The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 174: Bo Jackson’s Smoked Raccoon

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

Steven Rinella talks with Bo Jackson, Matt Cook, Guy Zuck, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: The gar pike exists and Steve is way wrong; Bo Jackson’s lessons for parents and married people; hunting chickens on Saturday; Tarzan as inspiration; speed like a spooked deer; Bo’s beloved momma; George, the hunting mentor; a visit to the hog barn; the protective brain cushion of a woodpecker; Bo Knows loyalty; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Okay, we're joined by a very special guest, Bo Jackson.

Good afternoon. You okay to hang out for a minute while we talk about some other stuff? Got 60 seconds. You can weigh in on it. Okay. Will do. That's what I want to talk. Well, one, I want to talk about this, that I feel so shamed.

I feel so shamed by something that just happened that I want everyone to know. I'm sitting here. I'm in my home state. And there's a guy who's not from my home state. Named guy. Named guy. Who was a, once upon a time, an expert turkey hunter. Retired expert turkey hunter guy is telling me about a fish that he knows about right in lake

michigan or in one of the lakes a fish he knows about and i went so far as to say there is not a fish here that i don't know about and was adamant adam That the fish you're describing is a fictitious fish. A legend. But it turns out I was, as Arthur Fonzarelli says, I was wrong. Wrong. And the fish does exist. And so I want to publicly apologize to you guys

public apology taken the spotted gar spotted the spotted gar which is like people know long nose gar short nose gar alligator gar i said the only gar that's here is the long nose gar but there is a guard it's way less gar looking called gar which you've heard folks describe as a gar pike gar pike does exist you were right i was wrong not technically i was wrong i was just as wrong as you were yeah because you were arguing about it too. Yeah. Then you learned the truth. Then I got proved. Rawr, rawr, rawr. And there I was. Quick news story from Alaska that's really interesting.

This just happened. So three dudes, three mugs, go out to Kodiak Island to hunt bears. Did I already tell you about this story? Uh-oh. They go out to Kodiak Island. No, this doesn't go where you think it's going to go. Okay. The minute I see minute i see that i'm like oh someone got killed by a bear on kodiak island but not three mugs go hunting on kodiak island and it rains and it's windy the whole time it's just this just happened may it's uh raining and windy you know what they were hunting bears

just happened what else would they be hunting Bears. Just happened. What else would they be hunting? I don't know if they had other seasons open this time of year. Like what? Other than grizz. Give me an example. I don't know. What else would they have open?

I guess black bear, but they don't have any black bears on Kodiak, do they? Nope. No, and we still haven't talked about bears. I just said bears. Suniel, you good? Sooty grouse. Okay, they could have been hunting. I don't know if they could have been hunting sooty grouse.

One of them has a miserable time the whole time. He's in the tent, doesn't want to leave the tent, and all he does is complain about the wind and the rain. And he wants to leave a week early. And they call a float plane to come pick him up, but the plane can't come because of the weather. So they're waiting and waiting and waiting. And eventually he gets in the huff and storms, grabs a rifle and storms out of the tent and says,

I'm going home. So as he, so eventually eventually like the guy his buddy his hunting buddy explains how this has happened before and he'll just all of a sudden get mad and get up and leave and they don't think much of it and they take him hunting again yep they took him hunting again apparently they don't think much of it eventually the plane comes to pick them up and there's just two of the three now they tell the pilot well he wandered off um no one's heard from him so one of the hunting buddies decides to go home after all he goes back home and one of the guys decides well now i'm going to stay and look for my buddy. And he spends...

Six days have gone by. He even walks to a nearby village to ask if they've seen the buddy. They haven't seen him. And turns out that he eventually finds the guy dead a mile from

the tent. They still haven't done an autopsy on him. He's only a mile away? Yep, a mile away the tent they still haven't done an autopsy on him he's only a mile away yep mile away dead he had he was young though they're like postulating maybe he had a heart attack or his buddy points out that this guy had a habit of eating things he found to see if they were edible. And in his pocket is a chunk of root where he had carved off the outer layer of the root in order to gnaw on it. But they don't know yet. And he says, his buddy of the deceased says, some stuff I don't know and I won't put in my mouth.

And he'll cut a piece off and try it. That's what he says of his buddy. What kind of root was it? Doesn't say yet. It's breaking news, man. We'll have to tune back in later. Any bear? Not attacked, not mauled.

Laying right next to his rifle. So it's one of the two. Heart attack or he ate a poison root. Or whatever. Who knows? They're going to do an autopsy on the guy. That's a cautionary tale, a hunting cautionary tale. Moving on.

Bo Jackson, you've had all kinds of documentaries made about you. Yes, I think. I was watching one of these documentaries. And it was saying that when you were growing up, you developed some proficiency with slingshots. Yes. Slingshot hunting. Is that true? Slingshot and homemade bow and arrows.

What was your interest there? Something to keep busy. Yeah. Stay in trouble. Was this a rural? Mischievous. Did you grow up in a rural location? Very rural, low-income area.

And you had like a boatload of siblings. I have four brothers and five sisters. And you guys grew up running around in the woods? Nope. No. We were in a neighborhood similar to where we are now, but it's a low-income neighborhood. My mom worked two odd jobs.

She raised all 10 kids by herself. God bless her soul. And the younger kids, we had to find something to do to occupy our time during the day. And the older kids, if I'm not mistaken, my two oldest brothers, one had gone off to the military. My oldest sister was married. Next to the oldest brother was in Chicago,

so there were about seven kids around the house at the time. And me being one of the youngest, the eighth of ten, the only thing we had was a TV with three channels. There was no internet, no anything, so we had to make our own fun. So we go get an inner tube from a tire, from a car tire, cut it up, get some nylon cord, and make slingshots. Or we go out in the woods, find a limb, skin it, bend it, put some nylon cord around it,

make a bow and arrow. Yeah, you were talking about how you made those arrows, but talk about that for a minute. Well, my cousin and I, Jason, we were known in the neighborhood as Frank and Jesse James because we always stayed in trouble.

Born the same year, we were about two months apart. And we would go out and make these bow and arrows, and we'd go out in the weeds and find these little twigs that's about the size of a pencil. And we would get them. We had to find the straight ones, and we'd get them, and we'd take bottle caps from off of a Coca-Cola

with the bottle opener. Yeah. And we would take that, get the hammer, and bend that bottle cap around the tip of that. Like fold it over around the tip. Fold it over because once you fold that bottle cap up over, you have a point on it. And we'd take a chicken feather, split that twig down the back,

stick that chicken feather down, get thread, and just wrap it and tie it off and make arrows. And we would hunt my uncle's chickens. Seriously. We got the crap beat out of us. But my uncle had this one chicken that had about 10 feathers on it, a rooster named Red Skeleton. And we couldn't kill that chicken. Red Skeleton? The chicken was named Red Skeleton. We named it Red Skeleton. And this chicken would get in this old brush pile that was barbed wire and old mattress springs

and car tires and a big junk pile. And he'd get in that junk pile and we couldn't get him out. So we'd chase him every Saturday. And he would beat us to that junk pile. And we don't know whatever happened to Red Skeleton but one day he disappeared were you guys when I was a kid

if you went out and made a bow you might at the time you would say that you were going out to play Indians or you were going out to play Daniel Boone what were you guys? Sort of were you doing a thing because it was in reference to some, you know

Like reference to some bygone lifestyle. Like what was your motivation? No, I wanted a shoe hunted our no Our motivation was to kill shit. Yeah, that's all we kill straight cats in the neighborhood. Seriously, people would drive through the neighborhood, drop off stray cats, stray dogs, but we wouldn't kill the dogs. We'd chase a cat out. I almost cut my foot off one day from chasing a cat because we were going to torture it.

Yeah. And we were just being young kids. We didn't know anybody. What were you drawing from? You know what I mean? Like, if you didn't know people that hunted, well, let's just get to this. Tarzan. Yeah. That was a big show on back then.

So you'd be, like, playing So you'd be like playing outside. We would be playing outside. We'd go across the street, climb up in the tree, and we got a big kudzu vine at the base of the tree. And we'd get 20, 25 feet up and dive out of that tree and act like a big spring. Hit the kudzu, climb back up the tree, and jump off again. Yeah.

We made our own trampoline out of kudzu, climb back up the tree, and jump off again. Yeah. We made our own trampoline out of kudzu line. So we literally made our own fun because everybody in the neighborhood was very low income, probably made less than minimum wage, and the money that your parents made from working, you had to keep the lights on, keep what food we could buy on the table, and keep a roof over our heads, period. Yeah, you talk about your mother a lot. My mother is the backbone of not only me,

but all my siblings. And we lost her too early at the age of 60. So yes, whenever I talk, 99% of the time, it's going to be about my mom. All my strength, all my courage, all my knowledge come from her. But she was a hard lady. She was a hard lady. And when I say hard lady, she could whoop your butt worse than any man could. And being the eighth of 10 kids, I got more, not spankings, not butt whoopings, I got ass whoopings with an extension cord, a minding belt, whatever she could get her hands on. And this was on a good week, I would only get about four whoopings.

That was a good week for me. Well, now that you have kids, do you feel that you were getting whoopings over things that weren't warranted? No, it was warranted. You were a bad kid. Every time a window got broken in the neighborhood, I did it. Every time a kid got hit in the head with a brick, I did it. Windshield in the car, I did it. Whether you did it or not.

No, I did it. That's just it. I did it. Really? just it. I did it. Really? You were that bad? We would have crab-apple battles. And I'm not joking you when I say this. It would be six kids against me.

And we'd go steal apples from my neighbor's tree. And these were little green hard apples. They weren't ripe yet. They were green and hard. About the size of golf balls. Yeah. And I'd get 20 apples, put them in my shirt, and those guys get apples. And they would always run out of apples because I got six guys throwing apples at me so I could pick up their apples

and throw them back at them. And I would eventually run them all home. And the guys thought that they were safe once they got on their porch and got inside the house. Well, once the screen door closed, two apples shot through the screen door in the house. And they called my mom. She'd get my brothers and sisters. She would tell my older brothers and sisters, if you don't catch him and bring him home, you're going to take his butt whooping. And have you ever seen on the TV show the wild dogs in Africa where how they chase animals, the wild dogs, how they chase them in like where there would be 20 wild dogs,

and they'll send three out to chase this animal. Then when those dogs get tired, three more fresh ones get on them, and they run that animal to death, and then they catch him. Well, that's how my brothers and sisters did me. They would send two siblings at me and they chased me around the block. And when I passed back by the house, they would peel off and two fresh siblings would chase me. And they dragged me home and my mom would beat the crap out of me in the yard. They must've all been track stars. At one point in time, we were the neighborhood baseball and softball team. Seriously, we were.

Hey, do me a favor. What's the quickest way to, like, everybody knows who you are, but what's the quickest way to, like, sort of sum up your athletic career? God-given. No, no, no. What's the quickest way to sort of sum up your athletic career? God-given. No, no, no. Give me what happened. You want to play in professional football and baseball at the same time,

that whole thing. We've got a lot of young whippersnappers. Well, put it to you like this. I was blessed to be able to run like a spook deer and throw a rock like somebody shot it out of a cannon. And I grew up doing that. And my mother wouldn't let me play sports in junior high school because she said I didn't make the grades. So I was a knucklehead, wouldn't make the grades, wouldn't do anything. In junior high, she wouldn't let you play?

I did not play football until I was in the ninth grade. Okay. And I didn't play baseball. I think I was in the eighth grade. She let me play baseball. And from there on, the rest is history. But she told me, if you don't make the grades, you can't do nothing at this school. You got to bring your butt home and work. You have to bring your butt home and do this and do that. And I stopped hanging with the crowd that I hung out with. Because you wanted to play. Yeah. What were the grades you were getting? Like how bad can people's grades in seventh and eighth grade be? Put it to you like this. If I got a C, that's like winning the lottery. This was when I was being bad. But most of my grades were Ds because I just wouldn't put forth the effort.

Not that I didn't know, I just wouldn't put forth the effort. Just being a knucklehead. I want to be one of the cool kids, hang out with the cool kids and not do my homework, not do this, flunk all my quizzes, and just do enough to get by. Just to do enough to where I wouldn't have an F on my report card. That was going too far. Yeah. That was overextending myself. I had to save that energy for mischievous stuff on the weekends. So my mom said, no, you can't play. Period. She said, until you improve your grades, then I'll think about letting you play.

And that's what I did. And she's doing all this for 10 kids. 10 kids. Out of 10 kids, nobody ever got sent to jail. Nobody got in any serious trouble. We had neighborhood fights with neighbors and relatives and so on. But no, nobody got. The first person that got in trouble serious enough

was your one and only. You. At 13, me and my gang, me and my gang of about 12, we were going to walk across the mountain to swim in an old strip pit, mining pit, because they used to mine iron ore around our town. And they had old pits full of water.

And we didn't know what was in the bottom. And tell people where you grew up real quick. Bessemer, Alabama. That's between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Oh, but hold on, because you still haven't done the thing you need to do. Lay out your professional career just super fast. You won the Heisman Trophy. Won the Heisman Trophy in college.

Got drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round, and I told them to go themselves because they screwed me out of my senior baseball year. Because at that time, I was touted to be the first college player picked in the baseball draft and the first player picked in the football draft. So I got drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after I told him don't draft me in the first round in 86 and I turned them down and I had to sit out that year in which the Kansas City Royals drafted me in the supplementary baseball draft and they took me and they took me in the sixth

round only because my college coach was a pitcher for the Royals and the general manager and the head scout, who is still alive today. He is the oldest scout in the country. Name's Art Stewart, lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who scouted me. And he drafted me for the Royals, and I ended up with the Royals. The year after that, after my time expired with the Tampa Bay Bucs, the Raiders came calling. So I decided to play baseball during the summer, football after baseball,

whenever baseball season was over. That was the agreement I had with the L.A. Raiders at that time. The Raiders was in Los Angeles at the time. And I did both for four years until I dislocated my hip my fourth year with the Raiders and retired from that, recovered from hip replacement surgery well enough to where I came back and played baseball. And my first at-bat, I hit a home run.

This was, I got traded from the Raw's to the White Sox. So, hence, that's where I live now in Illinois. I've been there for almost 30 years. When you broke your hip or had your hip injury, did you know that second? I knew. You're like, it's all this, and now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It wasn't all of this and now this.

I look at that. I say for about the first 24 to 48 hours, yes, I was upset because I got injured. Then I got to the point to where I was afraid, not for me, but I was afraid that I couldn't live the type of life that I wanted with my kids because they were young and I wanted to do things with my kids and so forth and so on. Fortunate enough for me, the man upstairs allowed me to rehab well enough to where I could live a normal life with my kids and my family and also come back and play baseball. So I did that. I played baseball on an artificial hip for about four years with the Kansas City Royals and the California Angels. No, with the Chicago White Sox and the California Angels.

So my injury, everybody stood up and said, man, I wish that you had never gotten hurt. You could have been the best at this, the best at this. I never got into professional sports to be the best at anything. I never got into professional sports to make it to the Hall of Fame. I was good enough to make an all-star team. And I never said I got goals of being in the Hall of Fame. Somebody just wanted to. And the reason I played sports,

somebody wanted to give me a truckload of money to do something that I've been doing since I was a kid, which just made it easy for me. Baseball, football was never the center of my universe. It was always family, business, then probably sports somewhere down the road. So for me to end that chapter, to close that book on sports was easy. So because I always had something to fall back on.

My four years at college, I got the best out of the four years, meaning I had a full ride, first in my family to ever go to Division I college or just college period. Really? On a full scholarship. So I said, I'm going to take advantage of this because I've heard too many horror stories about athletes going to college, and in four years they come out and they can barely spell their name. But they're all-star football players, all-star baseball players,

and this and that. And they can't read on the fifth grade level. And I didn't want to be one of those, as they say, dumb jocks. And my roommate and I, we made a pact that we're going to get our asses up and go to class. If I don't feel like going to class, you got to make me get up and go to class. If you don't feel like going to class, I'm going to make you get up and go to class. The only reason that we're not in class, medical reasons. And we did that. And I didn't graduate in four years. When I left Auburn after my senior year, I had six classes to compete, to complete after lettering in three sports in college. And I put it off because of this baseball, football thing.

And when I went back, it was right before my mother passed. She asked me, was I going to go back to college? And I said, yes, I will. What age was this? Wow, how old was I? How old was I at the time? Where I got my hip? I think I was 20. No, no. was I at the time? Where I got my hip?

I think I was 20. No, no. I lost my mother. I think I was 28. So you went back to college. You were world famous now. I came out of college in 85. I went back to college in 95

and finished. Sitting in class like everybody else. Sitting in class like everybody else, doing my homework. Was it hard for people to focus? Because here's this dude like Bo Nose, right? I mean, world famous dude, and there you are sitting in class. Not really, because everybody knew me, and I never did anything to bring attention to myself yeah I lived

right there off of campus and I just go to class did you have to move down with my family and everything no being from the state I had a house there in Auburn that was my house house during the off. So, yes, I went back to school, and I finished because I promised my mother that I would. And then she asked me, was I going to go back and play baseball? And I said, if I do, the first hit I get is going to be for you. And my first hit was a home run. Oh, really? And I got that ball mounted in a case of acrylic bolted to her dresser at home

until this day. That ball is on her dresser, yes. Really? And I lost my mother three weeks after I had hip replacement surgery in 92, April of 92. And then you went back and were invited back to give the commencement address at Auburn.

I was, if I'm not mistaken, the second non- non-faculty in the history of the school to give the commencement at Auburn. So I take probably more pride in that than my sports. Yeah, because it's listed as one of the, when I was looking it up, I wasn't aware of it when I was looking it up, reading about it before talking to you, how it's listed as sort of one of the great commencement speeches of all time. Well, a lot of people, a lot of my friends said,

and these are just buddies talking like you sit around with your buddies. They said, how in the hell you get up there and you do a commencement speech and you stutter worse than Mel Tillis? Because I inherited stuttering from my father, I and two sisters. And in college, I would not do an interview after a football game because I stutter. I get stuck on a word. And my sports information director said, Bo, you're going to have to start talking to the media because if you don't, it doesn't matter if you run for 500 yards on Saturday. And they will praise you in the paper on Sunday. But if you don't do interviews with them, they are going to look at you in a different light and think that you're cocky and think that you're a butthole and this and that.

And on Monday, they can cut you down so low with their pen that you have to stand on a step ladder to scratch a snake's belly. Because their assumption is you don't want to talk. Because their assumption is that I don't want to talk. You're better than them. And yes. Because I interviewed myself every morning in the mirror around 6 o'clock with my toothbrush and pissed my roommate off because he tried to get some sleep and I'm in the bathroom and I'm interviewing myself. I'm talking loud and I'm stuttering and I'm stammering and I'm trying to get to the point to where I'm relaxed enough to talk in front of the media. And one thing that I learned with stutters, I have been asked to join the Stutters Association Board, be chairman of the Stutters Association Board. I have a lot of things going on.

I would love to do something with them, but right now I got too much on my plate. But the thing that I learned is that stuttering is like swimming. When you go in the water, you have to hold your breath. And before you hold your breath, you got to feel your lungs full of air. It's the same with talking. A lot of people don't know it because it's natural. Before we speak, we always inhale, get a lung full of air. And people that stutter don't know how to exhale while they're talking. They exhale all that air at once, and that's how they get stuck on the word.

I have had people, older people in my community to say, if you want to stop stuttering, get a dime and put it under your tongue. Hell, I'd swallow that dime because I'm just so hyper. That didn't work. It was too poor to get a speech therapist, so forth just so hyper. That didn't work. It was too poor to get a speech therapist, so forth and so on. So I figured it out on my own. And that's across the board. Like most stuttering is just because of that reason.

People don't know how to breathe properly when they start talking and they get excited. And when they get excited, they exhale all the air and they still try to get that last word out and they got no air left they get stuck on it and what I say before you speak think of your think of yourself you are about to go on the water swim the length of the pool feel your lungs full of air and just let the words flow off your mouth and exhale slightly as you're talking and when your lungs full of air and just let the words flow off your mouth. And exhale slightly as you're talking. And when your lungs are half depleted, inhale again.

Continue to talk. Well, you seem to, I mean, you've got a lick now. Yeah. Practice my asshole. In the mirror with that toothbrush, it paid off. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast.

Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites

are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So you had, I'll just make an assumption because you said you like growing up in a, and I want to get back to whatever happened in this quarry. We got to remember the quarry. But make an assumption that you grew up a bunch of siblings mom dirt poor dirt poor low-income area you had to um do you do you feel that you had to like self develop a lot of like the a lot of the discipline you talk about with sort of like a commitment to

go to school you know like a commitment to overcome your stutter and be able to do interviews or do you think some you carried something with you from the way you were brought up and the way your mom raised you to teach you to be like because i can only imagine the level of discipline it requires to play professional sports right this is all this is all the discipline from my mom period and my mom told us said look you go out and get in trouble to where you go to jail you will stay there I'm not gonna take my hard-earned money that I gotta keep my lights on keep a roof over the head keep food on table to pay to get your dumbass out of jail I'm not putting up your bail and she said that to all of our kids we

never got in trouble because we knew our mom was serious. Her word was golden. If she told you that she was going to do something, she did it. Period. Period. That's just how it is. And I'm the type of person that once I went to college, and when I was a young kid, everybody looked at me as the community's worst nightmare because I was a young kid, everybody looked at me as the community's worst nightmare,

because I was a terror. And people wouldn't let me come over to their house to play with their kids. And I was labeled, by the time I was 21, to either be in prison or in the cemetery. That was just me. And I knew that. I knew people thought that way of me. So when I got the scholarship to go to college, I said, I'm going to make something out of this. And the last thing that I wanted to do was disappoint my mom to where she got to go to church and have the people in

church. There she is. Did you hear about her son getting kicked out of college or got put in jail or so forth and so on? I didn't want to bring that type of shame, ridicule, not only to my mom, but to my family, to my friends, and so forth and so on. So I walked that straight, narrow path, and I was determined to make something out of myself. I had a thing when I was a kid. I said, once I grow up, I'm going to never move back home. Even though it's home, it's where my heart is, I'm never going to move back home. I'm going to continue to go forward. And I said, I'm going to get out of this neighborhood

either by going to the military to learn how to fly jets because I'm an airplane fanatic, or I'm going to go to college. Well, the military thing didn't work out, but I had somebody that wanted to pay for me to go to college. Well, the military thing didn't work out, but I had somebody that wanted to pay for me to go to college. And in change, they wanted me to run up and down the football field for them. So I helped them fill the stands. I used them to get an education.

And getting back to this strip pit thing, this swimming thing. Oh, yeah, I need to get back to the strip pit. At 13, yes. You had a big crew. Had a big crew, and we were going swimming. Well, we had to pass this pig pit on our way. We were bored, hot as hell during the summer. Picked up a rocking through at the pigs, and it was fun. And the next day, we did the same thing

and it got worse and worse. In about two weeks, we had killed about, we killed about $13,000 worth of this, this guy's, he didn't live in the neighborhood. He lived across town. With rocks.

With rocks, with sticks, with everything. Stealing the pigs or just killing them? We, we, we murdered this man's pigs because that's what we did. I had my gang. And if my gang didn't do what I did, they got beat up. So if I threw rocks, they had to throw rocks. If I picked up a stick and whacked a hog, They had to pick up a stick and whack the hog. And the barber, the neighborhood barber, the man that cut my hair from the time I was one year old until I left to go to college, his house was about a block from that pig pen. And he heard the pig squealing, and he came down, and we were whacking on this big pig.

And he came down and yelled, hey, and shot in the air. He didn't shoot at us, but he shot in the air to scare us because the minister asked him to watch because somebody was killing his pigs. And he came down and shot in the air, and everybody looked and scattered. And out of 13 kids, guess who he recognized? The kid whose hair he's been cutting. Me.

And I jumped the fence. Now, the day before, it rained like the dickens. That's why we were going swimming, because we knew the strip pit was full of water. And I jumped the fence of the pig pen. And I'm running, and I know that there's a ditch.

A big ditch about 10 feet down. And across the ditch is about 20 feet. I ran and cleared the ditch, land on the opposite bank and we have red clay down south and the bank was still soft and I sunk up to my calves in the red clay

when I landed on the other bank. Pulled my feet out, my shoe was stuck in there. Re-thrown and got my shoe, put it on there, hauled ass home. Got home, went on the side bank. Pulled my feet out, my shoe was stuck in there. Re-found it, got my shoe, put it on there. Hauled ass home. Got home, went on the side of the house,

rinsed off my shoes and everything, went upstairs, changed clothes, took my muddy clothes and hid them in the hamster underneath the regular dirty clothes, so forth and so on.

Like, that's going to save me. And I'm sitting there washing my mouth and I'm sitting on my bed at home. And I hear a car pull up, and I look out the window. And I see the barber in his truck and the sheriff's car behind him. And I'm like, oh, shit. Because my mom said, and I'm thinking, if you get in trouble, you're going to jail.

I promise you. And they walk in the door. And I hear my mom. And she called me, Vincent. Vincent, get down here. She said, if I have to come up there and get you, I'm going to throw you down the stairs. The sheriff was sitting there. The sheriff didn't do nothing.

And I came in there. and I'm like, look. And she said, Mr. Magruder said, you and your friend. That was the guy's name? Mm-hmm. Mr. Magruder? Mr. Magruder. Huh. Mr. Magruder.

And said, you and your friend are killing this man's pigs. And me, when I lie, I stutter. And oh, the male tillers came out big time. And I couldn't even get two or three words out. And she said, well, officer, if he did it, if Mr. Magruder said that he saw him, because he has been cutting his hair since he was one year old. And he said, boy, don't you know I know your face?

He said, when I shot that pistol up in there, all of you turned around and looked at me. He said, what happened to the short pants that you were wearing, your little cut off jeans that you were wearing? Where are your sneakers? I bet they're full of mud because I went down and looked where you jumped over the fence and over the ditch, and I saw where you landed on the other side in your feet. You had to sink in the mud. And my sister went and found my shoes. Now, I rinsed the mud off of the side, but the red clay was underneath in the grooves. They had me. and my mom's incriminating evidence and i start crying and i squealed on everybody i turned the dime on everybody that was with me and luckily the owner of those pigs were a

minister across town and he said i'm not gonna send them all he said but what i am gonna allow they all gonna have to pay me back they're all gonna have to get a job you can't play summer baseball you gotta get a job And my mother mom said you better get that lawnmower running on the side house cuz that's the only way you're gonna make money This summer you better fix your bicycle and get that lawnmower running and you're gonna cut grass You're gonna cut grass Friday evening Saturday and Sunday and you will not go on that playground to play baseball So I miss a whole summer play baseball so I missed a whole summer of baseball because I had to pay back I think I had to pay back like oh almost

eight hundred dollars I had to make eight hundred dollars before school started what do you what do you think like what was driving you to want to kill the pigs? Just boredom. Let's put it to you like this. Do you view, because do you view like now, and at some point, you told me about the first time you went deer hunting. Do you feel that is hunting to you,

like now that you like to hunt, does hunting to you feel different than what that did? 100%. Because I'm hunting to get away from being the celebrity that I've become. Back then, I did what I did out of boredom and just mischief. Yeah. Were you just like, were you angry? I wasn't angry, just bored. There was nothing to do. There was nothing to do.

There was nothing to do in my town. We sat and we had free lunch center. We had a free lunch center down on the thing. And we had free lunches. Then once the lunches were over, we had nothing to do. We go on the rec center, get free lunches. Then once the lunches were over, we had nothing to do. We'd go on the rec center, get free lunches, and right after that, there was nothing that we could do. So we had to make our own fun,

and we did that by doing whatever we did, and we ended up killing the man's pigs. Was that the last big trouble you got into? That was the only trouble I got into. Oh, okay. So once that was over, I knew, because my mother sent my oldest brother to reform school when he was 16 because he wouldn't go to school. She'd dress him nice.

He wouldn't go to school. So she got the judge to send him to reform school, and he had to stay there until he was 21 years old. And even then, when he got out at 21 but the judge told him you're either gonna go and listen to the Armed Forces or we're gonna send you to the big house take your pick your mother has instructed me to tell you you either gonna go to the Armed Forces to make something out of yourself or go to the big house. Take your pick.

It doesn't matter to me. A week later, no, I said about two and a half weeks later, he was in basic training. And he was in basic training, I think in Fort Benning, Georgia. And I knew that she would have sent me there. Yeah. She would have sent me there.

Did he stay in the service? He stayed in service for a while, yes. Yes, yes. My oldest brother. And he told me the horror stories just from being the new kid in the reform school. And he was 16. And he had to beat up the bully. He had to literally walk up to the bully and hit him as hard as he could and break his nose and they put him in solitary for a week and sent the bully to the hospital to get his nose fixed and when he got out first day he got out leading up to that the bully and his buddies for like a week straight tried to sodomize him in prison in the in of the reform school and the guy was about 20 years old and he was 16. and um and uh when he got out of his punishment for being a week went to the cab went to the cafeteria, ate his lunch, went and dumped his tray,

kept the tray, walked up to that bully and whacked him again across the nose with that tray. Again? Again. To let that bully know that he isn't to be messed with ever again. And everybody respected him from that point on because they said, that cat's crazy. Don't mess with him.

But they never tried to mess with him again they never tried to mess with him so he had to break the bully's nose twice to let everybody know that he's not going to be messed with so and i knew that my mom would have sent me there and i didn't want no part of that so i straightened out that lifestyle no i didn't want that lifestyle so i straightened out period and't want that lifestyle? No, I didn't want that lifestyle. So I straightened up, period. And that was my scared straight moment at 13. And I've been walking the straight and narrow ever since then. And like I said, it's just because the last thing that I want to do is disappoint my mother.

So tell me about how it came to be that you got, you mentioned earlier the first time you were invited to go deer hunting when you were a freshman in school. Freshman in school. What was your interest or what were you drawn to and how did the invitation come about? And then what was your sort of perception of what was going on my freshman year? We lived in a football door and a punter named Lewis Colbert Lewis Colbert was out in the yard shooting his bow and I was fascinated with both cuz she'd make mine and I never seen a compound bow and He was shooting a compound bow and he was shooting this styrofoam cup from about 25 yards away And he would shoot

and I couldn't see the arrow but I would see that cup where the arrow would hit it and stick in the ground I see that couple of them he hit that cup I watch him again and I watch him for 15 minutes and he hit that cup he go pull those six arrows out and go back and stand there stand on the picnic table and shoot that cup and I'm'm like, wow, I like that. I went down and can you show me how to shoot that? And he did. He took me five minutes. Was he a hunter too?

Yeah. Yeah. And, well, I wasn't at the time. So he showed me how to shoot that bow. And within five minutes, I was hitting that cup, and I was fascinated with it. So I was looking forward. Every Sunday evening, because we play on Saturday, every Sunday after we watch film, I was looking forward to getting with him to go shoot his bow.

When you say watch film, you're talking about watch and replays. Watch replays of the football game. We would go and shoot his bow. And I had to go home through a little town called Alexander City, Alabama. Call it Alex City. There's a highway that goes from Auburn to Birmingham called 280,

and Alex City is on 280. I stopped at a little sporting goods store there, and the first bow that I ever bought was a Fred Bear. Bow cost $63 with the arrows. To this day, I still have that bow with the same string on it that I bought on it. I won't pull it back, but I still got that bow. It weighed about 10 pounds. It was a compound. It's a compound bow. You shot it instinctive. No, I had sights on it because I couldn't shoot instinctive. And I put, because I shot his bow and he showed me,

you look through this little peephole here and you put that top pin on what you want to hit and just pull the trigger. You know what's funny? When we were talking about, you mentioned someone shooting instinctive with a compound. I kind of forgot about it, but the first deer I shot, first couple deer I ever, well, yeah, first several deer I ever shot with a bow, that's how we were taught to shoot.

We shot fingers, no releases. We shot fingers and no sights and just shot instinctive with a compound bow with a flipper rest on it. You remember flipper rest? Of course. Yes. Yeah, and I remember hearing about sight pins. I had a flipper rest on my bow. But the man that taught me how to hunt, the first time I ever went hunting,

his name was George Mann. He's probably one of the most famous bow hunters from the state of Alabama. And he taught me how. How did he get interested in you, though? I got interested in him, I think, through our team doctor. Because our team doctor hunted on his property. He had a lot of property. Okay.

And right outside Auburn. Right outside the campus. No more than 30 minutes from the campus. And our team doctor. And he took me. And I set up in a tree stand with a rifle the first time on about a one acre wheat field. And he said, you sit here, if you see a buck, take him.

If you want to take him, take him. And don't get out of the tree until I come and get you. Well, I'm thinking, well, buck walked out right before dark, bow, dropped him right down the spot. And I'm sitting there in the stand. About 20 seconds later, right after I shot that deer, my knees start shaking and trembling. I'm like, what the hell's wrong? I got Buck fever.

Legs shaking. And once I got that under control, it got dark. So I'm thinking, well, he's going to come and get me. Six o'clock go around. It gets dark at 5.30 during the fall. Seven o'clock comes around, an old George coming at me. 8.30 comes around and you can't see nothing. You could hear stuff walking around the woods. And I'd never been deer hunting before in my life.

This is my first time. So I get down from the stand and I got the rifle across my shoulder and I'm getting down from the stand, and I got the rifle across my shoulder, and I'm getting down from the tree stand. I could hear stuff walking, and it don't stop. Something walking stopped. And I put one foot on the ground, and a deer blew at me. I never, and I didn't know what it was.

And I went back up that damn ladder. Got back in that stand, and I chambered around, because I'm thinking, Bigfoot. I'm thinking, every monster in the world that you could think of at that time is waiting on me to come down these steps. And I went up there, and I sat. I tried to go back down it again, and the same thing happened. Back up the damn tree stand. So he ended up coming to get me.

What he did, he sat and he dozed off in his rocking chair on the front porch. So he ended up coming to get me until 9 o'clock. But I didn't get out of that damn tree stand until I saw the lights of his truck coming through the woods. And when he came through the woods, the lights lit up the woods, there were deer everywhere. Oh, okay. There were deer everywhere. We got down, my deer and I was the rest is history I was so he taught me how to he taught me how to really shoot my bow but my first deal was with the rifle so were you did you then take off and start hunting all the time or did you have to like sort of tend to your

career and then come back to it later no No, but I hunted and fished. That was my way of getting off of campus. Like I said, that was my way back then still, getting away from being BoJack's. I'd get with him, and we'd talk hunting because he would make his own arrows. And he shot these big, these Eastern arrows with the, you ever seen the Simmons broadhead?

It's a broadhead called Simmons. It's a one-piece steel broadhead. That's about 220 grain. No. It's called a Simmons Landshark. No. Big broadhead. And he fletched his own arrows, and he shot these Easterns.

These were like 25-17. They looked like your first grade pencil. That's that pencil. These were telephone poles. And he shoot extinct. And he has killed every animal that you could think of with that. And he taught me how to hunt. He taught me how to hunt and so forth and so on.

And it was just one of the things that I do. So till this day, all of my hunting skills, all of my hunting knowledge that I know is a credit of George P. Mann. Is he dead or alive? He passed away about six years ago. He passed away about six, seven years ago. Yes, but he taught me how to hunt.

When you were coming up through your professional career, did you speak openly about hunting? Or was it just not something that came up or you shied away from talking about it? I spoke openly about hunting to people that wanted to talk hunting, period. But no, I didn't go around and brag about, well, I'm a big-time hunter or anything like that. No, it's just that whoever brought up hunting in a conversation, I openly talked about it. That was my, just like I say, that's my escape.

That's one of my escapes from my professional life. Has it taken on more relevancy now, though, later in life with your kids or no? My oldest son, he likes to pheasant hunt with me. He's a horrible shot, but he goes out with me. And my other two don't have interest in it, my youngest son and my daughter. My oldest, he goes sometimes with me. Did you try to get them into it and they didn't want to get into it? No.

One thing that I've never done, I've never pushed my kids at anything but education. Okay. If you want to do it, you can do it. If you want to pursue something, you aren't going to pursue it for a week and then give it up because it's too hard. You will stick with it. So both of my sons, they played junior high football. And everybody expected them to be Bo Jackson type, which they weren't.

And I never pushed them at it. And I just despise parents that sit up and push their kids and push their kids and push their kids because in the end, when they get to be teenagers, they are going to hate that sport. And they are going to despise their parents for pushing them in that sport. You've got to let a kid make up his or her mind if they want to pursue that sport or not.

That's kind of a funny thing about the way you were describing your upbringing this year you have something you know you're someone who many people will cite as the greatest athlete of all time and your mom was holding you back from playing sports mm-hmm rather than putting you in all the traveling camps and didn't have the movies didn't have the money to we have a little league baseball team, which was free you sign up to play and I did at What I 11 years old Literally and nobody was a everybody was afraid to catch to be the catcher. I said I'll catch

One day I caught the next day I pitch next day I played shortstop next day I caught and the Little League season was a month we played four or five games we played on Saturday and we played on Sunday and the season lasts about a month a month and a half max then when that was over I moved up and played Pony League team. I played with the 13 to 16-year-olds. And in the middle of the Pony League season, the catcher for the men's semi-pro baseball team

wrecked on his motorcycle and broke his leg. Guess who was the catcher at 11 years old for the men's semi-pro baseball team, wrecked on his motorcycle and broke his leg. Guess who was the catcher at 11 years old for the men's semi-pro team? And I was throwing him out on my knees. Really? And I was getting hits at 11 years old. And when we got off the, when we, if we would go to the next town to play, we didn't have buses and they were right there. We got on the back of a pickup truck, so we ride in the bed of the pickup truck and go

to the next town and play. And I get off and I put on the catcher's gear and the other team, hey, you all are going to get that kid hurt. You're going to get that kid hurt. He don't need to be playing with us. And the coach said, y'all just wait. You all just wait.

And I'm catching and I'm catching, and I'm calling signals, and I'm catching like a major league catcher. I'm picking stuff out of the dirt. And their speedster for the other team got on base and tried to steal on me. I threw him out from my knees. And they were like, wow. And when the game was over, the coach from the other team said, hey, I tell you what, if you come play for my team next summer,

I'll buy you a brand-new bicycle. I will buy you a brand-new bicycle. I'll buy you a brand-new 10-speed. I'll buy you a brand-new 10-speed. What? Was it? You've successfully raised kids down um and they didn't you know like you mentioned people would say to you like oh they're gonna be just like you or the next generation whatever um so did you have some did you harbor any kind of like even if you didn't act on it did you have

hopes about no like originally i was asking about, like whether your kids grew up liking to hunt and fish as you did. And you're saying that you didn't have expectations there and didn't have a desire to push them in any direction. Is it just that you didn't act on it, but you still hoped it or did you not even hope it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I wanted my kids to be successful at whatever their hearts desire. I'm not, like I said, the only thing that I'm going to push you at is being a good student. You have to be a good student because your mom graduated college with a doctorate. Your dad graduated college with a BS.

And if we did it, you're going to do it. What's your wife have a doctorate in? Clinical psychology. I read somewhere that you, I feel like I read somewhere that you said you wouldn't want your kid to play football. Not now. Explain that. It's just, the game is violent.

The game is violent. The game is violent. And the game will use you up. NFL stands not for long. Oh, I didn't know that. But. You're talking about head injuries or just hip injuries? Head injuries. Head injuries, yes.

And more and more young kids now, everybody want their kids to play tackle football. And not realizing that a young child's brain is not fully developed until he's in his 20s. And they still get brain damage. So you're constantly banging heads like that. The only animal that God has put on this earth that has a protective cushion around his brain is... Big horn sheep?

No. Oh, that's what I was going to guess too. Come on. Protective cushion around their heads. Around their brain. I know that a bighorn can withstand a blow 40 times what it would take to crack your skull. But that's not it.

A bighorn can still have brain damage. Come on. Around their brain. Five seconds. Come on. You all think of it because Matt's sitting there like a deer caught in the headlights. He really don't know. Matt keeps a low profile over there.

You all right, Matt? I don't know. You don't know? Come on. You all right, Matt? I don't know. You don't know? Come on, Matt. Do you know? Alligator? No, see? Go back to sleep.

All right, come on, God. Do you know? I do not. Do you know what it is? No, man, I don't know. A woodpecker. Oh, man. Woodpecker is the only animal that God has made that has a protective cushion around his brain.

Everything else has liquid between his brain and the shell. Oh, didn't know that. See? You learned two things today. And since your kids weren't woodpeckers, you don't want them in football knowing what you now know. No. Does it feel funny for you to say that? Do you feel like you're... No. No. You don't want them in football knowing what you now know. No. Does it feel funny for you to say that? Do you feel like you're...

No, no. Really? You don't feel like you're being like a traitor? No, not at all. I love my kids. Yeah. I want my kids to grow up to have a normal life. I want my kids to have a normal life.

I know... Do you know what will make you see the light? Go watch the movie Concussion. Okay. Watch it from start. Watch that movie and get in touch with me after you watch it and see. Because most of the guys that they talk about in the movie, I either played with or played against, and I knew them.

And I didn't know that they were dead until I saw the movie. Got you. Until I saw the movie guys until I saw the movie and I know players right now famous players Hall of Fame players that has 24-hour helpers because if they leave the house they don't know how to get back did you have any concussions I think I had one I know I had one playing against the Ra, and I don't know who we were playing, but I just, I think we were playing, I think we were playing Denver. I'm not mistaken because this was my second year with the Raiders. The first year, we ran a play that was designed,

it was a tall sweep to the right to where the whole team swept right there because we know that the defense don't want me to get on the corner because if I beat you to the corner, I'm going to beat everybody to the goal line. So when we ran the toss, we had a play that's called the reverse sweep. So he pits the ball to me running right. I take two steps, stop, and pivot because everybody's sprinting to the sideline and beat everybody back to this sideline. Well, the cornerback stayed home, who was a guy named Mike Harden, who's a friend of

mine. He stayed home for Denver, and I only had him to get past, to get to goal line. I swiveled back, beat everybody around this side, and he lined up on me, and I fake right or left and ran right over him, broke his collarbone and scored. The next year, we ran the same play. And after that season that I ran over my card, he got traded to the Raiders.

So he was now my teammate. And we ran that same play. Same thing happened. Reverse, ran over the cornerback, and as I'm running over him, after I hit him, he didn't necessarily bounce off me. It's part of the plan

that you run over the cornerback. Well, I couldn't run around him because he was right on the sideline, and I had pursuit coming this way. So I had to just go straight, go north. No east and west here, go north. And I had pursuit coming this way. So it just goes straight Go north No east and west here go north and I run the guy over I can't think of who it was and I'm stepping on him Trying to get past him and somebody comes up behind me and hits me right behind the ear

Their helmet hit my helmet right behind the ear. And it's like somebody just turned, not pulled, but short-circuited me. And I just went numb and limp. And the ball fell out, but I fell on the ball, and I had enough still here to say, get the ball back, get the ball back. And then once I realized that I had the ball, that I didn't lose it in a fumble, I'm telling myself, get up. You can't let these MFs know that you're hurt. Get up, get up.

Get to the sideline and just rest. Just get up and get to the sideline. So I get up and in my ears, I dig. Oh, really? You got 80,000 people just in the stands. I can't hear nothing but a dig in my ear. And I get up, and I just get to the sideline. I'm undoing my chin strap.

And I walk through, and I work my way through the crowd, through my teammates. And I go to sit on the bench. Now, I'm going to use a profanity word here. Go ahead. But- You dig right in. I work my way through the crowd, and I go to sit on the bench.

And as soon as my butt touches the bench, somebody grabs my arm and yanks me up and says, you on the other side, motherfucker. Are you serious? I swear to God. And they push me out on the field and i'm walking across the field and i look down and my feet aren't my feet's not touching the ground i'm levitating off the ground and i see both trainers running across the field you know how you in that love story to where you

see both couples on the beach running toward each other yeah and they're running toward me in slow motion like that and i'm just looking at them, smiling. Their eyes are just glazed. Oh, man, really? And they come and get me, take me to the bench. And I don't know Jack. They said, sit him on the bench and ask him questions until he gets to know you.

They asked me simple questions that I should have known. They asked me, was I married? I didn't know. They asked me how many kids I had have known. They asked me, was I married? I didn't know. They asked me how many kids I had. I said one. I had three. They asked me, who were we playing? So I figured that I'd cheat and look out on the field.

And I saw red and white, but it was orange and blue. I thought we were, I said, Buffalo. They said, hell no, we playing Denver. I said, what's the score? I said, I don't know. They said, you scored the first two touchdowns full. Score was 21-7. I didn't know that.

They asked me a litany of questions. And Steve Berline was the backup quarterback. So he sat beside me, and I sat between Steve Berline and my fullback, Steve Smith. And they were asking me questions, and I didn't know anything. And they said, do you know your wife's name? I, am I married? I'm serious. I was just that gone. And the thing that brought me back after they asked me about 50 questions, Steve Berline said, when's payday? I said, Monday. I knew when payday was. And I said it just like that, Monday.

And when I said that, because we are also trying to watch the police run in the stadium because the Raider fans fight. If you come to the Coliseum and pull for the other team or anything bad about the Raiders, the fans fight. So the cops are running, trying to break up fights. So we're watching the cops running as they're asking me questions. And a gunshot goes off. Pow! And I duck. I cringe.

And everybody starts running. And I'm like, where is everybody? And Steve Smith, we call him Smitty. I said, Smitty, where the hell is everybody going? I said, somebody shoot. He says, hal call him Smitty. I said, Smitty, where the hell is everybody going? I said, somebody shoot. He says, halftime, fool. So I said, where is everybody going? To the locker room.

I said, which way is the locker room? He said, grab on to my jersey and just hold on. I grabbed on to his jersey and followed him to the locker room. My concussion, I had one concussion, and that was it. I remember it like it was yesterday. And the day after that, everybody that got injured got to go in and get treatment on Monday.

And I'm driving back home. I lived in Playa del Rey at the time, upside the mountain, where you can overlook the beach and everything. Not too far from the oil refineries that's behind LAX Airport. And I had to go down Lincoln Boulevard to go home, and there's a supermarket right there. I think it's at Albertson's right there.

And I knew that I was supposed to turn at that Albertson's, but I didn't know. I forgot how to get to my house. And this was when they had the big block phones, that big phone that was about five pounds that was like a military walkie-talkie. I had that phone. Called my wife. I looked at my wallet and got my wife's number out, called her.

And I said, I don't know how to get home. She said, stop playing. I said, I'm serious. I said, I'm at the corner of so-and-so and so-and-so, and I forgot how to get back to the house that we were renting. And we had been there for a month and a half. I totally forgot. And she got in her car, came up, and brought the sitter with her. The sitter drove my car. I got in the car with my wife, and she took me home. And that was the only concussion that I had so yes and we have and there are players that have had a dozen concussions one was enough for me and and um

I didn't know it at the time but I went back and played third quarter of the game not trying to say anything negative about the sport but at time, that was something that was pushed under the rug and they didn't come out. Nobody talked about it. Doctors didn't talk about it, but they knew. And so when they asked me, and I watched the little Friday night tykes, the football games that they have on national TV now,

between the little leagues, And in that movie, Concussions, they show these weekend warrior coaches coaching these little kids, and they get them 20 yards apart and let them run head-on with each other. This is how the movie ends. These two kids, buttheads like

ram, and they knock each other out. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there,

OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of your membership you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. You had the same wife the whole time? I think.

How long have you been married? How long have I been married? It'll be 32 years this September. What's your best piece of marriage advice? Hmm. What's your best piece of marriage advice? Hmm? What's your best piece of marriage advice? Yes, dear. Really?

That's what you run with? You just roll over? Yes, dear. Really? Yes, honey. Give me an example. Hmm? Give me an example.

Give me an example. Well, you want to go to movies with me to watch a chick flick? Yes, dear. That's a good example. Yes. And you've been doing that for all those years? Off and on, yes. Yes, dear. Off and on, yes. We have a friend named Randy who I think that, I don't know if he made it up,

but his thing was, for his marriage advice, you might know him, a guy named Randy Newberg. He has a hunting show. He goes by peace before justice which okay when I apply it works really well but it's very very difficult for me to not pursue justice as well as peace. Meaning you are going to pay for what you did. It's hard to not. It's really, really difficult for me to bury the justice part. To make a long story short,

I wish I could tell you what an old man told me, but I can't say it on the radio. I'll tell you when the show's over. Please. I would add something about Bo. You've seen him in action? I've seen him in action. He's given me some good advice in the past about maintaining a happy marriage.

One is he is a very organized person. He keeps a tight household. Like a nice, clean household, meaning? I think he is a very organized person. He keeps a tight household. Like a nice, clean household, meaning? I think he is. I'm refurbishing the living room right now. Very clean, very organized. And two is he cooks a lot for the family. I am the cook in the house.

He's the cook in the house. That's an enormous advantage. Yeah, but I do that. I do that. I don't know that that really gets me. That hasn't helped you? Maybe it did. You don't know how much it helps you.

It has to help you. Really? Yes. I'm in there cooking up a storm, man. My stock price would just go through the roof if I could cook. Yeah. So that's an enormous part. I know his family.

The other thing I would add about him is he is very thoughtful around the details with his wife. And just remembering the important things, and he's always bringing stuff home, et cetera. A little lover boy. More than you think. Yes, absolutely. You have to make it work. You have to make it work. Let me ask you about another thing I'm curious about. about going from growing up dirt poor, as you said, to all of a sudden becoming through

professional sports contracts, becoming like- Financially stable. Yeah, wealthy by anybody's standard. Financially stable. Was that hard? No. Having not seen a model of how to manage that kind of stuff? No.

Was it hard to like visualize the money no you know something I say like this you can't miss something that you never had and my mother always told me when you get to the point to where you start to look down your nose at your fellow man, it's going to be the day of your downfall, the beginning of your downfall. And so many treat people like you want to be treated. So no, no. I have, my business manager is the same business manager

that I had when I left Auburn over 35 years ago. No kidding. Same business manager, same financial people. You're like a loyal. I got the same attorney. You have a lot of loyalty to people. Well, if you do right, I'll put it to you like this. Once I let you in my little circle,

it's up to you whether or not you stay in that circle or not period and i've had some people that i had to exile from that circle and so forth and so on and and and uh i don't look back i don't look back from that because i'm i am the type of person that i will get out of my bed at 3 in the morning and drive 100 miles to pick you up when your car breaks down on the road. That's just how I am. That's just me. If you need something, if I got it, you can have it. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. The man upstairs just,

I think he blessed me a little bit more than others. And I thank him for it. That's all. Yeah. Right now, we're hunting turkeys this morning. Hunting turkeys this morning. And you were hunting with a crossbow on with the crossbow because you injured your or harbor an old injury no you can't shoot your regular bow yes but i had shoulder

replacement surgery uh it'll be two two years shoulder replacement slash rotator recover rotator cuff reconstruction same morning is that time yeah is that a residual effect of your oh that's not football that's a baseball injury i dove at a ball deon sanders hit and dislocated my shoulder this was a my third bat. This was after my third consecutive home run that night. I hit three home runs and had seven RBIs, went to the outfield, dove at a ball Deion Sanders hit, which I got my butt above my head, which is a no-no in baseball when you dive at a ball.

But it was a low screamer. Don't get your butt above your head, which is a no-no in baseball, when you dive at a ball. But it was a low screamer. Don't get your butt above your head. Yep. Don't dive at an angle down. You always dive with your butt lower than your, so your torso can hit first and you rock. Because when you dive at the ground, head first, this part is going to hit the ground first

and that's what happened. This hit first, dislocated this first, and that's what happened. This hit first. This okayed at this shoulder. And I left the game. Deion Sanders got a triple out of it. When you wake up in the morning now with your hip, shoulder, how much of the day is sort of a physical reminder of? None. Really? None. Really?

None. None. Period. I like the quality of life that I get. So I am willing to put forth the effort to do that as far as rehab, as far as therapy. I have a wonderful life. And I'm not going to let an artificial hip or artificial shoulder slow me down. Now, some mornings I'll wake up, but I laugh when people look at me and say,

Bo, you look like you can still play football. And my saying is that, man, I pulled a muscle left in the toilet seat this morning. I ain't thinking about playing no damn football or baseball or anything like that. I'm looking forward to golf, fishing, driving my old cars, driving my motorcycle if my wife lets me, and so forth and so on. So that's what I look forward to. Last thing, and then whatever else you want to, if there's anything else you want to get into. Tell people about all the different sorts of businesses you're involved in now. Like you're not just laying low.

No. I still have that hyperactive persona that I had when I was a kid. If I'm idle, I'm usually getting in trouble. So I have my marketing company, which is called Bo Jackson Enterprises. I have Bo Jackson's Signature Foods, which I have a line of, I have my own line of steaks, my own line of burgers, my own line of seafood. And they're in retail and food service around the country um i have my online of sports complexes complex in lamont illinois called bo jackson elite sports in uh lamont illinois another one in hilliard ohio right outside of ohio state right outside

of columbus and i'm getting ready to break ground on my third facility in Des Plaines, Illinois, not too far from the O'Hare Airport. I got that going on. I'm on the national speaking tour. I've been on the national speaking tour for about a little over 26 years. Oh, okay. Go around the country speaking, touring, and I got my hand in about four or five different other business interests

right now that's on the burner. So I keep myself pretty busy. Yeah. And this is only the second podcast that I've done in my life. Which one was better? Mm-hmm. Which one was better? I don't know. I got to wait till this is over.

Good answer. You know, I would add something because I know Bo from the food side of his business. You know, very well respected, very ethical businessman. You talked about loyalty. He has a lot of partners that he's had for a long time. He also, it should be noted, that he has a very big charitable side. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that. Yeah, that is something that is very near and dear to his heart. So maybe you could take a second to talk about that.

Oh, yes. I'm glad you, thank you, Matt, for remembering that. I have a couple of charities that I have taken on. The first one that I did was after 2011, when the big tornadoes went through the state of Alabama and the loss of life was almost 400 people across the state. The tornado state on the ground from the Mississippi-Alabama border to the Alabama Georgia state line

so I think it was a category 4 tornado stayed on the ground f4 tornado f5 which is the strongest that they can get and when it was over the, it left over 375 Alabamians dead from that. And during the Super Bowl of that year, I called the governor at halftime, and we talked the whole halftime because I told him that I wanted to do something to help give back to my state. I said, I need to do something. I said, I just don't feel right unless I do something and I need your help. And the governor got on board with it. And I did a charity bike

ride, bicycle ride across the state. And I called people like Trek Bicycles, who is one of the leading bicycle manufacturers in the world. And the owner, he came on board. I called the owner of Nike. He came on board. I called the executives of Coca-Cola. They came on board. I called owners of different companies, big, big communications out of Birmingham. Trek Travel, which is a team that put on all of the stuff for the professional riders for Trek bicycles for the Tour de France and all their big rides.

So I got all these people and companies involved. And the first year in 2012, we rode across the state in five days. And every day we covered from anywhere from 50 to 75 miles per day. You were riding too? I rode every day we covered from anywhere from 50 to 75 miles per day. You were riding too? I rode every day. Yeah. And we had a ton of celebrities come in. We had Ken Griffey Jr., Scotty Pippen, Lance Armstrong.

You name it. We had Peekaboo Street. We had celebrities. We had paraplegic athlete, Formula One race car drivers to come in to ride with us. We have a couple that have come in for the past two or three years from England to ride in the ride because they saw it online. That was the first year we did five days, and now we've gotten it down to one day. It's on a Saturday on the campus of Auburn. We have two rides that morning.

One starts at 6 a.m., which is a 60-mile ride. And we have a lot, and it sells out every year. And the second ride starts at 10 a.m., and it's a 20-mile ride. Because we have riders from 5 years old to 85 years old. How much money did you guys raise that first year? Oh, we raised a little over $300,000, $400,000. And within eight years, we raised a couple of million dollars. And all of that money goes to build community tornado shelters across the state

and to put tornado warning systems in rural areas where there aren't any. And we've helped establish at least 75 to 80 community tornado shelters around the state. And those are for like this rural community here, a tornado comes here, everybody that lives within a two, three mile radius can get in the storm shelter and get out of the way of that storm. I say, I have a motto is that Mother Nature is undefeated. She's undefeated. You can't fight her.

The only thing you can do is get the hell out of her way. And by constructing these shelters, that's what we do and we've been very successful at it um i have another charity for the alumni of my university where we raise money for different charities of the university that i put on at east lake country club i have a charity in chicago that's called Bo Jackson's Give Me a Chance Foundation, where the foundation, it benefits inner city youth. We want the inner city youth to learn sports through education, which means in order to be a part of our group, you got to make the grades. In order to be a member at my sports complex, you got to make the grades first. You got to carry yourself in a manner

in which is proper to be a part of my group. We have rap sessions. We have this. We teach kids from the inside out of not only to how to be an athlete, but also how to be a respectable teenager, a young adult. And we've sent over 30 kids to college in the past 10 years. Oh, that's impressive.

So those are some of the philanthropic things that I do. Jan, you got any questions? What's your go-to hunt every year? What's my go-to hunt? Like? What's my go-to hunt? Like, is there a hunt you don't miss? I just love hunting. I can hunt anything. I can hunt anything.

Do you prefer, like, big game over small game? Big game, small game game it doesn't matter right now a buddy and I we are planning a trip to the Yukon or for 2020 to hunt moose and probably moose and bear or moose and caribou whichever comes first take a week and a half two weeks to go up to do that. But around the continental United States, I'll hunt anything. Does your family like to eat wild game? If I don't tell them what it is. They just don't ask and you cook? Well, my kids will try anything, but my wife, no.

No, my kids will eat anything. You got to trick your wife or what? You gotta trick her i don't trick her oh because you're yes dear yes dear is that wild game yes dear she's not having it but uh no no i i the only the only the only thing that's from the wild that she would eat is fish. Oh, okay. It's fish, yes. But everything else, I have actually cooked everything. I've actually cooked everything from raccoon to you name it. I had a buddy that I played with for the Raiders,

that I played with with the Raiders. He was a receiver named Chris Woods. He came over for Christmas. This was my first year with the Raiders. And we invited him over for New Year's, because he and his wife and his son, we invited him over to our little house in Auburn for New Year's.

And down south, for New Year's, it's a custom in the black community, especially the older community. But you cook or smoke a raccoon for New Year's. Okay. And you have black-eyed peas for good luck. And I learned that from my grandfather. And I went out a week before, harvested a raccoon down at my buddy's place, down at my coach's ranch at his farm. Harvested a raccoon and cleaned it up real nice.

Got the little smoker that I got to where you got the fire and the water and the grill put all my put apple juice water put all my fruits and everything in there and let and kept water in that pan and cooked and i took that raccoon i seasoned it put potatoes sweet potatoes in the cavity put a bunch of vegetables in it, wrapped it with nylon cord, and smoked that raccoon on that smoker for about six hours and kept liquid in that pan, which moisturized that meat, which made it tender. And when I served it to my buddy, who has never eaten wild game before

in his life, he thought it was roast beef. He thought it was roast beef. Okay. He thought it was roast beef. And my wife looked at him because first thing that he said, please tell me what I'm eating because my wife was looking at him like, if you knew what you were eating, you would be eating it. And he was sitting there eating it. Black-eyed peas had collard greens and cornbread and stuffing

and all of that. And he said, and my wife told him what he was eating. And he looked at me and said, you got me eating what? Because country is a cornbread sandwich. And he said, it's good. And he ate more. And he and I sit there and ate three-quarters of that raccoon for New Year's. But people that haven't tried something and they automatically dislike it,

they should try it first. I say always try it before you. Oh, yeah. Always try it before you say you dislike it. Do you cook a lot of traditional southern black dishes? I cook soul food. I cook Italian food. I cook, you name it, I cook it.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Do you still keep that tradition, New Year's tradition now? Yeah. Actually, I am at war with, well, I used to be at war. I used to take a raccoon

right out of my backyard because I have this goat. In Chicago. Yeah, in a gated community. I have a doe that have two fawns behind my house every year. And during the winter, I kind of feel sorry for them. So I put corn out for, and they come up and eat. But the raccoons come up and run them off and they'll eat five gallons of corn in one night there's just that many raccoon so i remedied that so you did some

control work relocation a 22 pellet i got i got another question for you then we can let you get back to your turkey hunt unless these boys got you And you can have any follow-up thoughts, too. Okay. Do you, okay. The, is it still fun, or have you grown tired of Bonos? Is it still fun? That's a moneymaker, man. Good answer. What are you talking about? Good answer.

That's a moneymaker. Yeah. That's a moneymaker. Because we like, you know, we're like, oh, Bonos, turkeys, Bonos. That's a moneymaker. Yeah. That's a moneymaker. Because we like, you know, we're like, oh, Bo Nose, turkeys, Bo Nose. That's a moneymaker. Yeah. So it's still music to your ears. It's a moneymaker, yes.

Yes. When I was on my laptop there earlier, before we started this, I was looking over a contract with Bo Nose in it. That's a moneymaker, man. You better recognize. That's a moneymaker, man. You better recognize. That's great. Oh, yeah. Matt, Guy, you guys got any follow-up thoughts?

No, you know, everybody's got buddies that show up and they don't have boots or they forget their gloves or whatever. You know, it's a pleasure hunting with Bo and hunting and fishing because he's always got the right gear, shows up ready for game time. So I think that's worth recognizing. We've had a lot of adventures together, and he's a fun guy to spend time with. Thanks for coming.

See, the reason he is complimenting me is because I drove him up here in my new Dodge truck. So it was like driving Miss Daisy. I'm Hulk, and he's Miss Daisy. And he's just talking and talking and talking. I want to tell you, though, that he mentioned that you, at times, drove a little aggressively. Oh, yeah.

He said he drives fast. That would have been the word. Yeah. Like a spooked steer, I think someone said. This is a brand-new Dodge 3500 Cummins turbo diesel. What do it? I barely got 1,500 miles on it. I got to see what the thing can do before I put a new chip in it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just breaking it in before I put the new chip and the bigger exhaust on it. Okay. It can breathe better. That's all. Guy, you got any questions? I just want to say it's been a pleasure hunting with you so far.

Thank you. I'm going to try to get my style back tonight. Right now. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Right now, Guy is over. He is over. He swung and missed eight times this morning. I did scare the hell out of every turkey

we have on the farm. Then you got any, you got any concluders, any final thoughts, both of you wanted to wedge in there that you haven't gotten a chance to wedge in anything, man. Oh,

what? Oh, no. Live life to the fullest. Be happy. And I always say this, your commencement address theme, step outside your comfort zone,

step outside your comfort zone, do something that you would not ordinarily do. I tell people, do something nice for a stranger. Do something nice for somebody you don't know. Period. I've seen him do that multiple times, even in Spain. So he practices what he preaches. What's an example that you do to completely just random like that?

You're in Spain, and you pick out a stranger. What do you do? Tell them a story about how you went in Spain. We were in Spain, and were we on our way to Pueblo or did we come back? No. We were on our way back. We were on our way. There.

I think you're right. This was the night before, and we went out, and we were on our way there. I think you're right. This was the night before, and we went out, and we were on our way there. Yep. And we went by the local McDonald's there. Yep. Which is a whole lot different than our McDonald's here. And there was an elderly lady sitting over there, and for some reason she reminded me of my mother.

And she was just sitting there, and she had coffee, and she was just sipping on her coffee. And she was just sitting there. And had coffee and she was just sipping on her coffee and she was just sitting there and I didn't know if she was homeless or what so I didn't speak Spanish but but uh Jose that was with her who was another McDonald's exec I was talking to him and I told him but I said there's something about that lady that's bothering me and I said will you go over and ask her and just tell her and tell her that she reminds me of my mother and I would like to buy her her dinner for a night so he went over totally and she said oh oh and in a very sweet voice she told him in Spanish that she was waiting for her daughter,

and her daughter was late. Her daughter was late, and she had been sitting there for about 45 minutes. And I said, well, I will buy you dinner. I will buy you and your daughter dinner. And I said, we will stay here until your daughter comes to make sure That you get dinner and I don't know. I think I I think I gave her I think I gave him a $100 to give to her so she and her daughter can buy dinner and it just remember and I got emotional I don't know if I'm in my old age that I'm going through menopause or what, but I'm serious.

And she reminded me a lot of my mother. And this lady in Spain that I'll probably never see again, probably never meet again. Older lady, she was in her 70s. And I just bought her dinner and she said thank you and we got up and left when our daughter came so it's it's just simple things some simple things you have to if you have been blessed it's only right for you to play it for play it forward to somebody. So that's life.

Well, thank you. That's a bubble that I live in. It's a big bubble. Now let's go harvest a turkey. Guy. Thank you very much, Bo Jackson. Thank you. Coming on the show. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that

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