Transcript of South Beach Sessions - Ryan Clark

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Hello, and welcome to another South Beach Session. We're putting Ryan Clark on the couch today. He's a Super Bowl champion. He used to be a violent man. Still a fighter, though. I like that he is still a fighter. He likes to go back and forth with people, not afraid to hide his opinion. The Pivot is his podcast. He works for ESPN, obviously. Welcome. Thank you for making the time.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

I admire you for a number of different reasons. You interned at ESPN, right? You were still a player. You were still a player with the Steelers at the time, and then you decided to intern. What What was that like, the making of the decision, and just how small was the job given where it is that you were?

The job was very small. You know how it is. You go in and I done, whether it was NFL Network or ESPN, you know what the car wash is, right? And you got this guy that's basically walking you around holding your hand throughout the whole process. And then you do it and you get some good feedback, and you start to think, at that point, I'm going into year 10. And my thought process This is, I'm not a Hall of Famer, right? I don't play the quarterback position. So if I do want to get into this business, if this is something I can do, I need to see if I actually like it. I need to see if I can actually handle whatever it is that these analysts are asked to do. So I met Seth Markman in New Orleans at the Super Bowl. I think it was the year of Baltimore, San Francisco. And I said, Hey, man, I'd like to come up an intern. I'd like to give it a shot of getting my emails like the guys do, having opportunities to talk to producers where my hand isn't just held throughout the entire process.

And maybe you guys can let me know what I can do to be better at this job or if I can do it. And I could also vet the process to see if it's something I wanted to step into. And it went well enough that the next week, an agent reached out and was like, Hey, man, I think we can get you paid while you play. And I was like, I'm always up for an extra check. And that was just how it started.

Did you have any other plan? Were you already thinking about, How do I make this transition into something else?

No, Dan. I mean, I'm undrafted, right? And I talk to guys all the time. The best plan B is to be really good at plan A. I'd had a regular job before. At the time, Coughlin cut me my second year in the league. He basically told me, I don't think you're big enough to play this game. I don't think you're physical enough to play this game at the safety position.

Always delicate, that Tom Coughlin.

Yeah, but you know what, though, Dan? To me, because I was never the guy that needed my ego fluff, that Especially when it came to football, that was important for a person who loved to know exactly what you thought of him. So now I knew when I went to Washington the next year, the last thing anybody is going to tell me is I'm not physical enough. And I remember at the time, Danny Smith, he's now the special teams coordinator in Pittsburgh. I remember it's one of the early preseason games. This is still when they have the wedge on kickoff. And there was always either a big tight in or two tackles or offensive lineman. My mindset was, I'm not playing a lot of reps this game. Let me run down and see, can I flip one of these dudes? Let me run down and see, can I smash one of these guys? And you do it. And you play well in preseason, and you fly around, and you're physical. And I remember the game I was finally allowed to address was the second game of the season. I was starting on every special team. Lavar Arrington didn't practice the first two weeks and says on Saturday, he can play.

Danny Smith tells Joe Gibbs, tells Greg Williams, no, Ryan Clark earned an opportunity to start on every special team. This is the way we've practiced the entire week. He's going to play. They allow me to play halftime. The special team Coach, I mean, a safety's coach is using the bathroom next to me, Steve Jackson, and he goes, Do you know strong safety? And I was like, Yeah. And that entire second half, myself and Sean Taylor played, and we ended up being the starters about week four on over the next two years together.

Most of the athletes that I've talked to who have been at ESPN, and this isn't particular to ESPN, generally say that walking from the locker room where someone will tell you to your face, Hey, you're not big enough, and this is my assessment of you, is much different than walking into the vanity business where you're surrounded by an assortment of insecurities and a whole lot of people that might be less amenable to coaching. What did you notice in the difference between the locker room versus the newsroom?

I think the first thing is people are a lot more insecure in the sense that because it's such a subjective job, I think people don't feel like they control everything. Whereas when you play football, you feel like, if I produce, if I work hard, if I'm the person that knows exactly where there be alignment and assignment, I'm going to get the job. It doesn't feel like that in TV. And so I think people are a lot more insecure in the sense of how they talk to you, what they'll tell you, what they'll share with you, how they'll help you. That's a big difference. And the other difference is there's no directness. And this is something I dealt with. And when you are a direct person, and in a field where there's a lack of direct people, you're the oddball. You're the weird one. You're the rude one. You're maybe hard to deal with. And it wasn't in a sense of trying to be hard to deal with. It was, how do we have a conversation where I get to share with you what my thoughts are and you share with me what your true thoughts and feelings are?

Because as an adult, as a man, you can tell me whatever you want, as long as it's respectful and it's honest and transparent. And then I get to figure out what I can and what I will do with that information. You could tell me, Hey, when you did this on the show, I felt like it could have been better this way. I get to agree or disagree. I get to acquiesce or not.

Yeah, but you're amenable to coaching, and there are very few workplaces anywhere as direct as the locker room.

Yeah, Dan, but I think there would be a lot less misunderstanding in our field if more people were at least willing to have the conversations and get to know what player you Now, that is true, right? Everybody's not going to be or want to be coached. Cool. You got to let that person go do what they want to do. And you also know in this business as well, and I think that's what's really cool about NFL Live, NFL Live is built off of, one, I think, one of the best hosts in TV in Laura, a career backup, a woman, a first rounder in Marcus Spears, who played nine years, was never a household name, and an undrafted free agent. That's the show. And so everybody on that show had to understand coaching. Everybody on that show had to come from a place of humility. And maybe it's different now because they've all built these careers where they're visible, but I think that's what makes it great. But then there are shows where people can walk right off of the field, and because they're Hall of Fame players, they get the spot. Maybe they aren't as amenable to coaching.

So So you let them be because you probably or you didn't get them initially based on how great you thought they'd be on TV. You got them because of the name that they have and the cache, and hopefully that people will listen to them and take what they say and take what they feel as gospel because of what they were able to do.

I want to go through your biography, Louisiana, your upbringing. But before we do that, you mentioned being undrafted. What do you remember about your first contract?

I got a $1,000 signing bonus, which you know, it was in New Jersey. So after taxes, it was like, at that time, it was like six something. And I was like, Man, this is a lot of money. I was like, I can go buy some actual shoes with this. I remember being embarrassed because when you'd go to camp and they'd make you sing, you had to say your name, your school, and your signing bonus. And I would listen to some of the other undrafted free agents who got more money than me, who were thought of more highly than me. And nobody knew how much I signed. It wasn't public. And sometimes I would lie because I was embarrassed that with all I'd put into this game, I had one offer out of college to go to a mini camp and I got a thousand dollars. You know And so there were... And it wasn't... I don't even think it was as much insecurity as it was like, this is what they think of you.

Well, it's your worth, right? I mean, they're putting a dollar amount on your worth. Yeah.

And then it's like for the players looking at me, what will they think of me if this is all the team felt about me? And the other piece of it was, and I think you look at the way my career panned out, they were wrong. And And at that time, I felt like they were wrong. But when people tell you this is what you're worth and nobody else is offering you more than that, you don't get to dispute that with words. And so I think that was the- You do it with wedges.

You do it by blowing up wedges. That's the way that you end up doing. How did you end up feeling on draft day? Were you expecting to be drafted?

No, I didn't play as well as I should have as a senior. So I knew that. I understood that. I wasn't this super fast, physical specimen. I got that. I went into the season because I still remember I had all the magazines. I was first team or Second Team, All-American. The other two names that I was mentioned in every publication with, and you'll know these names because you've been doing this a long time. The other two names I was mentioned in every publication with were Roy Williams and Ed Reid. And when you're mentioning with those two people and you see the future where those two guys were drafted, that was what I thought my future held. And so every week after that, I worked so hard that offseason, just all the time, every week at the start of the season, I felt like I had to go prove that. That those two guys in my name belong in the same conversation. I played like crap. And Coach Saban We're going to Kentucky. Coach Saban tells me before the trip, he's like, Hey, when we get to Kentucky, I want to talk to you. And I know I played bad.

It's like the two worst games I've probably ever played in my life. We played Florida and Tennessee. And he's like, Ryan, he's like, I've never had a good football player play this bad. And he's like, What is it? And I explain the same things to him that I explain to you. And he was like, But you know why your name was being mentioned with those people? You know why you were first-team, preseason, all-SEC? Because you just were being who you are. He's like, Just go do that and you'll get the football and you'll make plays. And for the rest of the season, I thought I did well. But even coming into the draft, I didn't go train anywhere for the combine. I got the keys to the indoor at LSU. I wanted to continue going to school because I didn't think I'd get drafted after that season. I didn't know what the next step was. The last article written about me in college, because I did have a good college career, was... I remember, I still have it. The name of the article was Spotlight Growing Dim on Clark. I almost didn't even go through the process to get to the lead.

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Where does your fight come from?

I think I just always been... I just always been like this. I don't know if it's necessarily always the best thing because it's hard to turn off in different In different places. I just always worked. I always cared. My eighth grade summer, we work out on Tuesday and Thursdays. My parents both worked. And so I had to stay at my aunt's house who was probably, I don't know how many miles. I'm not going to tell that story. I walked 18 miles, but she was miles away from my school and my parents bought me a bike. And I would just ride my bike to practice Tuesdays and Thursdays to work out, whether it rained, Louisiana It's like here, 100 % humidity, 100 degrees. And I was there. Then I go play basketball with the basketball team. I've just always fought. I've always wanted to know that if I failed, I failed because I just didn't have it, not because I didn't give it. And I think when you put so much effort into certain things and you're always met with some opposition, it creates a fighter. It It creates a person that... And a lot of times I'm not even fighting from this bad place of anger or hate or anything like that.

It's just like, I know what I'm worth. I know what I'm saying. I know what I feel. And when people don't view that not even in the same way that I view it or view it in a way that I believe is misunderstood, especially now at this stage of my life. Those are normally the times where you push back or fight against at least what people saying about you or feeling about you. But I just think I just always been the same way, always wanted to be the best I could possibly be at everything.

Outside of being undrafted, what do you mark as the landmark oppositions that you faced? Because you're saying this is a recurring trend, that you're always feeling like something's opposing you? Yeah.

I don't know if there's a landmark as much as just a state of being. I thought I was... I go into high school around my little neighborhood. I was the guy. Because I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, to West Bank, a lot of my relationships were built because I was, quote, unquote, special. We're in this place in the world where everything's polarizing based on how you vote or how you look or what your race is or whatever. I didn't I grew up like that because I was the kid that was different. Coach Tim, a white man, Coach CJ, a white man, Coach Dickey, a white man, Coach Hank, who's still my high school head coach. These were the men who influenced my upbringing, and they were all white men, and they were great men, and they treated everybody well, but they treated me differently because of my athleticism, because of my intelligence, all of these things. And then I want to go to LSU's camp. And my high school head coach was like, I don't want you to go to the camp because I don't want them to compare you to the other kids that are there, or I don't want you to have to run to 40.

He's like, If I cut on the tape, I could convince them that you're one of the best players in the country. And my thought was, why can't I just go there and do it? Because I'm like, I'm all those things. And then the same thing, you get to college and you're undrafted or you become the starter and When you become the starter, they're constantly drafting guys to take your position. You win the starting battle. And Coach Kauer is like, Yeah, you outplayed him throughout. I mean, you win the starting battle. Coach Kauer is like, Yeah, you outplayed him, but this kid we drafted is going to start at some point. And then you start that entire year, 12 games, you're leading the team and tackles playing so well. That kid ends up playing. The next year, you're in a battle, you outplay them, and they tell you, Yeah, but we're going to give them every third series. That was just my state of being, was just constantly fighting, constantly continuing to have to prove myself. And I never saw it as this negative thing. I just saw it as life. And I think I'm still in that place, at least from a mindset standpoint.

The way that you had to play from the fringes of football, I would imagine, wouldn't be terribly fun to always think that the paycheck was going to be taken away from you, that there was always someone around the corner that might have had more value if you're starting with a $1,000 signing bonus. Yeah.

But it wasn't not fun, no, Dan. I never got, at least in my opinion, and from what even my peers would say, I don't think I ever got paid what people expected me to. My big free agent year was the lockout year.

Four years, seven Seven Million, right? Yeah.

Four years, seven million was my first. And I think it was four for 14 during the lockout. And I was going to be here in Miami. I had a conversation with Jeff Ireland, and they told me they were going to start me at a price higher than the dealers were offering. And they didn't do that. And so I bought a plane ticket and flew myself back to Pittsburgh. And I was like, this is enough money that makes me rich. It's more money than I ever expected to I get. Funny thing about the four-year, seven-million-dollar deal was that during my physical, the dealers said I had to have a knee surgery. And so while we're in there having the conversation about what I'm going to get paid. We're having that conversation based on the fact that I'm going to come back the next week and have knee surgery. They call me, I go back. The doctor actually looked at the wrong person's scan. Something was wrong with me. I didn't have to have it. It might have affected the money, but it was just like that was the conversation. But in the same sense, I prayed before I went to Pittsburgh.

I was like, God, don't. I was like, I don't want to have to make this decision. I just want it to happen. I want to be in the right place. I know I need to be in the right place to do well. And when the Steelers offered me that contract, which was low or whatever it was, the other two teams I was supposed to visit told my agent that they were going to sign people that were in the building that day. So at that point, I have no choice. I was like, Well, I have no other options. So I signed the deal. Coming out of the deal, Or coming out of signing it, driving to the airport, my agent calls me. The other two people don't sign in those places. So they were still options. They would have still been options. But I already made that decision because God just made it for me. God just put me in a place where that's where I'm supposed to be, and it worked out for me.

So you say it wasn't not fun. It just sounds stressful to me to not have the security of knowing you've got a starting job, you've got stability. They're not trying to immediately replace you.

Yeah, I think I'd never known the alternative either, though, in my professional life. I had never known anything different. So it wasn't this odd or unfamiliar feeling to me. That was the way I played. That was the way my life was. That was the way it was supposed to be for me. There was no entitlement that it was supposed to be any different. What about me He's supposed to make it different? And so I think you just got to approach it that way. And it made me the dude that showed up at five o'clock every morning. It made me the guy that in my first year in Washington, I'm going to use the bathroom and Coach Gibbs is walking down the hallway at nine o'clock, and it's me, him, and a couple of other coaches that are the only people in the building. And on Monday, after I play well that weekend, he tells him, Hey, man, you know why this kid is getting an opportunity? You know why he's taking advantage of his opportunities? Because at nine o'clock, when I'm walking around this building by myself, he's the only other player in here. And it's not to say that other players needed to be there.

That was my approach. And I think when that's your approach, it's about you and not your circumstances, because I can't control those.

You didn't grow up in New Orleans proper, right?

No, I'm in West Bank.

Okay, so what was that like? How would you explain that to somebody who doesn't know that area?

So they call us Winkers because it's West Bankers. I said something on TV On first take, a while back when Tyron Matthew was talking about not wanting to be out when he went to New Orleans. And I was just like, I get it. I get that feeling sometimes because it can be dangerous and you can be targeted. And I said that everybody was like, he didn't even say the right word. You could tell he from the West Bank because there's this almost like a disconnect between people who are truly from whether it's uptown or whatever it is. And they feel like that's the true essence of New Orleans, which is true, which is very true. I'm on the outskirts. I'm on the other side of the river. And so there are some things that I'm not connected to in the ways that other people are. But I love that city. I love that area. I love that state. And now, as things progress, though, right? Whenever I walk in New Orleans, it's totally I've really done a 180 because everybody there is proud of me because my area code is growing up was 504, just like your area code, right?

That I was able to make it in not only one, but two careers. And in that Second career, I represent myself. I represent the place I'm from. I represent my family in a way that people can be proud of. And so I think all that's part of a journey. But yeah, it was definitely different. But, man, I grew up... My parents still married. You know what I'm saying? Bro, my dad, man, my dad worked 2-3 jobs my entire upbringing, the entire time. So they obviously couldn't afford to buy me a car at high school, but I wouldn't ride the bus. So when I got my license, I would drive to work. I would drive my dad to work. He worked at the levy board. So when hurricanes, all that stuff, I would drive my dad to work. I would then drive the car to school. I'd park the car. He would get someone of his friends to drive him from work to get the car to go to his second job. Then I'd ride home with somebody. But every morning I rode with my father, had a conversation with my father. And every morning he would give me, because I went to a private school that they had to pay for, every morning he would give me my lunch money and tip money from the valet parking lot he worked at.

You know what I'm saying? That type of work was what I saw. So it made me think, this is just what men do, right? You work. And I had cool jobs. I played football. I talk on TV. What I saw my dad have to do on weekends take extra jobs to go paint and then be hooked up to these cranes. The people we interacted with, man, it just was the family that we got the closest to, Mr. Robert Pass, God rest his soul, was like, if you could think of Louisiana hunting, fishing, mullet, that was the closest family we got tight with. So much so I remember one time, me and my mom were home alone. My father was working and my mom called Mr. Robert, Robert LaFrance, called Mr. Robert and Ms. Debbie, and Mr. Robert comes over like a shotgun. My first time ever seeing a shotgun. But he called my mom Pretty Lady. He was like, I'm going to protect her at all costs. And Mr. Robert's mom was racist. She didn't have relationships with Black people. She didn't know him. And a lot of times when you grow up in a house like that, many of those ideologies become yours.

And so I got to see as a kid, Like these two families become family with one another who grew up in ways where I was from. That's not supposed to happen. You know what I'm saying? So to see Mr. Robert become like my uncle, right? Ms. Debbie become like my aunt. And for their kids to see us in that manner, for us to do the holidays together and all those things. It was just like That was what my parents taught me. That was the life I lived. And I'm so grateful for where I grew up, for how I grew up, for what it made me. And I don't have a horror story. I'm not one of those athletes that could be like, Man, I grew up like this, and I had to get everybody out. I didn't have that. And I think that kept the stress off of me, too. My mom just hugged me, man. I was on the plane, getting on the plane. They drove me to the airport. She just hugged me. She was like, Go get it. She calls me Bup. She's like, Go get a job, Bup. And we, wholeheartedly, with a $1,000 signing bonus, thought that I'd earn a job, man.

And God was so good. And 13 years later, I got to retire and walk off the field. And I knew that. I knew that day was my last day. And I got to walk off the field knowing that I made a choice to not play this game anymore.

Did you understand that your father couldn't afford private school? Because my father did the same thing. He drove a 1969 Valiant, and he was taking me to school. It had a hole in the floorboard, and the glove compartment would open when we'd hit a bump. He couldn't afford it, but a teenager doesn't necessarily understand that. I now understand that in retrospect that he couldn't afford that. Could you understand that your father couldn't really afford a private school?

Bobby didn't have his negotiating skills at that point.

No. He was making like 40 grand a year and was thrilled to make it because all he wanted was freedom. All he wanted was the freedom to be free. That's it.

Yeah, I knew. A lot of times, my mom... My parents are two totally different people. My dad's the life of the party. My mom just wants to go to church every day. And she worked at a bank my entire life until I was able to tell her, Hey, mom, you can stop going to work. She would be on the phone, and the people at my school were so nice, Archbishop Shaw. And I would I hear them talking about how she was going to piece together the money to pay monthly. She's like, Well, I'll get my check at this point, or Michael, who's my dad, will get his check at this point. We can go to the check cashing place and We can give you 80 this week, and we can give you whatever the next week. And so I would hear her piece together. And I also don't come from one of those homes where parents are scared to tell you what life is. So if I got to see on a progress report or something like that, they would tell me the importance of that education based off of where they were based on education, based on how hard they had to work, but also on the fact that they were putting together this money monthly to give me a better shot at life than they had, a better shot at a great education than they had.

And they would remind me of that. And I And I think that reminder was important because sometimes you could also... You're around these kids who can't afford it, and you feel like, oh, this is just life. This is what it is. But it wasn't. I was privileged. I was given an opportunity to be around people that cared differently, be around people who had different connections that allowed me to become the man I was. And so I knew it. With your dad and you saying you didn't understand it, Was there a moment where you figured it out and having that revelation of, Oh, wait, we couldn't afford these things. How did that affect the way you saw not only your father, but life for you going forward?

I didn't see it until I was looking at it as an adult in retrospect. It wasn't clear to me as it was happening because in our household, it was always so important to get to education, which would then get to work, which would then get to freedom. There was not the conscious absorbing of that. But when you say retiring your mother, I tried to get my father to retire. He's a stubborn person, and he wouldn't... When you said, I walked into the bank, I hope that that went for you as cleanly as you wanted it to, where you said to your mom- She worked for a long time, though. But she was good. She didn't immediately fight you because my father did not... It took me a while to be able to get my father to do it, and he had to be fired. He He never did accept. I'm like, Dad, you can help me. I need your help. I need your help with an assortment of things. He was stubborn about it. You got what you wanted to meet. You got the emotion of that moment, the pride of that moment?

It was different because it didn't happen until Well into retirement for me. My dad worked until he got to his retirement. My mom was working at a bank and the banks merged, and she was always the head of the collateral Department. I was I'm never really truly sure what she did, but she started as a bank teller. My mom gave birth to me when she was 19. She finished her freshman year of college, so she didn't have a college degree or that education. So the way she moved up in the bank was just by experience and years there. And so when the banks merged, she had a new boss. And like I said, my mom's very passive, very quiet. And every Every Sunday when I would call her, she would be sick because she had to go to work, her stomach would hurt. My mom's been a little sick. And I was like, Mom, you don't really have to work. You know that, right? I was like, I could take care of you. And it was a little pushback because she was like, I don't want to just take money from you. And so what ended up happening, and I was like, Well, how about you just work with me?

I was like, You get book flights for the family or whatever. So that was how I thought coerced her into finally retiring because I think- That's just how you want it to be with you.

A coercion instead of like, How about we just do this because it's a lovely thing to do?

I think, though, it taught me a great lesson about parenting, though, because in my mind, I'm like, I'm only here because of your sacrifice. I remember the phone calls. I remember the tears. I remember my mom used to always call it Robin Peter to pay Paul. I remember all those things, and without those things, I'm not where I am. This is just me paying it back. But parenting is not reciprocal. I don't love my kids or do for my kids, so my kids love me or respect me or do for me. I love my kids, and I do for my kids, and I care for my kids because they are my children. They are my responsibility. I gave them to me. And I don't get to waiver on my commitment to that based on how they make me feel. And having great parents did that for me because I know there were things my parents told me that I should have respected, I should have accepted a way that was much different than what I did. And it wasn't because I didn't love my parents and adore them and respect them and appreciate them. It was Because I had the free will to make these decisions, and I didn't always make the right ones, but they kept loving me through it.

And so I think my parents not wanting to be like, Hey, bub, take care of me. You're here because of us has allowed me to do for them freely in a way that is so gratifying. It doesn't feel like a responsibility of mine. It feels like a gift that I can do it.

What How did they teach you about both love and discipline?

I think the thing they taught me about love is that unconditional love is not fair. It doesn't always feel good. It doesn't always feel right. It also doesn't always make you right. My parents did the best they possibly could for me at all times because they wanted the best for me. It didn't always feel good. And that's where the discipline came in. I didn't find it fair that I had friends who could be average students and still get the new shoes. Friends who could be disrespectful and still go to the parties and go to the dances and have this freedom to move around and have fun. I I didn't think that that was okay. I didn't think that every time I made a C on a test or on a progress report, that my coach had to literally call my mom to keep me in school. I didn't think that was okay. I didn't think that was okay. I didn't think that the punishments and all that. I was like, why am I treated so differently than all these people I'm around at all times? I'm smarter than them. My grades are better than theirs.

I'm a better player than they are. I'm more respectful to you, mom and dad, than they are. And my best childhood friend who, when we met, I wasn't a big kid. When we met was the bigger person, the tougher person Even in high school, in ways until I became me, he felt this obligation to protect me against bigger people and stuff like that. We were sitting around, man. We were probably 21, 22, sitting in my house. My house was like the party house where everybody'd sleep. And he goes, he's like, I love my mom. Like, such a great. And she was. He said, I wish she was harder on me. I see where you are now. And I think I could have been in a different place if that was my life. I used to laugh at you when you said I couldn't pick you up for the dance or you couldn't do this because of what your parents were doing based on very little things that were going on in your life. But I see where you are now. And I know that's because they impressed those things on you. And so I think they taught me that discipline was just a necessary part of development.

Are you hard on your kids because your parents- Now, that's my wife.

I think my kids are 26, 24, and 20 now. I think in ways, I was hard on them and in other ways, probably not as much. I think the one thing about the way I played football, and I have, I can say I have some regrets in parenting. The way I played football was like, I played football. And I didn't really... I parented and I drove kids to school and I did homework and all that. I love that part of it. But those things happened around football. When I brought my son to practice, I'd bring a little disk and have my little computer and I'd watch film, look up, see my practice.

So the regret is about being present, right?

When I'm there.

You're there, You are physically there, but the work comes- Yeah, the work.

And I think during the season, I've been able to reconcile that to myself. But in the offseason, I did carpool wars. It was my whole thing. I want to beat every soccer mom to school. And I wanted to bring my kids to school because that was when they talked to me. Because when they got home, they were doing homework or they were playing in their room or we're going to practice. And so all those things. But I think because I felt like I couldn't be physically present all the time, I didn't want to have to come down on my children in the two days I was off or in the off-season all the time have to be on them because it was like, well, dad, you were gone in the morning when I woke up. You were home At seven, we ate. So I didn't want to do that. And I think there were times that my wife needed me to be more of a disciplinarian, and I wasn't. I also had a child when I was 19 who grew up with me, who I had custody of, but she wasn't my wife's child. And I think there was always a level of guilt about that.

And I think there were some things that I could have been not harder on her with, but I could have been that changing these behaviors are important or checking in on her in a different way is important instead of acquiescing to what I felt would make her feel better in order to build a different relationship. And now what's crazy is we're super close, right? Just random. When your daughter gets 26 and you get random, I love you, you know how important that is as a dad. But I feel like she had to go through things and we had to go through things in our relationship and as a family because of me, because I don't think I did some of the things that I would do now. But I was a baby, and that's no excuse, right? But I'm 23 trying to figure all this out. I'm 24 trying to figure this out with a five-year-old. So some of those things, man, I look back on and I wish I was different, but they're all successful.

But is it for them that you're expressing when you say, I wish it'd be different, or when you talk about the regret, are you talking about because it's stuff that you missed out on that now as an adult?

No. I think the coolest part about my kids and having older kids is our relationship now lets me know that in my moments I was present. In my moments that I made time to be a great dad. My daughter always laughs And she's like, you can't tell me I'm ugly. My dad always told me I'm pretty because I did. I took both my girls before they ever started dating. We went on a date because I wanted to show them if he doesn't open the door like this, if he doesn't treat you this way, if he doesn't If his manners aren't this, he's not the man for you. And I'm telling you that because no man is going to love you like I love you. And this is the way I feel about you. So we had all those moments. My son, who plays for the Jets now, he's on the plane watching the film from the game and he's texting me right away. Hey, what do you think, pop? What did you think of it? So I have those relationships. I think your kids go through things, especially my oldest, that you would rather them not have gone through.

I always wonder if I would have attacked things, not attacked, if I would have addressed things differently, if I knew better at those times, could they I have learned this lesson without some of the pain that I think coincides with that.

What's it like for you to watch Jordan playing?

It's the biggest blessing and biggest stress all at one time. I obviously don't get to watch football from a fan standpoint because I don't see it from a fan standpoint because I did it for so long. So I'll watch it as a person who understands that even if they don't throw this ball to him on this play, if he missed this jam, I know what the coach is going to look at. I know what it's like to be an undrafted free agent and to play really well and feel like it's not good enough. And so I think I have a level of stress attached to it, but not even close to the level of pride I have. My son, man, Jordan's 5'9, 5'10 on a good day. I knew that was going to be what it was when he was a 120 pound eighth grader, ninth grader. And so we were driving to school one day and he's like, Dad, I want to play college ball. And I was like, All right, well, we can do that. You know what I'm saying? I said, I can help you do that, but you got to listen.

And man, we had days, bro, where he's crying in the gym, Dan. I'm crying in the gym. I'm mad throwing footballs at him. He's dodging footballs. And the The way those conversations would go, I was like, if you tell me that you no longer want what you told me you wanted in that car, I say, Son, I'll come to those games with tambourines and pom-poms, and I won't say a word. I would just cheer for you. I said, Because your school is paid for. I was like, Daddy was blessed enough. I don't have to worry about how you're going to get an education. If you don't really want what you said you wanted, then we don't have to do this no more. I said, But if you want it, we got to line it back up. And he'd always line it up.

Well, take me through that. What is your instantaneous reaction? What do you remember of your instantaneous impulse reaction when he tells you, I want to play college ball? Do you want him to do that?

Yes. Yes, because he wants it. I never wanted it for him before that, though. Never thought about it. We never had the conversation. We never had the NFL conversation. We had this is what you have to do today in high school to get what you told me you want it to get.

Let's work on it. But I imagine you're pushing him pretty hard. Once he tells you you want it, do you really want it? Do you really want it?

Yeah, but that was the thing, though. He had to go show me that every day. Tuesdays, This would be bad parenting. Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, I would drive him at 6: 00 AM or his sister would drive him at 6: 00 AM. If I wasn't home, if I was working. And he had to go train. I was part owner of a facility. He had to go train Tuesdays and Wednesday morning. Fridays, he had to go to the cryo. He had to learn. He had to stretch. On Thursdays, he had to turn into me what he studied from the film. I gave him what I learned from the film early on in the week. He had to show me at practice how he saw those formations and he diagnosed them. He was able to recognize them and he attacked it. That was the way we progressed. The next year, now I do a little bit less. You do a little bit more with the film. I graded every single game and he got pluses, minuses, grades, all that. We did all that. And now, though, when I see his coaches And they're guys that know me because I play in the league and they say he's a pro.

Before he made the team, they didn't undraft the guy. He's a pro. Comes in to work the right way, understands what he's doing. He's smart. And those are all things that he worked on to get, and he never quit on it. And I was able to see him through high school, and then he left away from me and added on to that based on his will, his effort, his want to, his desire. And so I was proud when he said it to me. But my instantaneous reaction was, well, let's get to work because we got to work to get it. We don't know if that's promised. And I remember I went to SMU camp before a sophomore year, and And he did really well, but he was small. And they told me, they were like, we're going to keep an eye on him throughout this year. He doesn't have the film. But if he plays well, we're going to offer him a scholarship next year. And the coach calls me. I'm driving home. Coach calls me and tells me, he's like, man, we watched the film. We're going to offer Jordan. And I was like, do you want to tell him?

I said, no. I was like, this is his process. I want you to call him. And I was probably then 15 minutes from home and I cried all the way home. You know what I mean? Because I just know what it's like to want something that bad and to work for it that much. It's like, we all, anything he's ever done or my kids have ever done have given me a greater feeling of pride or gratitude than anything I've ever done. Anything they've ever gone through that's negatively impacted them has hurt me more than anything that I've ever gone through. And so for him to be that certain that he wanted a thing and to be able to gain it was huge. And I remember we went to Penn State. Penn State was his dream school because he grew up in Pittsburgh. He still has a 412 area code. It's his dream school, but he's not a big kid. And we go to camp his junior year. And when I say he had a phenomenal... I went to all these camps then. When I say he had a phenomenal day, just a phenomenal day. The players are coaching the camp, right?

So they're like, Give us your best receiver. We're going to pick our best DB. He goes six times in a row, makes all these plays. James Franklin keeps us there three hours. I'm like, This is it. We already made the decision. He's like, If he offers me pop, I'm committing today. They They say, We need to see to get bigger, all these things. He goes back, and I remember he was wearing these Nike pants because they said he didn't weigh enough. He stuck weights in his pants. He's like, Yeah, pop. I weighed in at 171. I knew no way he was that big. Has another great day. They take a select few kids and put them on one side of the field. There's a commit that's already there. He outplaced him. I'm like, this is it. He gets beat on one deep ball. We're Walking out, they invited him to this after thing that only a select few athletes were told they can go to. And I was like, Hey, Joe. I can change our flights so we can go to the after meeting or whatever. And he looks at me. He's like, pop. He's like, They were only going to offer me if I was perfect.

And I wasn't perfect. We can go home. And it broke me because I knew how much he wanted. I knew it wasn't the only way to get there, but I knew how much he wanted it. So you have all those moments with him. And so now to see him where he is on his own doing that, man, it's a gratifying feeling.

So when you talk about you're crying, he's crying in the Through the drills, through the pushing, put me there. What's happening? You're questioning how much he actually wants it, right? No, I wasn't questioning how much he wanted it, but you don't get to question me if you want it.

You don't. In parenting, I'm a very tell me why person, right? You know, Dan, I believe if I was your father and you get into a fight in school and you get suspended. I don't ever want you to get suspended. I do believe there are reasons to fight. I believe there are reasons to protect yourself. I believe there are reasons to feel assaulted in a way where your emotions get out of I'm going to tell you why you can't fight, but then I'm going to ask you, but tell me why you did it. Then we're going to talk through that so we can learn from it. So I was always that person in real life. I wasn't that person in the gym. Because at 14, you don't know what I know. At 14, and you're trying to get to college where I've already been and then been on a level after that, there is no conversation for us to have. And so when these drills aren't going in the way that you want to, when you aren't doing them how I want you to do them, you don't get to question me. And if you think you can question me, then you should be teaching yourself, I'm going to go home, period.

And when you're crying because I'm telling you you're not doing it right, and we're going to line it up again, and we're going to be here until you get it right, I don't want to hear you crying. Nobody gives a care if you're crying or if you're sad, or if it's hard. Nobody cares about that. And as much as I love you, I care the least if you want what you want. But if you don't, we could go home. And I do footballs at them in front of people. It wasn't like this was always just us, right? You got to perform in front of them, too. They're going to be stadiums that's going to be packed watching. They're going to be coaches that have eyes on you. It's going to get hard. And there was always this thing, too. His mom would ask me, why does he have to go do more? This player on this team doesn't doesn't do more. I'm not his Daddy. He might not have had the conversation with his father that my son had with me. And if you want him to do less, tell him to want less. And if he wants less, he could do less.

But if he doesn't, if this is what he truly wants, this is the way to get it, at least as far as I know. And I don't think he going to get another dad no time soon. And he for sure ain't finna get no other coach. But it was so cool, man, because Reggie tongue, who played for the Jets, his son, my son's high school team I'm not stupid, by the way. They went 26 games in a row. Voted greatest high school team in Louisiana history. Christian Harris, who plays for the Texans, was on his team. Jaquil and Roy, who was with the Vikings. They were nuts. And his coach, my son's coach, did not like him. And it was the weirdest thing because everybody likes him. And he would come home and he would tell me... I wouldn't go to practice. And he would come home and he would tell me about these things. And I'd always go, How did you handle feel it? And what happened? And what did he say then? And what did you say? Were you respectful? Did you say yes, sir? Did you say no, sir? Did you stand up for yourself?

And we always had these conversations. And there was one time I ended up having to say something, but I wanted him to learn to handle that because I knew I wasn't going to always be around. And at some point he would have to. There were going to be coaches and people in life who didn't always always like him, didn't always have this fondness for him. And he was going to have to learn to navigate those people in order to succeed. And now there were other coaches on that staff who were awesome. Coach Martin, who's still at University, just an awesome man. But The head coach, they had their thing. And Jordan was always so calm. He was always so polite. He was always so respectful. And I'm going to be honest with you, Dan, even in times where I was like, as a dad, I would have let him be disrespectful. As much as I'm teaching him, you got to be respectful. You got to be polite. I was at a point with this man that sometimes I was like, Jordan, I don't really care what you tell him. And whatever you tell him, his reaction is going to dictate my reaction.

And my reaction is going to be a grown-ass man reaction. And he was like, no, pop, I can't do that. No, pop. He was talking to me because I'm talking through the father's eyes. I see how you're treating my son. In the conversations with Jordan, like, no, pop, don't come to the school. No, pop, don't come to practice. No, pop. Don't say nothing. I got it. Just the maturity of him handling those situations, even when my feelings were a certain thing. And I just think it's been cool to watch that process because you don't process your son's ups and downs like your daughter's. I got to raise him to be able to take care of a family, to be able to provide, to be able to be strong while also being open and vulnerable enough to connect with another human for the rest of his life. And I got to teach my girls many of the same things while teaching them also how to be loved, how to be cared for, how to be thought of. And so I think it's just a total different process.

Do you know where your stand up for yourself comes from?

A little crazy, then. I think, first off, I think you stand up for yourself because you feel things. I'm a human. I'm an imperfect human, but I am human, and things matter. I think the I think it's easier to point out where my stand up for other people comes more than my stand up for me. I think we are so blessed and we have so many opportunities. And in our world today, there are so many people that are mistreated, that are devalued, that are discounted. And in those situations, they don't have the voices all the time, or they don't have the presence, or they don't have the wherewithal sometimes, or even the opportunities to speak up for themselves.

I understand why you stand up for others. I was asking why you stand up for yourself.

Never been But bullied. I was bullied a little bit.

You don't strike me as somebody who does a lot of fearing.

I fear a lot of things. I don't worry, though. I'm not a worrier. I have fears, but I don't have I don't have worries. I don't fear men. I think that's first and foremost. I have no fear of that. I don't fear failure. That's not something that I'm scared of. I think for me, I'm not even always standing up for myself to be right as much as I'm just standing up for myself to be understood. And I guess I can only talk about the world we're in now. It's like you can't say anything without it meaning something deeper or more than what you said. It always has to be some arterial motive or for some other reason other than this is just what I feel based on the actions of these people or whatever it is. And I think when people attack you from a point of misunderstanding, it's difficult for me to stomach. You cannot like me. I don't care if people don't like me. If you say, well, you did this or you said this, and that thing that you did or you said, that is the thing I did or said, I don't like that, totally fine.

It's when I say something or I do something and you take it totally out of context or somebody else shaped it for you. You've only heard that person shape it. And now you're like, You're this thing, and I don't like that thing. Well, I think that's bullshit because I'm not that thing, and I didn't even say that. I didn't do that. What you did was, listen to this dummy.

Oh, well, you get aggregated a lot. You end up in a lot of fights based on things you've said that then get misrepresented. Right.

But the craziest thing is, Dan, it took me to Probably a few months ago to stop fighting. I talked about this to Desmond Bain. He was asking me how I was doing. And I was telling him I was having a difficult time with visibility. And I think even more so, I'm having a difficult time with mattering.

With the idea that you are visible and you do matter, and therefore you're an avatar. Your words get turned into something else. You become weaponized.

Yeah, because I'm so used to feeling a thing and being honest about that thing. And I got to say something here that I haven't said before. This is the first time in my life that I'm like, I'm going to say the thing I feel. How do I say that thing in the best way to where it's not misrepresented?

It's draining.

Oh, it is like the most... Because the alternative is to not say nothing about important things. I don't care about... Sports are sports, right?

I've reached out to you a couple of times when this What happens to you where I feel like you're alone in the world. You feel like you're where you are in the ESPN or on the landscape.

What even makes you reach out? Because I appreciate it. There's just a number of different times where things have happened with you where I'm like, he might feel alone here, like he's fighting alone, like that everything that surrounds him doesn't feel honest or doesn't feel fair. I don't think fair gets to the fact that they're in because that's not what it I think people are truly disingenuous in many ways. I think there are a lot of people who are grifters. What can I say that a Allows me to ride a certain wave? And we're in this world, I'm sure you've seen it, where people get to make up these quote graphics, and they get sent to me all the time. Recently, I had one that was floating around that I said, the NFL is racist if the MVP is not a person of color. Who says person of color? Who even says that? The day before, I had said, I had, Drake May 1, Matthew Stafford number 2. But because of that, tens of DMs, oh, you're a racist, you're this. And I was like, I didn't even say that. But there are people who are digesting those those things or digesting the way that someone is framing what I said who are making decisions about me.

And I can be honest, just didn't even talk it to you about how I grew up, unfortunately for me, It matters where people see my thoughts coming from. That if I'm talking about Josh Allen or Philip Rivers, I'm truly just talking about number 17. Whether he was purple, green, blue, I'm just talking about number 17.

Well, but the race wars are unpleasant, and you get in the middle of them by virtue of having honest opinions about seeing things happen, and you protect the disenfranchized. So you're going to end up in these situations with fights that are not fought in good faith.

Yeah. But now, though, I think my thought on it is this. I'm never going to stop speaking or talking for, speaking to things that matter to me. Never. I'm never going to stop doing it. I will stop fighting about it. Because what happens is your initial thought is your initial thought. Whatever people want to do with that, they can do with that. But when somebody attacks you or attacks your thought, you now end up in this back and forth that takes us totally away from the thing or the people or the person that mattered in this situation. And I'm not doing that anymore, especially because I know you're only doing it because stirring up some emotion in the people that follow you or feel like you feel about me is the only shine you get because you actually can't create an original thought that moves people. But I had to get there. To be honest, Dan, I had to confront one of these people in person who still lies about. I had to confront him in front of his wife, in front of the entire NFL Live crew to realize, oh, wait, you just do that for the media.

To realize, because I'm like, there's no way you can talk about me this often, use me as this much of a topic for yourself and actually not have a personal problem with me. So if you got a personal problem with me, then We should talk about this like men, face to face. We should get on the phone. No, I don't get on the phone. Well, if you could talk about me all the time and I am gracious enough to say, Oh, if you have this problem with me, I will have the conversation with you so you can better understand where I'm coming from and I can understand where you're coming from. No, I don't get on the phone.

Well, that's weird. I feel like I'm obligated to ask you who this is, but I'm not going to because we're out of time. We're out of time. I'm not going to do it anyway. He doesn't mind confrontation, though. I like that about him. It's one of the many things I like about him. The pivot is his personal project. Apart from everything else he's doing, he has proprietary pride in that. Before we let you go, though, I think this might be a dumb question, but maybe it's not. You have more pride in your football career than in your media career, right?

Yes. I don't love the media. I don't. I'm not a... Football, there is nothing that will ever equal what football was to me, what it meant to me, what it will always be to me. I have pride in. The thing I have pride in, though, in this career is that I feel like, I can't speak for you. I feel like people I really respect, like you, have a respect for me and the way I approach my work. And When I'm in the building and producers and people I work with tell me they are grateful for the amount of time, the amount of effort, the amount of care and concern I have about this job, that matters to me because it's not my first career. For many people, it's the thing they grew up wanting to do. And I think sometimes as athletes, we get fast-tracked. I remember, plain as day, being on SportsCenter, an anchor making the joke about me being an intern and saying, When I was an intern, they never put me on TV. Saying this on TV. And it gave me a window into, Oh, wait. They don't I don't believe I deserve this the way they do.

I went to Mass Com School, Manship.

You took the harder path. It's a little harder to get to the top the one % of the one % of the 1% of the 1% fighting everybody in America for money and football in the gladiator sport than it is to get to Bristol, Connecticut.

But I think I do just have such a healthy respect for people that do this job in the right way, that pour into it. And I do understand the privilege it is to have been a football player and get opportunities based on what I put into that career. So I do want to do this job the best I can and show people that it matters as well.

He does it well everywhere, especially on the pivot with his friends, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Yes, sir.

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