February 13, 2024 • 57 mins
2x Super Bowl Champion Eli Manning may not play for the New York Giants anymore but he still has his coach! Coach Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning huddle up with Kevin on today's show to talk a bit of football and a lot of philanthropy. Coach shares why he started the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund and why their goal of helping families affected by cancer deeply resonates with him today.
To learn more and get involved with the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund, head to TCJayFund.org. To support more initiatives like this program, text 'BACON' to 707070 or head to SixDegrees.Org to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, so full disclosure. When I was a kid boy,
I really didn't follow sports at all. I followed rock
and roll, and for some reason, those two things were
not going hand in hand for me. But as I've
grown older, I've become more and more of a sports fan.
(00:21):
It was kind of moving to New York and I
think falling in love with the New York Knicks, and
I now really do both enjoy it and admire the
people that do it incredibly well. A lot of it
is because I just look at it and go, man,
that's something I just can't do and never will be
(00:42):
able to. So it's very exciting to me today to
get a chance to speak to our next guest, the
great two time Super Bowl champion quarterback of the New
York Giants, Eli Manning. I think you're going to enjoy
our conversation, and I think I think you'll be surprised
at his guest.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So lean in.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm glad you're here. Well, thank you the great Eli
Manning for being here with me today. You are our
first celebrity from the world of sport as they say
(01:27):
in the UK, or sports as you would know it
in this country. You know it's there's so much There's
so many things that are so fun about this conversation
to me, one of which is that you're doing one
of those jobs that like I look at that and
I go, there is no chance I would make it
(01:49):
through five minutes of that job. The amount of training,
the amount of concentration, the way that you you know,
put your body on the line all the time. I mean,
you know the funny thing about being an actor is
that you know, for inside, just give you an example,
like I've played I think four Marines, okay, And so
(02:14):
sometimes people will come up to me and say, boy,
you really seem like a marine. And I'll say, let
me tell you something that I could never be a marine.
I've met marines and I've seen what they do, and
and I am. I am actor boy. So what does
that feel like to, uh, you know, make those kind
of sacrifices with your body.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Day in and day out. I think I think you
just get used to it. You start doing it at
such a young age I was. I mean, I played
flag football growing up. I really didn't start tackled till
eighth grade, and you just get used to hitting as
the quarterback. I think a lot of your hits are
after a throw. That's kind of when you're your most vulnerable.
You're kind of throwing your in a bad position. Someone
(02:58):
comes hits you, but at that moment, you're so focused
on wondering what happened after the throw. You're trying to
look in between cracks of linemen and people. Sometimes you're
just listening to the crowd. You know, if you're at
home and you hear tears, you know, all right, that
was completed. If you hear kind of nothing, or who's
maybe you know, incomplete, if you hear you know, booze
(03:20):
or you know, real silence, you know, maybe interceptions. So
I think you're so you're so focused and on those
things that you don't have time to think about the pain.
It's really the next the next morning after the game
is where you you know, you know you're gonna have
some bumps and bruises. But as I've as I've retired
from football, watching it and having been gone, you know,
been out of it for three years, I like see
(03:42):
the hits and I think the same thing. I'm like,
oh my god, there's no way this guy's getting up
after that hit. And they you know, most of the
times get up and they're on to the next place.
So having been away for for a little bit, it
looks a lot worse, uh now than then I remember it.
When I was playing, I think you just got to
put it. You just don't even think about It's like, oh,
that's just part of the game, and and you don't
worry about the big hits. But uh, they look they
(04:05):
look more painful now that I remember.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well, you know, it's funny because you led me right
into two things. One was one was you know, talking
about the next day, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Movie was North Dallas forty and Nick Nolty climbs into
the ice bath after the game, and I remember looking
at that and going, oh, I don't care how hurt
I was. I'm not climbing into a bath, a bath
full of ice cubes and unless there's you know, it's
filled with vodka and all of But you know, I
(04:35):
just I just found that. I just found that so powerful,
that that image from that movie. And I didn't grow
up as an athlete. I'm terrible with ball sports. We
played on the street, We played Grumphilly and we played
on the street and played you know, stickball, and and uh,
you know, football in the street, you know, tag whatever,
(04:56):
But but I definitely didn't have like the high school,
you know, and to this day, I'm an awful, awful athlete.
But the other thing that you I was I wanted
to ask you about this and you mentioned, you know,
you're in the middle of taking a hit and you've
thrown the ball and you don't know what happens to it.
(05:18):
And so for those of you that haven't seen the
helmet catch, uh to David Tyree, you have to watch this,
uh this replay on YouTube because it's just amazing of
one of them, I'd say it's certainly one of the
most famous plays in Giant's history, I would think, and
(05:40):
probably one of the most famous you know throws and catches.
And Eli is completely surrounded and miraculously about to be
thrown to the ground and he lets the ball go
and then the camera goes off of him. And what
I thought to myself was he didn't even get to
watch see this catch, like, like what you must have
been on the ground already, right, I mean, you did
(06:02):
you even? I mean, was it that thing that you
mentioned just before where you're like I hear whether or
not people are booing me or cheering.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, exactly, and and I, uh, I kind of got hit.
I didn't get all the way knocked down to the ground,
and that went so but it was still crowded, and
David was kind of Rodney Harrisimmons, the defender. He's hanging
all over him, and I see him go to the
ground and they, you know, they call for the catch,
but at that moment, you know, you never know, like
(06:29):
you're trying to maybe run up there and spike it
real quick so they can't review it. But we had
to call a time out under that situation. So and
they're they're they're gonna review it. And I remember going
up to David. I'm like, hey, did you did you
catch it? And He's like, yeah, I caught it. And
I've been lied to by receivers. These receivers that they
may tell you, they tell you they're open, and then
(06:50):
you watch the film they were the double teemed and
on the ground they tell you they caught it. I'm
rather through one to Plexico Burus and you know it's
like a third and it was a second and ten,
so and you call it the first down, and you know,
you're kind of hey, did you catch it so we
can start thinking about when we will run on third
down or what our first down? Please? Yeah, I caught it.
And you see the replay in the bounced like three
times before it got there. I'm like, why are you
(07:11):
lying to me. It's not going to make the call
any different.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Videotape.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, there's video. There's a video. They're going to analyze it.
They're going to get the right call. So David, you know,
it's like, no, don't lie to me. Did you really
catch it? And said, I promise you the ball never
touched the ground. I had it on my helmet, and
that was kind of the first time I was like, really,
you caught it off your helmet.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And uh, you did not see the catch live? You
had you had to go to the video. I had
to go to video, and I kind of watched it.
Watch it up there and you see it, you know,
real quickly, and you know and touching the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Never touches the ground. But we really didn't have time
to analyze like what a great catch it was at
that moment, just because hey, we we still had to
go score a touchdown and try to win the Super Bowl.
Great catch, but it almost if we don't win the game,
then that great play probably is not talked about as much,
or is it, you know, become the great play because
(08:07):
it has to lead to the win of winning a
Super Bowl, which makes it special. And sure I remember
after the game, maybe it was like after the game,
you know, you have an after party. Obviously you're celebrating
your friends and family. I get back to the hotel
with my wife at you know, three in the morning,
and we had an early press conference next morning, so
I at like a six o'clock wake up, Paul, and
(08:28):
I'm gone, well, I haven't seen like the replay yet.
I want to see the highlights. I got to go
watch ESPN, and I want to see like the the
David Tyree catch again and see see how good it was.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, that's amazing to me. And you know, speaking of which,
as as as you know, as we know, you did
go on to win that Super Bowl, and that was
the first one, right, that was the yeah, two thousand
and eight, and and you know, it was quite as
a spectacular moment. And actually the scoring touchdown was sort
(09:04):
of like the polar opposite catch, right, because it was
just like a just a nice little toss and you
just kind of went up, I got the ball and
we just wanted to right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It was wide open, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
It was with drama. There was there was no drama
in that catch at all. So it was a great contrast.
When you become an actor, you know, you you go
out there and you go, well, I'm gonna make this movie. Uh,
(09:39):
you know, and I'm not even going to entertain this thought,
but way sometimes in the back of your mind you're thinking,
this is going to be a breakout hit, or this
is going to be an Oscar winner, or this is
going to take me to the next level or whatever
it happens to be. You know, you sometimes have these
like kind of overreaching fantasies, delusions of grandeur. But it
(10:04):
takes a long time to find out what the upshot
is of the of the project that you've done. And
and you know, sometimes a year or so after after
you've made it, the film comes out when you're the
middle of a football season. Uh, you're constantly in the
in the moment. My question is when you start out,
(10:28):
do you uh, do you keep in the back of
your mind the idea that you could win a Super
Bowl and that stranger things have happened, or do you
have to just kind of go game the game, the game,
the game and put that out of your head.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, I think you really, you really got to go
game the game, the game. And I think once you
even you know, you go through stretches where you're playing
great football. We went through stretches where we you know,
we won six games in a row, and you feel like, oh,
we can't you know, we can't lose, like we're playing
great And once you start thinking that, usually you get
humbled real quickly and you just got to have one
of those games where nothing goes right and you and
(11:06):
you get beat quickly and badly, and it kind of
gets you. All right, let's get back to the basics.
Let's get back to focusing on doing you know, what
we need to do. Make sure we're preparing correctly all
week and and because if you don't, if you don't
go out there and and and like do the little
things really well and pay attention to the details and
have great you know, everybody you know has to have
(11:27):
great weeks of preparation and work, then then you get embarrassed.
And so it's not just one person, it's I mean,
it's all twenty two guys, eleven guys on offense, eleven
guys on defense that you know, they all have to
do their job. If one person, you know it has
an off week where they don't prepare well, they don't
know the assignments, it's a it's on a script. You know,
the each play does not have a chance if even
(11:50):
one person is doing something wrong or or just not
doing it at a high level. And so it's you
got to everybody has to buy in, uh to the idea.
It's just one week at a time. It's about this week,
how we perform, how are we gonna go out there
and prepare and let's go play hard and worry about
this one and just getting into the playoffs. It's about
(12:10):
it's about finding a way to get to the playoffs.
And then there that's when really anything can happen, and
you can get hot at the right time and and
you know, play a team that might be better than
you and they might beat you ninety nine at one
hundred times, but that one day you might catch the breaks.
You might you know, just you know, find a guy
who's struggled, or you know, ball bounce in certain ways
(12:30):
where you can win that certain day and that's what
you're playing for.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
M Now, going back, your dad, Archie Manning, was a
great player in his own right and you know, had
a you know, fantastic career.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You and.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Your brother Peyton, but also your other brother. We're all
of players, all football players. Was there any a moment, ever,
a moment where one of you was thinking, I don't know,
maybe dental school or or I don't interior design anything that.
Were there ever any other options there? Or was it
all it? Did it have to be football?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It didn't have to be football? But we we definitely
were into sports. And I mean I played basketball pla basketball, Yeah,
through high school, all through through high school. So what
I think a lot of people maybe assume my dad
had this master plan of creating NFL quarterbacks as he
was an NFL quarterback, And nothing could really be further
(13:30):
from the truth. Uh, you know, we had we did
well in school, but we played, We played a lot
of sports. He just thought, you know, sports were great, Uh,
you know, great way to learn life lessons and dedication
and hard work and commitment. Uh, dealing with losses, dealing
with success, in handling all those things. Uh, you know,
(13:51):
just the team work that goes into it, and so,
uh he wanted us to play sports, but he never
got too involved in our sports. Uh he He kind
of always said, hey, I live my sports dream. You know,
if you want to get into it, I'm here to
support you. But I'm never going to be the guy saying, hey,
you got to go out and work out, or you know,
I'm going to put you in this drill. You know,
(14:11):
he just wanted us to make our own decisions, for
us to find our own path, and it just so
happened just from an early age. I don't know why.
We could just throw the football pretty well. So I
mean even like in fifth grade at recess at school,
you know, I mean you've quickly learned if whatever team
we were all on and playing quarterback, we usually won
(14:33):
that game. And so eventually I just became the permanent
quarterback on both sides. To make it fair, I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Steady steady we call it. We would play with a steady.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, steady. So I remember after a while, I was like, hey,
I want to try something else. I want to play receiver.
I want to catch it touched down, And I quickly
learned that I'm not very fast. I don't catch the
ball very well, and so I wasn't getting fall that often,
and I was like, this is this is worse. I'll
go back to play steady and being able to permanent QB.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
All right, Oh wow, that's that's fascinating. And what about
your mom? I mean, did she did she have moments
of like, I'm I'm sending my little boys out here,
you know, to get sacked.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, I think that was that was hard. I feel
I feel for my mom. She she has had to
watch way too many football games where you have I
think with the with my dad, it wasn't too hard
if he got hit, but with their with their little
boys and her kids, you know, just getting getting hit,
getting sacked a bunch you know, losses. So all she
cared was us coming out of the game healthy and
(15:36):
she was always there for a big hug afterwards, win
or lose, and just wanted us to be you know,
be safe, be healthy. And but she's watched, she's watched
a lot of football games. She's had to deal with
a lot of losses. But uh, you know, we got
a couple of championships to to be happy about as well.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I love what what what your dad was pointing out about,
uh learning to deal with successes and failures, because I
really feel like that is you know, I have two
kids that they're not athletes, but they are in in
uh my son's a musician and my daughter's an actor.
And and you know, you are thrown into this world
(16:14):
where you don't have a steady gig. The the success
or failure of your of your career trajectory is all
on on wins and losses, and like that's a real
kind of seesaw sort of life to have to live
and uh and the idea that in order to uh
(16:40):
accomplish those successes you have to be part of a
team are really really good messages I think for for
young people. And and you know, we but like I said,
they don't they were not playing sports. But I think
that we've tried to kind of you know, pound that
into them. Uh that both but both of those concepts
(17:03):
teamwork and also you know, don't don't get too happy,
don't get too full of yourself when it when you
when you have a win, because you know, you know
things are going to change down the road and and
you know when you have a when when things don't
work out, you know, are you in it for the
long haul? Are you going to let this this one,
(17:24):
you know, knock you knock you down forever? So so
those are those are great messages I've had to I've
not had to.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I have.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I luckily have a band with my brother that we've
had since nineteen ninety five. And there's two things about
you know, I'm constantly trying to find things that, as
I said at the beginning of the podcast, it's very
hard for me to relate to this, to you and
the life that you've had and the and the gig
that you do. But so I'm trying to find these
kind of you know, connections, which is about this what
(17:55):
this podcast is about. You know, I get this question
all the time, and I find it ultimately, I find
it sort of irritating. But you work with your brother
in you know, multiple capacities, whether it's commercials or your
or your broadcast together, and how how is that working relationship?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Basically there's a lot of rock bands that have ended
up literally taking a swing at each other on stage.
Who are brothers?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I mean there's like that's a face like the Everly's
hate each other. You know, the Kinks, the Oasis. It's
like the list just goes on and on and on.
So everybody always says to me and Michael, you guys,
how can you play together? You must hate each other.
Uh So I'm curious about about I'm sending this dumb
question back your way.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah. No, I think I think Peyton and I are
fortunate that for our broadcast, I'm in New Jersey doing
it and he's in Denver, so we're not even in
the same room. So okay, no punches can be thrown,
and we definitely take shots at each other, and that's
we're both uh uh. You know, I think it's a
football player just deal with the media, deal with the
(19:12):
locker room. Like our number one rule is you can't
be sensitive. There's no sensitivity in here because if you
if people find that out, then they'll they just come
at you even more. And so we just you know,
we're we kind of go. You know, we're gonna take
you know, if you mess up, it actually works out
better I think and broadcasting. If you mess up, if
(19:32):
I say something wrong, I you know, pronounce a name
incorrectly or make a wrong call, Peyton's gonna call me
out before the media has the opportunity to call me
out because he's gonna be a media and if I'm
gonna get called out by somebody, rather really be for
my brother. But we definitely take shots at each other.
And I think it's also good that we don't do
every game. We kind of we'll do maybe two or
three in a row, and then we need a break,
(19:54):
and usually during that break for a week or two,
like we don't even talk to each other. It's like,
all right, I need I need a full time from you.
I don't want to talk to you. I don't have
to see that often. But we we have a good relationship,
and I think it's I think it's because, uh, he's
five years older than me, so growing up, we never
really competed against each other. It's always been a support deal.
(20:17):
It's always been, you know, him kind of helping me
through high school or helping me through college. And then
we got to the NFL. We competed against each other
three times, and then it didn't work that well for
me at three against some so I didn't I didn't
have much to fight about or to argue.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Did your mom take him aside and say, can you
just let Eli win one come on.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
This one time. There's one time. Yeah, because I am
the baby, I am I am mom's favorite, of course,
of course, and so I think she probably did try
to try to do that. But we've always just tried
to help each other out and really support each other.
So I think that's kept us kept us close. And
and again we don't have to be around each other
too much, and that keeps us. I think that keeps
(20:59):
us close.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Also, Yeah, you know, it's so funny. That's that it's
a pretty much word for word at what our answer is,
and that is that we don't live together. You know,
we don't even really talk necessarily that much, but then
we come together to play the show, you know, and
we do the show and then the show is great.
But but we don't but it's not it's not like
(21:22):
we're you know, checking in. And the other thing is
that I you know, I don't know what it is,
but if you get a little bit for us it's
nine years, if you get some some space in between
the two ages, it definitely helps. And I'm the youngest
of six, so it's a it's a you know, it's
a you know, kind of a similar situation. You know,
(21:45):
there there was a funny connection that I that I
thought of, you know, because of the whole goofy you know,
six degrees thing. But uh, you know, you had a show.
I don't think it's on any more. College Both Is
that still long? The College Bowl reboot Bowl?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah? Yeah, papers got hosted. I was just like an
executive producer whatever that means on the show. But yeah,
College Ball it's I don't know if they're doing another season.
They've had two seasons of it so far. Two seasons, right.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I did a movie called Diner many many years ago,
and in that movie, it took place in the I
think nineteen sixty one. I am sitting there all alone
in my apartment. There's a scene where I'm sitting there
all alone in my apartment and I'm watching College Bowl.
And that just shows you how long that show has
(22:38):
been on the air. The movie, it was a period
piece and I'm yelling at the television and saying, you
get the wrong answer. I like, this character gets the
answer before everybody else. And it was just this weird
thing where, you know, I never really understood the scene.
(22:59):
I didn't understand and like why it was why people
liked it, but people had this great reaction to it
because they felt like it showed that the character was
smart and that you didn't really get that and any
of the other scenes. So how did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Were you?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Were you a contestant or were I never?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I never went all. This was kind of for college
college kids, uh, and an opportunity for them to earn
some you know, scholarships and for them to compete against
each other in a in like a quiz show type deal.
So I just, uh, it was actually fun being both
my brothers were on it together and I just got
to I got to watch and analyze and to tell
(23:42):
tell them my thoughts. So now that's what was good
or bad. So I don't know if they listened to
any of them, but it was fun critiquing my two
older brothers in a show and you know, talking about
what they did wrong or their mistakes.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well, you mentioned that in the broadcast you get to
stay in at home and your brother stays at home
or stays where he lives. Did what was the road
like for you? Because how many years were you? Were
you in the NFL?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean that's sixteen years of being on the road,
and I'm just curious, like for a lot of reasons,
the just the toil of you know, like like I
can tell you, you know, in certain terms, that hotels no
longer hold any kind of interest to me. The first
(24:35):
time I ever went in one, I was like, this
is the greatest thing. You know, I don't have to
do my laundry or whatever it is. You know, somebody
makes the bed. But now I there's no romance left
for me in terms of that, And so I'm just
wondering what that's like for sixteen years and on your
your family and the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, So I think I think football is different than
a lot of other sports. Is really our weeks are
exactly the same every week, and it really really difference.
If you're if you're at home, you stay at a
hotel Saturday night and you have to be there, you know,
around six or seven o'clock, and you play the game
the next day and you're you know, you're kind of
back home with your family around you know, four thirty
(25:16):
five o'clock and you get to be with them. If
you're if you're on away game, you leave, you know,
you have practice Saturday morning, you leave around one o'clock
and you basically come back right after the game on Sunday,
so you know, you're on you're a gone really Saturday
night of the week, and the rest of the week
is you know, very schedule your practice at the same
time every day you meet. You're kind of home around
(25:37):
the same time for dinner. So it's a pretty good,
uh family life situation. I mean, you're you're you're gone
during the day and you're still going on the weekends
a little bit. But your family is can you know,
come come to the game and watch you on Sunday,
which is exciting. So uh, it's different from baseball or basketball,
where you might have these two week road trips. Right
(25:58):
you're traveling around and really away from the family. So uh,
training camp is the only time training camp you're you're
you You go away for like a you know, three
weeks to a month. A lot of times you're in
a dorm room and you're together in trade binding. That
was kind of the hardest time. Once you start having
young kids and and you know, tell the life all right,
I'll see I'll see in a month. Good good luck,
(26:20):
all right, you know you can figure it out.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, well except for the fact that, I mean, you're
you're gonna have to go and live some place where
you get drafted, and that, right is that's kind of
a fascinating thing. You don't, I don't. I don't see
people talking about that that much. I mean, I'm sure
that I don't know, is there is there what? What
(26:43):
would you say is a stronger pull the place, uh
or the team or the conference or the or the
legacy or what what? What? What? Or where?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
What?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What are the what are the what where the coach?
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's tough. Yeah, I mean I think you like, as
you said, you don't have a choice, like you get
you get drafted, you go wherever you're going. I think
you know you're excited to play play football. For me,
I was excited to come to the to the Giants
just because they're a you know, just a great organization,
been on the original teams, they've been around for so long,
great ownership. You know. I knew coach Coughlin was gonna
(27:25):
be the head coach. He was coming into his first year,
so I just I knew a lot about the history
of the Giants and what they stood for and and
you know, really was excited to come to this organization,
come to New York. But you know it is different
all of a sudden, you know, yeah, you're twenty three
years old. You're like, all right, you're moving to New
(27:45):
Jersey where they practice. You can you know, go go
find an apartment, go figure it out and start your life.
And so, you know, lucky to have my mom. My
mom was very helpful in that. Like I was like, well,
what just finding a place to live. I was all
of a sudden, you come up here and I'm like,
I'm in practice all day. I'm trying to learn this playbook.
I'm trying to, you know, figure out how to be
(28:06):
a quarterback at this level. I don't have time to
figure out, you know, where am I, Where am I
going to live? How do I get a bed? How
do I you know, get a sofa and TV? So
fortunately have my mom come up and kind of you know,
handle handle that for me and listen. You know, I
think you try to do so much as a young
player where you can just focus on football and focus
(28:27):
on trying to you know, you's got drafted a lot
of pressure're you know, first first picking the draft, You're
coming to this, you'll be the quarterback. You You've got
these you know, these great athletes and and you Michael
straighthand and Tiki Barber and these guys that you you
don't want to disappoint them. And you've got to try
to raise your level play real quickly to get where
you can be successful and win games and and and
(28:49):
you know, uh kind of please the crowd and the organization,
and so you want to you know, be totally committed
to that and and not have to worry about anything
outside of football.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us
in supporting six degrees dot org by texting the word
Bacon to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift
empowers us to continue to produce programs that highlight the
incredible work of everyday heroes, well also enabling us to
provide essential resources to those that need.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It the most.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Once again, text b a c N to seven zero
seven zero seven zero or visit six degrees dot org
to learn more.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We have the great coach Tom Coughlin with us today,
which is absolute honor. Tom. Thank you so much for
joint You guys know each other, right, Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, I've got some great stories for you too, Kevin
fire Away, coach. I gotta tell you this because I
get a video. I think Archie's son it to me,
it might have been Eli's sonate to me one time.
This tells you how Eli grew up. So the video goes,
Archie's got the camera and you had Cooper and Peyton
(30:12):
out by the basketball who you know, threw the throw
the basketball up and horse and around with each other
and they're just little guys. Out comes Olivia with Eli's
just a little baby. He's a few months old. So
the next thing you see, Archie's got the camera and
the two brothers are even Eli back and forth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
They're dropping and passing.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
You know?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
The next day ringing up to Eli, you know, wait
a few years ago or whenever this happened, and he goes, yeah,
I wanted to thank my dad for how we got
the out yard and he's the camera man, and these
guys are even me around the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh god, did they put it? Did they at least
put a helmet on them?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Or no? No, no helmet, no helmet. H I remember
telling my dad was like, hey, Dad, you did think
about maybe putting the camera down for a little bit
as I'm being tossed around between two people, was like, no, no,
this was this could be in a documentary one day.
Let me need to catch this live footage, like it's
not this is great stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And where can we see that footage?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Coach?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Do you do you have that footage? Can you share
it with us?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Please?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You have to dig that out.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah, oh that is amazing. So but that's interesting. So, uh,
you were already aware of him from his infancy when
when he came to the Giants?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, I didn't see that picture till after.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Oh it wasn't until after. Oh I thought maybe you were.
You were in communication with Archie from from from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Now okay, well no, not quite.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Ok Had you been tracking his career? Is his college career?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Oh yeah absolutely? Uh yeah, hey his career at all?
Miss but Ernie Corsi, who actually drafted Eli, Ernie, he
followed him troums from day one, and I'll never forget.
We went to New Orleans or his for Eli's workout, Okay,
and it was at the Saints indoor facility.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And this is the.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Difference between Bade and Eli. Archie telling me the store
so Archie says, yeah, he gets a hold of Eli. Supposedly,
maybe the workouts at one o'clock and the whole NFL
is that the whole place is full enough. But scouts,
head coaches, general managers, everybody's there waiting to watch this
guy work out. So you get, this is Archie telling
(32:38):
me the store. He said, I give I'm looking around.
I don't see Eli. So I called Eli on the
phone and I said, this is Eli, this is Archie.
Where are you? Where the heck are you Elio? It's
twelve thirty at a one o'clock workout, he said, Dan,
the workouts at one. I stopped to have something to
eat before it came to don't work.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
They said, of Peyton.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
If it was Peyton, Ayton would have been there selling program.
It was at ten o'clock the morning. But that's that
was the difference.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That was the difference.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Everybody not Lad.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
He's he's hungry, he's starving. Yeah, I'm watching. And he
gets to the place and he's got four or five
guys that he was working out with as receivers, and
he comes in and you know, he's a little shy,
and he's kind of he throws a couple of passes
on the sideline, he goes out. He puts on the
(33:38):
best demonstration of passing that I had ever been around.
Everything he can imagine, with a bunch of guys he
didn't play with, but he worked out a little bit.
These guys may have caught the ball for him.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's happening.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
That was Eli's pro debut, this pro workout.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Can you tell me, Eliu, because I want to throw
a ball like that? What did you have for lunch?
Do you remember him?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sort of? Yeah, probably I was down in New Orleans,
so probably like a big old shrimp poe boy. It's
really it really sits well, you know, a bunch of
private food and bread. When you're when you're twenty two
years old, you don't think about you know, at that
you know, twenty twenty some id years ago, you didn't
think about diet or eating something you know that might
affect your performance. But yeah, so things would change a
(34:23):
little bit. But yeah, New Orleans probably, Yeah, I think
a shrimp poe boy from Don Alisis is probably they
go to there you go.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I love hearing that, so it brings up a good
question for both of you. You mentioned, you know, the
first thing I thought of when you had a shrimp
Poe boy, was that that would be a situation where
I would certainly be nervous. I mean, it is essentially,
you know, an audition, right, It is essentially a It's
(34:53):
it's like it's like the audition for the big show
or the big movie. You're meeting the big director, and
I'm wondering, coach, do you, if you're looking at a player,
do you look at nerves as being part of the
(35:13):
skill set of how to handle the nerves being part
of what you need to play in the NFL?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Absolutely, in this situation, it's how do you handle the
circumstances that you're in? Yeah, you know, you've got the
whole NFL there. It's a like you say, it's a
big deal now, you know. Maybe you go away saying,
if you're looking at a quarterback, you know, he didn't
throw the outcut very well, the comeback was a strained
(35:40):
throw for him, or you know, he didn't seem to
react well after. You know, he missed a couple of
balls and so on and so forth. So you're watching,
You're watching all this, you're taking it all in. You
know what kind of an athlete, does he how does
he work with people that he really just barely knows
these guys, you know, how does he handle that? How
do they react? You know, the whole deal. He gets
(36:02):
a little time with people afterwards to talk to them,
so you get a little bit more information out of them.
But in general, how does he approach it? How does
he handle it? And then you know, when when it's
time to go, when it's time to start, what do
you have to prove yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
How do you do m right?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Fascinating? I guess you just get a chance to let's
kind of look at those signs and and and just
try to get a read on that. I mean, I again,
I keep thinking about you know, sometimes I've been on
the other side of the camera and you know, looking
at actors and auditions and trying to get past the
(36:44):
fact that it is an auditioned situation and that maybe
there's something that's there that I'm not seeing because they
are somehow you know, uh, nervous or shooting themselves in
the foot. But on the other on the other hand,
this is the big moment, so they got to be
able to step up. So it's a it's a it's
a it's a it's a confusing kind of thing. What
(37:07):
was how would you guys categorize your working incredibly successful
working relationship during the time that you were at the
Giants With the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Giants, Well, first of all, Eli was great with studying.
You know, he would while other people are off on
a Tuesday, he'd be in there already getting a head
start on the opponent. What the opponent. And that's basically
what I'm all about. The work ethic is very very
important to me because I want to know. I want
(37:38):
to know if you're willing to buy into an act
as if you own or possess the franchise. This is
what I want. I want you to I want you
to take ownership of what you're doing. I want to see,
I want to see that it's really important to you.
I want to see that you make the little sacrifices
in order to be the best that you can be.
(38:00):
And that's really what you know, what what I was
all about was trying to get people to be the
very best thing that they could be. And you've already
mentioned a couple of things. You know, teamwork, it's all
about team. It's not about the individual. It's never about
the individual. It's always about the team because football, with
eleven people on the field, you put your trust to
(38:21):
that guy next to you and he puts his trust
in you. Are you going to let him down? Are
you going to let everybody down? Because you didn't prepare properly.
So that's and it's not easy. You know, try it
over a seventeen eighteen week period where on Monday, you know,
these guys are, they're beat up. This is this is
(38:42):
not a game for the feint of heart. You know,
you want to stand on the sidelines and listen to this.
It's it's like whoa, It gets your attention. I mean,
it is all about the physicality of the game, even
from the quarterback position. So those are the kind of
things that that people must be able to to send
you those kind of vibes. Their consistency, their work ethic,
(39:06):
you know, the study as she goes. Because as I said,
it's it's not a game of you know, it's not
a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, you know, it's let's go ahead, Eli.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I was just gonna say, Kevin, I learned quickly, you
know what what I had to do to be a
quarterback under under coach Coaulfland. And there's the first first week.
I was not the starter of Kurt Warners, the starter
my rookie year. And he said, you know, after that
first game, he says, all right, every blitz at this,
(39:41):
you know, we played the egos, every blitz that the
Eagles did versus I want you to draw up those
blitzes versus our five main protections that we have in
past game and how you protect them and and do it.
And so they did, you know, maybe eight to ten blitzes,
and I drew up first each you know, for each
each protect So it's like kind of fifty drawings, and I,
(40:02):
you know, have it, have it out there, and I
handed into coach Cofflin. He graded it, and so all
of a.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sudden, this was after the game.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
This was after the game, after the game, kind of
after that next week, just so I learned about how
to set protections, how to do things. So the next
week we have another says I want you to do
it again. And so I just did it for that
second gig, you know that, or I just didn't in
preparation of the team we're about to play. And no, no,
you have to do both the games that they've played.
So I now I had to do one hundred, you know,
(40:29):
I did do. All of a sudden, it's like week eight,
I'm handed in a four hundred you know, drawing deal
to coach golf, and in a few of them, I
kind of said, well, I can relax. He's like, there's
no way he's reading through all these protecting He's got
to worry about the starting quarterback. He's got to worry
about everything else going on being the head coach. Like
I'll kind of just like, you know, scribble through a
(40:49):
few of these and not do it. All of a sudden,
you know, he calls me in the office and it's like,
you know, what the hell is this? Like what is that?
This is not? This is yes, this is terrible, Like
what are you doing? So I learned quickly that, you know,
preparation was very important to him. Being five minutes early
was number one. Deal had to be five minutes early,
(41:12):
be well prepared, And you got to love what you're doing.
You gotta love the game of football. You have to
love you know that you know, do those things. If
you do those three things, you can play for this
man for a long time and you'll be on the
same page. And as a as an athlete, in a
professional athlete, that should be pretty easy. You think that'd
be pretty easy to handle those three things. And you
(41:34):
think if you amazin, how how you know some people
have a hard time have a hard time doing that.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, Coach Coaughlin, I can tell you that I was
before you signed in. I was struck with the fact
that I think, probably maybe for the first time since
I've been doing this podcast, somebody actually showed up early.
And Eli told us that if he wasn't there five
minutes before, he was afraid you were going to find him.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I'm afraid I was that I get fined.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
No, I mean today's no, I mean today, And I
don't know what the rate would be adjusted for inflation,
but I'm guessing it would probably be pretty hefty.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
At this point, five hunder bucks that's the fine. Okay,
that's yeah, one minute later if I'm not five minutes early.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So, speaking of charity, Coach tell us about the J
fun Foundation and about how the story behind it.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Jay Fund was founded in nineteen ninety six in the
spirit and the name of j McGillis. J McGillis was
a strong safety for me. When I was the head
coach of Boston College, Jay unfortunately came down with leukemia
and we played, actually played in Syracuse. Came home after
the game, Fraighter came to me and said, I don't
think Jay can play this week, and I said why not?
(42:52):
He said, well, he's you know, his throw a swollen
and he so on. I said, well, let's let's get
the doctor in here, less, get him, get him. Well,
it wasn't a sore throat, it wasn't some form of virus.
It was leukemia, and it was a ravaging form of leukemia.
By watching what Jay went through and what is family
went through, and going through that whole process, my wife,
(43:17):
Judy and I looked at each other and said, if
we ever get a chance to give back, it's going
to be in the name and the spirit of j McGillis.
And the way it came about is in the spring
of that year before Jay passed, one of my linebackers
came to me and said, Coach, we've got to do
something to help the McGillis family. And I said, well,
(43:39):
sit down, Mike. It was Mike Panels. Sit down, Mike,
let's talk about it, and Mike was very close to
the family. What happens when you're given those words, those
terrible words, Your child has cancered. The family no longer
is able to function as they would want. If there
are two income family, one one parent has to withdraw
(44:00):
off from the job so that they can be the caretaker.
But in watching this, both parents were not working, bills
were being paid, you know, expenses were mounting, and the
McGillis family was going to be in trouble. So Mike
and I talked it through. We decided we would have
what we called a liftathon. The players went out into
the community, they got pledges or in those days we
(44:22):
max lift at the end of spring practice. So we
had power clean, we had bench, we had squat and
they all went out and got pledges. And when they
came back and went through their lifts to conclude the
spring season, they had raised fifty thousand dollars and at
the spring game we presented the McGillis family with a
(44:44):
check for fifty thousand dollars. Now that started the wheels
in motion for me that if I could find a family,
if a family was in trouble, that I could help
a family who had a child with cancer that I
could help. We were going to do it, and I
was going to do it in in a practical way.
We're all about. The Jfund is about a roof over
(45:06):
their heads, food on their table, ass in their tank,
taking care of all the things that a family function
breaks down on when you have to be there for
the child. And I know this for a fact. The child,
no matter how old he or she is, knows when
a parents and a family is stressed, and when they're stressed,
(45:29):
they cannot give the attention that's needed to the child
so that the child heals. So that's what we have done.
Since nineteen ninety six, we have directly impacted over five thousand,
seven hundred families at twenty four million dollars of payments
(45:49):
to them just so that they can take care of
the necessities of life the other siblings. Who means so
many of these kids have two and three brothers and
sisters that quite frankly get a little bit ignored because
the whole attention has to go to the sick child. Well,
this is where we come in too. We have sibling
programs and caregiver programs, all kinds of things that we
(46:13):
do throughout the course of the year to help the
entire family fight this tragic disease and get the child
to a point where the disease is cured. We know
it's not that way for life. You're always impeded in
some way because of the treatments. But you you get
past the actual cancer.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
That's amazing. That's amazing, that's great. That that that that
you took that moment and turned it into that. I
want to ask both of you, that's the that's the
super specific story. Is there anything Let me put it
this way. You could have had that experience and then gone, wow,
(46:56):
that's so sad, Okay, what's next, and not taken this
moment and created this foundation. You know, Eli, You've done
a whole bunch of different levels of giving back in
the course of your life and during your career in
the NFL. I know, I've often said for myself that
(47:17):
when I started out, the last thing I wanted to
think about was anything other than KB. I was so
just completely self focused on my career, on getting ahead
on all these kinds of things. And then there's kind
of becomes whether it's a single moment or or something
that's the groundwork is laid in your childhood, or you
(47:41):
have an event or something, sometimes people start moving in
another direction in terms of some of their time and
their resources and their fame and their power and all
the kind of thing. And that's really what this this
podcast has focused on. So, but I'm wondering from both
of you, starting with you, Eli, was there something early
(48:03):
on that laid the groundwork for you now having this
desire to do something positive in the world.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, I think it was. It was when I was
in college. I was that old miss and we actually
had a you know, a team function where he said, Hey,
we're you know, ahole teams that go visit a children's
hospital or the hospital there and be kids there. And
I remember, you know, going in and it was just
me as like an eight year old kid. And I
go in there and I see him and he's, you know,
not feeling well. He's going through chemo therapy and has
(48:34):
cancer and the kid was just real quiet, and I
was in there. I didn't quite know what to say.
I'm trying to, you know, ask him what he likes,
if he plays any sports, with his favorite TV shows.
I'm not I'm just not getting much. I'm getting these
little word work answers. And I remember kind of leaving
and going that didn't that didn't help. Like I think
the kid feels worse that I was in there, like
(48:55):
you know he did I signed an autograph for me,
you know, did it? You didn't seem really excited for
And I remember it was like a week later and
I saw one of the nurses that I didn't remember
seeing her, but she came up to me just so
as I was around campus or in downtown and oftor Misissippi,
and she says, you know that little boy that you visit,
(49:15):
he's been talking about what a great visit that was.
Every doctor that's come into his room. He's got a
big smile to him about Eli Mannings, you know, signed
this autograph for me, showed me this picture. We talked
about sports and you know, my sisters and my brother
and our family, and he just she said, his spirit
and his attitude was completely different that next week. And
(49:37):
so right then it just hit me that you can
make a difference and and and not just on that,
but just some how you treat people and shaking a hand,
having a conversation with a child, but a sick child,
just you know, showing that you want to be there
with them, that you're you know, there's people out there
that care about them, that are thinking about them, that
are praying for can have a huge impact just their
(49:59):
out look and and their their mindset. And so that
was kind of the start of what, I need to
do this more and I need to go see, you know,
help out more. When I got up here to the
Giants and and I said, I need to make an
impact in this community and want to help out kids
that are dealing with cancer and just help lift their spirits.
And that was kind of the beginning of it. And
then it says, well, now I want to I want
(50:20):
to raise money for it. I want to try to
find you know, make sure we're finding curious to heal
these kids, to make sure if they get cancer, they're
getting back home to their families, they're getting back to
their friend back to school, that they're gonna be kids again.
And that was kind of the start of of tackling
Kids cancer and getting that going, and that initiative is
just really raising money for for pediatric cancer research, UH
(50:42):
to get these kids back healthy.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
And coach, I'll tell you all the impact, how how
the people like Eli impact and I have I have,
I have a story. So when I was with the Giants,
even here, when I was with the Jaguars, in the spring,
we would have we call Sunday Blitz, and it would
mean that we would bring the cancer kids over through
the facility and their parents and their siblings come to
(51:09):
the facility and spend what a mouse to an afternoon
with us, and we would have them in the training
room and the trainers would tape the kids up, you know,
and we would take them the weight room. We'd have
some rookies performed for them in weight programs, and we
would take them in the in the facility and if
we if they could go through some obstacle courses and
(51:31):
do some things, we would do that, and then we
would take them down to the cafeteria. We'd have ice
cream Sundays and hamburgers and hot dogs and whatever. So
this one particular year, I was aware of the fact
that there was a young boy who you know, was
very very sick, he was close to dying, and he
(51:54):
had one desire in life, and that was to be
with Eli Manning. So the day of the Sunday Blitz,
the young man and his dad he was sick and
he was in the hospital, and we didn't think he
was going to get out of the hospital to be
at the Sunday Blitz. So the afternoon went by and
Eli was helping, you know, as we had players help
(52:16):
with all this. Eli was helping. But it came the
end of the day was five in the afternoon. Eli
went home. So I'm walking from the indoor facility over
to the main office facility and up comes the dad
with his son, and he's carrying his son. They were
in the hospital. He gets his son out of the hospital.
(52:36):
He brings the little guy to the offices. But really
the afternoon is over. I pick up the phone. I
call Eli. He had gone home. So Eli gets in
his car, he drives back. He spends about a half
an hour with this little boy and his dad, and
(52:57):
about a week later, the little boy passes away. I
get a letter from his dad telling me the greatest
thing that ever happened to this little guy in his
life was spending half an hour with Eli Manning. And
that's what it means to these kids.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
When I tell them they're special.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
They are special because if the average kid can't have
what what we're gonna do for you. We're gonna we're
gonna expose you to a lot of things the average
kid can't. But the idea of spending time that Eli
Manning and a lot of our guys would spend time
with these kids makes a huge impact on them.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
That is a beautiful, beautiful story. I would love to
at this point hear the call to action? How can people.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Help out?
Speaker 1 (53:53):
How can where do people go? Any uh any plugs
that anybody wants to make for any thing at this moment,
I'm Mike, is yours?
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Well, we talk about this, show us your team, Tackle
Kids Cancer, the TCJ Fund. We're in this together. We
complement each other very well. Eli and his foundation, as
he said, we're they're trying to put an end to cancer,
which we all want. Okay, the J Fund is of
(54:28):
practical nature, and we work together and complement each other
very well. But in so doing and talking about this,
there's no doubt it's the t at TCJ Fund at
Tackle Kids Cancer. And you know, contributions are what this
is all about. It's about being able to be in
(54:49):
a position to help. And so I would leave you
with that thought.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Well, I hope that people listening to this will certainly
be moved by the work that both you were doing.
You know, children are everything, Uh, you know, and and
you know, help out, donate, check out the check out
the work, give what you can and uh and I
(55:16):
want to thank you guys so much for being here today.
It's been fascinating conversation. It's not that often that we have, uh,
two celebrities. Generally we have one celebrity and then the
on the unsung hero who is running the foundation. But
to have two major New York heroes is a very
(55:37):
very is really an honor. And I'll just ask you this.
We could cut this out. Was there ever a moment
during those years where uh, you you just we're afraid
to go to Boston.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
I don't get up there much even now, even now,
I have a feeling I'm not going to get a
warm welcome if I go up there. Coach, how about you?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
You know I was I was an assistant at Boston
College for three years and the head coach for three years.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Oh that's right, of course, that's of course.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
I had a chance to be around Boston a little bit,
but and still have many many friends of many connections
and and my son in law played at Boston College.
My daughter Kate went to Boston College, so no, I have.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Even worse, even worse. Do you ever pick up the
phone coach and try to book a room there and
for some reason there's no there's no rooms in the
available in the entire Boston area. Thank you guys so much.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
For being here.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
I've had a blast, and everybody help help out if
you can't.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Thanks Devin.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Degrees with Kevin Bacon. I enjoyed that. I hope you
did too. If you want to learn more about the
Tom Coughlin Jfund and all the work that they are
up to, head to their website tcjfund dot org. That's
tcjfund dot org. You can find all the links in
(57:13):
our show notes, and if you want to hear more,
make sure you subscribe to the show and tune into
the rest of the episodes. You can find Six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts support wherever you
get your podcasts. See you next time.
Okay, so full disclosure. When I was a kid boy,
I really didn't follow sports at all. I followed rock
and roll, and for some reason, those two things were
not going hand in hand for me. But as I've
grown older, I've become more and more of a sports fan.
(00:21):
It was kind of moving to New York and I
think falling in love with the New York Knicks, and
I now really do both enjoy it and admire the
people that do it incredibly well. A lot of it
is because I just look at it and go, man,
that's something I just can't do and never will be
(00:42):
able to. So it's very exciting to me today to
get a chance to speak to our next guest, the
great two time Super Bowl champion quarterback of the New
York Giants, Eli Manning. I think you're going to enjoy
our conversation, and I think I think you'll be surprised
at his guest.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So lean in.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm glad you're here. Well, thank you the great Eli
Manning for being here with me today. You are our
first celebrity from the world of sport as they say
(01:27):
in the UK, or sports as you would know it
in this country. You know it's there's so much There's
so many things that are so fun about this conversation
to me, one of which is that you're doing one
of those jobs that like I look at that and
I go, there is no chance I would make it
(01:49):
through five minutes of that job. The amount of training,
the amount of concentration, the way that you you know,
put your body on the line all the time. I mean,
you know the funny thing about being an actor is
that you know, for inside, just give you an example,
like I've played I think four Marines, okay, And so
(02:14):
sometimes people will come up to me and say, boy,
you really seem like a marine. And I'll say, let
me tell you something that I could never be a marine.
I've met marines and I've seen what they do, and
and I am. I am actor boy. So what does
that feel like to, uh, you know, make those kind
of sacrifices with your body.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Day in and day out. I think I think you
just get used to it. You start doing it at
such a young age I was. I mean, I played
flag football growing up. I really didn't start tackled till
eighth grade, and you just get used to hitting as
the quarterback. I think a lot of your hits are
after a throw. That's kind of when you're your most vulnerable.
You're kind of throwing your in a bad position. Someone
(02:58):
comes hits you, but at that moment, you're so focused
on wondering what happened after the throw. You're trying to
look in between cracks of linemen and people. Sometimes you're
just listening to the crowd. You know, if you're at
home and you hear tears, you know, all right, that
was completed. If you hear kind of nothing, or who's
maybe you know, incomplete, if you hear you know, booze
(03:20):
or you know, real silence, you know, maybe interceptions. So
I think you're so you're so focused and on those
things that you don't have time to think about the pain.
It's really the next the next morning after the game
is where you you know, you know you're gonna have
some bumps and bruises. But as I've as I've retired
from football, watching it and having been gone, you know,
been out of it for three years, I like see
(03:42):
the hits and I think the same thing. I'm like,
oh my god, there's no way this guy's getting up
after that hit. And they you know, most of the
times get up and they're on to the next place.
So having been away for for a little bit, it
looks a lot worse, uh now than then I remember it.
When I was playing, I think you just got to
put it. You just don't even think about It's like, oh,
that's just part of the game, and and you don't
worry about the big hits. But uh, they look they
(04:05):
look more painful now that I remember.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well, you know, it's funny because you led me right
into two things. One was one was you know, talking
about the next day, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Movie was North Dallas forty and Nick Nolty climbs into
the ice bath after the game, and I remember looking
at that and going, oh, I don't care how hurt
I was. I'm not climbing into a bath, a bath
full of ice cubes and unless there's you know, it's
filled with vodka and all of But you know, I
(04:35):
just I just found that. I just found that so powerful,
that that image from that movie. And I didn't grow
up as an athlete. I'm terrible with ball sports. We
played on the street, We played Grumphilly and we played
on the street and played you know, stickball, and and uh,
you know, football in the street, you know, tag whatever,
(04:56):
But but I definitely didn't have like the high school,
you know, and to this day, I'm an awful, awful athlete.
But the other thing that you I was I wanted
to ask you about this and you mentioned, you know,
you're in the middle of taking a hit and you've
thrown the ball and you don't know what happens to it.
(05:18):
And so for those of you that haven't seen the
helmet catch, uh to David Tyree, you have to watch this,
uh this replay on YouTube because it's just amazing of
one of them, I'd say it's certainly one of the
most famous plays in Giant's history, I would think, and
(05:40):
probably one of the most famous you know throws and catches.
And Eli is completely surrounded and miraculously about to be
thrown to the ground and he lets the ball go
and then the camera goes off of him. And what
I thought to myself was he didn't even get to
watch see this catch, like, like what you must have
been on the ground already, right, I mean, you did
(06:02):
you even? I mean, was it that thing that you
mentioned just before where you're like I hear whether or
not people are booing me or cheering.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, exactly, and and I, uh, I kind of got hit.
I didn't get all the way knocked down to the ground,
and that went so but it was still crowded, and
David was kind of Rodney Harrisimmons, the defender. He's hanging
all over him, and I see him go to the
ground and they, you know, they call for the catch,
but at that moment, you know, you never know, like
(06:29):
you're trying to maybe run up there and spike it
real quick so they can't review it. But we had
to call a time out under that situation. So and
they're they're they're gonna review it. And I remember going
up to David. I'm like, hey, did you did you
catch it? And He's like, yeah, I caught it. And
I've been lied to by receivers. These receivers that they
may tell you, they tell you they're open, and then
(06:50):
you watch the film they were the double teemed and
on the ground they tell you they caught it. I'm
rather through one to Plexico Burus and you know it's
like a third and it was a second and ten,
so and you call it the first down, and you know,
you're kind of hey, did you catch it so we
can start thinking about when we will run on third
down or what our first down? Please? Yeah, I caught it.
And you see the replay in the bounced like three
times before it got there. I'm like, why are you
(07:11):
lying to me. It's not going to make the call
any different.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Videotape.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, there's video. There's a video. They're going to analyze it.
They're going to get the right call. So David, you know,
it's like, no, don't lie to me. Did you really
catch it? And said, I promise you the ball never
touched the ground. I had it on my helmet, and
that was kind of the first time I was like, really,
you caught it off your helmet.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And uh, you did not see the catch live? You
had you had to go to the video. I had
to go to video, and I kind of watched it.
Watch it up there and you see it, you know,
real quickly, and you know and touching the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Never touches the ground. But we really didn't have time
to analyze like what a great catch it was at
that moment, just because hey, we we still had to
go score a touchdown and try to win the Super Bowl.
Great catch, but it almost if we don't win the game,
then that great play probably is not talked about as much,
or is it, you know, become the great play because
(08:07):
it has to lead to the win of winning a
Super Bowl, which makes it special. And sure I remember
after the game, maybe it was like after the game,
you know, you have an after party. Obviously you're celebrating
your friends and family. I get back to the hotel
with my wife at you know, three in the morning,
and we had an early press conference next morning, so
I at like a six o'clock wake up, Paul, and
(08:28):
I'm gone, well, I haven't seen like the replay yet.
I want to see the highlights. I got to go
watch ESPN, and I want to see like the the
David Tyree catch again and see see how good it was.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, that's amazing to me. And you know, speaking of which,
as as as you know, as we know, you did
go on to win that Super Bowl, and that was
the first one, right, that was the yeah, two thousand
and eight, and and you know, it was quite as
a spectacular moment. And actually the scoring touchdown was sort
(09:04):
of like the polar opposite catch, right, because it was
just like a just a nice little toss and you
just kind of went up, I got the ball and
we just wanted to right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It was wide open, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
It was with drama. There was there was no drama
in that catch at all. So it was a great contrast.
When you become an actor, you know, you you go
out there and you go, well, I'm gonna make this movie. Uh,
(09:39):
you know, and I'm not even going to entertain this thought,
but way sometimes in the back of your mind you're thinking,
this is going to be a breakout hit, or this
is going to be an Oscar winner, or this is
going to take me to the next level or whatever
it happens to be. You know, you sometimes have these
like kind of overreaching fantasies, delusions of grandeur. But it
(10:04):
takes a long time to find out what the upshot
is of the of the project that you've done. And
and you know, sometimes a year or so after after
you've made it, the film comes out when you're the
middle of a football season. Uh, you're constantly in the
in the moment. My question is when you start out,
(10:28):
do you uh, do you keep in the back of
your mind the idea that you could win a Super
Bowl and that stranger things have happened, or do you
have to just kind of go game the game, the game,
the game and put that out of your head.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, I think you really, you really got to go
game the game, the game. And I think once you
even you know, you go through stretches where you're playing
great football. We went through stretches where we you know,
we won six games in a row, and you feel like, oh,
we can't you know, we can't lose, like we're playing
great And once you start thinking that, usually you get
humbled real quickly and you just got to have one
of those games where nothing goes right and you and
(11:06):
you get beat quickly and badly, and it kind of
gets you. All right, let's get back to the basics.
Let's get back to focusing on doing you know, what
we need to do. Make sure we're preparing correctly all
week and and because if you don't, if you don't
go out there and and and like do the little
things really well and pay attention to the details and
have great you know, everybody you know has to have
(11:27):
great weeks of preparation and work, then then you get embarrassed.
And so it's not just one person, it's I mean,
it's all twenty two guys, eleven guys on offense, eleven
guys on defense that you know, they all have to
do their job. If one person, you know it has
an off week where they don't prepare well, they don't
know the assignments, it's a it's on a script. You know,
the each play does not have a chance if even
(11:50):
one person is doing something wrong or or just not
doing it at a high level. And so it's you
got to everybody has to buy in, uh to the idea.
It's just one week at a time. It's about this week,
how we perform, how are we gonna go out there
and prepare and let's go play hard and worry about
this one and just getting into the playoffs. It's about
(12:10):
it's about finding a way to get to the playoffs.
And then there that's when really anything can happen, and
you can get hot at the right time and and
you know, play a team that might be better than
you and they might beat you ninety nine at one
hundred times, but that one day you might catch the breaks.
You might you know, just you know, find a guy
who's struggled, or you know, ball bounce in certain ways
(12:30):
where you can win that certain day and that's what
you're playing for.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
M Now, going back, your dad, Archie Manning, was a
great player in his own right and you know, had
a you know, fantastic career.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You and.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Your brother Peyton, but also your other brother. We're all
of players, all football players. Was there any a moment, ever,
a moment where one of you was thinking, I don't know,
maybe dental school or or I don't interior design anything that.
Were there ever any other options there? Or was it
all it? Did it have to be football?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It didn't have to be football? But we we definitely
were into sports. And I mean I played basketball pla basketball, Yeah,
through high school, all through through high school. So what
I think a lot of people maybe assume my dad
had this master plan of creating NFL quarterbacks as he
was an NFL quarterback, And nothing could really be further
(13:30):
from the truth. Uh, you know, we had we did
well in school, but we played, We played a lot
of sports. He just thought, you know, sports were great, Uh,
you know, great way to learn life lessons and dedication
and hard work and commitment. Uh, dealing with losses, dealing
with success, in handling all those things. Uh, you know,
(13:51):
just the team work that goes into it, and so,
uh he wanted us to play sports, but he never
got too involved in our sports. Uh he He kind
of always said, hey, I live my sports dream. You know,
if you want to get into it, I'm here to
support you. But I'm never going to be the guy saying, hey,
you got to go out and work out, or you know,
I'm going to put you in this drill. You know,
(14:11):
he just wanted us to make our own decisions, for
us to find our own path, and it just so
happened just from an early age. I don't know why.
We could just throw the football pretty well. So I
mean even like in fifth grade at recess at school,
you know, I mean you've quickly learned if whatever team
we were all on and playing quarterback, we usually won
(14:33):
that game. And so eventually I just became the permanent
quarterback on both sides. To make it fair, I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Steady steady we call it. We would play with a steady.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, steady. So I remember after a while, I was like, hey,
I want to try something else. I want to play receiver.
I want to catch it touched down, And I quickly
learned that I'm not very fast. I don't catch the
ball very well, and so I wasn't getting fall that often,
and I was like, this is this is worse. I'll
go back to play steady and being able to permanent QB.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
All right, Oh wow, that's that's fascinating. And what about
your mom? I mean, did she did she have moments
of like, I'm I'm sending my little boys out here,
you know, to get sacked.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, I think that was that was hard. I feel
I feel for my mom. She she has had to
watch way too many football games where you have I
think with the with my dad, it wasn't too hard
if he got hit, but with their with their little
boys and her kids, you know, just getting getting hit,
getting sacked a bunch you know, losses. So all she
cared was us coming out of the game healthy and
(15:36):
she was always there for a big hug afterwards, win
or lose, and just wanted us to be you know,
be safe, be healthy. And but she's watched, she's watched
a lot of football games. She's had to deal with
a lot of losses. But uh, you know, we got
a couple of championships to to be happy about as well.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I love what what what your dad was pointing out about,
uh learning to deal with successes and failures, because I
really feel like that is you know, I have two
kids that they're not athletes, but they are in in
uh my son's a musician and my daughter's an actor.
And and you know, you are thrown into this world
(16:14):
where you don't have a steady gig. The the success
or failure of your of your career trajectory is all
on on wins and losses, and like that's a real
kind of seesaw sort of life to have to live
and uh and the idea that in order to uh
(16:40):
accomplish those successes you have to be part of a
team are really really good messages I think for for
young people. And and you know, we but like I said,
they don't they were not playing sports. But I think
that we've tried to kind of you know, pound that
into them. Uh that both but both of those concepts
(17:03):
teamwork and also you know, don't don't get too happy,
don't get too full of yourself when it when you
when you have a win, because you know, you know
things are going to change down the road and and
you know when you have a when when things don't
work out, you know, are you in it for the
long haul? Are you going to let this this one,
(17:24):
you know, knock you knock you down forever? So so
those are those are great messages I've had to I've
not had to.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I have.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I luckily have a band with my brother that we've
had since nineteen ninety five. And there's two things about
you know, I'm constantly trying to find things that, as
I said at the beginning of the podcast, it's very
hard for me to relate to this, to you and
the life that you've had and the and the gig
that you do. But so I'm trying to find these
kind of you know, connections, which is about this what
(17:55):
this podcast is about. You know, I get this question
all the time, and I find it ultimately, I find
it sort of irritating. But you work with your brother
in you know, multiple capacities, whether it's commercials or your
or your broadcast together, and how how is that working relationship?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Basically there's a lot of rock bands that have ended
up literally taking a swing at each other on stage.
Who are brothers?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I mean there's like that's a face like the Everly's
hate each other. You know, the Kinks, the Oasis. It's
like the list just goes on and on and on.
So everybody always says to me and Michael, you guys,
how can you play together? You must hate each other.
Uh So I'm curious about about I'm sending this dumb
question back your way.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah. No, I think I think Peyton and I are
fortunate that for our broadcast, I'm in New Jersey doing
it and he's in Denver, so we're not even in
the same room. So okay, no punches can be thrown,
and we definitely take shots at each other, and that's
we're both uh uh. You know, I think it's a
football player just deal with the media, deal with the
(19:12):
locker room. Like our number one rule is you can't
be sensitive. There's no sensitivity in here because if you
if people find that out, then they'll they just come
at you even more. And so we just you know,
we're we kind of go. You know, we're gonna take
you know, if you mess up, it actually works out
better I think and broadcasting. If you mess up, if
(19:32):
I say something wrong, I you know, pronounce a name
incorrectly or make a wrong call, Peyton's gonna call me
out before the media has the opportunity to call me
out because he's gonna be a media and if I'm
gonna get called out by somebody, rather really be for
my brother. But we definitely take shots at each other.
And I think it's also good that we don't do
every game. We kind of we'll do maybe two or
three in a row, and then we need a break,
(19:54):
and usually during that break for a week or two,
like we don't even talk to each other. It's like,
all right, I need I need a full time from you.
I don't want to talk to you. I don't have
to see that often. But we we have a good relationship,
and I think it's I think it's because, uh, he's
five years older than me, so growing up, we never
really competed against each other. It's always been a support deal.
(20:17):
It's always been, you know, him kind of helping me
through high school or helping me through college. And then
we got to the NFL. We competed against each other
three times, and then it didn't work that well for
me at three against some so I didn't I didn't
have much to fight about or to argue.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Did your mom take him aside and say, can you
just let Eli win one come on.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
This one time. There's one time. Yeah, because I am
the baby, I am I am mom's favorite, of course,
of course, and so I think she probably did try
to try to do that. But we've always just tried
to help each other out and really support each other.
So I think that's kept us kept us close. And
and again we don't have to be around each other
too much, and that keeps us. I think that keeps
(20:59):
us close.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Also, Yeah, you know, it's so funny. That's that it's
a pretty much word for word at what our answer is,
and that is that we don't live together. You know,
we don't even really talk necessarily that much, but then
we come together to play the show, you know, and
we do the show and then the show is great.
But but we don't but it's not it's not like
(21:22):
we're you know, checking in. And the other thing is
that I you know, I don't know what it is,
but if you get a little bit for us it's
nine years, if you get some some space in between
the two ages, it definitely helps. And I'm the youngest
of six, so it's a it's a you know, it's
a you know, kind of a similar situation. You know,
(21:45):
there there was a funny connection that I that I
thought of, you know, because of the whole goofy you know,
six degrees thing. But uh, you know, you had a show.
I don't think it's on any more. College Both Is
that still long? The College Bowl reboot Bowl?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah? Yeah, papers got hosted. I was just like an
executive producer whatever that means on the show. But yeah,
College Ball it's I don't know if they're doing another season.
They've had two seasons of it so far. Two seasons, right.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I did a movie called Diner many many years ago,
and in that movie, it took place in the I
think nineteen sixty one. I am sitting there all alone
in my apartment. There's a scene where I'm sitting there
all alone in my apartment and I'm watching College Bowl.
And that just shows you how long that show has
(22:38):
been on the air. The movie, it was a period
piece and I'm yelling at the television and saying, you
get the wrong answer. I like, this character gets the
answer before everybody else. And it was just this weird
thing where, you know, I never really understood the scene.
(22:59):
I didn't understand and like why it was why people
liked it, but people had this great reaction to it
because they felt like it showed that the character was
smart and that you didn't really get that and any
of the other scenes. So how did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Were you?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Were you a contestant or were I never?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I never went all. This was kind of for college
college kids, uh, and an opportunity for them to earn
some you know, scholarships and for them to compete against
each other in a in like a quiz show type deal.
So I just, uh, it was actually fun being both
my brothers were on it together and I just got
to I got to watch and analyze and to tell
(23:42):
tell them my thoughts. So now that's what was good
or bad. So I don't know if they listened to
any of them, but it was fun critiquing my two
older brothers in a show and you know, talking about
what they did wrong or their mistakes.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well, you mentioned that in the broadcast you get to
stay in at home and your brother stays at home
or stays where he lives. Did what was the road
like for you? Because how many years were you? Were
you in the NFL?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean that's sixteen years of being on the road,
and I'm just curious, like for a lot of reasons,
the just the toil of you know, like like I
can tell you, you know, in certain terms, that hotels no
longer hold any kind of interest to me. The first
(24:35):
time I ever went in one, I was like, this
is the greatest thing. You know, I don't have to
do my laundry or whatever it is. You know, somebody
makes the bed. But now I there's no romance left
for me in terms of that, And so I'm just
wondering what that's like for sixteen years and on your
your family and the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, So I think I think football is different than
a lot of other sports. Is really our weeks are
exactly the same every week, and it really really difference.
If you're if you're at home, you stay at a
hotel Saturday night and you have to be there, you know,
around six or seven o'clock, and you play the game
the next day and you're you know, you're kind of
back home with your family around you know, four thirty
(25:16):
five o'clock and you get to be with them. If
you're if you're on away game, you leave, you know,
you have practice Saturday morning, you leave around one o'clock
and you basically come back right after the game on Sunday,
so you know, you're on you're a gone really Saturday
night of the week, and the rest of the week
is you know, very schedule your practice at the same
time every day you meet. You're kind of home around
(25:37):
the same time for dinner. So it's a pretty good,
uh family life situation. I mean, you're you're you're gone
during the day and you're still going on the weekends
a little bit. But your family is can you know,
come come to the game and watch you on Sunday,
which is exciting. So uh, it's different from baseball or basketball,
where you might have these two week road trips. Right
(25:58):
you're traveling around and really away from the family. So uh,
training camp is the only time training camp you're you're
you You go away for like a you know, three
weeks to a month. A lot of times you're in
a dorm room and you're together in trade binding. That
was kind of the hardest time. Once you start having
young kids and and you know, tell the life all right,
I'll see I'll see in a month. Good good luck,
(26:20):
all right, you know you can figure it out.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, well except for the fact that, I mean, you're
you're gonna have to go and live some place where
you get drafted, and that, right is that's kind of
a fascinating thing. You don't, I don't. I don't see
people talking about that that much. I mean, I'm sure
that I don't know, is there is there what? What
(26:43):
would you say is a stronger pull the place, uh
or the team or the conference or the or the
legacy or what what? What? What? Or where?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
What?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What are the what are the what where the coach?
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's tough. Yeah, I mean I think you like, as
you said, you don't have a choice, like you get
you get drafted, you go wherever you're going. I think
you know you're excited to play play football. For me,
I was excited to come to the to the Giants
just because they're a you know, just a great organization,
been on the original teams, they've been around for so long,
great ownership. You know. I knew coach Coughlin was gonna
(27:25):
be the head coach. He was coming into his first year,
so I just I knew a lot about the history
of the Giants and what they stood for and and
you know, really was excited to come to this organization,
come to New York. But you know it is different
all of a sudden, you know, yeah, you're twenty three
years old. You're like, all right, you're moving to New
(27:45):
Jersey where they practice. You can you know, go go
find an apartment, go figure it out and start your life.
And so, you know, lucky to have my mom. My
mom was very helpful in that. Like I was like, well,
what just finding a place to live. I was all
of a sudden, you come up here and I'm like,
I'm in practice all day. I'm trying to learn this playbook.
I'm trying to, you know, figure out how to be
(28:06):
a quarterback at this level. I don't have time to
figure out, you know, where am I, Where am I
going to live? How do I get a bed? How
do I you know, get a sofa and TV? So
fortunately have my mom come up and kind of you know,
handle handle that for me and listen. You know, I
think you try to do so much as a young
player where you can just focus on football and focus
(28:27):
on trying to you know, you's got drafted a lot
of pressure're you know, first first picking the draft, You're
coming to this, you'll be the quarterback. You You've got
these you know, these great athletes and and you Michael
straighthand and Tiki Barber and these guys that you you
don't want to disappoint them. And you've got to try
to raise your level play real quickly to get where
you can be successful and win games and and and
(28:49):
you know, uh kind of please the crowd and the organization,
and so you want to you know, be totally committed
to that and and not have to worry about anything
outside of football.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us
in supporting six degrees dot org by texting the word
Bacon to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift
empowers us to continue to produce programs that highlight the
incredible work of everyday heroes, well also enabling us to
provide essential resources to those that need.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It the most.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Once again, text b a c N to seven zero
seven zero seven zero or visit six degrees dot org
to learn more.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We have the great coach Tom Coughlin with us today,
which is absolute honor. Tom. Thank you so much for
joint You guys know each other, right, Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, I've got some great stories for you too, Kevin
fire Away, coach. I gotta tell you this because I
get a video. I think Archie's son it to me,
it might have been Eli's sonate to me one time.
This tells you how Eli grew up. So the video goes,
Archie's got the camera and you had Cooper and Peyton
(30:12):
out by the basketball who you know, threw the throw
the basketball up and horse and around with each other
and they're just little guys. Out comes Olivia with Eli's
just a little baby. He's a few months old. So
the next thing you see, Archie's got the camera and
the two brothers are even Eli back and forth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
They're dropping and passing.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
You know?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
The next day ringing up to Eli, you know, wait
a few years ago or whenever this happened, and he goes, yeah,
I wanted to thank my dad for how we got
the out yard and he's the camera man, and these
guys are even me around the parking lot.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh god, did they put it? Did they at least
put a helmet on them?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Or no? No, no helmet, no helmet. H I remember
telling my dad was like, hey, Dad, you did think
about maybe putting the camera down for a little bit
as I'm being tossed around between two people, was like, no, no,
this was this could be in a documentary one day.
Let me need to catch this live footage, like it's
not this is great stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And where can we see that footage?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Coach?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Do you do you have that footage? Can you share
it with us?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Please?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You have to dig that out.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah, oh that is amazing. So but that's interesting. So, uh,
you were already aware of him from his infancy when
when he came to the Giants?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, I didn't see that picture till after.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Oh it wasn't until after. Oh I thought maybe you were.
You were in communication with Archie from from from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Now okay, well no, not quite.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Ok Had you been tracking his career? Is his college career?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Oh yeah absolutely? Uh yeah, hey his career at all?
Miss but Ernie Corsi, who actually drafted Eli, Ernie, he
followed him troums from day one, and I'll never forget.
We went to New Orleans or his for Eli's workout, Okay,
and it was at the Saints indoor facility.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And this is the.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Difference between Bade and Eli. Archie telling me the store
so Archie says, yeah, he gets a hold of Eli. Supposedly,
maybe the workouts at one o'clock and the whole NFL
is that the whole place is full enough. But scouts,
head coaches, general managers, everybody's there waiting to watch this
guy work out. So you get, this is Archie telling
(32:38):
me the store. He said, I give I'm looking around.
I don't see Eli. So I called Eli on the
phone and I said, this is Eli, this is Archie.
Where are you? Where the heck are you Elio? It's
twelve thirty at a one o'clock workout, he said, Dan,
the workouts at one. I stopped to have something to
eat before it came to don't work.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
They said, of Peyton.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
If it was Peyton, Ayton would have been there selling program.
It was at ten o'clock the morning. But that's that
was the difference.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That was the difference.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Everybody not Lad.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
He's he's hungry, he's starving. Yeah, I'm watching. And he
gets to the place and he's got four or five
guys that he was working out with as receivers, and
he comes in and you know, he's a little shy,
and he's kind of he throws a couple of passes
on the sideline, he goes out. He puts on the
(33:38):
best demonstration of passing that I had ever been around.
Everything he can imagine, with a bunch of guys he
didn't play with, but he worked out a little bit.
These guys may have caught the ball for him.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's happening.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
That was Eli's pro debut, this pro workout.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Can you tell me, Eliu, because I want to throw
a ball like that? What did you have for lunch?
Do you remember him?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sort of? Yeah, probably I was down in New Orleans,
so probably like a big old shrimp poe boy. It's
really it really sits well, you know, a bunch of
private food and bread. When you're when you're twenty two
years old, you don't think about you know, at that
you know, twenty twenty some id years ago, you didn't
think about diet or eating something you know that might
affect your performance. But yeah, so things would change a
(34:23):
little bit. But yeah, New Orleans probably, Yeah, I think
a shrimp poe boy from Don Alisis is probably they
go to there you go.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I love hearing that, so it brings up a good
question for both of you. You mentioned, you know, the
first thing I thought of when you had a shrimp
Poe boy, was that that would be a situation where
I would certainly be nervous. I mean, it is essentially,
you know, an audition, right, It is essentially a It's
(34:53):
it's like it's like the audition for the big show
or the big movie. You're meeting the big director, and
I'm wondering, coach, do you, if you're looking at a player,
do you look at nerves as being part of the
(35:13):
skill set of how to handle the nerves being part
of what you need to play in the NFL?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Absolutely, in this situation, it's how do you handle the
circumstances that you're in? Yeah, you know, you've got the
whole NFL there. It's a like you say, it's a
big deal now, you know. Maybe you go away saying,
if you're looking at a quarterback, you know, he didn't
throw the outcut very well, the comeback was a strained
(35:40):
throw for him, or you know, he didn't seem to
react well after. You know, he missed a couple of
balls and so on and so forth. So you're watching,
You're watching all this, you're taking it all in. You
know what kind of an athlete, does he how does
he work with people that he really just barely knows
these guys, you know, how does he handle that? How
do they react? You know, the whole deal. He gets
(36:02):
a little time with people afterwards to talk to them,
so you get a little bit more information out of them.
But in general, how does he approach it? How does
he handle it? And then you know, when when it's
time to go, when it's time to start, what do
you have to prove yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
How do you do m right?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Fascinating? I guess you just get a chance to let's
kind of look at those signs and and and just
try to get a read on that. I mean, I again,
I keep thinking about you know, sometimes I've been on
the other side of the camera and you know, looking
at actors and auditions and trying to get past the
(36:44):
fact that it is an auditioned situation and that maybe
there's something that's there that I'm not seeing because they
are somehow you know, uh, nervous or shooting themselves in
the foot. But on the other on the other hand,
this is the big moment, so they got to be
able to step up. So it's a it's a it's
a it's a it's a confusing kind of thing. What
(37:07):
was how would you guys categorize your working incredibly successful
working relationship during the time that you were at the
Giants With the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Giants, Well, first of all, Eli was great with studying.
You know, he would while other people are off on
a Tuesday, he'd be in there already getting a head
start on the opponent. What the opponent. And that's basically
what I'm all about. The work ethic is very very
important to me because I want to know. I want
(37:38):
to know if you're willing to buy into an act
as if you own or possess the franchise. This is
what I want. I want you to I want you
to take ownership of what you're doing. I want to see,
I want to see that it's really important to you.
I want to see that you make the little sacrifices
in order to be the best that you can be.
(38:00):
And that's really what you know, what what I was
all about was trying to get people to be the
very best thing that they could be. And you've already
mentioned a couple of things. You know, teamwork, it's all
about team. It's not about the individual. It's never about
the individual. It's always about the team because football, with
eleven people on the field, you put your trust to
(38:21):
that guy next to you and he puts his trust
in you. Are you going to let him down? Are
you going to let everybody down? Because you didn't prepare properly.
So that's and it's not easy. You know, try it
over a seventeen eighteen week period where on Monday, you know,
these guys are, they're beat up. This is this is
(38:42):
not a game for the feint of heart. You know,
you want to stand on the sidelines and listen to this.
It's it's like whoa, It gets your attention. I mean,
it is all about the physicality of the game, even
from the quarterback position. So those are the kind of
things that that people must be able to to send
you those kind of vibes. Their consistency, their work ethic,
(39:06):
you know, the study as she goes. Because as I said,
it's it's not a game of you know, it's not
a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, you know, it's let's go ahead, Eli.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I was just gonna say, Kevin, I learned quickly, you
know what what I had to do to be a
quarterback under under coach Coaulfland. And there's the first first week.
I was not the starter of Kurt Warners, the starter
my rookie year. And he said, you know, after that
first game, he says, all right, every blitz at this,
(39:41):
you know, we played the egos, every blitz that the
Eagles did versus I want you to draw up those
blitzes versus our five main protections that we have in
past game and how you protect them and and do it.
And so they did, you know, maybe eight to ten blitzes,
and I drew up first each you know, for each
each protect So it's like kind of fifty drawings, and I,
(40:02):
you know, have it, have it out there, and I
handed into coach Cofflin. He graded it, and so all
of a.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sudden, this was after the game.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
This was after the game, after the game, kind of
after that next week, just so I learned about how
to set protections, how to do things. So the next
week we have another says I want you to do
it again. And so I just did it for that
second gig, you know that, or I just didn't in
preparation of the team we're about to play. And no, no,
you have to do both the games that they've played.
So I now I had to do one hundred, you know,
(40:29):
I did do. All of a sudden, it's like week eight,
I'm handed in a four hundred you know, drawing deal
to coach golf, and in a few of them, I
kind of said, well, I can relax. He's like, there's
no way he's reading through all these protecting He's got
to worry about the starting quarterback. He's got to worry
about everything else going on being the head coach. Like
I'll kind of just like, you know, scribble through a
(40:49):
few of these and not do it. All of a sudden,
you know, he calls me in the office and it's like,
you know, what the hell is this? Like what is that?
This is not? This is yes, this is terrible, Like
what are you doing? So I learned quickly that, you know,
preparation was very important to him. Being five minutes early
was number one. Deal had to be five minutes early,
(41:12):
be well prepared, And you got to love what you're doing.
You gotta love the game of football. You have to
love you know that you know, do those things. If
you do those three things, you can play for this
man for a long time and you'll be on the
same page. And as a as an athlete, in a
professional athlete, that should be pretty easy. You think that'd
be pretty easy to handle those three things. And you
(41:34):
think if you amazin, how how you know some people
have a hard time have a hard time doing that.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Well, Coach Coaughlin, I can tell you that I was
before you signed in. I was struck with the fact
that I think, probably maybe for the first time since
I've been doing this podcast, somebody actually showed up early.
And Eli told us that if he wasn't there five
minutes before, he was afraid you were going to find him.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I'm afraid I was that I get fined.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
No, I mean today's no, I mean today, And I
don't know what the rate would be adjusted for inflation,
but I'm guessing it would probably be pretty hefty.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
At this point, five hunder bucks that's the fine. Okay,
that's yeah, one minute later if I'm not five minutes early.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So, speaking of charity, Coach tell us about the J
fun Foundation and about how the story behind it.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Jay Fund was founded in nineteen ninety six in the
spirit and the name of j McGillis. J McGillis was
a strong safety for me. When I was the head
coach of Boston College, Jay unfortunately came down with leukemia
and we played, actually played in Syracuse. Came home after
the game, Fraighter came to me and said, I don't
think Jay can play this week, and I said why not?
(42:52):
He said, well, he's you know, his throw a swollen
and he so on. I said, well, let's let's get
the doctor in here, less, get him, get him. Well,
it wasn't a sore throat, it wasn't some form of virus.
It was leukemia, and it was a ravaging form of leukemia.
By watching what Jay went through and what is family
went through, and going through that whole process, my wife,
(43:17):
Judy and I looked at each other and said, if
we ever get a chance to give back, it's going
to be in the name and the spirit of j McGillis.
And the way it came about is in the spring
of that year before Jay passed, one of my linebackers
came to me and said, Coach, we've got to do
something to help the McGillis family. And I said, well,
(43:39):
sit down, Mike. It was Mike Panels. Sit down, Mike,
let's talk about it, and Mike was very close to
the family. What happens when you're given those words, those
terrible words, Your child has cancered. The family no longer
is able to function as they would want. If there
are two income family, one one parent has to withdraw
(44:00):
off from the job so that they can be the caretaker.
But in watching this, both parents were not working, bills
were being paid, you know, expenses were mounting, and the
McGillis family was going to be in trouble. So Mike
and I talked it through. We decided we would have
what we called a liftathon. The players went out into
the community, they got pledges or in those days we
(44:22):
max lift at the end of spring practice. So we
had power clean, we had bench, we had squat and
they all went out and got pledges. And when they
came back and went through their lifts to conclude the
spring season, they had raised fifty thousand dollars and at
the spring game we presented the McGillis family with a
(44:44):
check for fifty thousand dollars. Now that started the wheels
in motion for me that if I could find a family,
if a family was in trouble, that I could help
a family who had a child with cancer that I
could help. We were going to do it, and I
was going to do it in in a practical way.
We're all about. The Jfund is about a roof over
(45:06):
their heads, food on their table, ass in their tank,
taking care of all the things that a family function
breaks down on when you have to be there for
the child. And I know this for a fact. The child,
no matter how old he or she is, knows when
a parents and a family is stressed, and when they're stressed,
(45:29):
they cannot give the attention that's needed to the child
so that the child heals. So that's what we have done.
Since nineteen ninety six, we have directly impacted over five thousand,
seven hundred families at twenty four million dollars of payments
(45:49):
to them just so that they can take care of
the necessities of life the other siblings. Who means so
many of these kids have two and three brothers and
sisters that quite frankly get a little bit ignored because
the whole attention has to go to the sick child. Well,
this is where we come in too. We have sibling
programs and caregiver programs, all kinds of things that we
(46:13):
do throughout the course of the year to help the
entire family fight this tragic disease and get the child
to a point where the disease is cured. We know
it's not that way for life. You're always impeded in
some way because of the treatments. But you you get
past the actual cancer.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
That's amazing. That's amazing, that's great. That that that that
you took that moment and turned it into that. I
want to ask both of you, that's the that's the
super specific story. Is there anything Let me put it
this way. You could have had that experience and then gone, wow,
(46:56):
that's so sad, Okay, what's next, and not taken this
moment and created this foundation. You know, Eli, You've done
a whole bunch of different levels of giving back in
the course of your life and during your career in
the NFL. I know, I've often said for myself that
(47:17):
when I started out, the last thing I wanted to
think about was anything other than KB. I was so
just completely self focused on my career, on getting ahead
on all these kinds of things. And then there's kind
of becomes whether it's a single moment or or something
that's the groundwork is laid in your childhood, or you
(47:41):
have an event or something, sometimes people start moving in
another direction in terms of some of their time and
their resources and their fame and their power and all
the kind of thing. And that's really what this this
podcast has focused on. So, but I'm wondering from both
of you, starting with you, Eli, was there something early
(48:03):
on that laid the groundwork for you now having this
desire to do something positive in the world.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, I think it was. It was when I was
in college. I was that old miss and we actually
had a you know, a team function where he said, Hey,
we're you know, ahole teams that go visit a children's
hospital or the hospital there and be kids there. And
I remember, you know, going in and it was just
me as like an eight year old kid. And I
go in there and I see him and he's, you know,
not feeling well. He's going through chemo therapy and has
(48:34):
cancer and the kid was just real quiet, and I
was in there. I didn't quite know what to say.
I'm trying to, you know, ask him what he likes,
if he plays any sports, with his favorite TV shows.
I'm not I'm just not getting much. I'm getting these
little word work answers. And I remember kind of leaving
and going that didn't that didn't help. Like I think
the kid feels worse that I was in there, like
(48:55):
you know he did I signed an autograph for me,
you know, did it? You didn't seem really excited for
And I remember it was like a week later and
I saw one of the nurses that I didn't remember
seeing her, but she came up to me just so
as I was around campus or in downtown and oftor Misissippi,
and she says, you know that little boy that you visit,
(49:15):
he's been talking about what a great visit that was.
Every doctor that's come into his room. He's got a
big smile to him about Eli Mannings, you know, signed
this autograph for me, showed me this picture. We talked
about sports and you know, my sisters and my brother
and our family, and he just she said, his spirit
and his attitude was completely different that next week. And
(49:37):
so right then it just hit me that you can
make a difference and and and not just on that,
but just some how you treat people and shaking a hand,
having a conversation with a child, but a sick child,
just you know, showing that you want to be there
with them, that you're you know, there's people out there
that care about them, that are thinking about them, that
are praying for can have a huge impact just their
(49:59):
out look and and their their mindset. And so that
was kind of the start of what, I need to
do this more and I need to go see, you know,
help out more. When I got up here to the
Giants and and I said, I need to make an
impact in this community and want to help out kids
that are dealing with cancer and just help lift their spirits.
And that was kind of the beginning of it. And
then it says, well, now I want to I want
(50:20):
to raise money for it. I want to try to
find you know, make sure we're finding curious to heal
these kids, to make sure if they get cancer, they're
getting back home to their families, they're getting back to
their friend back to school, that they're gonna be kids again.
And that was kind of the start of of tackling
Kids cancer and getting that going, and that initiative is
just really raising money for for pediatric cancer research, UH
(50:42):
to get these kids back healthy.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
And coach, I'll tell you all the impact, how how
the people like Eli impact and I have I have,
I have a story. So when I was with the Giants,
even here, when I was with the Jaguars, in the spring,
we would have we call Sunday Blitz, and it would
mean that we would bring the cancer kids over through
the facility and their parents and their siblings come to
(51:09):
the facility and spend what a mouse to an afternoon
with us, and we would have them in the training
room and the trainers would tape the kids up, you know,
and we would take them the weight room. We'd have
some rookies performed for them in weight programs, and we
would take them in the in the facility and if
we if they could go through some obstacle courses and
(51:31):
do some things, we would do that, and then we
would take them down to the cafeteria. We'd have ice
cream Sundays and hamburgers and hot dogs and whatever. So
this one particular year, I was aware of the fact
that there was a young boy who you know, was
very very sick, he was close to dying, and he
(51:54):
had one desire in life, and that was to be
with Eli Manning. So the day of the Sunday Blitz,
the young man and his dad he was sick and
he was in the hospital, and we didn't think he
was going to get out of the hospital to be
at the Sunday Blitz. So the afternoon went by and
Eli was helping, you know, as we had players help
(52:16):
with all this. Eli was helping. But it came the
end of the day was five in the afternoon. Eli
went home. So I'm walking from the indoor facility over
to the main office facility and up comes the dad
with his son, and he's carrying his son. They were
in the hospital. He gets his son out of the hospital.
(52:36):
He brings the little guy to the offices. But really
the afternoon is over. I pick up the phone. I
call Eli. He had gone home. So Eli gets in
his car, he drives back. He spends about a half
an hour with this little boy and his dad, and
(52:57):
about a week later, the little boy passes away. I
get a letter from his dad telling me the greatest
thing that ever happened to this little guy in his
life was spending half an hour with Eli Manning. And
that's what it means to these kids.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
When I tell them they're special.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
They are special because if the average kid can't have
what what we're gonna do for you. We're gonna we're
gonna expose you to a lot of things the average
kid can't. But the idea of spending time that Eli
Manning and a lot of our guys would spend time
with these kids makes a huge impact on them.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
That is a beautiful, beautiful story. I would love to
at this point hear the call to action? How can people.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Help out?
Speaker 1 (53:53):
How can where do people go? Any uh any plugs
that anybody wants to make for any thing at this moment,
I'm Mike, is yours?
Speaker 3 (54:05):
Well, we talk about this, show us your team, Tackle
Kids Cancer, the TCJ Fund. We're in this together. We
complement each other very well. Eli and his foundation, as
he said, we're they're trying to put an end to cancer,
which we all want. Okay, the J Fund is of
(54:28):
practical nature, and we work together and complement each other
very well. But in so doing and talking about this,
there's no doubt it's the t at TCJ Fund at
Tackle Kids Cancer. And you know, contributions are what this
is all about. It's about being able to be in
(54:49):
a position to help. And so I would leave you
with that thought.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Well, I hope that people listening to this will certainly
be moved by the work that both you were doing.
You know, children are everything, Uh, you know, and and
you know, help out, donate, check out the check out
the work, give what you can and uh and I
(55:16):
want to thank you guys so much for being here today.
It's been fascinating conversation. It's not that often that we have, uh,
two celebrities. Generally we have one celebrity and then the
on the unsung hero who is running the foundation. But
to have two major New York heroes is a very
(55:37):
very is really an honor. And I'll just ask you this.
We could cut this out. Was there ever a moment
during those years where uh, you you just we're afraid
to go to Boston.
Speaker 2 (55:59):
I don't get up there much even now, even now,
I have a feeling I'm not going to get a
warm welcome if I go up there. Coach, how about you?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
You know I was I was an assistant at Boston
College for three years and the head coach for three years.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Oh that's right, of course, that's of course.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
I had a chance to be around Boston a little bit,
but and still have many many friends of many connections
and and my son in law played at Boston College.
My daughter Kate went to Boston College, so no, I have.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Even worse, even worse. Do you ever pick up the
phone coach and try to book a room there and
for some reason there's no there's no rooms in the
available in the entire Boston area. Thank you guys so much.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
For being here.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
I've had a blast, and everybody help help out if
you can't.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Thanks Devin.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Degrees with Kevin Bacon. I enjoyed that. I hope you
did too. If you want to learn more about the
Tom Coughlin Jfund and all the work that they are
up to, head to their website tcjfund dot org. That's
tcjfund dot org. You can find all the links in
(57:13):
our show notes, and if you want to hear more,
make sure you subscribe to the show and tune into
the rest of the episodes. You can find Six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts support wherever you
get your podcasts. See you next time.
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