September 12, 2023 • 49 mins
Three-time Super Bowl Champion, father, husband and businessman Darren Woodson shares how a single mother of four, struggling to pay the bills never gave up on him, and a coach who took a chance on him.
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Twitter: @DarrenWoodson28
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Jacob Schick and I'm joined by my co host
and wife.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Ashley Shick.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
At One Tribe Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only
about the peaks, but also about the valleys they've been
through to get them to where they are today.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Each week, we invite a guests to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shaped
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
our guest's journeys so that we can celebrate the hope
and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. I am so fired up
about our guests today. Three time Super Bowl Champion, five
time Pro Bowler.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Four time first Team All Pro, Dallas Cowboys, all time
leading tackler, and Cowboys' Ring of Honor honoree. He's a father,
a husband, a businessman, a mentor, and he's a leader.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Our guest today is Darren Woodson.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Our good friend is here to tell us the story
of growing up in the projects in West side Phoenix, Arizona,
and how he became a champion at life.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
The great Darren Woodson.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh, welcome to the good stuff, Ashley.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
I appreciate you having me. I don't know so much
about this dude over here sitting to my left, that
guy guy, and that guy got a little upset because
I'll sit at the head of the table.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I know I can tell listen.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Set his bottles down, he sat his drinks down right
here front. I knowingly sat here all the guest.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, games have already started and started.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's right. Here we go. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Ready.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, I got more mind games than Milton Bradley compliments
of states.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
And I've dealt one of the So you finally got
to win.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I finally get one win.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Exactly what I'm going to let you have it?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So relation Darren Woodson father, husband, Dallas cowboy, Alum, you
played your entire career the boys.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Yeah, I was blessed to just to play with the Cowboys,
and actually I was one of the time. I retired
as one of four or players that had never experienced
free agency.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wow, never saw it, so no sign.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, and you were there during the Golden years ninety
two to two thousand and four.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Yes, ninety two, yes, well, the beginning of those years
ninety two through ninety five were really strong years, and
then we fell off a cliff right at zero leadership
from top to bottom, and we were five eleven five.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Were averages average could ever be. It's who we were
for the longest time.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Until Parcels came in later and that one snapped back
to life.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
It's ironic you say that, because average is not at
all what describes you and your work ethic and your
story and where you came from. We'll talk about all
your accolades in a little bit, but for now, why
don't we dive into that.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Let's do it.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Tell us about Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Oh yeah, So I grew up in Phoenix. I was
the youngest of four kids. My mom was a single mom.
We were project kids, and we grew up in Hintson
projects early on, and then eventually moved to what we
call the West Side Maryvale area, which wasn't much of
an upgrade. It was just the curtains are a little different.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, But I know who I am based on the
work ethic of my mother.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
She got up every day five twenty five am, every
single day, went to her first job, which she worked
for thirty eight years as a clerk at Akopa County,
got done about four or five in the evening, went
to her second job, and usually got home about ten
thirty eleven o'clock. I think the one thing that I've
always appreciated about my mom, which I didn't realize until
(04:13):
later on, is that she set up a process for
her kids. Like the way she kept us off the streets,
the way she kept us away from drugs and the
gangs and all was her process. Was My sister Monica
pretty much ran the show, and she basically said, Hey,
you're going to do this with these boys. It was myself,
my brother Rany, and my brother Todd, who again all
older than I am.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But Monica ran lead.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Made sure we got up in the morning, made sure
we got on the bus, made sure we got to school.
After school, we had all had to get back on
the bus. My sister, seven years senior, would be on
one of the buses, and when she went to junior
High and all that, she would meet us at the
bus stop. We would get off the bus, we'd walk
into the church and after school programmed, my mom said,
(04:58):
you better not miss miss Sanders. After school program is
finished up, we go over to the YMCA. And that's
the reason why I'm here right now because of Imcas
taught me how to be an athlete because he had
to scrapped.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, king pong game. Things got a little sideway. Sometimes
it didn't matter, it didn't matter, Like that's.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
How I learned how to play football right and know
how to play at a high level.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But I cut my teeth there.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
But my mom had this process that she instilled in
all of us just to make sure we stayed busy
enough to not do Imagine that idle hands or the
devils were and I've heard that a million times when
I was a kid. Never knew what it meant. But
idle hands of the devil's works, you do not if
you if you're still, you're gonna get into some whatever
(05:45):
it is, right, you're gonna step into it. So it
kept us busy and it allowed us. I was the
one that graduated. My brother Todd went to went into
the army, which you'll love. My brother Randy, who was older,
started working when he got out of high school. He
instantly went into the workforce. To Monica as well, right
into the workforce. And then I went to college. I
was the first one to go actually go to college.
(06:06):
Monica followed me after, but both of us have our
college degree. That was the happiest day of my life,
wasn't that I got drafted by the Cowboys. Happiest day
of my mom's life, as it pertained to me, was
when I got that patient.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Well absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
How old was Monica when she was given all of
this responsibility?
Speaker 5 (06:23):
She was seven years old. She was that's crazy, man.
I used to catch the bus. Oh yeah, I'm serious.
My sister was catching the bus like no, not the
school bus, the city bus, the city bus. I remember
being seven eight years old catching the city bus from
my house across town sometimes to get to school because
the school bus didn't show up where I lived, so
(06:45):
the city.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bus was it.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
At seven years old and a.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Transfer, getting the transfer to get on another bus, I
couldn't even imagine. I got a six year old who's
about to turn seven and a few days there was
no way and heck that I could see my son. Nope,
get in on a bus and getting a transfer at that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
So what was it like growing up in that house?
I can't imagine your mom working a job or how
many jobs?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Two jobs, two jobs to feed five miles.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, and keeping the lights on, keeping the lights on,
and no father figure.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
And again, look, I had no idea that I was poor, Like,
I just thought that this was life.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And we lived in such a bubble.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
And the fact of I didn't go to certain areas,
Like I had no idea what Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Arizona was until I went to Arizona.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
State and I was, yeah, it's right down the street,
And why does everybody go and those oh, those are
some big houses where and we're in the same city.
I'm twenty five minute drive from Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
We just lived in this bubble, and I just felt
like everyone was kind of similar. Look, I come from
a background where most of the houses that were down
the street and all my buddies, they're all single family houses.
Fathers weren't involved, or fathers were they weren't living in
the same house. My father just didn't happen to be
a part of my life.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I knew he was.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
We saw him every once in a while, but he
just wasn't making decisions and raising me as a man.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
He definitely didn't play an active role. He didn't play
an active role. No shame for I forgiven all moved on.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
But you know, and he had his own issues he
was trying to deal with and overcome at the same time.
But my mother was he played that big of a role.
So I just live life the way it was and
the way it fell out. Man, And I'm telling you,
I had the happiest childhood. We played basketball, played every
sport you can name. On the street, you know, lights
go down, then you go back in the house, and
(08:39):
that's the way life was. Yeah, it was simple.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
When the street lights come on, yeah you better be
home to be home. So when did you realize, like, hey,
I want to get out of this situation.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
No, here's the one I this is the time I
did realize that I was poor. So again, my sister Monica,
so she's probably in her teens at this point, and
I was seven years old. My mom used to play
these She had these games where she used to flip
a coin figure out which bill she needed to pay. Right,
So sometimes electric bill. Sometimes well I can't make that
electric bill, I'll pay the water bill.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Whatnot. Well, this time the electric bill won. She paid
the electric bill.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Water bill was off, so we couldn't shower back then
it was a bathtub. Later, so my sister, just me
and her. She takes me across the street. It is
a supermarket, and the supermarket had the holes on the backside,
you know, the garbage cans, and then there's a supermarket, right,
And she had this powder soap and took me across
(09:38):
the street, sprayed me down with the hose, threw powdered
soap on me, and I had all over my favorite
um butt naked in the back of a supermarket. She
spraying me down, blah blah blah, and then we were
running across the street. And it was the first time
I thought, Wow, this is weird. Why the heck are
we doing this? And the next day this is how
(10:00):
I knew I was poor. I'm walking to the bus
stop and she sprayed me down, but she didn't get
all the soap off of me, right, And my buddy says,
what is that on your head. You know, we are
back in the day. The kids are just ruthless, right right.
I was like, we're talking about now, I ain't looking
the mirror, not this, I'm like and he said, he
(10:20):
got all this step on this side of your face
and looked down.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
It's like, I said, this looks like soap is why
are you powdered soap all over you? Man? You poll?
Speaker 5 (10:29):
And I was a kid, and we all were kids
and hold unch tickets seven seven yeah, yeah, but we
all had lunch tickets. We're all the same, everybody, right,
And that's when I was kind of like, man, this
is that's different. That's different. And then when I was
in high school, I really you know, you started get
a little older, you started figuring. I was working when
I was twelve years old, and I was working with
(10:51):
my two uncles and again two MILLI two Marines that
grew up Vietnam guys came.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Back whatever you want to do. Goodness.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
They were laying carpet in these buildings and I would
be the one at the bottom. So they would lay
carpet and they would cut carpet sheets off and they
would throw them out the building. It's like new buildings right,
no windows, and then they throw it out and it's hot, dude,
it's a phoenix, right.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Hot.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And I'd go up in the building and they would
cut those sheets and I would have to grab a
little leftover pieces and put them in a bag or whatnot.
But the big sheets, they would just throw them out
the window and I would have to go downstairs and
throw those sheets, those big leftover pieces of carpet in
the back of the truck.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Right. And they taught me how to drive a big
I was a big old Chevy truck man. We still
had to stick on.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Taught me how to drive when I was twelve years old.
To back them up, I sat on carpet, like stacks
of carpet set on so I can pull this thing
back to the building and then throw the sheets as
close as I could to the truck. We were so
dysfunctional because my uncles were drunk ninety percent of the
time or on something, right, and they would talk to
(12:02):
me like a sailor wow, like every word that came
out of their mouth was a cuss word. Right, I
didn't know any better. I really didn't know any better. Right.
I learned how to drive though when I was well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But that was my life.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
That was that was my reality, and I didn't know
any better than that. But it was in those buildings
when I would sit there and go, man, these are
nice buildings.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, like these are really nice buildings. Like what do
these people do?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Yeah? There was a time when I got into high
school and then that light bulb started going off that
I was like, I'm going to do something.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I know I'm going to do something. Was that a
feeling you had in your gut, in your soul.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
I knew I was going to do something, Jake. I
knew that I was going to do something. And I
can tell you this, everyone in my family and all
my closest friends always knew, dude, you're going to do something.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Wow, You're going to do something because I burned.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Differently, and I know I was different. You woke up
early in the morning that I was always inquisitive. People
always say, man, shut stop asking me questions.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm oh, yeah, there isn't it. Yep, there isn't it.
You know what you played in the league. You played
around guys that had it right, and guys in the
business world that have It has nothing to do with sports.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's this spark right, And it's hard to describe it,
really hard to put into words, but.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You have this unbelievable self conviction already that I think
is God given that you were born with. And then
because the way you were raised, it was just giving
you tools and building blocks internally to say.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I don't know what limits are. Those are man made.
That's right, man, that's so strong. That's strong. But that's
the reality.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
God's going to give you some of that skill set
right whatever that skill is, right, but it's how you
pursue it. There is something about how I want to
attack life. And there's a lot of people that I
know that are similar in thought that I have. But
even as a young kid, I wanted to attack life like,
if you want it, you gotta.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Go get it. Ye gotta go get it. So nothing's given.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
God may have given me something, but I had so
many people that were sharpening me throughout the years that
allowed me to say, okay, here I am.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
And if you didn't have that fire in your gut
to go get.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It yea yeah, then what you gotta have the conviction
to go take it. You have to supersede your fear
of failure in order to be completely proactive in your
own greatness?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
How did you channel that on your path to life
to greatness?
Speaker 5 (14:37):
I gotta admit, like, I was really good at certain things,
and I was very mediocre at other things. You know,
you hear the saying play to your strengths, Play to
your strengths, play your strength. All I did was play
to my strengths, which wasn't a bad thing all the time,
but it did catch up to me eventually once I
got to a certain level.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So here is my strength.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
My strength was you give me the football, or you
tell me to tackle someone. I was really good at that,
and I knew I was good, but you put me
in geology class, or you put me in any math class,
and I had zero work ethic. So I disguised everything
by saying I'm such a good athlete, see me, yeah,
(15:19):
see me like, and everybody loved me because of such
and such. Right, you got away a lot, and I
covered up the fact that I didn't really want to
work that hard in school.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I really didn't.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I knew my sister was highly intelligent, my mom's very
highly intelligent. I knew I had it in me because
certain times I'd be like I put the work in,
I get it done. But I just didn't. I was
mediocre at best. I just didn't care. Right, So it
caught up to me my junior year in high school.
So everyone's recruiting me around the country and because of
(15:53):
my athleticism, and then when they come and they look
at my transcripts, they were like, dude, you're great, suck.
You're not gonna make it. We're not gonna give you
a scholarship. And then you get into college and you're
out in the first week.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
My we we're not. So I got recruited by a
lot of schools.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I ended up going to Arizona State because all the
other schools said, we're not going to accept you because
your grades are so bad. Arizona State brought me in
as what they call a prop forty eight. I went
to Arizona State or I went to a Juco.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
If I would have went to a Juco, I would
have been lost. Honestly, I would have been lost, right bro.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
No on either way, I know, I don't I don't.
I think I think the wheels would have fallen off.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Oh yeah, because I'm an extremist in a lot of ways. Right,
So my mother had a conversation with me, and there
was a young man. His name is Don Baki. He
was recruiting coordinator for Arizona State. He changed my life.
You're talking about people that pour into you. That is
so special. And when you look, man, I get.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Dude, don't crying about You're good deeper hey.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But gradually for being human.
Speaker 7 (16:53):
Yeah, man, Man Baki, don't run from that.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
I'm not gonna let you get away with that right here. Man,
I know, but look emotionally, he was so special. He'd
show up every single day my senior year in school,
going to class or going towards class because halftime I
wasn't going, but he would be in the hallway. He's
a recruiter at Arizona State, right he is the football
head of football recruiting there. He would be in the
hallway and he said, man, you need to get a class.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
He's showing my grades. Look at you're crazy. And he
was there every single day.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
So my mom and coach Baki had a long conversation
and my mom said, look, you're going to Arizona State.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You're going to go. And I couldn't play my first year.
I couldn't even be around the team. Is that part
of the.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Right. My entire focus was school. That was it fish
out of water man. It was the first time that
I missed the football season. So I was seven years old.
I've been playing since I was seven, never missed the season.
I was a fish out of water. I was at
a big school, fifty five thousand students.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I was just.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Going there because I couldn't be around the football program.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
It was against the rules for me to even go
to a game to watch it.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
So my first year, every Friday, I had to report
back to Baki. We would sit down and said, how
school going, blah blah blah. It's all he could give me. Right,
we couldn't meet in the athletic facility. We had to
meet on campus, right, So I met with him. It
was the first time. I was so embarrassed because I
wasn't playing. People thought I was stupid, and I felt
(18:33):
like my back was against the wall. And I had
two decisions to make. Either I was going to be
conformed to just being stupid, or I was going to
show everyone you talk about a chip on my shoulders because.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I'd see players, I see guys that I played with
in high.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
School on the team and they would see me, and
I know the thought process was like, oh, ye're too stupid.
Yeah you can't get right. Right, you get all that athleticism,
but you're too dumb.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Right. And see, guys, they give me that little look.
And they probably weren't even giving me the look, Jacob,
have any of them been on the DOCKU for the
Hall of Fame? I'm just cheers. I guarantee you they
didn't mean.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
I know I look it that way, right, Yeause, I
was so defensive.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I was like, I know you're looking at me. I
know judging right.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
It just had this chip on my shoulder that I
got to get better. I got my first year. I
had a three point two right, No tutors. They couldn't
give me anything. Right, Oh dude, I killed you and
utilized it. But I had nothing. I had nothing. I
had zero resources from them, right. I just figured it out.
(19:41):
How about going to school? And Baki helped me in
so many ways, like the little things when you go
to class, right when you get out of class, if
you have time in between, you took notes, rewrite your notes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Like I learned so much.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I learned my deficiencies of like I could hear a
lecture and and if I recorded it, like I can
hear a lecture, man, and I'm like, I'm missing ninety
percent of it, because that's how I think. That's how
I receive information, right, So I take notes. And then
after that I listened to the recording on the tape
recorder and I just handwrite my notes and see him
once I wrote it down, boom, I got it. And
(20:16):
that's how I learned. I didn't know that's how I learned.
I just figured it out along the way because Baki
told me to do this right, and I overcame so much,
like my confidence in self and just me shot through
the roof once I got those good grades. And then
when I got the okay the season ended, I got
the okay to go.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Everybody stand by to the first day of practice field.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I was like, oh, I'm bringing it, everybody. It's you
who called me those days. I'm just making up stuff
in my.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Own Mind's your eyeboss, look at me. I saw you
on campus. But I think I just grew so much
in that one year.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I mean just because I got knocked down mentally, I was,
you know, but at the same time I had to
fight It's either I crawled up, I fought up out
of that, or I just remained a victim and you
just cried about it. Why blame someone else? The only
person to blame was me. My mom told me, hey,
this ain't on me. She told me, hey, I worked
(21:16):
two jobs.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Good on her.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
This is on you. Good right and accountability. Account That's right, son. Three.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Every day we have a choice, yes, every day. And
I mean that was your tipping point. I just got
chills when you said that, because as soon as you
stepped on that field, well, I mean it was game
on from there and you had so much to release. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Yeah, when you're playing football, the school wants you to
be focused on football, like they always tell you're.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
A student athlete.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
It should be athlete students because honestly, you make You
are a commodity and you make a lot of money
for the school, right, So what do they want your focus?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
They want your focus on the field, right, and.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just past the class that's it just passed. We have
all these resources who would get you to all this.
You get to see you're playing, right, And my mind
really flipped when I didn't have football, because I started
to think, okay, I'm gonna be competitive on the field,
but I'm also going to be competitive in that classroom, right,
super competitive. And it took me three and a half
(22:17):
years to graduate because I was that competitive. Every summer
I took the maximumount of summer at school classes.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I didn't go.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I mean I was from Phoenix, I didn't I'm going
to go to West Side, stayed on campus, got my classes,
many classes I could take in the summer, and I
was just like, oh, man, I didn't do anything special.
Lovey Smith was my position coach. He made us all
everyone that was on that position, you didn't go home.
You're from Jersey, New Jersey, or you're from California, you
did not go home any off season. You stayed stayed there,
(22:48):
and you maxed out summer school. He was so serious
about education, which I just fell on line. I was like, hey,
I wasn't the only one. I didn't do anything spectacular.
Other guys are doing it as well. I just had
a focus. Man. I just didn't want to just go
to summer school to just get through. I want to
go to summer school. I'm gonna get that A. Yeah,
I'm gonna try to get that A. Half the class.
(23:09):
I didn't get a but I was trying. It was
just a different mindset. You can be competitive. And it's
the same reason why today I'm a partner in the
commercial real estate firm. I have a software company. That's
the reason why. Because when football ended, my life wasn't over.
What I knew I could do this on the outside, right,
I knew I could do it because I've done it
in school.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
It gives me chills to think of the beautiful life
that you've built at this point.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
But tell us about your football career.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
I mean, there's not a lot my football career. I
tell you what it was a dream coming true. First
of all, I get drafted by the Cowboys, the team
I hated when I was a kid, the Cowboys. Freaking
hated the Cowboys. I was a.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Challenging to be a Cowboys.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
We didn't have a We didn't have a team in
Arizona at the time. With the Cardinals didn't come in
until I.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Was a sophomore in college.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Well maybe it's a junior year in high school or
something like, but by that time I didn't have I
didn't I didn't have no affiliation to him, right, But
my team growing up with the Steelers. Was my sister Monica.
Loved Lynn Swan and Terry Bradshaw. I had a ton
My best friends are all Cowboy fans. Everyone in Phoenix
was a Cowboy fan. Still his day, Cowboys one of
(24:28):
the two. Right. All my buddies were Cowboys fans, and
the Steelers were the only team that was they getting
the Super Bowl boom. Steelers would win those games and
so I became a big time Steelers fan.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So I get drafted by the Cowboys and.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I was like, my god, the only team I hate
freaking draft me, right, but okay whatever, But I walked.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Into a locker room.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Yeah, thake thanks to Dave Campo who came out and
worked me out. He showed up to a linebacker, didn't
Yeah you know, he showed up to watch my best
friend Sparks, who was a cornerback. So that's how so
Dave Campbell. So I'm we're getting it's our pro day.
So I go to the combine. I have a really
good combine. I ran really good, worked out well, and
then we had a pro day at Arizona State. And
(25:12):
when we have these pro days, you have all the scouts,
every team comes out right and Dave Campbell ended up
coming out to pretty much watch Felipe because Felipe was
a guy they needed to they needed a cornerback, and
he came out to watch him. I ran a really
good time, ran a four three five on that field man,
and then I worked out that was what they call
(25:33):
a tweener. I played linebacker, safety, and no one knew
where to really play me, and they saw me run
and Campbell was like, he's a safety. Jimmy's the one
who ends up pulling the trigger to draft me. And
then I get drafted and I still really don't know
what position I'm going to play with the Cowboys because
they're still like nose, I don't know if you were
a corner, and say they brought me in in the
(25:54):
safety room. We get the mini camp and we do
what we call one on ones, like you got to
cover the receiver, whoever the receiver is, you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Cover them right.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
And I covered in college, and the Lovely Smith made
me play multiple positions. Right If I played safety, linebacker,
sometimes I cover running backs or tight ends or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So I knew how to cover. They didn't know.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I knew how to cover, and I got out there
and we're covering one on one and Jimmy was like,
you're my nickel guy. Not like the nickel guy is
not the safety or the linebacker. The nickel guy, it's
your third corner. Wow. I became a corner. Basically, I'm
covering tight ends and I'm covering running backs and every
(26:35):
once in a while I cover a slot receiver or whatnot.
I became that guy and I ran down the field
on special teams. And I tell you this because my
first year, of course, I wanted to be the guy.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I just wanted to be the dude.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I wanted to play safety every game.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
I wanted them to say my name at the beginning
of the game, or when John Madden is calling the games,
my face shows up as the starting safety or whatever
it is, right, And it burned me.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Man. Now, whoever's listening to this, it's okay to be
upset for not.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Whatever whatever your goal you have, you don't reach it,
or if you got a little animosity about it, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I should burning you.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Right. So I would be at practice and I'd be
so upset that I wasn't the start of safety. There
were multiple times that Jimmy would walk up and he
tried to, hey, just waste your time, be patient, and
I was like, damn patience, I'm on the start. And
Jimmy loved that about me. I know he did, because yeah,
he knew it meant something to me. Campbell to saying
(27:36):
they knew it meant something to me. And every day
I'd go out there, I just wanted it.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I wanted it. I wanted it, wanted it.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
But I grew so much because now I'm playing, I'm
covering all the time, I'm doing all those little things
where you know, a lot of safeties weren't doing that,
they weren't covering at all. Basically, I became the hybrid guy,
now the nickel guy that they call today the nickel
I was one of the first guys to ever do that, right,
But I cut my teeth because I had to cover,
had to cover at the cover. And then when I
(28:02):
became the starter at safety, I played multiple positions. And
those multiple positions because I could cover, allowed me to
be a guy who never experienced free agency because they.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Knew the value absolutely.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
And it's crazy how it's like a vicious circle. Man,
Sometimes you got to go through. You never put your
fire out. Never put the fire out, That's right.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I kept burning hot, just kept burning hot, and it's
paid dividends. Yeah, I mean it was all sudden. Actually,
I just like, man, some players that are just fun
to watch. You were one of those dudes. I appreciate it. Yeah,
you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, because of that fire, because of that hood, because
of everything.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It was like you knew, I don't know what's going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Somebody's gonna get teed off on right right now. You
would probably be objected from the game.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
Games fun and exciting, and dude, I'm telling you, I've
seen you work out even now, and I'm like, I mean,
I would like to see you just sit up this
one time.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
See that ain't happen.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
You would cuss me out watching me play now, trying
to backpedal, giving like, come on man, let that guy
run by you.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Hey, I know where I stand now.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You know what, though, it was this conviction that you've
had in you, and that was instilled in you rather
that was from your mom and clearly is an angel,
or your uncles who were just two salty devil dogs trying.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
To figure it out.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It taught you how to make a point, yeah, exactly,
colorful point yeah, and drive and drive I mean from
your sister who I know you, But I learned.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
From so many people like I'll give you an example.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
So for the longest time, when COVID hit like, I'd
work out like you just mentioned. I work out a
lot before COVID happened, and we were like three months
before there was a shutdown. I was ordering equipment. I
was going to a gym to work out. The gym
started getting packed and I couldn't get to the weights
at six o'clock in the morning. I couldn't get to
the squad rack.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I couldn't get to this. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
So I said, I'm gonna build a gym in my garage. Right,
So I build this gym in my garage, and every day,
like when COVID hit, man, I just had my garage
and I would work out every day.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
So I've been consistently that guy, because I'm a guy
that if I don't work out, my body hurts.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And it doesn't have to be weights. I can just
walk on a treadmill. Right.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
I gotta get SOLDI I've had eleven surgeries. I gotta
get moving, man.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I know, trust trust don't you start with me.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
I just I know I feel don't make me cussing anyway, so.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
You don't feeling like I'm hurting. I gotta get these
bad going. So every day I'm working out, working out.
And then I would say about a year and a
half ago, I was working out five days a week,
and I traveled and I came back from New York
City and I remember taking a day off. It was
like a Tuesday, right. Actually was in New York on
a Monday, got off the plane, worked out, came had meetings,
(31:09):
came back and the next day, instead of me getting
up and going to go work out, I was like,
AHM taking this. I'm seriously do I'm every day Monday
through Friday, I'm doing something, staying active. Five thirty morning,
I get up and I go do something right and
I just dropped the ball down. I was like, I'm tired,
I don't want to do it. And I'm telling you
to this day. This is about a year and a
(31:31):
half ago. I have not been that consistent up until
two months ago. See the problem I had was I
was so cookie cutter and I was so into a regiment,
regimen regiment. I took one day the coward showed up
and said, nah, I'm gonna take this day off, right,
And it took me up until two months ago to
(31:51):
get back on track. And we act like we're always
consistent with no, we're not like no one does it
every single the Coward's going to show up at some point, right,
And I've always been like, nah, no, it won't happen
to me. And now it happened. And then here's the deal.
This is what got me, this is what really got me.
So I'm working out. I'm in my gym, I'm in
(32:11):
my garage, and the doors are open right every day.
Five forty five, about six oh five, a lady named
Carol runs like clockwork.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Like clockwork.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
She lives two blocks down right, and Carol, she used
to see me working out all the time. And this
is where I knew I really slipped up. I'm out
there working out one day and I'm not consistent. I'm
out there twice maybe a week or whatnot. Carol runs up.
She says, hey, you've been traveling a lot, and I'm like, no,
(32:44):
what are you talking about. I've been here. She's like,
I haven't seen you, And I thought, okay, Cal there
is I see how Yeah, there it goes to chip again.
Ye okay, I need the chip, dude, I need Oh
you're gonna see me tomorrow, Carols. Matter of fact, you're
gonna see me every single day. But I need that
(33:06):
right because if I don't have the motivation, if I
don't have something that's gonna spark me, I tend to
fall off.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
What do you mean by the coward showed up?
Speaker 5 (33:15):
The coward is that person like you work every day,
you wake up, you look in the mirror, right, and
the coward is the one who's always saying, hey, you
know you worked out last week, or you let me
worked out every day this week.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Take the day off, go get back in bed. That's
that coward, right.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Coward also wants to be tumultuous, wants to fight people,
wants to argue.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Hey, man, your wife.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
She came in a little late yesterday, she said, so
she snapped at you a little bit.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Man. You need to take it out like you. You
need to give it back to her today like this
revenge time.
Speaker 7 (33:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
The coward's always the one. He's dysfunctional.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
It's that dysfunctional part of you that wants to speak
to you and wants to have this that subgroup who
wants to have their largest voice just wants to have
this loud voice and scream from the mountains. You got
to defend your mind. You gotta need your mind. He's
the taker, he's the victim. He wants me to play
the victim card. Oh man, did you see what happened
to the black guy on TV yesterday?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Every white person should pay for it?
Speaker 5 (34:12):
No, man, Like, let's reset, look in the mirror and
tell the coward, no, bro, it ain't going down that way.
It's not happening. This is how I'm gonna live my life.
I'm gonna live it with grace. I'm gonna live it
with structure. I'm gonna live it in Jesus' path. That's
the way I'm gonna I'm gonna live my life.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Period.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
I still need that chip because if I don't have
that chip on my shoulder, the coward will show up.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
That's your fuel, that's my fuel. What do you call
the champion?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Dude? That dude like I got that dude, that that
dude is a guy that's like, hey man, we ain't
hearing all that. Let's go, let's go. We gotta go
choose one.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I call that that's the good versus evil.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, everybody's got it every day every day wake up,
you can decide which weren't fighting for.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, what would your daily affirmation be to yourself as
you're looking in the mirror?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
How many people I touched in that day? The one
thing I do have. First of all, I have three
four kids. Three of them are out of the house.
One that I got a seven year old. Right, So
I try to get that work out in the morning
every day and my son goes to school. I take
them to school about seven thirty. I'm gonna have breakfast
with them. Wow, every single morning, right, it's just hands down,
there are no meetings. If I'm in town, I'm having
(35:22):
breakfast with him. I'm sitting down just here, and my
wife is usually either working out or she's doing her
own thing.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Right. I get him dressed, feed them, take them to school.
That's a win for me.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
I got workout in, I took him to school, spent
time before seven thirty in the morning, got that done.
Those are two wins, and I count wins. I'm sorry,
I just have to That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
But then on the way to work, daily affirmation is
basically on the way to work. Again, I'm always in
these modes, right, Like I can be.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Up and down or whatnot.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
And I'm always trying to shake that mode of because
I can be confrontational on certain things, right, shake the
mode of, hey man, instead of being confrontational, what are
you gonna bring?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Like, what positiveness are you gonna bring?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
I love those guys Like he walks into a room
and then he lights the room up. However you want
to take it like he's gonna be a charge. He's
super charged all energy, right, And when Jake walks in
the room, You're like, Okay, herey comes. I don't know
how he's gonna go, but here comes that energy, right.
And I think special people have that, and I want
to be that person. Like I want to walk into
my office and I want people to look at me
(36:28):
and say, man, you dude the energy because I hear
that all the time from me when I walk in
my office, hey man, you bring that positive energy because
I walk in, I'm smiling. One that's one is I
always tell myself, you're gonna smile when you walk in
the office, regardless of what's happening. The admins whomever You're
gonna walk up and say what's going on?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yes, talk loud. Sometimes when I walk in the office
and like good Marning Darren, that's a response. I'm like,
you better hear yes, good, Yeah, here we go right good.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
I want to bring that energy because I think there's
something about it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Right. Who wants to hear that guy? Yeah? Who wants
to be that guy? They walk in the room and.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
It's just like, don't be the one that drains it, just.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Suck the light. I don't want to be that guy. Yeah,
be a soul feeder. Short you only get one shot, man, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
And I'm telling you who's watching all the time. Your
kids are watching. Jackson's watching.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Absolutely, they're watching it.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Like, if you don't have that energy, if you don't
have that pop when you walk in the room, they're probably.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Like, that's right everything you do.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Did those voices the coward and the dude? Did that
start early in life?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I did. It started when I was a kid.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I went to junior high and I remember being on
a bus and something it went down the day before.
It was a little scrap right on the basketball courtiods
playing basketball. One guy says something I said something. We
went back and forth. Gang member. He's a Hispanic gang member.
School was half black, half Hispanic, and sometimes there was
went down sometimes playing basketball. If we got into it
(38:01):
didn't even It's like, oh whatever. So I remember the
next day, I'm on the bus and I'm getting off
the bus and I wasn't even thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And I'm getting off, about to get off the bus,
and I remember the bus stopping.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I look down and old boys with his whole you
got his whole posse right there.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, I'm by myself.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Right, my boys are already they've already been dropped off, right,
my bus stop. So I remember here it goes right,
you better not back down. You better not like you
cannot they if your boys see you, coward back to dude,
you couldn't do it right. So that coward was in
(38:44):
my head, the hole. Don't get off that bus. Don't
get off that bus. Don't get off that bus. I
mean he's just talking to me, and dude, it's like, now,
you don't give it to his ass today. You're gonna
get to do that today.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Right, And I remember sitting there in the bus driver
sitting there, what's it?
Speaker 5 (39:05):
I can hear him waiting. He's waiting, and he says, hey,
you ain't got to get off. You ain't got to
get off.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Brother, dude, black dude, big heavy dude named Ernie, you
ain't got to get off. New you knew you got
that bag. We don't get.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
But that's one where I'm like, that sucker was there
right back.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And forth and the way back then. Look, we weren't.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Fighting with guns and all that stuff, right, he knew
it was gonna be. He was going and I got
off the bus. Did nothing happen. No, I got the bus,
got my bag, started walking. He just looked at me,
said a few things, kept on going. But that's one thing.
That's one time I remember, like, you know how mad?
(39:50):
Honestly I didn't know, but I was just having his
battle of it was going back and I don't know
how long.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Dude was holding the door, like, hey he had the
door closed. He didn't. He was like, hey, that was
a test. Yeah it was a test, dude.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
But I know where that guy is cause it's the
same thing that happens to me when I'm sitting there
and I know I got a prep for an RFP
or whatnot. Because the Cowury is gonna say, you got this.
You just wing it, just wing this thing. You know
you got Walmart tomorrow, just wing it. No. The dude's like, no, No,
we're gonna get down. We're gonna get dirty today. We're
gon we're gonna learn something. We're gonna learn something.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
All right, talk to us about the triumph of winning
not one, not two, but three Super Bowls.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
You know, winning Super Bowls was first of all, it's
people see us play these games and they think, oh, man,
you know, you guys are so talented and blah blah blah.
What people don't see is the time that goes into this. Right,
So the season ends, let's say the Super Bowls played
in I don't know, February ninth or tenth. Right by
the end of March, you're back in the gym, right,
(40:52):
So that's when it starts. It's a little different now,
But when I was playing, it started like the end
of March. You're starting to get back in the gym.
I say, like March twentieth, you take some time, and
then March twentieth you get back in the gym and
you have these times where.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You work out together.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Right, So it's defensive backs, linebackers that work out at a
certain time on the line and they work out of
side and it's usually our group was usually going.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
At seven am. That's when the groundwork started.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
It start right then you start to set the tone
of Okay, March twentieth, and then you get into April,
we get the you have the NFL Draft, and there's
guys that are coming and going, they're chopping, they're firing,
they're cutting.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Guys, they're bringing in new guys.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
And then by the time you get into May, you
kind of know who's going into training camp, right, but
you're still building this team. And like for me as
a captain of the defense, I'm always engaging with the
young guys coming in or trying to engage with people
to say, Okay, we gotta do this, and I'm trying to.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Keep my own job at the same time.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
Right, But that's when it starts, so people don't see
all the things that take place. And then you get
into training camp. And then when you're in training camp,
you get guys coming and going in. Then you have
injuries throughout the season, Then you have big wins throughout
the season, then you got these big losses throughout the
seasons like a roller coaster ride, Right, emotions are just
going up and down, and then you get into the
(42:11):
playoffs and then it heightens itself even that much more. Right,
There's so much that goes into this because you set
these goals early on and you're trying to get there,
and you have these ups and downs and valleys and
those and you eat this a long season and coaches
that are talking about getting fired and all the things
that are going on, and then you finally get there and.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You get into the playoffs and you're like, man, we're
in the tournament. Now.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
We got three games, three games, and here we are.
And that is what people don't see. They don't see
the fact that every morning on Monday, I can't walk.
I can't walk Monday morning, I gotta get nice up.
I'm struggling to get to Wednesday's practice. Right Monday, I'm
beat down. I'm just trying to stay a little lose. Tuesday,
(42:58):
I'm like, I can't even get out of bed. I
don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Isn't it weird? It's always two days later?
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know, especially if you play
on turf, play on turf, bro, it is a beating.
You know, you got turf burns that you don't want
to get, staff infections and all. I mean, there's so
much that goes on to this. So but hey, again
I ain't whinting because paychecks are nice.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Hey, there's a give and take here. Now I'm not
whining about it.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
And then again, so now you're trying to get there.
You're in the playoffs, and it's one game at a time.
There is no seven game series, five games series. It
is one game you gotta win. And when you do,
when you finally get there to the pinnacle and you
win that championship, it's unmatched. The feeling of victory, the
feeling of walking into that locker room, because I could
(43:45):
care less when we won the Super Bowl, I can
care less what was going on outside that locker room.
That locker room was hot. It was just dudes are
crying emotionally, you're spent, but you're just like we did it.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
It's special.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
It's special, yeah, and you never lose that, right. There's
a certain camaraderie that's a super Bowl winning team and
you stay together all these We just had a reunion
two months ago. Troy set it up and man, we
had a great time.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Like that's we look different, we all looked different, but
we still tell them lies. We teld all these lies.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
But it's just you, just that fraternity you'd never forget.
And it's just a special moment, it really is.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
What would you say to that young man back in
Phoenix if you could talk to him today?
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Who if I could talk to him today, I would
probably say, it's okay to cry, It's okay, yeah, because
I didn't have I mean, there was so many times
I just want to be hard.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I had to be hard.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
I had to you know, I didn't have my father there,
I didn't have all those little things. And it's okay
to just let it go and just yeah, be human
and just and move forward because I just I held
on to so much negativity. There are times where I
probably just wouldn't let it go. Yeah, it would have
made for better me at a younger age.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
But it's okay to have the chip, but don't let it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah, don't let it consume you.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Yeah, yeah, bro, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean I was just gonna ask a questions, but
I mean, yeah, you're done.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Actually be the tea like I want to know, and
you can't say. We can say whatever you want, but
what do you do to recharge? What do you do
to put soul food in you to get back up
and get back out there and to continue to pour
in to make people and businesses and teams.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And man, dude, you hit. I'm glad see you brought
some value today. You do. Absolutely, that was that was
a great, great question. So every day I had talked about.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
When I get up in the morning and go work out,
all right, there's this minute like I usually have like
these three minutes where I just go, man, and I
go into my closet. I got my shoes on and
stuff like that. But I'll usually go, I'm looking for
a shirt, do it, and I get on my knees.
Like every single day, it's like the recharge, right, and
I'm laying down flat and I'm just telling God, I
(46:23):
ain't worthy. I love you, Please pour into me because
I know I'm not worthy. That's like my recharge time.
For some reason. It's just that feeling of and sometimes
I don't even say anything. I just sit there and
just try to listen, and I'll do it for like
three to five minutes in my class. My wife has
come in so many times, like we've had workouts and
she'll come in and I've seen her turn the lights on.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
And be like, walk right back out.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
She knows, that's my timetime, that hey, my time. Oh
she knows, she knows. But I just every morning, I
just need it. Every morning, I just need it.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I just continue to love you more every freaking time
we're I'm around you, I'm.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Like, God, that's just that's good. That's good ship right there.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
That's the good ship. Or we're changing the name of
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
I mean, I think that's the first time I've cussed
on the podcast people.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I mean, Darren Woodson, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Thank you for your.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Time, thank you for your vulnerability, for telling us your
story and your truth and everything that you do to
practice and rest assured.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
You are the good energy in the room. When you
walk in, everything elevates, and it does.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
I love you, of course, I love y'all too, And
we've known each other for a while. But y'all just
good folks, sharp and good folks. And he this dude
ain't gonnaver let me drop the ball. He's gonna make
sure I got it right. But I also want to
thank Nick. Right months ago, Nick Rock, I had a
long conversation out and actually I was sitting in the
(47:55):
gym when we had that conversation, but it was it
was a deep like he asked me some questions that
I was like, Man, that's very inquisitive. That really got
me to thinking about a lot of other things. So Nick,
I know you're listening. Man, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Brother.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
He is the best.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Couldn't period, no Nick, no good stuff. Yeah, that's simple.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
There's a reason he's he does what he does. He
is a solid, solid human being. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
I tell you know how I feel about you anytime.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Anytime, anywhere, any day, no questions, time and place.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
I'm there back at you, bro, I know I love it.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Thank you so much for listening today.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
If this episode touched you, please share it and be
part of making someone else's day better.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Put on your bad ass caves and go be a
champion today and remember you can't do epic stuff without
epic people.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
The Good Stuff is executive for used by Ashley Shick,
Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Coode Media, Hosted by
Ashley Shick and Jacob Schick. Produced by Nick Cassellini and
Ryan Count's house post production supervisor Will Tindy. Music editing
by Will Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Jacob Schick and I'm joined by my co host
and wife.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Ashley Shick.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
At One Tribe Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only
about the peaks, but also about the valleys they've been
through to get them to where they are today.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Each week, we invite a guests to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shaped
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
our guest's journeys so that we can celebrate the hope
and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. I am so fired up
about our guests today. Three time Super Bowl Champion, five
time Pro Bowler.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Four time first Team All Pro, Dallas Cowboys, all time
leading tackler, and Cowboys' Ring of Honor honoree. He's a father,
a husband, a businessman, a mentor, and he's a leader.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Our guest today is Darren Woodson.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Our good friend is here to tell us the story
of growing up in the projects in West side Phoenix, Arizona,
and how he became a champion at life.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
The great Darren Woodson.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh, welcome to the good stuff, Ashley.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
I appreciate you having me. I don't know so much
about this dude over here sitting to my left, that
guy guy, and that guy got a little upset because
I'll sit at the head of the table.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I know I can tell listen.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Set his bottles down, he sat his drinks down right
here front. I knowingly sat here all the guest.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, games have already started and started.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's right. Here we go. Let's go.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Ready.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, I got more mind games than Milton Bradley compliments
of states.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
And I've dealt one of the So you finally got
to win.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I finally get one win.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Exactly what I'm going to let you have it?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So relation Darren Woodson father, husband, Dallas cowboy, Alum, you
played your entire career the boys.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Yeah, I was blessed to just to play with the Cowboys,
and actually I was one of the time. I retired
as one of four or players that had never experienced
free agency.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wow, never saw it, so no sign.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, and you were there during the Golden years ninety
two to two thousand and four.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Yes, ninety two, yes, well, the beginning of those years
ninety two through ninety five were really strong years, and
then we fell off a cliff right at zero leadership
from top to bottom, and we were five eleven five.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Were averages average could ever be. It's who we were
for the longest time.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Until Parcels came in later and that one snapped back
to life.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
It's ironic you say that, because average is not at
all what describes you and your work ethic and your
story and where you came from. We'll talk about all
your accolades in a little bit, but for now, why
don't we dive into that.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Let's do it.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Tell us about Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Oh yeah, So I grew up in Phoenix. I was
the youngest of four kids. My mom was a single mom.
We were project kids, and we grew up in Hintson
projects early on, and then eventually moved to what we
call the West Side Maryvale area, which wasn't much of
an upgrade. It was just the curtains are a little different.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, But I know who I am based on the
work ethic of my mother.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
She got up every day five twenty five am, every
single day, went to her first job, which she worked
for thirty eight years as a clerk at Akopa County,
got done about four or five in the evening, went
to her second job, and usually got home about ten
thirty eleven o'clock. I think the one thing that I've
always appreciated about my mom, which I didn't realize until
(04:13):
later on, is that she set up a process for
her kids. Like the way she kept us off the streets,
the way she kept us away from drugs and the
gangs and all was her process. Was My sister Monica
pretty much ran the show, and she basically said, Hey,
you're going to do this with these boys. It was myself,
my brother Rany, and my brother Todd, who again all
older than I am.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
But Monica ran lead.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Made sure we got up in the morning, made sure
we got on the bus, made sure we got to school.
After school, we had all had to get back on
the bus. My sister, seven years senior, would be on
one of the buses, and when she went to junior
High and all that, she would meet us at the
bus stop. We would get off the bus, we'd walk
into the church and after school programmed, my mom said,
(04:58):
you better not miss miss Sanders. After school program is
finished up, we go over to the YMCA. And that's
the reason why I'm here right now because of Imcas
taught me how to be an athlete because he had
to scrapped.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, king pong game. Things got a little sideway. Sometimes
it didn't matter, it didn't matter, Like that's.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
How I learned how to play football right and know
how to play at a high level.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But I cut my teeth there.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
But my mom had this process that she instilled in
all of us just to make sure we stayed busy
enough to not do Imagine that idle hands or the
devils were and I've heard that a million times when
I was a kid. Never knew what it meant. But
idle hands of the devil's works, you do not if
you if you're still, you're gonna get into some whatever
(05:45):
it is, right, you're gonna step into it. So it
kept us busy and it allowed us. I was the
one that graduated. My brother Todd went to went into
the army, which you'll love. My brother Randy, who was older,
started working when he got out of high school. He
instantly went into the workforce. To Monica as well, right
into the workforce. And then I went to college. I
was the first one to go actually go to college.
(06:06):
Monica followed me after, but both of us have our
college degree. That was the happiest day of my life,
wasn't that I got drafted by the Cowboys. Happiest day
of my mom's life, as it pertained to me, was
when I got that patient.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Well absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
How old was Monica when she was given all of
this responsibility?
Speaker 5 (06:23):
She was seven years old. She was that's crazy, man.
I used to catch the bus. Oh yeah, I'm serious.
My sister was catching the bus like no, not the
school bus, the city bus, the city bus. I remember
being seven eight years old catching the city bus from
my house across town sometimes to get to school because
the school bus didn't show up where I lived, so
(06:45):
the city.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bus was it.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
At seven years old and a.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Transfer, getting the transfer to get on another bus, I
couldn't even imagine. I got a six year old who's
about to turn seven and a few days there was
no way and heck that I could see my son. Nope,
get in on a bus and getting a transfer at that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
So what was it like growing up in that house?
I can't imagine your mom working a job or how
many jobs?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Two jobs, two jobs to feed five miles.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, and keeping the lights on, keeping the lights on,
and no father figure.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
And again, look, I had no idea that I was poor, Like,
I just thought that this was life.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And we lived in such a bubble.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
And the fact of I didn't go to certain areas,
Like I had no idea what Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Arizona was until I went to Arizona.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
State and I was, yeah, it's right down the street,
And why does everybody go and those oh, those are
some big houses where and we're in the same city.
I'm twenty five minute drive from Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Right.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
We just lived in this bubble, and I just felt
like everyone was kind of similar. Look, I come from
a background where most of the houses that were down
the street and all my buddies, they're all single family houses.
Fathers weren't involved, or fathers were they weren't living in
the same house. My father just didn't happen to be
a part of my life.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I knew he was.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
We saw him every once in a while, but he
just wasn't making decisions and raising me as a man.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
He definitely didn't play an active role. He didn't play
an active role. No shame for I forgiven all moved on.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
But you know, and he had his own issues he
was trying to deal with and overcome at the same time.
But my mother was he played that big of a role.
So I just live life the way it was and
the way it fell out. Man, And I'm telling you,
I had the happiest childhood. We played basketball, played every
sport you can name. On the street, you know, lights
go down, then you go back in the house, and
(08:39):
that's the way life was. Yeah, it was simple.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
When the street lights come on, yeah you better be
home to be home. So when did you realize, like, hey,
I want to get out of this situation.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
No, here's the one I this is the time I
did realize that I was poor. So again, my sister Monica,
so she's probably in her teens at this point, and
I was seven years old. My mom used to play
these She had these games where she used to flip
a coin figure out which bill she needed to pay. Right,
So sometimes electric bill. Sometimes well I can't make that
electric bill, I'll pay the water bill.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Whatnot. Well, this time the electric bill won. She paid
the electric bill.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Water bill was off, so we couldn't shower back then
it was a bathtub. Later, so my sister, just me
and her. She takes me across the street. It is
a supermarket, and the supermarket had the holes on the backside,
you know, the garbage cans, and then there's a supermarket, right,
And she had this powder soap and took me across
(09:38):
the street, sprayed me down with the hose, threw powdered
soap on me, and I had all over my favorite
um butt naked in the back of a supermarket. She
spraying me down, blah blah blah, and then we were
running across the street. And it was the first time
I thought, Wow, this is weird. Why the heck are
we doing this? And the next day this is how
(10:00):
I knew I was poor. I'm walking to the bus
stop and she sprayed me down, but she didn't get
all the soap off of me, right, And my buddy says,
what is that on your head. You know, we are
back in the day. The kids are just ruthless, right right.
I was like, we're talking about now, I ain't looking
the mirror, not this, I'm like and he said, he
(10:20):
got all this step on this side of your face
and looked down.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
It's like, I said, this looks like soap is why
are you powdered soap all over you? Man? You poll?
Speaker 5 (10:29):
And I was a kid, and we all were kids
and hold unch tickets seven seven yeah, yeah, but we
all had lunch tickets. We're all the same, everybody, right,
And that's when I was kind of like, man, this
is that's different. That's different. And then when I was
in high school, I really you know, you started get
a little older, you started figuring. I was working when
I was twelve years old, and I was working with
(10:51):
my two uncles and again two MILLI two Marines that
grew up Vietnam guys came.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Back whatever you want to do. Goodness.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
They were laying carpet in these buildings and I would
be the one at the bottom. So they would lay
carpet and they would cut carpet sheets off and they
would throw them out the building. It's like new buildings right,
no windows, and then they throw it out and it's hot, dude,
it's a phoenix, right.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Hot.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And I'd go up in the building and they would
cut those sheets and I would have to grab a
little leftover pieces and put them in a bag or whatnot.
But the big sheets, they would just throw them out
the window and I would have to go downstairs and
throw those sheets, those big leftover pieces of carpet in
the back of the truck.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Right. And they taught me how to drive a big
I was a big old Chevy truck man. We still
had to stick on.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Taught me how to drive when I was twelve years old.
To back them up, I sat on carpet, like stacks
of carpet set on so I can pull this thing
back to the building and then throw the sheets as
close as I could to the truck. We were so
dysfunctional because my uncles were drunk ninety percent of the
time or on something, right, and they would talk to
(12:02):
me like a sailor wow, like every word that came
out of their mouth was a cuss word. Right, I
didn't know any better. I really didn't know any better. Right.
I learned how to drive though when I was well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But that was my life.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
That was that was my reality, and I didn't know
any better than that. But it was in those buildings
when I would sit there and go, man, these are
nice buildings.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, like these are really nice buildings. Like what do
these people do?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Yeah? There was a time when I got into high
school and then that light bulb started going off that
I was like, I'm going to do something.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I know I'm going to do something. Was that a
feeling you had in your gut, in your soul.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
I knew I was going to do something, Jake. I
knew that I was going to do something. And I
can tell you this, everyone in my family and all
my closest friends always knew, dude, you're going to do something.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Wow, You're going to do something because I burned.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Differently, and I know I was different. You woke up
early in the morning that I was always inquisitive. People
always say, man, shut stop asking me questions.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm oh, yeah, there isn't it. Yep, there isn't it.
You know what you played in the league. You played
around guys that had it right, and guys in the
business world that have It has nothing to do with sports.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's this spark right, And it's hard to describe it,
really hard to put into words, but.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You have this unbelievable self conviction already that I think
is God given that you were born with. And then
because the way you were raised, it was just giving
you tools and building blocks internally to say.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I don't know what limits are. Those are man made.
That's right, man, that's so strong. That's strong. But that's
the reality.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
God's going to give you some of that skill set
right whatever that skill is, right, but it's how you
pursue it. There is something about how I want to
attack life. And there's a lot of people that I
know that are similar in thought that I have. But
even as a young kid, I wanted to attack life like,
if you want it, you gotta.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Go get it. Ye gotta go get it. So nothing's given.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
God may have given me something, but I had so
many people that were sharpening me throughout the years that
allowed me to say, okay, here I am.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
And if you didn't have that fire in your gut
to go get.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It yea yeah, then what you gotta have the conviction
to go take it. You have to supersede your fear
of failure in order to be completely proactive in your
own greatness?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
How did you channel that on your path to life
to greatness?
Speaker 5 (14:37):
I gotta admit, like, I was really good at certain things,
and I was very mediocre at other things. You know,
you hear the saying play to your strengths, Play to
your strengths, play your strength. All I did was play
to my strengths, which wasn't a bad thing all the time,
but it did catch up to me eventually once I
got to a certain level.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So here is my strength.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
My strength was you give me the football, or you
tell me to tackle someone. I was really good at that,
and I knew I was good, but you put me
in geology class, or you put me in any math class,
and I had zero work ethic. So I disguised everything
by saying I'm such a good athlete, see me, yeah,
(15:19):
see me like, and everybody loved me because of such
and such. Right, you got away a lot, and I
covered up the fact that I didn't really want to
work that hard in school.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I really didn't.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
I knew my sister was highly intelligent, my mom's very
highly intelligent. I knew I had it in me because
certain times I'd be like I put the work in,
I get it done. But I just didn't. I was
mediocre at best. I just didn't care. Right, So it
caught up to me my junior year in high school.
So everyone's recruiting me around the country and because of
(15:53):
my athleticism, and then when they come and they look
at my transcripts, they were like, dude, you're great, suck.
You're not gonna make it. We're not gonna give you
a scholarship. And then you get into college and you're
out in the first week.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
My we we're not. So I got recruited by a
lot of schools.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I ended up going to Arizona State because all the
other schools said, we're not going to accept you because
your grades are so bad. Arizona State brought me in
as what they call a prop forty eight. I went
to Arizona State or I went to a Juco.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
If I would have went to a Juco, I would
have been lost. Honestly, I would have been lost, right bro.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
No on either way, I know, I don't I don't.
I think I think the wheels would have fallen off.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Oh yeah, because I'm an extremist in a lot of ways. Right,
So my mother had a conversation with me, and there
was a young man. His name is Don Baki. He
was recruiting coordinator for Arizona State. He changed my life.
You're talking about people that pour into you. That is
so special. And when you look, man, I get.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Dude, don't crying about You're good deeper hey.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But gradually for being human.
Speaker 7 (16:53):
Yeah, man, Man Baki, don't run from that.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
I'm not gonna let you get away with that right here. Man,
I know, but look emotionally, he was so special. He'd
show up every single day my senior year in school,
going to class or going towards class because halftime I
wasn't going, but he would be in the hallway. He's
a recruiter at Arizona State, right he is the football
head of football recruiting there. He would be in the
hallway and he said, man, you need to get a class.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
He's showing my grades. Look at you're crazy. And he
was there every single day.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
So my mom and coach Baki had a long conversation
and my mom said, look, you're going to Arizona State.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You're going to go. And I couldn't play my first year.
I couldn't even be around the team. Is that part
of the.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Right. My entire focus was school. That was it fish
out of water man. It was the first time that
I missed the football season. So I was seven years old.
I've been playing since I was seven, never missed the season.
I was a fish out of water. I was at
a big school, fifty five thousand students.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I was just.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Going there because I couldn't be around the football program.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
It was against the rules for me to even go
to a game to watch it.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
So my first year, every Friday, I had to report
back to Baki. We would sit down and said, how
school going, blah blah blah. It's all he could give me. Right,
we couldn't meet in the athletic facility. We had to
meet on campus, right, So I met with him. It
was the first time. I was so embarrassed because I
wasn't playing. People thought I was stupid, and I felt
(18:33):
like my back was against the wall. And I had
two decisions to make. Either I was going to be
conformed to just being stupid, or I was going to
show everyone you talk about a chip on my shoulders because.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I'd see players, I see guys that I played with
in high.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
School on the team and they would see me, and
I know the thought process was like, oh, ye're too stupid.
Yeah you can't get right. Right, you get all that athleticism,
but you're too dumb.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Right. And see, guys, they give me that little look.
And they probably weren't even giving me the look, Jacob,
have any of them been on the DOCKU for the
Hall of Fame? I'm just cheers. I guarantee you they
didn't mean.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
I know I look it that way, right, Yeause, I
was so defensive.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I was like, I know you're looking at me. I
know judging right.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
It just had this chip on my shoulder that I
got to get better. I got my first year. I
had a three point two right, No tutors. They couldn't
give me anything. Right, Oh dude, I killed you and
utilized it. But I had nothing. I had nothing. I
had zero resources from them, right. I just figured it out.
(19:41):
How about going to school? And Baki helped me in
so many ways, like the little things when you go
to class, right when you get out of class, if
you have time in between, you took notes, rewrite your notes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Like I learned so much.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
I learned my deficiencies of like I could hear a
lecture and and if I recorded it, like I can
hear a lecture, man, and I'm like, I'm missing ninety
percent of it, because that's how I think. That's how
I receive information, right, So I take notes. And then
after that I listened to the recording on the tape
recorder and I just handwrite my notes and see him
once I wrote it down, boom, I got it. And
(20:16):
that's how I learned. I didn't know that's how I learned.
I just figured it out along the way because Baki
told me to do this right, and I overcame so much,
like my confidence in self and just me shot through
the roof once I got those good grades. And then
when I got the okay the season ended, I got
the okay to go.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Everybody stand by to the first day of practice field.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
I was like, oh, I'm bringing it, everybody. It's you
who called me those days. I'm just making up stuff
in my.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Own Mind's your eyeboss, look at me. I saw you
on campus. But I think I just grew so much
in that one year.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
I mean just because I got knocked down mentally, I was,
you know, but at the same time I had to
fight It's either I crawled up, I fought up out
of that, or I just remained a victim and you
just cried about it. Why blame someone else? The only
person to blame was me. My mom told me, hey,
this ain't on me. She told me, hey, I worked
(21:16):
two jobs.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Good on her.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
This is on you. Good right and accountability. Account That's right, son. Three.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Every day we have a choice, yes, every day. And
I mean that was your tipping point. I just got
chills when you said that, because as soon as you
stepped on that field, well, I mean it was game
on from there and you had so much to release. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Yeah, when you're playing football, the school wants you to
be focused on football, like they always tell you're.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
A student athlete.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
It should be athlete students because honestly, you make You
are a commodity and you make a lot of money
for the school, right, So what do they want your focus?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
They want your focus on the field, right, and.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just past the class that's it just passed. We have
all these resources who would get you to all this.
You get to see you're playing, right, And my mind
really flipped when I didn't have football, because I started
to think, okay, I'm gonna be competitive on the field,
but I'm also going to be competitive in that classroom, right,
super competitive. And it took me three and a half
(22:17):
years to graduate because I was that competitive. Every summer
I took the maximumount of summer at school classes.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I didn't go.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I mean I was from Phoenix, I didn't I'm going
to go to West Side, stayed on campus, got my classes,
many classes I could take in the summer, and I
was just like, oh, man, I didn't do anything special.
Lovey Smith was my position coach. He made us all
everyone that was on that position, you didn't go home.
You're from Jersey, New Jersey, or you're from California, you
did not go home any off season. You stayed stayed there,
(22:48):
and you maxed out summer school. He was so serious
about education, which I just fell on line. I was like, hey,
I wasn't the only one. I didn't do anything spectacular.
Other guys are doing it as well. I just had
a focus. Man. I just didn't want to just go
to summer school to just get through. I want to
go to summer school. I'm gonna get that A. Yeah,
I'm gonna try to get that A. Half the class.
(23:09):
I didn't get a but I was trying. It was
just a different mindset. You can be competitive. And it's
the same reason why today I'm a partner in the
commercial real estate firm. I have a software company. That's
the reason why. Because when football ended, my life wasn't over.
What I knew I could do this on the outside, right,
I knew I could do it because I've done it
in school.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
It gives me chills to think of the beautiful life
that you've built at this point.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
But tell us about your football career.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
I mean, there's not a lot my football career. I
tell you what it was a dream coming true. First
of all, I get drafted by the Cowboys, the team
I hated when I was a kid, the Cowboys. Freaking
hated the Cowboys. I was a.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Challenging to be a Cowboys.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
We didn't have a We didn't have a team in
Arizona at the time. With the Cardinals didn't come in
until I.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Was a sophomore in college.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
Well maybe it's a junior year in high school or
something like, but by that time I didn't have I
didn't I didn't have no affiliation to him, right, But
my team growing up with the Steelers. Was my sister Monica.
Loved Lynn Swan and Terry Bradshaw. I had a ton
My best friends are all Cowboy fans. Everyone in Phoenix
was a Cowboy fan. Still his day, Cowboys one of
(24:28):
the two. Right. All my buddies were Cowboys fans, and
the Steelers were the only team that was they getting
the Super Bowl boom. Steelers would win those games and
so I became a big time Steelers fan.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So I get drafted by the Cowboys and.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I was like, my god, the only team I hate
freaking draft me, right, but okay whatever, But I walked.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Into a locker room.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Yeah, thake thanks to Dave Campo who came out and
worked me out. He showed up to a linebacker, didn't
Yeah you know, he showed up to watch my best
friend Sparks, who was a cornerback. So that's how so
Dave Campbell. So I'm we're getting it's our pro day.
So I go to the combine. I have a really
good combine. I ran really good, worked out well, and
then we had a pro day at Arizona State. And
(25:12):
when we have these pro days, you have all the scouts,
every team comes out right and Dave Campbell ended up
coming out to pretty much watch Felipe because Felipe was
a guy they needed to they needed a cornerback, and
he came out to watch him. I ran a really
good time, ran a four three five on that field man,
and then I worked out that was what they call
(25:33):
a tweener. I played linebacker, safety, and no one knew
where to really play me, and they saw me run
and Campbell was like, he's a safety. Jimmy's the one
who ends up pulling the trigger to draft me. And
then I get drafted and I still really don't know
what position I'm going to play with the Cowboys because
they're still like nose, I don't know if you were
a corner, and say they brought me in in the
(25:54):
safety room. We get the mini camp and we do
what we call one on ones, like you got to
cover the receiver, whoever the receiver is, you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Cover them right.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
And I covered in college, and the Lovely Smith made
me play multiple positions. Right If I played safety, linebacker,
sometimes I cover running backs or tight ends or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So I knew how to cover. They didn't know.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
I knew how to cover, and I got out there
and we're covering one on one and Jimmy was like,
you're my nickel guy. Not like the nickel guy is
not the safety or the linebacker. The nickel guy, it's
your third corner. Wow. I became a corner. Basically, I'm
covering tight ends and I'm covering running backs and every
(26:35):
once in a while I cover a slot receiver or whatnot.
I became that guy and I ran down the field
on special teams. And I tell you this because my
first year, of course, I wanted to be the guy.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I just wanted to be the dude.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Man.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I wanted to play safety every game.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
I wanted them to say my name at the beginning
of the game, or when John Madden is calling the games,
my face shows up as the starting safety or whatever
it is, right, And it burned me.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Man. Now, whoever's listening to this, it's okay to be
upset for not.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Whatever whatever your goal you have, you don't reach it,
or if you got a little animosity about it, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I should burning you.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Right. So I would be at practice and I'd be
so upset that I wasn't the start of safety. There
were multiple times that Jimmy would walk up and he
tried to, hey, just waste your time, be patient, and
I was like, damn patience, I'm on the start. And
Jimmy loved that about me. I know he did, because yeah,
he knew it meant something to me. Campbell to saying
(27:36):
they knew it meant something to me. And every day
I'd go out there, I just wanted it.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I wanted it. I wanted it, wanted it.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
But I grew so much because now I'm playing, I'm
covering all the time, I'm doing all those little things
where you know, a lot of safeties weren't doing that,
they weren't covering at all. Basically, I became the hybrid guy,
now the nickel guy that they call today the nickel
I was one of the first guys to ever do that, right,
But I cut my teeth because I had to cover,
had to cover at the cover. And then when I
(28:02):
became the starter at safety, I played multiple positions. And
those multiple positions because I could cover, allowed me to
be a guy who never experienced free agency because they.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Knew the value absolutely.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
And it's crazy how it's like a vicious circle. Man,
Sometimes you got to go through. You never put your
fire out. Never put the fire out, That's right.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I kept burning hot, just kept burning hot, and it's
paid dividends. Yeah, I mean it was all sudden. Actually,
I just like, man, some players that are just fun
to watch. You were one of those dudes. I appreciate it. Yeah,
you appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, because of that fire, because of that hood, because
of everything.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
It was like you knew, I don't know what's going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Somebody's gonna get teed off on right right now. You
would probably be objected from the game.
Speaker 6 (28:54):
Games fun and exciting, and dude, I'm telling you, I've
seen you work out even now, and I'm like, I mean,
I would like to see you just sit up this
one time.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
See that ain't happen.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
You would cuss me out watching me play now, trying
to backpedal, giving like, come on man, let that guy
run by you.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Hey, I know where I stand now.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You know what, though, it was this conviction that you've
had in you, and that was instilled in you rather
that was from your mom and clearly is an angel,
or your uncles who were just two salty devil dogs trying.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
To figure it out.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It taught you how to make a point, yeah, exactly,
colorful point yeah, and drive and drive I mean from
your sister who I know you, But I learned.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
From so many people like I'll give you an example.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
So for the longest time, when COVID hit like, I'd
work out like you just mentioned. I work out a
lot before COVID happened, and we were like three months
before there was a shutdown. I was ordering equipment. I
was going to a gym to work out. The gym
started getting packed and I couldn't get to the weights
at six o'clock in the morning. I couldn't get to
the squad rack.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I couldn't get to this. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
So I said, I'm gonna build a gym in my garage. Right,
So I build this gym in my garage, and every day,
like when COVID hit, man, I just had my garage
and I would work out every day.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
So I've been consistently that guy, because I'm a guy
that if I don't work out, my body hurts.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And it doesn't have to be weights. I can just
walk on a treadmill. Right.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
I gotta get SOLDI I've had eleven surgeries. I gotta
get moving, man.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I know, trust trust don't you start with me.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
I just I know I feel don't make me cussing anyway, so.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
You don't feeling like I'm hurting. I gotta get these
bad going. So every day I'm working out, working out.
And then I would say about a year and a
half ago, I was working out five days a week,
and I traveled and I came back from New York
City and I remember taking a day off. It was
like a Tuesday, right. Actually was in New York on
a Monday, got off the plane, worked out, came had meetings,
(31:09):
came back and the next day, instead of me getting
up and going to go work out, I was like,
AHM taking this. I'm seriously do I'm every day Monday
through Friday, I'm doing something, staying active. Five thirty morning,
I get up and I go do something right and
I just dropped the ball down. I was like, I'm tired,
I don't want to do it. And I'm telling you
to this day. This is about a year and a
(31:31):
half ago. I have not been that consistent up until
two months ago. See the problem I had was I
was so cookie cutter and I was so into a regiment,
regimen regiment. I took one day the coward showed up
and said, nah, I'm gonna take this day off, right,
And it took me up until two months ago to
(31:51):
get back on track. And we act like we're always
consistent with no, we're not like no one does it
every single the Coward's going to show up at some point, right,
And I've always been like, nah, no, it won't happen
to me. And now it happened. And then here's the deal.
This is what got me, this is what really got me.
So I'm working out. I'm in my gym, I'm in
(32:11):
my garage, and the doors are open right every day.
Five forty five, about six oh five, a lady named
Carol runs like clockwork.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Like clockwork.
Speaker 5 (32:22):
She lives two blocks down right, and Carol, she used
to see me working out all the time. And this
is where I knew I really slipped up. I'm out
there working out one day and I'm not consistent. I'm
out there twice maybe a week or whatnot. Carol runs up.
She says, hey, you've been traveling a lot, and I'm like, no,
(32:44):
what are you talking about. I've been here. She's like,
I haven't seen you, And I thought, okay, Cal there
is I see how Yeah, there it goes to chip again.
Ye okay, I need the chip, dude, I need Oh
you're gonna see me tomorrow, Carols. Matter of fact, you're
gonna see me every single day. But I need that
(33:06):
right because if I don't have the motivation, if I
don't have something that's gonna spark me, I tend to
fall off.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
What do you mean by the coward showed up?
Speaker 5 (33:15):
The coward is that person like you work every day,
you wake up, you look in the mirror, right, and
the coward is the one who's always saying, hey, you
know you worked out last week, or you let me
worked out every day this week.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Take the day off, go get back in bed. That's
that coward, right.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Coward also wants to be tumultuous, wants to fight people,
wants to argue.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Hey, man, your wife.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
She came in a little late yesterday, she said, so
she snapped at you a little bit.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Man. You need to take it out like you. You
need to give it back to her today like this
revenge time.
Speaker 7 (33:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
The coward's always the one. He's dysfunctional.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
It's that dysfunctional part of you that wants to speak
to you and wants to have this that subgroup who
wants to have their largest voice just wants to have
this loud voice and scream from the mountains. You got
to defend your mind. You gotta need your mind. He's
the taker, he's the victim. He wants me to play
the victim card. Oh man, did you see what happened
to the black guy on TV yesterday?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Every white person should pay for it?
Speaker 5 (34:12):
No, man, Like, let's reset, look in the mirror and
tell the coward, no, bro, it ain't going down that way.
It's not happening. This is how I'm gonna live my life.
I'm gonna live it with grace. I'm gonna live it
with structure. I'm gonna live it in Jesus' path. That's
the way I'm gonna I'm gonna live my life.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Period.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
I still need that chip because if I don't have
that chip on my shoulder, the coward will show up.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
That's your fuel, that's my fuel. What do you call
the champion?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Dude? That dude like I got that dude, that that
dude is a guy that's like, hey man, we ain't
hearing all that. Let's go, let's go. We gotta go
choose one.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I call that that's the good versus evil.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, everybody's got it every day every day wake up,
you can decide which weren't fighting for.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, what would your daily affirmation be to yourself as
you're looking in the mirror?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
How many people I touched in that day? The one
thing I do have. First of all, I have three
four kids. Three of them are out of the house.
One that I got a seven year old. Right, So
I try to get that work out in the morning
every day and my son goes to school. I take
them to school about seven thirty. I'm gonna have breakfast
with them. Wow, every single morning, right, it's just hands down,
there are no meetings. If I'm in town, I'm having
(35:22):
breakfast with him. I'm sitting down just here, and my
wife is usually either working out or she's doing her
own thing.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Right. I get him dressed, feed them, take them to school.
That's a win for me.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
I got workout in, I took him to school, spent
time before seven thirty in the morning, got that done.
Those are two wins, and I count wins. I'm sorry,
I just have to That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
But then on the way to work, daily affirmation is
basically on the way to work. Again, I'm always in
these modes, right, Like I can be.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Up and down or whatnot.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
And I'm always trying to shake that mode of because
I can be confrontational on certain things, right, shake the
mode of, hey man, instead of being confrontational, what are
you gonna bring?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Like, what positiveness are you gonna bring?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
I love those guys Like he walks into a room
and then he lights the room up. However you want
to take it like he's gonna be a charge. He's
super charged all energy, right, And when Jake walks in
the room, You're like, Okay, herey comes. I don't know
how he's gonna go, but here comes that energy, right.
And I think special people have that, and I want
to be that person. Like I want to walk into
my office and I want people to look at me
(36:28):
and say, man, you dude the energy because I hear
that all the time from me when I walk in
my office, hey man, you bring that positive energy because
I walk in, I'm smiling. One that's one is I
always tell myself, you're gonna smile when you walk in
the office, regardless of what's happening. The admins whomever You're
gonna walk up and say what's going on?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yes, talk loud. Sometimes when I walk in the office
and like good Marning Darren, that's a response. I'm like,
you better hear yes, good, Yeah, here we go right good.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
I want to bring that energy because I think there's
something about it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Right. Who wants to hear that guy? Yeah? Who wants
to be that guy? They walk in the room and.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
It's just like, don't be the one that drains it, just.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Suck the light. I don't want to be that guy. Yeah,
be a soul feeder. Short you only get one shot, man, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
And I'm telling you who's watching all the time. Your
kids are watching. Jackson's watching.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Absolutely, they're watching it.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Like, if you don't have that energy, if you don't
have that pop when you walk in the room, they're probably.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Like, that's right everything you do.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Did those voices the coward and the dude? Did that
start early in life?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I did. It started when I was a kid.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I went to junior high and I remember being on
a bus and something it went down the day before.
It was a little scrap right on the basketball courtiods
playing basketball. One guy says something I said something. We
went back and forth. Gang member. He's a Hispanic gang member.
School was half black, half Hispanic, and sometimes there was
went down sometimes playing basketball. If we got into it
(38:01):
didn't even It's like, oh whatever. So I remember the
next day, I'm on the bus and I'm getting off
the bus and I wasn't even thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
And I'm getting off, about to get off the bus,
and I remember the bus stopping.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I look down and old boys with his whole you
got his whole posse right there.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, I'm by myself.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Right, my boys are already they've already been dropped off, right,
my bus stop. So I remember here it goes right,
you better not back down. You better not like you
cannot they if your boys see you, coward back to dude,
you couldn't do it right. So that coward was in
(38:44):
my head, the hole. Don't get off that bus. Don't
get off that bus. Don't get off that bus. I
mean he's just talking to me, and dude, it's like, now,
you don't give it to his ass today. You're gonna
get to do that today.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Right, And I remember sitting there in the bus driver
sitting there, what's it?
Speaker 5 (39:05):
I can hear him waiting. He's waiting, and he says, hey,
you ain't got to get off. You ain't got to
get off.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Brother, dude, black dude, big heavy dude named Ernie, you
ain't got to get off. New you knew you got
that bag. We don't get.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
But that's one where I'm like, that sucker was there
right back.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And forth and the way back then. Look, we weren't.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Fighting with guns and all that stuff, right, he knew
it was gonna be. He was going and I got
off the bus. Did nothing happen. No, I got the bus,
got my bag, started walking. He just looked at me,
said a few things, kept on going. But that's one thing.
That's one time I remember, like, you know how mad?
(39:50):
Honestly I didn't know, but I was just having his
battle of it was going back and I don't know
how long.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Dude was holding the door, like, hey he had the
door closed. He didn't. He was like, hey, that was
a test. Yeah it was a test, dude.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
But I know where that guy is cause it's the
same thing that happens to me when I'm sitting there
and I know I got a prep for an RFP
or whatnot. Because the Cowury is gonna say, you got this.
You just wing it, just wing this thing. You know
you got Walmart tomorrow, just wing it. No. The dude's like, no, No,
we're gonna get down. We're gonna get dirty today. We're
gon we're gonna learn something. We're gonna learn something.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
All right, talk to us about the triumph of winning
not one, not two, but three Super Bowls.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
You know, winning Super Bowls was first of all, it's
people see us play these games and they think, oh, man,
you know, you guys are so talented and blah blah blah.
What people don't see is the time that goes into this. Right,
So the season ends, let's say the Super Bowls played
in I don't know, February ninth or tenth. Right by
the end of March, you're back in the gym, right,
(40:52):
So that's when it starts. It's a little different now,
But when I was playing, it started like the end
of March. You're starting to get back in the gym.
I say, like March twentieth, you take some time, and
then March twentieth you get back in the gym and
you have these times where.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You work out together.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Right, So it's defensive backs, linebackers that work out at a
certain time on the line and they work out of
side and it's usually our group was usually going.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
At seven am. That's when the groundwork started.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
It start right then you start to set the tone
of Okay, March twentieth, and then you get into April,
we get the you have the NFL Draft, and there's
guys that are coming and going, they're chopping, they're firing,
they're cutting.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Guys, they're bringing in new guys.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
And then by the time you get into May, you
kind of know who's going into training camp, right, but
you're still building this team. And like for me as
a captain of the defense, I'm always engaging with the
young guys coming in or trying to engage with people
to say, Okay, we gotta do this, and I'm trying to.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Keep my own job at the same time.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
Right, But that's when it starts, so people don't see
all the things that take place. And then you get
into training camp. And then when you're in training camp,
you get guys coming and going in. Then you have
injuries throughout the season, Then you have big wins throughout
the season, then you got these big losses throughout the
seasons like a roller coaster ride, Right, emotions are just
going up and down, and then you get into the
(42:11):
playoffs and then it heightens itself even that much more. Right,
There's so much that goes into this because you set
these goals early on and you're trying to get there,
and you have these ups and downs and valleys and
those and you eat this a long season and coaches
that are talking about getting fired and all the things
that are going on, and then you finally get there and.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
You get into the playoffs and you're like, man, we're
in the tournament. Now.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
We got three games, three games, and here we are.
And that is what people don't see. They don't see
the fact that every morning on Monday, I can't walk.
I can't walk Monday morning, I gotta get nice up.
I'm struggling to get to Wednesday's practice. Right Monday, I'm
beat down. I'm just trying to stay a little lose. Tuesday,
(42:58):
I'm like, I can't even get out of bed. I
don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Isn't it weird? It's always two days later?
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know, especially if you play
on turf, play on turf, bro, it is a beating.
You know, you got turf burns that you don't want
to get, staff infections and all. I mean, there's so
much that goes on to this. So but hey, again
I ain't whinting because paychecks are nice.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Hey, there's a give and take here. Now I'm not
whining about it.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
And then again, so now you're trying to get there.
You're in the playoffs, and it's one game at a time.
There is no seven game series, five games series. It
is one game you gotta win. And when you do,
when you finally get there to the pinnacle and you
win that championship, it's unmatched. The feeling of victory, the
feeling of walking into that locker room, because I could
(43:45):
care less when we won the Super Bowl, I can
care less what was going on outside that locker room.
That locker room was hot. It was just dudes are
crying emotionally, you're spent, but you're just like we did it.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
It's special.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
It's special, yeah, and you never lose that, right. There's
a certain camaraderie that's a super Bowl winning team and
you stay together all these We just had a reunion
two months ago. Troy set it up and man, we
had a great time.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Like that's we look different, we all looked different, but
we still tell them lies. We teld all these lies.
Speaker 5 (44:26):
But it's just you, just that fraternity you'd never forget.
And it's just a special moment, it really is.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
What would you say to that young man back in
Phoenix if you could talk to him today?
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Who if I could talk to him today, I would
probably say, it's okay to cry, It's okay, yeah, because
I didn't have I mean, there was so many times
I just want to be hard.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I had to be hard.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
I had to you know, I didn't have my father there,
I didn't have all those little things. And it's okay
to just let it go and just yeah, be human
and just and move forward because I just I held
on to so much negativity. There are times where I
probably just wouldn't let it go. Yeah, it would have
made for better me at a younger age.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
But it's okay to have the chip, but don't let it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah, don't let it consume you.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Yeah, yeah, bro, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean I was just gonna ask a questions, but
I mean, yeah, you're done.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Actually be the tea like I want to know, and
you can't say. We can say whatever you want, but
what do you do to recharge? What do you do
to put soul food in you to get back up
and get back out there and to continue to pour
in to make people and businesses and teams.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And man, dude, you hit. I'm glad see you brought
some value today. You do. Absolutely, that was that was
a great, great question. So every day I had talked about.
Speaker 5 (46:03):
When I get up in the morning and go work out,
all right, there's this minute like I usually have like
these three minutes where I just go, man, and I
go into my closet. I got my shoes on and
stuff like that. But I'll usually go, I'm looking for
a shirt, do it, and I get on my knees.
Like every single day, it's like the recharge, right, and
I'm laying down flat and I'm just telling God, I
(46:23):
ain't worthy. I love you, Please pour into me because
I know I'm not worthy. That's like my recharge time.
For some reason. It's just that feeling of and sometimes
I don't even say anything. I just sit there and
just try to listen, and I'll do it for like
three to five minutes in my class. My wife has
come in so many times, like we've had workouts and
she'll come in and I've seen her turn the lights on.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
And be like, walk right back out.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
She knows, that's my timetime, that hey, my time. Oh
she knows, she knows. But I just every morning, I
just need it. Every morning, I just need it.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I just continue to love you more every freaking time
we're I'm around you, I'm.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Like, God, that's just that's good. That's good ship right there.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
That's the good ship. Or we're changing the name of
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
I mean, I think that's the first time I've cussed
on the podcast people.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I mean, Darren Woodson, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Thank you for your.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Time, thank you for your vulnerability, for telling us your
story and your truth and everything that you do to
practice and rest assured.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
You are the good energy in the room. When you
walk in, everything elevates, and it does.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
I love you, of course, I love y'all too, And
we've known each other for a while. But y'all just
good folks, sharp and good folks. And he this dude
ain't gonnaver let me drop the ball. He's gonna make
sure I got it right. But I also want to
thank Nick. Right months ago, Nick Rock, I had a
long conversation out and actually I was sitting in the
(47:55):
gym when we had that conversation, but it was it
was a deep like he asked me some questions that
I was like, Man, that's very inquisitive. That really got
me to thinking about a lot of other things. So Nick,
I know you're listening. Man, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Brother.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
He is the best.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Couldn't period, no Nick, no good stuff. Yeah, that's simple.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
There's a reason he's he does what he does. He
is a solid, solid human being. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
I tell you know how I feel about you anytime.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Anytime, anywhere, any day, no questions, time and place.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
I'm there back at you, bro, I know I love it.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
Thank you so much for listening today.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
If this episode touched you, please share it and be
part of making someone else's day better.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Put on your bad ass caves and go be a
champion today and remember you can't do epic stuff without
epic people.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
The Good Stuff is executive for used by Ashley Shick,
Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Coode Media, Hosted by
Ashley Shick and Jacob Schick. Produced by Nick Cassellini and
Ryan Count's house post production supervisor Will Tindy. Music editing
by Will Haywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,
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