be damn good to ever beat me. Yeah. Like you're going to have to, I'm going to help you. I'll answer your questions. I will never make your life hard, but I'm going to make your life impossible to take my job. And that was always my approach every single year. But like, I had guys who were great to me as a rookie and I always remembered what that felt like. So I made sure like I always paid that forward when I got older. Yeah, sir, the thing about being the rookie, right, to your back to your first point, the thing about being

the rookie and the new guy on the team was the guys who really understood the NFL and the culture of it. Every single day was like a life and death, whether you were going to be on the roster. Yeah. And it's exorkewarm. But it's the only way. Like you, the second you feel like you've arrived, I don't care if you're a rookie or you're in your 10th year. The second you think you got it, someone's passed you by. You have to come in every single year like you're fighting to make the roster.

Yeah. How often does it happen where you see a guy gets cut that you thought that was a mistake? A lot. Yeah. The final, the rule is if there's not a couple controversial cuts on final. breakdown, your roster sucks. Yeah. That makes sense.

If you're, you want to cut guys, and I know this sounds terrible. But the ideal scenario for a team is on their final wave of cuts, that last eight, that last six to eight guys, when people cut them, be like, we cut Dale, Dale is really good. When we weren't that good, everyone knew on day one to train a camp who the 53 were. When we were good, it was like, we got 65 guys who can make this team. it's going to be really interesting to see which 53 they keep. That's when you're good. I wonder if I can articulate this, but sometimes I have a hard time deciding whether I like a player

or at a fringe that's on the bubble because of who he is rather than how good he is or his talent. Does that make sense? And that's the way he should be. So there's times when I'm like, man, they should have kept him. But it was really because you liked him. I liked him, but he wasn't really going to contribute. Yeah, and I mean, think of it in your world, right, as you put together your team, your crew, your crew chief, your pick guys, right? Like, it's not all talent based. When you're building a team that culture and the, the relationships amongst and what certain people bring to certain scenarios are every bit as valuable and it's every bit as impactful as they're just a talent.

Yeah. So when you put together a team, so like in our world where the culture of the team is everything and of course, talent is primary. Those last couple spots, those, those are like culture building guys. And I've seen guys hang on in the bottom of roster who every year there's probably five more talented guys that get cut because there's just something about that guy. It's his work ethic. It's his, it's, you just always can count on him. He's in every practice. He's the first guy down on kickoff. He's the first guy in conditioning drills. You never have to, those spots sometimes for a coach I don't want to worry about my 53rd player on the team. If my 50 third player on the team is a headache, he's gone.

I don't have time for that. Right? So, like, when you're built, so much, the best teams that do it and win consistently, they understand that it's not necessarily always a collection of talent. It's a collection of talent pieced in with, like, glue guys, we call them. Like, they're the glue that, like, keeps everything going. They're not the fastest guy. They're not the best player.

But, like, there's just something about that guy. You need them on the team. because he keeps everything together, he keeps things moving forward. So to your point, like, good guys very often get the benefit of the doubt. And I don't mean good because they're a Boy Scout. I mean good because they're tough, they're reliable, they're consistent, they're hardworking, they're durable. Like those qualities make them a good guy, and those guys last for a long time.

Let's assume that you're on a team that has a bad apple, extremely talented player, nobody loves him. can't get along with him. When he walks in the room, the whole locker room changes. But he's too talented. They're not getting rid of him. How do y'all manage that? How does the locker room manage that?

It's hard. And the reality is we'd love to all sit here and say, oh, those guys just that you get rid of them. The reality is you can't. The more talented you are, and I'd say this is one of the big issues with team sports and just professional sports in general. We've accepted as a culture and as a society

and both within the team and outside the team that like the more talented you are, the less you have to abide by the rules, the less you have to abide by the culture of the team, and the more tolerant we all have to be on you. And that is true. Like right wrong or indifferent, if you're really good, you're going to have to be a real bad guy to get rid of them. Because when the game starts, we need that guy in the huddle. Like that's just, that's just the way it goes.

The best teams that I've always been on were player-led teams, where the coach could kind of defer to the leadership structure of the locker room, and the players had a really good way of managing those personalities. And they had a really good way of making sure that that, you know, quote unquote, bad apple, that quote unquote talented,

albeit distracting player, never has a bad impact on team. Fortunately, I can't even off the top of my head think of a guy in my time that fell into that group. We had certain guys that were more high maintenance than other certain guys,

you'd have, you know, are you going to be on time? But we had very, good guys, especially in our time here in Carolina. And a lot of that is because Rivera had no patience for the other stuff. Ron was never going to let that one guy hijack the culture of the locker room because he believed how important it was. And our best teams, our Super Bowl year and all that, we were not the most talented group of guys. We had very talented players. We had Cam and we had Luke and we had some really talented guys that played important positions. But we had guys

that our best players were our best guys. They were our hardest working. And, and, and, And that's what you want ideally. And we just had a really good collection. And that wasn't by accident. The team sought that out. And as a result, we didn't have to put out a ton of fires. I just, you're there that day I came to talk to. Yeah, yeah, I was there, yeah.

So, yeah, this is terrible. That was a rough experience. So I went to Lindsay. Lindsay's Arniac asked me to come with her to speak to the pan. Was it at training camp? Was it at Wofford or was it at the stadium? It was at Wofford. It was at Wofford, right?

I think it was preseason. It was preseason during training camp, right? In that big auditorium? Yeah. I'm just going to assume it was about how to handle yourself with social media and so forth. There were a couple of other topics. And I'm like, yes. I remember how you say that.

I remember that. Lindsay's awesome. And I've always enjoyed any opportunity to work with her. And so I was thinking, man, this will be great. I'm going to tell you, man. When I walked in that room, I don't think I've ever been in a room where it's, the walls were bulging with like, I don't want to say egos, but like every guy in there thought he was the baddest guy in the room.

And I don't know, there were 70 people in there or 50 people in there plus coaches and so forth. Yeah, plus the coaches and the bravado and the testosterone. Oh, God, everybody. It was a lot. And they're all staring at you. And I was like, this is a mistake. It's a weird, you know, it's.

So I'm trying to understand like. Through that experience, I walked away from there going, I don't know how in the hell how they keep some locker rooms together. Yeah. Because the dynamic of personalities and everybody really does, they put in all that work, they believe in themselves, they believe they're the best, they believe they belong there, and they all got a mesh. Yeah.

And that's the never-ending journey. Yeah. Like that's what makes football so unique. Yeah. Right. And there are other team sports where obviously, you know, basketball, we're watching. it now at the NBA playoffs, but like if I get Kevin Durand on my team, we're going to be pretty good. There's no guarantee because you get a great player on your team that you're going to be good.

Right? Like there's so much more that goes on. And what you just talked about, like just running a team meeting. I mean, some of the team meetings I've been in are circuses. Other team meetings are very professional. So like every team has their own unique kind of vibe. It has their own unique power structure, player led, coach led. Do the players lead by fear?

Do they lead by initiative? Like there's a lot of like social experiments and it's ever changing. You know, our team in 2015 and 2016, very different. Same guys. But all of a sudden, this guy has a little more success. This guy's no longer a rookie. This guy's no longer an undrafted free agent. He got a big contract.

You know, whatever the case may be, things are constantly evolving. Because at the end of the day, like you said, you're dealing with a lot of guys that, yes, it's team. Yes, that's the ultimate objective. but these are guys careers these are livelihoods this is stuff that guys have worked their whole lives for

and at the end of the day people are going to look after themselves first and when you have 70 of them it's a lot of guys who all think and guess what that room of 70 guys

who thought they were the best like 10 of them had the right to do that 60 of them were nuts 60 of them weren't the best but when you have a guy like Cam is it fair to say that he dominates every room he's in that's right he's the biggest star

yeah and that's okay He certainly took over to the city. So when Carolina drafted him, what was the... He didn't come in like that. He didn't. It was a... And the best thing I'll always...

Obviously, my time with Cam was amazing, and I'm always the first to point that out. The thing about Cam is when he came in as a rookie, he was not like the loudest voice in the room. He came in as a rookie and really earned his stripes and said, like, all right, I'm here to play ball. He won the starting job, had early success as a rookie, one rookie of the year. So there was like an ebbs and flow. He didn't come in to the team. and just say like, all right, I'm here, you're welcome. I got this. He didn't. Well, y'all had Steve Smith on the team. We had Steve. So that wasn't going to happen with

Steve, Jordan Gross, Ryan Khalil, Thomas Davis. I mean, that team was bringing back a lot of very, not only like good players, veteran players, but a lot of like strong leaders and strong personalities that could check that. So Cam by no means came in with that. But as time grew and it became the reason that all that worked is the thing with Cam was he could be the biggest personality in the room he could but everyone understood that Cam always put the football first

Cam was always in a position where it never took away from his training and never took away from his prep it never took away from his performance like Cam was all about football so we never like we never had to sit there and say oh can you believe Cam wore that because it didn't matter like to the outside world

people thought it mattered But the guys who lived with him every single day and saw him work and saw how much he cared and saw how much he poured into the sport, we never had to question any of the stuff he did because it never impacted what was important, which was the football, and never took away from that. And not everyone can handle that. Not everyone could balance that like Cam did. He was very unique in that regard. A lot of young guys would come in. He's just Cam Newton. I'm going to go do what he does.

And I'm going to dress and I'm going to be unding. I'm going to be loud. But then they couldn't play. So it didn't work. you were annoying. That's why Cam was so special. Like he could be both. But it didn't happen overnight. So I'm curious about, and maybe you don't even know the answer to this. I mean, but like, you know, Cam comes back to Carolina after, you know, being in New England for a little while. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like, you know, every athlete's going to hit a point

where they have to face the reality of the situation, right? And I'm wondering if Cam had reached that point or if he hasn't handled the situation completely as well as he could. Like, how long is he going to continue to play? I don't know. It's hard to know how another guy feels, right? And I think it was probably unrealistic. When he signed, everyone was over the moon. It was like you couldn't write that in a story, in a storybook.

I just think there was a lot of moving parts there that just didn't work, right? Right. The system. Then they brought him in. And a week later, they got rid of Joe Brady. And then it was a new system and a new coach. And then Sam was playing a little bit. Then Cam would come in.

Then Cam was back out. And then Sam was in. You can't, it's just, it's an impossible way to play. I think the circumstances there, you know, listen, I'm sure Cam would be the first to say, like, I need to play better. I need, of course, but like the whole situation surrounding that, to me, was just set up for it not to be overly smooth. That's what it seemed like.

And at the time, Sam was hurt. They needed a quarterback. Cam was available. Brought a little life. You know, saw him, they won the first game. They went to Arizona. He threw a touchdown, ran for a touchdown, like the first two plays of the game. Everyone was, the city was on fire.

it felt, you know, and then they kind of came back down a little bit. But, you know, the thing about Cam is he'll be done when he's ready to be done. You know what I mean? Like, no one works harder, no one's more vested into it. He has other interests. He has other things. But like, he is super passionate and serious about football. How did you handle the retirement process? You know, the, I had a really interesting final year. So, you know, so the new regime here in Carolina came in, you know, with rule and the new staff. And shortly thereafter, you know, they call me in a, and told me that they were going to let me go, which I kind of knew the writing was on the wall. Like, for a new staff to come in and have an older guy with a strong opinion and a strong voice in the locker room,

it's hard for a new young coach to kind of get their message and voice across to a bunch of young guys. Because what they don't want is they don't want them hearing a message and then coming up to me and be like, what do you think, Greg? Right. And maybe I didn't agree. Maybe I did agree. But like typically when young, when canoe coaches come in, especially from college, like, they want to make sure that it's a lot of younger voices that they can, that are going to buy in to like,

this is how we do things. And that wasn't really necessarily always my approach. Like, I was always bought into the coach, but if I didn't think it was great, like, I would go up to them, be like, no, this is a better way to do it. Like, so I wasn't surprised they got rid of me. I had a great conversation with Matt, with rule after they hired him and Tepper and all them. And I, and I wasn't surprised when they let me go. I wanted to give it one last year. I signed with Seattle before COVID. So, like, we had these grand visions of like moving to Seattle and kids were going to go to school there. We were going to live on the West Coast and had this great experience out in Seattle and then I signed there and like within the next month

COVID shut everything down. So we moved out to Seattle. There was like riots. The city was on fire. It was a lot going on that summer out there. Then COVID. So my family and I, we lived in like a high rise. They never came to a game. We had COVID testing. It was like all these restrictions. Visitor. It was an absolute disaster. And that was my last year. So it wasn't exactly the last year that I had hoped for, but when is it ever? But I knew after that year, like, it was time for me to move on. Like, I've given everything I can. I get 14 years at this.

I can't play the way I want. I can't run like I used to. I was getting hurt more than I ever did. I was like, it's time. Like, I can't keep hanging on and doing this. I was never going to be that guy who just hung on because he was a good guy in the locker room. So I want to ask you, you mentioned Seattle and going from California to Seattle. So you played in Chicago.

Is there a big change? Is there a huge? difference in the entire culture of an organization. Oh, yeah. And is it profound to, because, you know, visually from the outside, it looks like there's extreme differences in each organization and how successful they are and the, the reputation they have, right? Do you sense that when you're in the guts of it?

Totally. Yeah. And what you see from afar oftentimes aligns with once you're on the inside, and oftentimes, other times it doesn't. So I think, you know, the hardest thing for me, looking back, to go to a new, team in my 14th year was tough. Yeah. Because I didn't have a lot of patience for like the bull's like I didn't need all the

like and going to Seattle like their big thing. Now listen, they win a lot. They win a lot. I always say Pete Carroll ran some of the best meetings, attention to detail. Like the way they ran things there worked for them for a long time. It's just not my style. Like I don't need hype men. I don't need cheerleaders.

I don't need. false enthusiasm. I don't need to be, I don't need all of that. I never have, but like, especially at 37 years old. Like, I was there to play ball. Like, to what times practice start? I'll be there. I don't need anything. Like, anything else to me is, is irrelevant. So, like, it just, you know, I saw things very particular, like, this is how I play. You know, I remember being in training camp there and, like, my 10-in coach being like, hey, I want to talk to you about your stance. I'm like, what about it? Like, well, we think when you're in a two-point stance, I was like, listen. Like, I'm all about being a team guy.

I'm coming here and I'm, like, really making an effort to adopt your approach and the way you want to do things. And I'm buying in and I'll run routes. Like, there's some things that are just in my bones. Like, you've got to just, like, let me be. And that, it just, it was always kind of like a tug, right? It was always kind of a back and forth between, like, you brought me here to play. I'm 37 years old. I play how I play.

I'm not saying it's the only way. I'm not saying it's the way you need to teach the rest of the room, but it's how I'm going to play. And if you don't let me play like this, I'm not effective. So like that was, it was just hard. Like the way I always, I had a lot of freedom here in Carolina. My tight end coach, my coaches, they did not micromanage me. They trusted me.

Now, there was also a lot of pressure when you get a lot of freedom. Because if you don't do it right, now they're pulling you in the room saying, hey, listen, buddy, I'm letting you do your thing here and you're making us look bad. So I felt like I internalized all that. Like I never wanted to let my coaches down ever. Because I feel like they trusted me to let me do things my way to a degree. Like I owe it to them to go represent our room at the highest level. So like now I'm out there and I'm like, let me be like, I know what I'm doing.

It might not be perfect. It might not be how you drew it up. But it's effective. Like go check it. It works. And they just, they weren't into that. Like they wanted everything to be. This is how we do it.

I'm like, I don't know what that means. Like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Yeah. You brought in a 30, what did you think you were getting when you brought me in? That mold has already been developed. Like, really, that ship's sailed, man. Right. I'm running my route how I run my route.

If you don't like it, don't play me. I don't know what else to tell you, but it works. I got 15 years of proof that this shit works. So, like, it was just had a great. Russell was awesome. He was great. I mean, you talk about a guy with an approach and a mindset. He's really important.

impressive. It just wasn't a good fit. So I look back on that. It wasn't the ideal way to end my career, but it's never a storybook entry, right? It's never perfect. I feel content. I'm happy now doing what I'm doing. And I look back on that as a year that didn't go according to plan and you chalk it up and you move on. When I think about playing your position or even playing as a receiver, is there anything, I'm not saying. saying that you dealt with this, but what some route runners may have concerns about, like, putting themselves in difficult situations in the middle of the field, right? Running it across the middle of the field in certain situations.

And how does, how do you handle that as a player, knowing that there's guys in the, you know, in the defense that want to take your head off? Yeah, I think there's a little bit that you can do to help yourself. Like what? Awareness. So something, you know, and this was a little bit of a, touchy situation when I was out in Seattle, I was never a route runner based on like yards. Like if you told me the route was at 12 yards, that meant nothing to me.

Like I knew where I needed to end up. I knew where the quarterback needed me to end up. And I needed to base my path based on the defense and the nearest defenders, the timing that the quarterback had as far as how long he could hold the ball based on our protections and based on how many guys they were rushing. Like I could see all that. and I knew I needed to get there in this much time and the ball was going to be on me.

And if I could do that, the rest of it could be different every time. Within, I mean, within, I'm not saying, like, I'm like going rogue here, but if it was 12 yards, eh, might be 10, might be 9, might be 13. And that was always in, like Seattle would look at me like, well, how does the, you know, I say,

well, I can't run 12 if the defender's at 12. Right. I don't get to tell him where to go. So let's just, let's play ball here. So I had this rule, like, and it sounds so simple, like, I'm just going to run where they're not. Yeah. So, like, to answer your question, like, part of it is understanding where everyone on the field is. I'm going to run where they're not.

If you're open, stay open. If you're not open, get open. Yeah. That's route running. Is there a, and there's a responsibility of the quarterback too, right? Protect me. Where he's putting the ball. Yeah. And you hope to God they protect you.

And for the most part, they do. They're trying. And body language is so important for a quarterback. So what I mean, what I mean by that, like these quarterbacks, when they're watching a receiver over time as you work on it, you work on it, every receiver has like little body language ticks. And it could be like a little wiggle or how their head goes or how their shoulders drop or how their footwork goes. And it's an indicator of when I'm going to break ball, when I'm going to settle, when I'm going to keep running, when I feel, you know, they call it green grass. Like when I feel open space in front of me and I need you to put this on my front shoulder pad so I keep running. when I sense there's a guy over there that after I run there, he's going to kill me.

So I can alter my body language, show numbers, thrott, and just, and the quarterbacks feel that. So they know if you start feeling your guy throttle, I got to, they call it stop you with the ball. So like there's a way like you work together. And that's why Cam and I always had good success. Like we had a good feel. I had a good feel for what he needed out of me, target wise, presence, body language. And he had a really good feel for where I was going to be and what I was going to do. And that just comes with reps and certain guys have a better feel than others.

But like the guys who run themselves into, now listen, you're going to get your block knocked off at some point. It's just going to happen. But you can really help yourself by just having some awareness. You just, you don't run around with blinders on and just say, you know, it says run 10 yards and make a left hand turn. And you just make a left hand turn and you start screaming across the middle of the field. Like, no, no, that's high school football. Yeah. We're not doing that.

Hey, you know, I know you guys have another podcast to do. And I think that everybody listening to this would kill us if we did not ask this question. And that is, how's T.J. doing. Oh, I appreciate it. He's doing awesome. He's, man, if you could see him now. So he's coming up, it'll be June 4th will be his one year anniversary of his heart transplant. Since the heart transplant. Which you guys were so open about that.

And, you know, you're putting videos out. And we all became enamored and just connected to that emotionally. Don't know how you guys handled it. as well as you did, but he's doing good, is what you're saying. He's doing great. He's playing baseball. He's running around. If he ran in here right now, you'd have no, you'd be like, that's him?

Like, no way. Like, yeah, that's him. If you took his shirt off, he's cut from Adam's apple to belly button. I mean, he's been open five times. His chest's been open. But you brought it up. The reason we shared it last summer was, and the reason we do all of our work, and Dale and I have done stuff in the past together for the children's hospital.

Like, the reason we feel like sharing. our story is so important is not because our story is unique to us. It's unique in the fact that we have the ability to kind of share it where people can hear it and listen to it and respond to it. But there's thousands, if not millions of people around the country that have like their version of our story. And it might not be health related. It could be personal. Whatever the case may be like, and there's so many people out there that would reach out to us and be like, we, you know, our son had a heart condition. We thought we were the only ones. We didn't know where to turn. We came across your video on YouTube on Instagram or and it gave us such hope it gave us such

inspiration that like we too can have a great result like thank you for sharing it like that's why we do it you know so people when they hear our story and they see TJ's outcome like that's what you can do like you just got to keep fighting you just got and it sucks and it's hard so like we felt that from the very beginning we were like this is our mission like this is something we were dealt for a reason it sucks it's hard it rips your guts out for the kid the life he's had to live in nine years, you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. But like it's made us better people.

It's made us have a greater appreciation and perspective of life and what it offers. And it's also allowed us to share that like life is not all rainbows, right? Like it's okay. Not every story you share has to be the best one and when your life is so great. And no, life can suck sometimes and that's okay. And I think it's important for people to be to realize that. And I think that's a big part of why we did it. I think that's compelling to me that you as a father have a career of your own that you focus on,

your marriage, all the standard things that most people deal with and live with, but you have those challenges as well. I'm curious how you help your children understand what's going on, how do you maintain some normalcy? in their lives when it can't be normal, right? Yeah, last summer wasn't normal. And, you know, the previous times that T.J. had all of his surgeries, the other two were very small.

Right. Like, they've seen pictures. They obviously are aware of what T.J.'s been through, but, like, they didn't really see it in a way that they could, like, really, like, consciously absorb it all and understand it. Last summer, you know, our oldest was just turned 10. his T.J's twin sister was eight so the same eight so like they were old enough now like when they came and saw him at the hospital and he's got his backpack on because that's what's pumping his heart

and they know he's going in for heart transplant and they see it like they really understood why we do the foundation why we do so much with the hospital why we talk so much about being thankful and perspective and yeah we're all mad after you had a bad baseball game we're all mad he got a bad grade in school but like let's take a step back and realize where we've also been, right? Like, there's been times where we weren't sure if TJ was going to come home again. So, like, let's keep all this in perspective.

And we have to remind ourselves that we get caught up in it too as adults. So, like, it's something that we try to constantly, like, reinforce with them. Like, think about how fortunate we are. Think of the opportunities and the blessings and the, and the resources we've been able to have. Like, we have a responsibility and a role

to, like, share these with other people who might not have the same opportunities and the same outcomes. And, like, there's other, like, I just think it's such good lessons that we can implement them at a young age. Like life does not always have to be perfect. And guess what? You better get used to it not being. I think you impacted more than just people that are dealing with similar situations.

Because I know that is a father of kids that are about the same as yours and Dale's got young kids, is that you and your wife lived this openly. And all of us other parents are watching, rooting for TJ, but also really trying to, for a second step into, your shoes and it didn't like what we felt for that one second of being in your shoes like trying to put ourselves in that situation it did not feel good and you you try to snap right back out of it right but y'all are so open and transparent in it that i i mean to commend you would be understating this immensely or thanking you would be understating it immensely but they're saying you impacted well more than just people that have kids or you know dealing with heart defects or anything like that it was

this life, people trying to figure out life in raising kids and you know you're messing up everything and it's all this stuff. And then here you are waiting out a heart transplant surgery for an eight year old. I'm sorry, but like, yeah, you help all of us that way. I appreciate you saying that. And that means a lot to us. And again, we just thought we can't only share the good, right? You can't only share the game winning touchdowns. And when your kids make the honor roll and when your kid makes the travel team and when you go to the Super Bowl like look at our life. We're on vacation. We're at the beach. Like no, man, like you got to share reality and our reality at that time sucked. Yeah. That is. And I just think it's important for our, not only our kids

to see that, yeah, at times things are going to be hard and you're either going to quit and you're going to feel sorry for yourself. But that's not going to make anything better. Like, and then also show society like it's okay to show your scars. Like, it's, like, it's, okay that you're having a bad day, you're having a weak moment. Life is hard. Life sucks. I'm, I feel angry. I feel whatever it is. Like, those are normal human emotions. And we've all, you know, I think we've all been guilty of it at time. We all want to portray like these perfect lives and we want to share this like image that everything is always great. Like, no, that's not reality. And it's, well, at least it's not my reality. Maybe someone out there has

a perfect, every day is perfect. But like, you know what I mean? Like, we're all so fortunate. but we also have to realize that like we appreciate the good fortune so much more when we realize that oftentimes things aren't easy and last summer i mean tj's whole life hasn't been easy but there's been so much good that we don't ever allow the bad moments to take away from just what a blessing he is well man i'm gonna tell you it's been awesome to be able to sit here and talk to you this is awesome yeah i can sit here all day yeah what i i wish people like i guess they can see that there's cameras right here. Remember that when you start doing your podcast because I don't want to piss off the host of that podcast. I heard he was an asshole back at the Combine days. That guy, that was the rumor.

You think he's a jerk. Wait until Dale, when Dale steps into this next pod, it's no more of this fun reminiscing stuff. We're getting down to the real stuff. Y'all shouldn't talk about Kyle Bush like that. That's right. Kyle's going to be there. This is going to be a blast, though. It's going to be interesting. I am fascinated. I was talking to your sister at Kelly outside, like listening to her talk about her son and the races. And I know. Kyle's son like I'm so used to like what I did right my kids play baseball they play football they like listening to kids going to like dirt track races and listening you you know reading up you know reading obviously I'm aware of your story more so than a lot of others but like racing as a young

kid and then Canapolis and these motor speedways I drive to training camp on 85 and there's that um your sister said it's called like Cherokee or that racetrack off the side of the highway we'd be going back and forth to Spartanburg for training camp on a Saturday night. And that was like Disney World. There's RVs and there's people. And I was like, I need to go see that. Like it was so foreign to me, but I'm just fascinated by it. So to be able to talk with Dale and Kyle, who obviously has a son now who's eight years old and like racing every weekend and knowing obviously how Dale grew up and your brothers and sisters. Like it's just I'm going to save the questions for the podcast. I'm fascinated by this whole world.

I'm looking forward to doing it. What's the name of the podcast? You think. Youth Inc. Youth Inc. When will we be able to hear the episode with Dale and Kyle? That we come out every Wednesday. So I would say like in the next two weeks, we drop every Wednesday. We have a few that are banked like this week. Russell Wilson comes out. We did Roy Williams a couple weeks ago. We've had some really cool guests. And like the idea of the show is very similar to a lot of the conversation we've had here is like we don't have all the answers, right, as parents. And now you factor in like raising your kids in youth sports. And whether it's in, in racing or whether it's in baseball or golf or whatever it is. Like it's a hard world to raise your kids in activities and sports. There's so many decisions. Is it too much?

Is it not enough? Am I too hard on them? Am I not pushing them enough? My daughter versus my son. There are so many things. We're like, we need to go explore this. Like we need to go talk to people in all different backgrounds,

all different experiences and find like a core set of best practices so that people can learn, not myself at the top of the list. Like, what is the best way to navigate the youth sports experience in our country? And how do we create the best children long term as a result, not as professional athletes as just like people and whatnot? So that's the origins of the show. So having Dale's, you know, story and insight and what he's been through is going to be awesome. So I appreciate you joining us.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man. Like I said, this conversation has been profound. I've really, I knew it would be. I've always enjoyed your friendship. and looking forward to having you back. Tell us how broadcasting is going to be going for you. Anytime. I know you enjoying that,

and I'm looking forward to hearing your voice on some of the broadcasts going forward. But thanks so much. I mean, we learn so much. We do, every once in a while, we're real lucky to get the non-N NASCAR guys in here from time to time, and there's some of my favorite shows we do because we learn so much.

Yeah. Well, right back at you, man. I've enjoyed getting you know you over the years. We've had some fun times together doing the charity stuff. The weekend with the 88s was like the best. thing ever. That was so unique. You've just been awesome. It's been nice getting to know your family and everybody and thank you guys for having me on. This was a blast and you say the word and I'll be back. You got it. Greg Olson on the Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage,

right, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirtymo Media team. All right, you let us know when the ass junior machine's fired up. All right, give me just a second.

Yeah. All righty, you are live Hey everybody It's Dale Jr. for the Dale Jr. download And this is the Ask Junior segment. Brought you by Xfinity. We've got to thank Xfinity for sponsoring this part of the show

and they've been a great partner of ours over the years. You guys have sent in all of your questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Hannah is here to pick her favorite one. So let's get started. All right. Well, the first one comes from Patty James.

Pretty cool announcement. Well, we've talked about a couple announcements that are cool over the weekend, but one of them being that you will be joining the Fox booth at Talladega this upcoming weekend. And Patty wants to know what the chances are of you actually getting to talk while in the booth with Clint. That's funny. You know, it's going to be a lot of fun to see how they do it. You know, they have a different production truck, different people, personnel, and how they, you know, present the race and what, you know, what a broadcast.

testers role in the booth is is going to be different. And so I'm going to go and have a good time. I like Mike Joy. I like Clint, and I've been friends with Clint a long time, and I've gotten a chance to actually work with Mike one time at the clash in Daytona. So, and he's, you know, he's a historian, much more so than I am. And so that's definitely interesting to me.

But I'm going to have fun. It's a great racetrack. I know really well. I feel pretty confident I can go in there. and add something to the broadcast, but I'm also just going to be kind of paying attention of what I can learn that they do really well that I think we could incorporate into what we're doing.

So I also think I get this question a lot. How did NBC let this happen? How are they letting you do this? NBC is the one that called me. Right. My boss called me and said, hey, man, would you want to do this? So they're all for it.

And for a couple of years, we've kind of teased the idea of me doing a Fox race, either the Daytona 500, but the more realistic thing that we were talking about or have talked about over the last couple of years is me being in the booth for the Sonoma race or the last race before they handed off to us in Nashville. So to have kind of a bit of a smoother transition, I guess. And no, that ever happened, not to say it won't in the future. But NBC really is the ones that thought, you know, they're absolutely supporting this.

And the reason why is because the ratings, basically, as the ratings start in the season, whatever the ratings do, whether they're going up or going down, whenever we start to broadcast, we really pick up right at that same number. The ratings don't jump way up when NBC starts broadcasting. They don't jump way down. they stay pretty much linear to what the ratings for Fox are. And if the ratings are trending upward, they kind of keep doing the same thing for us.

And so the higher we can get that number, the higher that number can be, the better off it is for the broadcast partner that's coming in the second half of the year. Because where that number is, you're going to pick it up and kind of continue or try to continue that momentum. Fox has a lot of great momentum, and we're just trying to do everything we can to be a great partner. because honestly when you look at it, Fox and NBC are partners trying to, you know, raise NASCAR to new heights. And so they both have the same responsibility.

They both want the same outcome. And this is kind of how that all come about. Can I add one thing? Is it Dale's going to be on the qualifying show on Saturday as well? So like he's going to have two days of work to do with Fox, which is exciting. Yeah, they weren't. I don't know they were, you know, they were going to ask me or task me to do the qualifying, but I was like, man, I'm going to be there.

I might as well get some, get the rust knocked off and kind of learn, you know, Clint's cadence and Mike's, you know, how Mike sort of brings you into the conversation and so forth. It'll be fun to get a little work done before we actually do the real thing on Sunday. And this next one comes from our chat from Ethan Ball. he said, speaking of Talladega, what is your favorite Talladega infield memory? Shoo-wee. You know, for the longest time, I wouldn't go into the infield. I just felt like that I needed to be focused.

And if I couldn't go in there and party, I didn't want, you know, and I couldn't party because I was racing on a weekend. It was kind of weird, you know, to go. It's like, hey, man, I'm throwing a big party. Come on over. You know everyone here. or you're going to have a great time, but you can't party, right? Would you go? I think it'd be, if it sucked.

Okay. I mean, we might go, but it sucks. I had, you know, I did get on a golf cart a time or two with Tony Jr. or LaTart, and we'd go run around, ride around, make a lap. And honestly, about two years ago, we went to the infield and literally got off the golf car. and walked the boulevard and it's so crazy that nobody even noticed.

Yeah, I believe that. I believe that. Like there's too much over-the-top stuff going on for, you know, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. to walk through and it didn't capture, you know,

capture everybody's attention. And even the ones that were like, hey, they were so entertained by everything going on around them. They were like, hey, man, there you are. Yeah.

There's a naked guy over there wearing a tire. That's all that's covered about. Who are you going to pay attention to? Well, you know, it just, it was interesting. Yeah, I was, and so all those, all those years, I kind of wished I'd have, you know, checked it out a little bit more than I did, but you kind of, you know, my favorite part about the Talladega in-field experience is social media, the track,

does a social media thing on Monday. That's great. Where they do all of the things, the random things that are left behind? Yes. Oh, yeah. That's right. And so, like, there'll be couches and... Kitty pools and...

All types of random things. People bring. Teeth. Yeah. They find some questionable things. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm expecting the same thing again on Monday. If you don't follow the racetrack, social media handles, Talladega Motor Speedway.

You got to follow that handle to be able to see what they post on Monday after the race is over with. and everybody's went home. I'm glad I'm not the one that has to pick all that trash up and all the random items that they leave behind. And I wonder what they do with all of it. I guess it goes off to the dump. It belongs in a museum. Yikes.

This one comes from Sudith. Says, hey, can you talk about the time you got to drive a Petty-43 backup because your other car blew? What was that like? I never even knew until I saw someone talking about it on eBay and the die cast they made. Yeah, well, this is the car I think you're talking about right here. So it is a Ford.

That's a bit of a long story. And I don't know if we told it here or not, but I was racing at Nashville Fairgrounds in a late-mall stock race. And we were practicing. They had a big crash in turn before. And my crew chief Wesley said, slow down. There's a big wreck over here. So we slowed down and stopped. All right.

We're just sitting there. And a couple seconds later, a car come flying in, had no sports. water and ran into the back of our car and the frame punctured the fuel cell and I mean a big hole in the fuel cell and boom we're on fire and so I climb out of our car and this guy that ran into me he climbs out his shoes were on fire when he got out I mean it was a big fire because it punctured a big hole and it was instant you know it was a lot of fuel all at once and so our car is sitting there burning. I had a fire extinguisher mounted behind the seat.

The fire extinguisher exploded and wrapped the seat around the steering wheel like cellophane, like you would, you know, that cling wrap, what's that cling wrap you use? Like a saran wrap? Saran wrap. Wow. What did I say? Cylane. What the hell is?

So saran wrap. Yeah. because everything was burnt away. Wow. And it wrapped the aluminum seat because the compression of the explosion of the bottle sheared the rear mount of the seat and it pivoted forward on the front mount,

right? So the seat has two mount. The front mount and the back mount, and then it's mounted to the rear roll bar. It sheared that off, sheared this bottom mount, and it pivoted on the front mount up toward the steering wheel and wrapped around the steering wheel. tight like it was fluid.

Wow. In the moment it was like. And then yeah. Oh my gosh. And so I mean I had just gotten out like and we were there were 30 people sitting there watching this from from here to Matthew watching this thing burn and it goes boom. And we all like whoa. And we're, I mean I'm there's and the fire truck pulls up and it they get the hose and

they turn the hose on and this little purple fluid just comes. rolling out of the hose and they were like, oh, damn. They didn't have anything to put it out. No pressure. The fire truck didn't work, right? And so the car's burnt to the ground, both of them. And it was bad. So I, you know, I'm wandering around in the days like, what the hell?

I walk up into the hauler, and Wesley, my crew chief, who works at Gibbs now, is sitting there crying. and so I said Wesley it's going to be okay and he was like man I was so scared for you that was terrifying you know and he has been through some things in racing where he's lost some loved ones and crashes and he was like man that made me think about my past and I'm having this conversation with him up in our goose neck trailer and I there's a bunch of people crowding around the back of the holler sorry for this it's going to take all the ass junior you ask this question I have to tell it but uh I heard a voice you want to race and I was like, I turn around and it's Bobby Hamilton.

Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, you want to race? I said, yeah, I do. But I'm like, like, what does this mean? Like, what do you talk about?

He goes, I got a car. It's outside the tracks in a trailer. We brought it here to sell. But if you want to race it, it's ready to go. And he said, the only problem is it's a Ford. And I said, okay. So I get on the phone. I'm calling trying to get a hold of dad.

That's impossible. But I did get a hold of the general manager at DEI, and I said, this situation, he said, you can race, just don't say anything, don't do any media about it, don't mention the word forward, just racing, come home. So we go outside and we get this car out of the trailer, this car right here, number 43 SDP, because Bobby was driving for Richard back then, I think. That's right, yep. We pulled the car into the pits, and Bobby Hamilton says, oh, you got to change right rear spring. It's got a dummy spring in there just, you know, like the wrong spring. So put this spring in there and put this many rounds in it. And it's got a spool, which means the rear end's locked.

There's not a ratchet in the rear end for the rear to ratchet. It's a spool, both tires pulling at the same time. So you've got to add, instead of running a half inch or three quarters of an inch of stagger in the rear tires, you've got to run three inches of stagger, two and a half inch. You got to have a lot of staggers. Stagger the heck out of that. Yeah, so we had to go buy four new tires and just, you know, guess on the stick. dagger and we went out there.

They were 80 cars there and we qualified seven. Wow. First laps on the track were in qualifying. And this thing was fast. Wow. All right? So it had, and the Fords were allowed to run a 500 two-barrele carburetor, and we had to run like a 350, if I'm incorrect on them numbers.

Sorry, it's been a few years. But they ran a bigger carburetor to be able to allow them to sort of match what power the Chevy's made, but at a track as big as Nashville and as much throttle that you used. It really showed up and a car flew. Race starts. We taped up the four, so it's the number three. We run the race.

It's a 200-lap race. We are leading with 50 laps to go. There's only one car left on the lead lap. Wow. Andy Kirby, I believe, was the driver number 30. So we were going to win. It's, we are, they ain't nobody can close to us. We're flying.

This thing drives like a dream, all the power in the world. and it started smoking. And they black flagged us. Cautions out, so we'd come down pit road. And they look under it, and they're like, there ain't no breather hose on the transmission. Well, it must have fell off. And it turns out that there was never one on it.

They just had a dummy transmission in there, and there was no breather line on it, so it had a hole in the top of the transmission case and all the fluid come out of it. Yeah. And it burnt a transmission up. And so we probably would have finished the race, but they wouldn't let us compete as we were smoking.

They kept black flagging us, and then we lost the lead, lost some laps, finally we parked it. He sold that car on pit road after the checker flag for $40,000. My way it sat, motor and everything, take it. And I don't think he would have got half that before the race. And so I was really proud of that, that a guy walked up and was like, I want that car. That thing's the fastest thing here.

and we went and spent the night in the hotel, got up the next morning, went and retrieved our burnt down chassis and took it home, and I was going to repair it, and dad wouldn't let me. He said the heat and the flame made the roll cage too brittle, and it was too much of a risk to race. But those were the good old days, man.

Heck of a story, dude. I have never heard that. There's probably something I'm leaving out. That's a great one. Yeah, I know that was super cool. Last one here for Ask Jr. comes from John Miller. what do you remember of your dad's cameo in basketball?

I don't, you know, I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember him going and doing those things. I would find out after the fact, you know, either I'd hear about that he, you know, I'd hear about it afterwards. We wouldn't be sitting at the house and him going, hey, guess what I'm doing next week or we're doing this a month from now. Can I go? You know, we wouldn't never know none of that was going on until it happened.

and I remember he had a part in the Flintstones that got cut from the movie. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's an image of him on social media. They cut Dale Earnhardt? There's an image of him on the internet wearing his costume. They kind of made this Flintstone style racing uniform, and he's standing there with some of the actors in the movie, I guess, which I always thought that was weird.

I wonder what is, I wonder, I haven't ever seen the scene that he was in that they cut, but I wonder why they cut it or whatever, but I guess he doesn't work. I bet he cut it. Maybe. I don't know. His little outfit is pretty goofy. Perfect. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior.

Yeah, sorry we didn't get more questions, but I can't tell that Nashville Fairground story with the STP Ford without really, you know, getting all the details right. But it says a lot about Bobby Hamilton, Sr. And what kind of guy he was to come up in that moment and kind of rescue our weekend. and it leads us with an amazing story. So I want to celebrate Bobby for that. We want to thank Xfinity for support NASS Junior portion of this show. They are, you know, proud premier partner of NASCAR, and their X-FINITYX-Fi Internet is fast,

it's reliable because I know I'm a customer. I've been using it for a long time, and I'm very happy about it. But we appreciate everything they do for us here at the Dell Jr. download. And also everything they do for NASCAR. thank you Exfinity. All right, everybody. That was a great show.

Greg was awesome. What did you think, Mike? Amazing. And finally get in person and talk to him and really kind of expand on some of the things that we just read about or knew about it, you know, on the surface. That was special. I'm glad we did it.

I hope you've bought your tickets to something going on in North Wiltsboro in August or October, if not every race, right? I hope you're buying some tickets for that and supporting what's going on at the racetrack. For that track to come back and truly survive, we got to get there and we got to watch what's going on. Got to support it, man. Got to support it. All right, everybody.

Have a great week. Yeah, going to be fun. Going to Talladega. We're going to do some broadcasting. Hopefully that goes well. Good luck, buddy. We'll see you. Check out Dirty Mode Media.

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