February 14, 2024 • 44 mins
After a middle-aged manual laborer goes back to school to turn his life around, he’s reborn as a college football standout. But as midlife crises go, this one is going to hurt.
(Portions of today's episode were recorded on Radio Row in Las Vegas before Super Bowl 58.)
*
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's twenty twelve and players at Culver Stockton College in Canton,
Missouri are gearing up for football practice. Canton is a
college town, but not a big one. Nestled near the
Mississippi River, the population is less than three thousand. Their
source of athletic pride is the Culver Stockton Wildcats, but
(00:43):
times have been tough. During the previous season, they went
just one and ten. It wasn't so much sport as
human sacrifice. But there's a sense their fortunes can be
turned around, maybe with some new blood. At practice, a
freshman named Mike Davis looks around and spots an older man,
(01:06):
a very very big man six foot five and two
hundred and ninety five pounds, And Mike starts to wonder
if maybe this giant has a son who's going to
be playing here, hopefully a kid who has the same
oversized proportions.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And I'm looking around the wave room, you know, just like,
who's this guy's got a kid here?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Like, who's kid is this guy's.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Mike's head coach looks at the guy, then back.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
At Mike, and he goes, oh, no, that's that's Andy
he's actually gonna be playing for us, And at that
point my mind blew a little bit and I was like, well,
that's that's a grown man.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I was like, you know, I asked him, like, how
old is he goes he's thirty eight.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Thirty eight is older than the coach, older than the trainers,
older than almost everyone in and around the team. That's
how Mike and every other player learns about Andy Staton.
Andy is the newest nostown for the Wildcats and a
man who's about to get a second lease on life
(02:12):
by returning to a game he walked away from almost
twenty years prior. It's an opportunity to provide a better
life for himself and his kids and close a chapter
on a story he never quite finished. But as a
midlife crisis goes, this one is going.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
To hurt a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
This is very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
your host, Danash Schwartz and this is Old Man on Campus.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Welcome everybody.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
This is a little different episode this week because we
are in the same room. The three of us have
never been in the same time zone before, and now
we're sitting.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
For breathing the same air. Breathing the same.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
Air, and it's the air at the Super Bowl.
Speaker 8 (03:07):
I know everyone I told that I was going to
Vegas this week looked at me like like I told
them I was going to Mars. Because I am the
least likely person to be involved with anything related to sports.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
So you're not a football fan, Dana.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
No, I'm a fan of getting together with a group
of friends, and I loved ones and eating snacks. Yes,
I'm like, I like a communal activity, like I like
the idea of watching football together.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I don't.
Speaker 8 (03:32):
I don't really care about sports in general. But I'm
not like one of those infuriating like sports ball people like.
I get why people like it, it's just not I'm
so focused usually on history that I don't have room
in my brain for football rules.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Makes perfect stense? How is the Taylor Swift and Travis
Kelcey made it to you?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
That is actually my only interest in football now?
Speaker 8 (03:54):
And I have asked my husband when Travis Kelsey plays
because I like to see if she's there, I like
to see what she's wearing. Look, I'm a thirty one
year old white woman. Is this That is my super Bowl?
Speaker 6 (04:07):
For you guys? Thank you?
Speaker 7 (04:08):
Last year on this set. We were in Arizona. But
iheart's NFL partnership is why we're out here. And Travis
and Jason Kelsey recorded on our set. And this is
before Taylor Swift, before the podcast was you know, the
as huge a deal as it is. So there's some
people here today who thought maybe the Kelsey's and Taylor
(04:33):
Swift were going to come and it said they got
us so disappointed.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Views from the super fans walking through. I can take
my shirt off like Jason Kelsey. If it helps you,
just let's try it.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
I can try to sing. We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well.
Speaker 7 (04:48):
Today's story is not about Taylor Swift or it is
about football.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
It is about football and a big guy much like
Travis Kelsey.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Remind me what position did Andrew Stayton play.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
He was a defensive lineman, a big, hulking guy stopping
the run. He'd be lined up across from Jason kelcey.
I don't know if that helps.
Speaker 8 (05:09):
All I know the only two positions in football that
I know is tight end because that's Travis Kelsey and
my husband used to be a defensive tackle.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Oh okay, well that's exactly what he played. He played
the same exact same position as your husband.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Great, I'm sure I would like him.
Speaker 7 (05:22):
Alway, does your husband have any college eligibility left?
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Get him out you might be he can be part
season two. We can focus on him.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
The Howard's niece because we can get him out here.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yes, so far, so good. Equin.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
And while we're here, just want to thank everyone for
the incredible response that the show has gotten.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Iday.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Oh my god, thank you so much to everyone who's listened.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
Everyone who's listened, everyone who's watched danis TikTok's about the show.
All the different iHeart shows that have let us run
our promos on their show, all the radio stations, the
kind of feedback it's all been a great.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
iHeart for letting us come to last Day. Yes, stay
here and get a fancy dinner.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
Yes, yes, we'll have to do extended credits here to
thank Josh and Kurt and Aaron for letting us sit
here on the set and do our little banter.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I was so small coming into high school.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
My brother was graduated at six seven about two forty,
and coming in my freshman year, I was about five six,
one fifty and the wrestling coach told me.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
He said, why to try? You know, one's sixty next year.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's Andy Staton. He's describing his formative years as an
athlete in Duajack, Michigan. There was wrestling, running track, tennis,
and of course, suiting up for football. Duwajack is football country,
the type of place where babies get tiny footballs to
play with instead of rattles. But the size and strength
(06:58):
he needed had.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
To be earned.
Speaker 9 (07:00):
I had Mike, now I'm wrestling heavyweight. He goes, how
can you wrestle heavyweight? You weight one hundred and fifty
two pounds. I said, well, I'm gonna make it. That's
the time you had to weigh one hundred and eighty
eight miles to wrestle, while my sophomore year I came
out one hundred and eighty and had to drink a
gallon of water to make weight.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's Andy determined, stubborn. Tell him he can't and he'll
find a way around you, or if it's on the field,
through you. The grit the tenacity was probably genetic. Andy's father,
Jerry Staden, was recruited by the legendary bo Schembeckler at
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before turning to high school coaching.
(07:42):
Andy's brother Mark played two seasons in the NFL and
wound up coaching for Michigan State. The Stadens are a
football family.
Speaker 9 (07:51):
My dad was a small snows tackle in the sixties
and my brother was the largest in the nineties. Dad
played at about two o five, my brother played at
about three twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And when it was time, Andy strapped on the cleats
and the pads too, parlaying his physical presence as a
defensive player for Duajack Union High School and for a
while his life followed a predictable path. Football came easily,
but class work didn't. He wound up at Farris State
(08:22):
University in Big Rapids, Michigan, and became a bulldog.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
The D one schools they all called me up and
the last day before signing said we can't trust your
grade points. So they all had eighteen calls and one
night nose back then on rotary fall, and that was
pretty depressing. The next day D two schools.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Started calling me and I ended up going on a
couple of visits.
Speaker 9 (08:44):
I ended up taking Farris State's offer and went up.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Redshirted there, but that's really the last time.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Andy's story plays out like every other football story you've heard.
For starters, Andy didn't care for college at Ferris. For
his first semester, he kept having problems with people stealing
his up, not just electronic equipment like his television, but
swiping a check and other things. This continued on a
(09:15):
near weekly basis.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
People are robbing me.
Speaker 9 (09:18):
So I ended up moving off campus lived with some
offensive lineman, which hated me because I was a D lineman,
and typically O line and D lineman, I'm not saying
that they're a little more relaxed, and then I guess
I was a little more of the aggressive one hundred
mile an hour would up like a you know, a
rubber band that we were ready to snap at any time.
(09:42):
So I kind of had issues with these older O linemen,
which you know, I look back on it now as
I am at sure of course, so you know, I
was nineteen and.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Crazy, but I wasn't ready for as myself.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He was still struggling academically. College became a perfect storm
of problems. So at the end of the year, Andy
came to a.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Decision suck it out. Played the spring game, and after
the spring game.
Speaker 9 (10:10):
About a week or two after I went to the
head coach and said I was done.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
He dropped out after the spring semester. He wanted to
see what else was out there. Call it a temporary
lapse in maturity. At twenty, most of us have them.
He started going to Southwestern Michigan College, but not for football.
He took time to think about what he really wanted
to do with his life. Then, one night in nineteen
(10:36):
ninety five, while out with his girlfriend, a stranger's split
second decision almost ended it. Andy was out in his
Pontiac with his girlfriend behind the wheel. Another car, a
Honda Accord, tried to pass a tractor trailer. The driver
didn't see Andy's car.
Speaker 9 (10:55):
We were in an eighty six Pontiac and we were
out some country road, semi coming up over a hill
and we're in the bottom of a dip. And as
soon as we come up, pressed it over the hill.
Students from a local university here in southwest Michigan pulled
out hit his head on. I pulled my arm out
around her. I went through the windshield, my hip caught
(11:17):
the dash.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Came back through. There was a bench seat broke the
seat back.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
Of course, when I went through, I can remember the
lights of the semi and the glass fly.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Him and come back through. You know, I was instantaneous,
instant backwards.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
The cars collided head on. Andy, all six to five
of him, was almost tossed clear of the Pontiac. The
damage was substantial. It was the kind of thing where
doctors say you're lucky to be alive. It's possible being
in great shape saved his life, but Andy didn't quite
(11:56):
know the extent of the damage.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
At first.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
He was more concerned for his girlfriend, who was seriously injured.
She wound up being okay. Once the adrenalin wore off,
Andy spent three weeks in the ICU.
Speaker 9 (12:11):
Broke my back, crushed all my ribs, nerve damage, whatnot.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Didn't think I was going to do football anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
He spent months recuperating. His enthusiasm for returning to college.
Returning to football waaned, and no wonder a broken back
tends to dampen your appetite for a full contact sport,
so Andy dropped out of school, this time for good.
He diverged from the family business of football and opted
(12:41):
for a more conventional means of earning a living. Labor
he worked as a paver, He poured asphalt for roads.
He got into the construction business and farming. He used
the physicality that had served him so well on the
field and made a life for him and his wife,
(13:04):
who he married in nineteen ninety five, and later for
their two sons, Clay and Luke. With every passing year,
football kept getting further and further in the rear view,
and so was a life that made sense. By two
thousand and nine, Andy was in the midst of a
divorce and the possibility his sons would be relocated to Florida.
(13:28):
Things were looking well grim. At the age of thirty seven,
Andy took stock and realized that this wasn't the way
he had envisioned things working out. But unexpected turns work
both ways. Sometimes life blindsides you with tragedy or a honda,
(13:50):
and sometimes it surprises.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
You with a little bit of a break.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Andy's break came in the form of a phone call,
one that would turn his world upside down. One day
in twenty eleven, Andy's phone ring on the other end
(14:15):
was Jeff duven Deck, coach for the Culver Stockton Wildcats.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
So I was living in a farmhouse out in another
towel and came to see my dad after I was
cutting trees down and my fall rings and talking to
my dad and I answer it and he he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Hey, is Jeff Dubin Deck. How you doing Andy?
Speaker 9 (14:32):
And I'm like good, good, just getting off work and
he's like, well, I'm looking for a nose tackle that
could play this fall. Like, Jeff, I don't know any
kids right now that could play collegiate ball. I haven't
been following high school football. And he's like, well, I
want you. And Jeff at the time, I was thirty seven,
and I said I can't play football at thirty seven
(14:53):
years old, and he goes, well, your brother said you're
the mean of son of a gun to ever walk
down a football field, and I want the meana son
of a gun to.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Play for me.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Jeff duven Deck's back was up against a wall. Newly
install as the coach for the Wildcats, they had posted
a dreadful one and ten record in his first season there.
He needed more muscle a defensive tackle, and he happened
to mention this to Mark Stayton, and he's brother, Mark, remember,
(15:25):
is a fellow coach. It was Mark who told Jeff, Well,
what about Andy. Here's coach Jeff.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
We got one win in our first year.
Speaker 10 (15:35):
You know, we struggled. I remember coming back to visit
Michigan State to work one of their camps and do
some recruiting, and I stopped in to see Mark, Andy's brother,
and just said, hey, you know, he's asking how it
was going. I said it's going, but we, uh, you know,
we just don't have any size. I mean, some bigger guys,
we don't have any He's like, well, you remember my brother,
(15:57):
he's going through divorce and looking to finish his college
degree and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So Jeff looked into it. Logistically, nothing was stopping him
from recruiting Andy, who had the size he needed. Even
though he hadn't played the game in years or was
it decades, A lifetime of physical labor had kept him strong.
Andy weighed his options. He didn't want to be away
(16:23):
from his kids, but on the other hand, a degree
could open up new job opportunities. Tuition to Culver Stockton,
which today costs forty thousand dollars a year, would be
fully paid, and well, wait, wasn't this all kind of crazy?
Andy was thirty seven, soon to be thirty eight. Football
(16:45):
is hard, even on young bodies. This was a Rocky
type scenario, but not the Rocky of that first movie,
The Rocky of Rocky Balboa, where Rocky is in his
fifties and stages a comeback in football years. Andy wasn't
too far off.
Speaker 9 (17:03):
So I'd like, olider you, Jeff. I think he was
thirty two or thirty three. I said, could you strap
up again? He goes, well, no, but I'm not built
like you. My dad's looking at me, and of course
my dad, being a you know, ex coach slash collegiate ballplayer,
he was what was that about last? So I just
got offered to go back plack out football. And you
can't play football, you're too old.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You're thirty seven. So I started doing a while he's
kind of saying this to me. I say, well, challenge accepted.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Pop pros outweighed the cons A degree meant a better
financial future, So off you went to become a Culver
Stockton Wildcat. Culver Stockton is an NAIA school that stands
for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. It's a governing
(17:50):
body like the NCAA. The NCAA is much bigger with
over one thousand schools compared to the NAIA is two
hundred and fifty or so, but the best of the
NAIA can often match certain divisions of the NCAA. So
while this was a liberal arts school, there wasn't anything already.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
About the football. It was the real thing.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Something Andy discovered in his first practice.
Speaker 9 (18:21):
I get hit by I don't remember. It was like
an offensive guard pulled and I can remember.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Big blue and red balls and I'm like, did I
make a mistake?
Speaker 9 (18:31):
And it was like the second snap of the practice
that will you.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Know as far as hitting part of it.
Speaker 9 (18:37):
But I do remember that first practice going, man, did
I make a mistake doing this?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And once I got my feet underneath me and I
was all right. Meeting all the guys, of course they're questioning,
who's this old guy.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Andy's first appearance was, as Mike Davis explained, a bit
of a surprise to the team, but that amusement gave
way to something else when Andy suited up.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Here's Mike, huge, huge guy, very hard to move.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But yeah, I just first time I seen him at pads,
it was like, holy crap, you looked even bigger.
Speaker 9 (19:11):
Because he's a pretty large, deemed so well if you
were to basically get into a car and drive it
into a.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Brick wall, like that's pretty much what it was.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Every time I would jump on him as soon as
we you know, the ball was snaffed, I'd be on
top of them all over. But he was just so
strong that it wouldn't matter. It could be, you know,
first of the punch. Every time he would just take
me over and move me back like it was nothing.
So there was no driving three man because he was
just so strong.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And made it very difficult. But yeah, being heads with
the wall man.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Even at thirty eight, Andy had exactly what coach Jeff
was looking for, what Rocky balboas trainer, was looking for
blunt force trump. He was the team's resident brick wall
immobile and highly resistant to attack. The idea of Andy
playing at his age was funny until it wasn't until
(20:10):
you had to face off with him. But once practice
was over, the aches began. Andy's body was a throbbing
nerve ending. It wasn't just the car accident that could
have led to lasting effects. No one's really sure. It
was the cumulative effects of spending decades in manual labor,
(20:32):
and years before that, playing football as a young man,
there were ice baths and massages and a trainer who
was tasked with putting andy back together.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Hips, knees back. That was probably the most.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
I mean I was constantly taking ice baths, get the
lactic acid obviously out of my muscles, going in, getting
hooked up to those electrobes stimulating the muscles in every area,
and being older, you know, had just you don't recover
like young people do. You know when you're a kid thirteen, fourteen,
(21:08):
you'd go do something and you'd be sore that night
and then next day you're fine. Well, when you're four,
did you go out give it one hundred percent on Saturday?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Going to practice and showing up thirty minutes early just
to stretch.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
I was fine even, you know, It's just until I
went to bed and woke up the next day and
go ooh, and it was like literally being.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
In a car accident train.
Speaker 9 (21:33):
It just felt like I got this frap kicked out
of me. I mean, I've got pictures on my phone
of bruises I'd have and they were just grotesque.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You're talking to my whole.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
Quad, just completely green and black and blue, you know,
purple armed drums from my top of my bicep to
my wrists and it would swell up and oh yeah,
I mean it was that daily grind.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
On the field. Well, that was different. The field was
a painkiller. Adrenaline shaved a lot of years off and
Andy was able to do what Andy does. Number ninety
three was a human bulldozer.
Speaker 9 (22:16):
On Saturdays, I felt young again. It was a transition.
You know, I might be limping like a son of
a gun from Monday to Friday, but then on Saturday,
I'd get a pep in my step and fly around,
you know, head out of swivel.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Here's coach Jeff again.
Speaker 10 (22:34):
There was one play that I remember specifically where they
were double teaming open. He kind of took one hand
on one guy in one hand on the other and
pushed him both apart, and he was standing right in
the running backs a way as he.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Tried to go through.
Speaker 10 (22:49):
That area just stuck out to me just because of
the strength and power shown in that play. I don't
know if that's necessarily his best play, but it's just
one that is ringing in my head still.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Ten years later, Andy was trying to fit in another
way too.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
The rules Culver.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Stockton mandated that you had to reside within the state
to attend on campus, so that first year he did
as freshmen do.
Speaker 9 (23:18):
Yeah, I didn't have much. I lost pretty much everything
in the divorce, so as far as material items.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Didn't have much.
Speaker 9 (23:25):
But I went down there lived in a fraternity house
on campus for the first semester because they.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Couldn't find a room mate for me. And yeah, I
went down there with just basically close a couple suitcases, TV.
Speaker 9 (23:40):
And that was about it, and ended up living in
a frat house first semester, which was interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
College is college, even if you're twice as old as
everyone else.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It was loud, you know.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
I was thirty eight years old and familied up for
all those years, and here I moved in and they're
throwing parties every night. I had to heal up so
much because I was so exhausted. I got no rest.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It was just so loud. And luckily I was on
the top floor of the.
Speaker 9 (24:12):
House and kind of in the corner, so it was
a little quieter where I was at, but you could
still hear him from the basement going And they were
typical young guys. You know they're having fun. I would
lie to say I didn't join them on Saturday night,
so I had fun. I was gonna do my thing
and feel accepted amongst the young guys.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Andy stayed in the frat. Just one year after that
he moved into a dorm with Mike and some other teammates.
But wherever he was, Andy had seniority and a group
of twenty year olds looking up to him. Maybe Andy
had some answers, not just for football, but in life.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
It was an interesting time and then you hear you
what these young guys think of and their way of
thinking compared to my way of thinking at the time,
and I would question it in my own mind. I
would try to figure out their understanding of what they
were talking about, just be able to communicate with us,
and luckily, having a teenage son at the time, kind
(25:11):
of knew what they're going through, what they're.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Likes, and what they didn't like.
Speaker 9 (25:16):
It was an interesting time to go and be amongst
yup adults when here I was old enough to be
their dad.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Here's Mike Davis again.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
A lot of guys would go to him with life
problems and things that he had experienced or been through.
Like I said, he's been my best friend for a
long time and I still reach out to him to
this day.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know, my father ended.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Up passing away in twenty nineteen, and he was a
big supporter for me, and you know, he drove all
the way off from Dwajack and we hung out with
us for like a week. And he's a great guy,
and he's just that type of person. He's very giving
of himself, but he also shoots you straight. So if
it's something that you ask him a piece of advice,
he's going to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's going to be out of sunest. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think that resonated a lot with some of the
younger guys, especially, you know, he's twice.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
In each.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
The Wildcats were definitely because a team on and off
the field, but that first season wasn't a whole lot
better than the season prior. They went three and eight,
with two of those victories coming after the opposing teams
had to forfeit after using ineligible players in their games,
but their lone victory outside of logistics was a memorable one.
(26:29):
That October they played Lindenwood University Belleville, at home behind
fourteen seven. With just under three minutes left, the team
scored two late touchdowns. Andy contributed ten tackles in the
game and forty five for the season, fourteen of them solo.
(26:51):
At the end of the spring semester, Andy traveled back
to Michigan, where he had custody of his two sons
and where he was able to earn some money selling cars.
You could call this an active recovery time, since his
body needed to heal from the eleven game and countless practices.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
He had put it through.
Speaker 9 (27:10):
Buddy of mine's dad owned both the Ford and Chevy
dealerships in our town, and I would go and sell
cars in the day and then come home my boys
and work out, you know, just kind of the normal.
I didn't stay down and train like my roommates stayed
down in at Culver and train, but I had my
son's full time in the summer show.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I needed that time.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Andy returned to Missouri for his sophomore year, his second
as a Wildcat. This time, the team posted a two
and nine record, but there was again a sense Andy
was able to turn the clock back a bit.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Of course, I was a run stopper.
Speaker 9 (27:49):
I wasn't much of a pass rusher, playing at three
hundred average, but between three ten and three hundred and
forty pounds, I could hold two three guys. I was
double on triple team almost eighty five percent.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, it was. It was great.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
During that and Andy's father was able to see him
play for the first time since he was at Farris State. Well,
it seems like a simple thing. It wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Jerry Stayton, then in his seventies, had been through open
heart surgery. He'd been battling cancer, so seeing him at
(28:26):
a game was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I think we're in Iowa.
Speaker 9 (28:30):
My dad came down to watch, and my brother's closest
friend in high school was living out there, so he
came to and I was having a heck of a
game I can remember. And then the old line on
that particular team. Back then they could do the chop
block before they made it illegal. And this one kid,
he just he kept chopping and then he would leg
(28:51):
with me. He hyper extended my knee and of course
I could still run, so I run off the field.
My trainer, Robbie Carmichael, He's like, you're done, and I'm
like Mount Dapa Dapa, and he's like, he goes, there's
only you know whatever, not even half of the fourth
quarter left, and my dad, you know, standing by the
(29:14):
fence now looking at me. I'm on the you know,
the gurney, and I'm just I made him take me
up and I went back out and finished the game.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Still the damage was adding up. Every game can be
like a minor car accident with the same kind of injuries.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
I had a staff and affection in my knee and
I did miss two games from that, and then I
broke my ribs my second year and I missed two
games with that. It was a home game and guy
Crack blocked me and put his helmet my ribs, broke
my bottom. I wouldn't let the doctor test him anymore.
He used the tuning fork style as where he takes
(29:56):
a tuning fork and he hits it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Vibrates and if you scream, it's broken.
Speaker 9 (30:01):
And he did the bottom two and I told you
to do another one, dog, you're going to have broken
ribs because I I could take it bore.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
There was another summer resting, and then his junior year
where the Wildcats finally found their rhythm. They went five
and five for the season, but four and two at home.
Speaker 9 (30:22):
It was an experience as far as growing together, having
a winning season on our third year.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
But that winning effort would come at a very steep price.
At Culver Stockton, everything was largely falling into place. Andy
was doing well academically, managing to make it home to
Michigan to see his sons, and not partying too hard.
(30:50):
But football is unlike a lot of sports, It's virtually
a form of combat.
Speaker 9 (30:56):
I didn't move as well my third year just because
I was hurting so much. But my first year, I
would say my first season was my most dominating season.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I was a little fresher, I wasn't so beat up,
but I came in every game. You know, I gave
everything I said I always did.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
By the time he was nearing his senior year and
crossing forty years old, Andy's body had finally had enough.
Just getting to the field became an exercise in determination.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
There were there were times that I'd have to have help.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
Guys would get me down because everything It's called the
College on the Hill for a reason. Every there's hills
everywhere in Culver, and to get down to the stadium,
you had to walk down about seven flights of stairs.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I'd have to have help.
Speaker 9 (31:43):
Either's somebody on one side, me holding both hands on
the guardrail, walking slope.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I can remember Sundays not being fun, that's for sure.
Speaker 9 (31:52):
My body was completely My knees were so loose.
Speaker 7 (31:57):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The trainer he do tests on them and you could
separate them.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
They were so the elasticity in my ligaments or they're
dog It.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Was decision time.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Football had given Andy a new lease on life, but
if you went on too long, it might wind up
being too much on his body.
Speaker 9 (32:21):
So I just knew I didn't have another season. I
physically couldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Did I want to? Of course I did, But.
Speaker 9 (32:28):
I miss also missed my boys, and I was ready
to be around them, you know, full time.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And that was the other thing I had to get back.
Speaker 9 (32:36):
I'd gotten my degree, I'd gotten my education done, and yes,
I could have stayed around for another season.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was ready to come home.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
As they say, he wanted to play four years, but
the pain and recovery was too much of a burden.
Well that was a goal, It wasn't the goal. The
goal was to earn a business degree, and thanks to
his credits carrying over from Faris State all the way
back in nineteen ninety three, Andy was able to graduate
(33:05):
in three years. He hadn't just gone back to fix
a football career. He had also turned back the clock academically.
Speaker 9 (33:13):
I ended up graduating with like a three five. I
think it was culver where when you know, when I
was at Faris, I left there like a two seven.
I made it just two six.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I can't something like that. I didn't care, you know.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
On this second time, I knew that the education was
the main factor. But it was also the time to
finish what I'd started at such a young age.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I had that opportunity. I was passively.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
His final game came against Benedictine, a twenty nine to
nineteen loss for the Wildcats.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Fittingly, it was senior day.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
It was time to hang athletes up.
Speaker 9 (33:51):
Once I turned forty and played that last season, it
was definitely time to hang him up.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
By now, it was twenty fifteen and Andy returned to
Dewagik with a degree. He kept selling cars for a while,
but eventually turned his attention to another mode of transportation.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
Well.
Speaker 9 (34:11):
I stayed with the car industry for all about a
year and a half two years.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And just wasn't making the money I needed to.
Speaker 9 (34:18):
And a friend the family had this diesel company selling
diesel engines and diesel engine parts and asked me if
I wanted to try it out, and I said, well, yeah,
I see what happened, and ended up working for him
and he ended up selling it about two years ago.
But I'm still a family owned company, so I'm still
(34:38):
still here buying and selling diesel engines in du Wagic.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Andy is a bit of a local legend. If you
know football, you know his story. There's the comeback sports
tale of it all, of course, but there was more
to it than that. For Andy, football was a way
to moderate his emotions, a kind of stress reliever.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
My dad always told me, he said, you know, you're
so aggressive. The sports things.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What keeps you out of trouble. And he was right.
Speaker 9 (35:06):
A switch that I couldn't turn off unless I was
playing the game or wrestling or lifting or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
But playing down.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
There it helped turn that switch off that I had
been carrying on for nineteen years after and I mean
it was an experience of a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Being a Wildcat was also the end of the what
if game? What if he had stayed at Ferris, What
if he had followed his father and brother further into football.
There are questions that can haunt the mind for years,
maybe forever.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
It was closing a chapter in my life that never
got closed after my first year or you know at Farris.
So when you work so hard for something throughout your
younger years.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And then you give up on it, I mean I quit.
I was a quitter. My family didn't raise quitters. That
was the hardest thing for me. So finishing the game, finishing.
Speaker 9 (36:00):
The school, it just closed that chapter that needed to
be closed.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
It's over now. Memory, it's a great memory.
Speaker 9 (36:09):
I'd really have no complaints of that period in my life.
I mean other than not being around my son's on
a more regular basis. But God intended that happen without
anyone knowing.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
For Mike and other members of the team, Andy's presence
was something special. It's hard to go through life thinking
something isn't possible when your teammate returned to college football
at an age most guys are thinking about their prostate health.
Here's Mike.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
He was He was an all conference player.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I mean, it wasn't like he was some you know, kicker,
a bench guy or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
He played, and he played a lot. I guess it
just goes to show you me and you just never know,
and you can be done doing something or not. But
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I just one of those things that it's impressive and
to know that if he could do it, somebody else
do And.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think that resilience is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Today Andy doesn't really need to be reminded of his accomplishment.
His body does that every day. He probably needs knee
surgery for starters.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I don't recommend guys going to doing it paying for it.
Speaker 9 (37:20):
Now I can barely walk. The pain is ten times full.
I was in pain doing it, but now it's with me.
Twenty four to seven. I sell diesel engines, sit behind
the desk, so I'm not really moving too much anymore.
But I definitely wouldn't recommend it to any other thirty
eight thirty nine year old.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Boys to go play nose tackle.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
And while there's no chance Andy is going to become
a forty eight year old sensation on any field, it's
not because he wouldn't want to try.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
You know, if I can still play to this day,
I'd play every single day in my life. I love
stepping on that field. There's no other feeling in the.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
World except, of course, the feeling that comes with finishing
what you started on a field near the Mississippi, or
maybe the feeling you have watching your son step onto
the field today. Luke Andy's youngest son plays college ball
at Northern Michigan, where he's also a Wildcat.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
He's enjoying it. He's a good sized kid.
Speaker 9 (38:21):
He's six ' four about two fifty two fifty five,
just continuing the family tradition.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
He's playing d lion.
Speaker 9 (38:29):
He's starting long snaper on punk. He's got an unbelievable snap.
It's rare to see him.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Make a mistake when it comes to the snap.
Speaker 9 (38:38):
And I told him that's healthier anyway, I said, your
body doesn't get beat up being a lot of snap. So,
like I said, there's no other feeling in the world
but that hell. I mean, it's something that not many
men get to experience, especially at the collegiate level.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And just play every game like at your last This.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Time, Andy finally is what those Culver Stockton players originally
imagine him to be.
Speaker 5 (39:03):
On his first day of training.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Someone's proud cheering from the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
I cannot believe that story. I mean, okay, you have
to understand I'm kind of like an accident Maven, Like
I'm down to go forty miles an hour and hit pavement.
There's no way you could get me. And I'm a
little older than this guy. There's no way you get
me on a football field and have three hundred pound
men hit me over and over again and be like, yeah,
I can do this, I can take it. And I'm
not even afraid of getting hit by a car.
Speaker 8 (39:36):
I'm afraid of everything, and football scares me so much.
Even now, I can barely touch my toes. I don't
know how someone his age was doing the physical feats
he was.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Do you feel like you understand your husband a little
bit better now though?
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (39:48):
Absolutely, Although he has told me stories about playing football
in high school and getting like multiple concussions, and I'm like,
I do not know why people do this on purpose,
but they do, and they love it, and it's important
to America as.
Speaker 6 (40:03):
A culture completely, and all of my doctors, there are
parts of my body I can't even feel anymore, like
one of my knees, like I can put in a
position you can just put fire on it.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
I feel that so very special character. Yes, I have
one who's yours. I'm gonna go with the coach because
here's what I what I like about the coach. Everyone
in college football he's competing against, like they are recruiting
their kids, yes playing football, and he decided to go,
(40:34):
you know, a little, a little outside the box, way
outside and just find an older man who was physically
much larger than everybody.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
And could be the father of most of the other teammates.
Speaker 8 (40:46):
My very special character is an implied character. Oh, he
or she is not actually in the episode, but it
is Andrew's orthopedist, and I just want to give respect
where respect is do?
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I like that? Good call. My very special character is
also somebody who is not actually featured in the episode,
But I want to know who was it who robbed
the six foot five defensive taxi when he was in
the repeat college Yeah, repeat, He's like, I kept getting robbed.
I'm like, who's robbing this?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
It's a real Like was it like a trickster? Because
I couldn't have been through brute force?
Speaker 7 (41:20):
Zaren have you cast this one?
Speaker 6 (41:21):
I did? I'm glad you asked Jason. I thought a
lot about this because there's a lot of big guys,
you know, You're like, oh, maybe a young Vincentinofrio, maybe
that guy from like you know, their new Reach, your
TV show. Oh yeah, a little more muscle and weight
on him. But I was like, you know what, no,
I've got it, and a lot of people they they
may not see this and may not agree, but hear
me out. Put a little extra weight on him. Maybe
(41:42):
go send him over to Italy on a eating tour. Yeah,
Adam Driver, he's got the height and also he's got
the intensity. You don't think about it, but he's got
the intensity.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
He played an older man in Ferrari.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
Yes, there you go.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
He can pull that off.
Speaker 8 (41:56):
I think I don't think he's tall enough, but I
would love a role that brings chubby Chris Pratt back.
Oh yeah, I would love if he got back into
that that physique.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Like it.
Speaker 7 (42:07):
Here's who I would cast and bring it back to
our conversation at the top, But I think we put
Jason Kelcey and Travis Kelcey in this together. I don't
know which one plays Andy, which one plays his brother,
but I think they're going to be looking for something
after this whole football thing and movies about football is
a nice podcast.
Speaker 5 (42:28):
Don't Last Forever?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
Yeah that's right. Where are they? Where are they? Where
are they now?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
You know?
Speaker 6 (42:34):
Oh, they rented a building. That makes sense. I liked
also the story because it had a kind of like
a Paul Newman in Slapshot feel. I'm not sure if
you know that movie, but it's just like this chaotic
sports energy and you're just like, I love this. It
makes you all of a sudden feel like in that
case it's hockey, but this case was football because I
played football, and listening to the guy, I'm like, I
could feel the hits. I was like, oh man, this
(42:56):
is authentico.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 7 (42:58):
And also a very special behind the scenes character producer
Josh Fisher over there for sound designing those hits and
making me feel like I'm concussed, which is great. That's
what you want to put people in the story. Well, well, Zaron, Dana,
thank you for schlepping out here to Vegas, and we're
(43:18):
gonna go to a nice team dinner tonight. I don't
think there'll be tiktoks, but if there are, follow Dana's TikTok.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I can't wait, thank you.
Speaker 8 (43:27):
This was such a delight to finally get to hang
out with you guys in person.
Speaker 6 (43:31):
I'm so glad to be here with you guys.
Speaker 7 (43:33):
Yeahs Aaron, We've probably been on hundreds of hours of
Zoom together. The first time we have physically met in person, Dana,
it's been a couple of years since, uh, since I've seen.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
You, and you knew me back in my post grad days.
Speaker 7 (43:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Yeah, And can I be real with you guys, You
guys were way cooler than I thought you were be
in person.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
Yeah, I'll take it.
Speaker 8 (43:53):
I don't play football, but I do try to be
slightly cooler than people expect in person.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
See, I don't do that. I'm the exact opposite. So
that's why I can say that. I'm like, oh, well,
you know, I tried. Sorry, Well, thank you for listening.
We'll be back with another one of these next Wednesday. Yeah,
very special episodes is made by some very special people.
Speaker 7 (44:16):
This episode was written by Jake Rawson. Our producer, editor
and sound designer is Josh Fisher. Additional editing by Jonathan Washington,
mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original music by Alice
McCoy Our researchers are Austin Thompson and Marsa Brown. Show
logo by Lucy Kintonia, and again, just want to thank
(44:40):
Aaron Kaufman and Kurt Garren from the iHeart team for
letting us come hang out here. And you know, I'm
sure they got eight hundred other things they'd rather be doing.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
Great sports. Thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It's twenty twelve and players at Culver Stockton College in Canton,
Missouri are gearing up for football practice. Canton is a
college town, but not a big one. Nestled near the
Mississippi River, the population is less than three thousand. Their
source of athletic pride is the Culver Stockton Wildcats, but
(00:43):
times have been tough. During the previous season, they went
just one and ten. It wasn't so much sport as
human sacrifice. But there's a sense their fortunes can be
turned around, maybe with some new blood. At practice, a
freshman named Mike Davis looks around and spots an older man,
(01:06):
a very very big man six foot five and two
hundred and ninety five pounds, And Mike starts to wonder
if maybe this giant has a son who's going to
be playing here, hopefully a kid who has the same
oversized proportions.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And I'm looking around the wave room, you know, just like,
who's this guy's got a kid here?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Like, who's kid is this guy's.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Mike's head coach looks at the guy, then back.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
At Mike, and he goes, oh, no, that's that's Andy
he's actually gonna be playing for us, And at that
point my mind blew a little bit and I was like, well,
that's that's a grown man.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I was like, you know, I asked him, like, how
old is he goes he's thirty eight.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Thirty eight is older than the coach, older than the trainers,
older than almost everyone in and around the team. That's
how Mike and every other player learns about Andy Staton.
Andy is the newest nostown for the Wildcats and a
man who's about to get a second lease on life
(02:12):
by returning to a game he walked away from almost
twenty years prior. It's an opportunity to provide a better
life for himself and his kids and close a chapter
on a story he never quite finished. But as a
midlife crisis goes, this one is going.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
To hurt a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
This is very special episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm
your host, Danash Schwartz and this is Old Man on Campus.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Welcome everybody.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
This is a little different episode this week because we
are in the same room. The three of us have
never been in the same time zone before, and now
we're sitting.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
For breathing the same air. Breathing the same.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
Air, and it's the air at the Super Bowl.
Speaker 8 (03:07):
I know everyone I told that I was going to
Vegas this week looked at me like like I told
them I was going to Mars. Because I am the
least likely person to be involved with anything related to sports.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
So you're not a football fan, Dana.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
No, I'm a fan of getting together with a group
of friends, and I loved ones and eating snacks. Yes,
I'm like, I like a communal activity, like I like
the idea of watching football together.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I don't.
Speaker 8 (03:32):
I don't really care about sports in general. But I'm
not like one of those infuriating like sports ball people like.
I get why people like it, it's just not I'm
so focused usually on history that I don't have room
in my brain for football rules.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
Makes perfect stense? How is the Taylor Swift and Travis
Kelcey made it to you?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
That is actually my only interest in football now?
Speaker 8 (03:54):
And I have asked my husband when Travis Kelsey plays
because I like to see if she's there, I like
to see what she's wearing. Look, I'm a thirty one
year old white woman. Is this That is my super Bowl?
Speaker 6 (04:07):
For you guys? Thank you?
Speaker 7 (04:08):
Last year on this set. We were in Arizona. But
iheart's NFL partnership is why we're out here. And Travis
and Jason Kelsey recorded on our set. And this is
before Taylor Swift, before the podcast was you know, the
as huge a deal as it is. So there's some
people here today who thought maybe the Kelsey's and Taylor
(04:33):
Swift were going to come and it said they got
us so disappointed.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Views from the super fans walking through. I can take
my shirt off like Jason Kelsey. If it helps you,
just let's try it.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
I can try to sing. We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well.
Speaker 7 (04:48):
Today's story is not about Taylor Swift or it is
about football.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
It is about football and a big guy much like
Travis Kelsey.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Remind me what position did Andrew Stayton play.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
He was a defensive lineman, a big, hulking guy stopping
the run. He'd be lined up across from Jason kelcey.
I don't know if that helps.
Speaker 8 (05:09):
All I know the only two positions in football that
I know is tight end because that's Travis Kelsey and
my husband used to be a defensive tackle.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Oh okay, well that's exactly what he played. He played
the same exact same position as your husband.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Great, I'm sure I would like him.
Speaker 7 (05:22):
Alway, does your husband have any college eligibility left?
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Get him out you might be he can be part
season two. We can focus on him.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
The Howard's niece because we can get him out here.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yes, so far, so good. Equin.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
And while we're here, just want to thank everyone for
the incredible response that the show has gotten.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Iday.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Oh my god, thank you so much to everyone who's listened.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
Everyone who's listened, everyone who's watched danis TikTok's about the show.
All the different iHeart shows that have let us run
our promos on their show, all the radio stations, the
kind of feedback it's all been a great.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
iHeart for letting us come to last Day. Yes, stay
here and get a fancy dinner.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
Yes, yes, we'll have to do extended credits here to
thank Josh and Kurt and Aaron for letting us sit
here on the set and do our little banter.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I was so small coming into high school.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
My brother was graduated at six seven about two forty,
and coming in my freshman year, I was about five six,
one fifty and the wrestling coach told me.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
He said, why to try? You know, one's sixty next year.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's Andy Staton. He's describing his formative years as an
athlete in Duajack, Michigan. There was wrestling, running track, tennis,
and of course, suiting up for football. Duwajack is football country,
the type of place where babies get tiny footballs to
play with instead of rattles. But the size and strength
(06:58):
he needed had.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
To be earned.
Speaker 9 (07:00):
I had Mike, now I'm wrestling heavyweight. He goes, how
can you wrestle heavyweight? You weight one hundred and fifty
two pounds. I said, well, I'm gonna make it. That's
the time you had to weigh one hundred and eighty
eight miles to wrestle, while my sophomore year I came
out one hundred and eighty and had to drink a
gallon of water to make weight.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's Andy determined, stubborn. Tell him he can't and he'll
find a way around you, or if it's on the field,
through you. The grit the tenacity was probably genetic. Andy's father,
Jerry Staden, was recruited by the legendary bo Schembeckler at
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before turning to high school coaching.
(07:42):
Andy's brother Mark played two seasons in the NFL and
wound up coaching for Michigan State. The Stadens are a
football family.
Speaker 9 (07:51):
My dad was a small snows tackle in the sixties
and my brother was the largest in the nineties. Dad
played at about two o five, my brother played at
about three twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
And when it was time, Andy strapped on the cleats
and the pads too, parlaying his physical presence as a
defensive player for Duajack Union High School and for a
while his life followed a predictable path. Football came easily,
but class work didn't. He wound up at Farris State
(08:22):
University in Big Rapids, Michigan, and became a bulldog.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
The D one schools they all called me up and
the last day before signing said we can't trust your
grade points. So they all had eighteen calls and one
night nose back then on rotary fall, and that was
pretty depressing. The next day D two schools.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Started calling me and I ended up going on a
couple of visits.
Speaker 9 (08:44):
I ended up taking Farris State's offer and went up.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Redshirted there, but that's really the last time.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Andy's story plays out like every other football story you've heard.
For starters, Andy didn't care for college at Ferris. For
his first semester, he kept having problems with people stealing
his up, not just electronic equipment like his television, but
swiping a check and other things. This continued on a
(09:15):
near weekly basis.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
People are robbing me.
Speaker 9 (09:18):
So I ended up moving off campus lived with some
offensive lineman, which hated me because I was a D lineman,
and typically O line and D lineman, I'm not saying
that they're a little more relaxed, and then I guess
I was a little more of the aggressive one hundred
mile an hour would up like a you know, a
rubber band that we were ready to snap at any time.
(09:42):
So I kind of had issues with these older O linemen,
which you know, I look back on it now as
I am at sure of course, so you know, I
was nineteen and.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Crazy, but I wasn't ready for as myself.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He was still struggling academically. College became a perfect storm
of problems. So at the end of the year, Andy
came to a.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Decision suck it out. Played the spring game, and after
the spring game.
Speaker 9 (10:10):
About a week or two after I went to the
head coach and said I was done.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
He dropped out after the spring semester. He wanted to
see what else was out there. Call it a temporary
lapse in maturity. At twenty, most of us have them.
He started going to Southwestern Michigan College, but not for football.
He took time to think about what he really wanted
to do with his life. Then, one night in nineteen
(10:36):
ninety five, while out with his girlfriend, a stranger's split
second decision almost ended it. Andy was out in his
Pontiac with his girlfriend behind the wheel. Another car, a
Honda Accord, tried to pass a tractor trailer. The driver
didn't see Andy's car.
Speaker 9 (10:55):
We were in an eighty six Pontiac and we were
out some country road, semi coming up over a hill
and we're in the bottom of a dip. And as
soon as we come up, pressed it over the hill.
Students from a local university here in southwest Michigan pulled
out hit his head on. I pulled my arm out
around her. I went through the windshield, my hip caught
(11:17):
the dash.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Came back through. There was a bench seat broke the
seat back.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
Of course, when I went through, I can remember the
lights of the semi and the glass fly.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Him and come back through. You know, I was instantaneous,
instant backwards.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
The cars collided head on. Andy, all six to five
of him, was almost tossed clear of the Pontiac. The
damage was substantial. It was the kind of thing where
doctors say you're lucky to be alive. It's possible being
in great shape saved his life, but Andy didn't quite
(11:56):
know the extent of the damage.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
At first.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
He was more concerned for his girlfriend, who was seriously injured.
She wound up being okay. Once the adrenalin wore off,
Andy spent three weeks in the ICU.
Speaker 9 (12:11):
Broke my back, crushed all my ribs, nerve damage, whatnot.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Didn't think I was going to do football anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
He spent months recuperating. His enthusiasm for returning to college.
Returning to football waaned, and no wonder a broken back
tends to dampen your appetite for a full contact sport,
so Andy dropped out of school, this time for good.
He diverged from the family business of football and opted
(12:41):
for a more conventional means of earning a living. Labor
he worked as a paver, He poured asphalt for roads.
He got into the construction business and farming. He used
the physicality that had served him so well on the
field and made a life for him and his wife,
(13:04):
who he married in nineteen ninety five, and later for
their two sons, Clay and Luke. With every passing year,
football kept getting further and further in the rear view,
and so was a life that made sense. By two
thousand and nine, Andy was in the midst of a
divorce and the possibility his sons would be relocated to Florida.
(13:28):
Things were looking well grim. At the age of thirty seven,
Andy took stock and realized that this wasn't the way
he had envisioned things working out. But unexpected turns work
both ways. Sometimes life blindsides you with tragedy or a honda,
(13:50):
and sometimes it surprises.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
You with a little bit of a break.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Andy's break came in the form of a phone call,
one that would turn his world upside down. One day
in twenty eleven, Andy's phone ring on the other end
(14:15):
was Jeff duven Deck, coach for the Culver Stockton Wildcats.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
So I was living in a farmhouse out in another
towel and came to see my dad after I was
cutting trees down and my fall rings and talking to
my dad and I answer it and he he goes.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Hey, is Jeff Dubin Deck. How you doing Andy?
Speaker 9 (14:32):
And I'm like good, good, just getting off work and
he's like, well, I'm looking for a nose tackle that
could play this fall. Like, Jeff, I don't know any
kids right now that could play collegiate ball. I haven't
been following high school football. And he's like, well, I
want you. And Jeff at the time, I was thirty seven,
and I said I can't play football at thirty seven
(14:53):
years old, and he goes, well, your brother said you're
the mean of son of a gun to ever walk
down a football field, and I want the meana son
of a gun to.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Play for me.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Jeff duven Deck's back was up against a wall. Newly
install as the coach for the Wildcats, they had posted
a dreadful one and ten record in his first season there.
He needed more muscle a defensive tackle, and he happened
to mention this to Mark Stayton, and he's brother, Mark, remember,
(15:25):
is a fellow coach. It was Mark who told Jeff, Well,
what about Andy. Here's coach Jeff.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
We got one win in our first year.
Speaker 10 (15:35):
You know, we struggled. I remember coming back to visit
Michigan State to work one of their camps and do
some recruiting, and I stopped in to see Mark, Andy's brother,
and just said, hey, you know, he's asking how it
was going. I said it's going, but we, uh, you know,
we just don't have any size. I mean, some bigger guys,
we don't have any He's like, well, you remember my brother,
(15:57):
he's going through divorce and looking to finish his college
degree and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So Jeff looked into it. Logistically, nothing was stopping him
from recruiting Andy, who had the size he needed. Even
though he hadn't played the game in years or was
it decades, A lifetime of physical labor had kept him strong.
Andy weighed his options. He didn't want to be away
(16:23):
from his kids, but on the other hand, a degree
could open up new job opportunities. Tuition to Culver Stockton,
which today costs forty thousand dollars a year, would be
fully paid, and well, wait, wasn't this all kind of crazy?
Andy was thirty seven, soon to be thirty eight. Football
(16:45):
is hard, even on young bodies. This was a Rocky
type scenario, but not the Rocky of that first movie,
The Rocky of Rocky Balboa, where Rocky is in his
fifties and stages a comeback in football years. Andy wasn't
too far off.
Speaker 9 (17:03):
So I'd like, olider you, Jeff. I think he was
thirty two or thirty three. I said, could you strap
up again? He goes, well, no, but I'm not built
like you. My dad's looking at me, and of course
my dad, being a you know, ex coach slash collegiate ballplayer,
he was what was that about last? So I just
got offered to go back plack out football. And you
can't play football, you're too old.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You're thirty seven. So I started doing a while he's
kind of saying this to me. I say, well, challenge accepted.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Pop pros outweighed the cons A degree meant a better
financial future, So off you went to become a Culver
Stockton Wildcat. Culver Stockton is an NAIA school that stands
for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. It's a governing
(17:50):
body like the NCAA. The NCAA is much bigger with
over one thousand schools compared to the NAIA is two
hundred and fifty or so, but the best of the
NAIA can often match certain divisions of the NCAA. So
while this was a liberal arts school, there wasn't anything already.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
About the football. It was the real thing.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Something Andy discovered in his first practice.
Speaker 9 (18:21):
I get hit by I don't remember. It was like
an offensive guard pulled and I can remember.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Big blue and red balls and I'm like, did I
make a mistake?
Speaker 9 (18:31):
And it was like the second snap of the practice
that will you.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Know as far as hitting part of it.
Speaker 9 (18:37):
But I do remember that first practice going, man, did
I make a mistake doing this?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And once I got my feet underneath me and I
was all right. Meeting all the guys, of course they're questioning,
who's this old guy.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Andy's first appearance was, as Mike Davis explained, a bit
of a surprise to the team, but that amusement gave
way to something else when Andy suited up.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Here's Mike, huge, huge guy, very hard to move.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But yeah, I just first time I seen him at pads,
it was like, holy crap, you looked even bigger.
Speaker 9 (19:11):
Because he's a pretty large, deemed so well if you
were to basically get into a car and drive it
into a.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Brick wall, like that's pretty much what it was.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Every time I would jump on him as soon as
we you know, the ball was snaffed, I'd be on
top of them all over. But he was just so
strong that it wouldn't matter. It could be, you know,
first of the punch. Every time he would just take
me over and move me back like it was nothing.
So there was no driving three man because he was
just so strong.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And made it very difficult. But yeah, being heads with
the wall man.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Even at thirty eight, Andy had exactly what coach Jeff
was looking for, what Rocky balboas trainer, was looking for
blunt force trump. He was the team's resident brick wall
immobile and highly resistant to attack. The idea of Andy
playing at his age was funny until it wasn't until
(20:10):
you had to face off with him. But once practice
was over, the aches began. Andy's body was a throbbing
nerve ending. It wasn't just the car accident that could
have led to lasting effects. No one's really sure. It
was the cumulative effects of spending decades in manual labor,
(20:32):
and years before that, playing football as a young man,
there were ice baths and massages and a trainer who
was tasked with putting andy back together.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Hips, knees back. That was probably the most.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
I mean I was constantly taking ice baths, get the
lactic acid obviously out of my muscles, going in, getting
hooked up to those electrobes stimulating the muscles in every area,
and being older, you know, had just you don't recover
like young people do. You know when you're a kid thirteen, fourteen,
(21:08):
you'd go do something and you'd be sore that night
and then next day you're fine. Well, when you're four,
did you go out give it one hundred percent on Saturday?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Going to practice and showing up thirty minutes early just
to stretch.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
I was fine even, you know, It's just until I
went to bed and woke up the next day and
go ooh, and it was like literally being.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
In a car accident train.
Speaker 9 (21:33):
It just felt like I got this frap kicked out
of me. I mean, I've got pictures on my phone
of bruises I'd have and they were just grotesque.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You're talking to my whole.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
Quad, just completely green and black and blue, you know,
purple armed drums from my top of my bicep to
my wrists and it would swell up and oh yeah,
I mean it was that daily grind.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
On the field. Well, that was different. The field was
a painkiller. Adrenaline shaved a lot of years off and
Andy was able to do what Andy does. Number ninety
three was a human bulldozer.
Speaker 9 (22:16):
On Saturdays, I felt young again. It was a transition.
You know, I might be limping like a son of
a gun from Monday to Friday, but then on Saturday,
I'd get a pep in my step and fly around,
you know, head out of swivel.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Here's coach Jeff again.
Speaker 10 (22:34):
There was one play that I remember specifically where they
were double teaming open. He kind of took one hand
on one guy in one hand on the other and
pushed him both apart, and he was standing right in
the running backs a way as he.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Tried to go through.
Speaker 10 (22:49):
That area just stuck out to me just because of
the strength and power shown in that play. I don't
know if that's necessarily his best play, but it's just
one that is ringing in my head still.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Ten years later, Andy was trying to fit in another
way too.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
The rules Culver.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Stockton mandated that you had to reside within the state
to attend on campus, so that first year he did
as freshmen do.
Speaker 9 (23:18):
Yeah, I didn't have much. I lost pretty much everything
in the divorce, so as far as material items.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Didn't have much.
Speaker 9 (23:25):
But I went down there lived in a fraternity house
on campus for the first semester because they.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Couldn't find a room mate for me. And yeah, I
went down there with just basically close a couple suitcases, TV.
Speaker 9 (23:40):
And that was about it, and ended up living in
a frat house first semester, which was interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
College is college, even if you're twice as old as
everyone else.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It was loud, you know.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
I was thirty eight years old and familied up for
all those years, and here I moved in and they're
throwing parties every night. I had to heal up so
much because I was so exhausted. I got no rest.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It was just so loud. And luckily I was on
the top floor of the.
Speaker 9 (24:12):
House and kind of in the corner, so it was
a little quieter where I was at, but you could
still hear him from the basement going And they were
typical young guys. You know they're having fun. I would
lie to say I didn't join them on Saturday night,
so I had fun. I was gonna do my thing
and feel accepted amongst the young guys.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Andy stayed in the frat. Just one year after that
he moved into a dorm with Mike and some other teammates.
But wherever he was, Andy had seniority and a group
of twenty year olds looking up to him. Maybe Andy
had some answers, not just for football, but in life.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
It was an interesting time and then you hear you
what these young guys think of and their way of
thinking compared to my way of thinking at the time,
and I would question it in my own mind. I
would try to figure out their understanding of what they
were talking about, just be able to communicate with us,
and luckily, having a teenage son at the time, kind
(25:11):
of knew what they're going through, what they're.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Likes, and what they didn't like.
Speaker 9 (25:16):
It was an interesting time to go and be amongst
yup adults when here I was old enough to be
their dad.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Here's Mike Davis again.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
A lot of guys would go to him with life
problems and things that he had experienced or been through.
Like I said, he's been my best friend for a
long time and I still reach out to him to
this day.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know, my father ended.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Up passing away in twenty nineteen, and he was a
big supporter for me, and you know, he drove all
the way off from Dwajack and we hung out with
us for like a week. And he's a great guy,
and he's just that type of person. He's very giving
of himself, but he also shoots you straight. So if
it's something that you ask him a piece of advice,
he's going to give it to you.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's going to be out of sunest. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think that resonated a lot with some of the
younger guys, especially, you know, he's twice.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
In each.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
The Wildcats were definitely because a team on and off
the field, but that first season wasn't a whole lot
better than the season prior. They went three and eight,
with two of those victories coming after the opposing teams
had to forfeit after using ineligible players in their games,
but their lone victory outside of logistics was a memorable one.
(26:29):
That October they played Lindenwood University Belleville, at home behind
fourteen seven. With just under three minutes left, the team
scored two late touchdowns. Andy contributed ten tackles in the
game and forty five for the season, fourteen of them solo.
(26:51):
At the end of the spring semester, Andy traveled back
to Michigan, where he had custody of his two sons
and where he was able to earn some money selling cars.
You could call this an active recovery time, since his
body needed to heal from the eleven game and countless practices.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
He had put it through.
Speaker 9 (27:10):
Buddy of mine's dad owned both the Ford and Chevy
dealerships in our town, and I would go and sell
cars in the day and then come home my boys
and work out, you know, just kind of the normal.
I didn't stay down and train like my roommates stayed
down in at Culver and train, but I had my
son's full time in the summer show.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I needed that time.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Andy returned to Missouri for his sophomore year, his second
as a Wildcat. This time, the team posted a two
and nine record, but there was again a sense Andy
was able to turn the clock back a bit.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Of course, I was a run stopper.
Speaker 9 (27:49):
I wasn't much of a pass rusher, playing at three
hundred average, but between three ten and three hundred and
forty pounds, I could hold two three guys. I was
double on triple team almost eighty five percent.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, it was. It was great.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
During that and Andy's father was able to see him
play for the first time since he was at Farris State. Well,
it seems like a simple thing. It wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Jerry Stayton, then in his seventies, had been through open
heart surgery. He'd been battling cancer, so seeing him at
(28:26):
a game was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I think we're in Iowa.
Speaker 9 (28:30):
My dad came down to watch, and my brother's closest
friend in high school was living out there, so he
came to and I was having a heck of a
game I can remember. And then the old line on
that particular team. Back then they could do the chop
block before they made it illegal. And this one kid,
he just he kept chopping and then he would leg
(28:51):
with me. He hyper extended my knee and of course
I could still run, so I run off the field.
My trainer, Robbie Carmichael, He's like, you're done, and I'm
like Mount Dapa Dapa, and he's like, he goes, there's
only you know whatever, not even half of the fourth
quarter left, and my dad, you know, standing by the
(29:14):
fence now looking at me. I'm on the you know,
the gurney, and I'm just I made him take me
up and I went back out and finished the game.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Still the damage was adding up. Every game can be
like a minor car accident with the same kind of injuries.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
I had a staff and affection in my knee and
I did miss two games from that, and then I
broke my ribs my second year and I missed two
games with that. It was a home game and guy
Crack blocked me and put his helmet my ribs, broke
my bottom. I wouldn't let the doctor test him anymore.
He used the tuning fork style as where he takes
(29:56):
a tuning fork and he hits it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Vibrates and if you scream, it's broken.
Speaker 9 (30:01):
And he did the bottom two and I told you
to do another one, dog, you're going to have broken
ribs because I I could take it bore.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
There was another summer resting, and then his junior year
where the Wildcats finally found their rhythm. They went five
and five for the season, but four and two at home.
Speaker 9 (30:22):
It was an experience as far as growing together, having
a winning season on our third year.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
But that winning effort would come at a very steep price.
At Culver Stockton, everything was largely falling into place. Andy
was doing well academically, managing to make it home to
Michigan to see his sons, and not partying too hard.
(30:50):
But football is unlike a lot of sports, It's virtually
a form of combat.
Speaker 9 (30:56):
I didn't move as well my third year just because
I was hurting so much. But my first year, I
would say my first season was my most dominating season.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I was a little fresher, I wasn't so beat up,
but I came in every game. You know, I gave
everything I said I always did.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
By the time he was nearing his senior year and
crossing forty years old, Andy's body had finally had enough.
Just getting to the field became an exercise in determination.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
There were there were times that I'd have to have help.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
Guys would get me down because everything It's called the
College on the Hill for a reason. Every there's hills
everywhere in Culver, and to get down to the stadium,
you had to walk down about seven flights of stairs.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I'd have to have help.
Speaker 9 (31:43):
Either's somebody on one side, me holding both hands on
the guardrail, walking slope.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I can remember Sundays not being fun, that's for sure.
Speaker 9 (31:52):
My body was completely My knees were so loose.
Speaker 7 (31:57):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The trainer he do tests on them and you could
separate them.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
They were so the elasticity in my ligaments or they're
dog It.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Was decision time.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Football had given Andy a new lease on life, but
if you went on too long, it might wind up
being too much on his body.
Speaker 9 (32:21):
So I just knew I didn't have another season. I
physically couldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Did I want to? Of course I did, But.
Speaker 9 (32:28):
I miss also missed my boys, and I was ready
to be around them, you know, full time.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And that was the other thing I had to get back.
Speaker 9 (32:36):
I'd gotten my degree, I'd gotten my education done, and yes,
I could have stayed around for another season.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was ready to come home.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
As they say, he wanted to play four years, but
the pain and recovery was too much of a burden.
Well that was a goal, It wasn't the goal. The
goal was to earn a business degree, and thanks to
his credits carrying over from Faris State all the way
back in nineteen ninety three, Andy was able to graduate
(33:05):
in three years. He hadn't just gone back to fix
a football career. He had also turned back the clock academically.
Speaker 9 (33:13):
I ended up graduating with like a three five. I
think it was culver where when you know, when I
was at Faris, I left there like a two seven.
I made it just two six.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
I can't something like that. I didn't care, you know.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
On this second time, I knew that the education was
the main factor. But it was also the time to
finish what I'd started at such a young age.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I had that opportunity. I was passively.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
His final game came against Benedictine, a twenty nine to
nineteen loss for the Wildcats.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Fittingly, it was senior day.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
It was time to hang athletes up.
Speaker 9 (33:51):
Once I turned forty and played that last season, it
was definitely time to hang him up.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
By now, it was twenty fifteen and Andy returned to
Dewagik with a degree. He kept selling cars for a while,
but eventually turned his attention to another mode of transportation.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
Well.
Speaker 9 (34:11):
I stayed with the car industry for all about a
year and a half two years.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And just wasn't making the money I needed to.
Speaker 9 (34:18):
And a friend the family had this diesel company selling
diesel engines and diesel engine parts and asked me if
I wanted to try it out, and I said, well, yeah,
I see what happened, and ended up working for him
and he ended up selling it about two years ago.
But I'm still a family owned company, so I'm still
(34:38):
still here buying and selling diesel engines in du Wagic.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Andy is a bit of a local legend. If you
know football, you know his story. There's the comeback sports
tale of it all, of course, but there was more
to it than that. For Andy, football was a way
to moderate his emotions, a kind of stress reliever.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
My dad always told me, he said, you know, you're
so aggressive. The sports things.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
What keeps you out of trouble. And he was right.
Speaker 9 (35:06):
A switch that I couldn't turn off unless I was
playing the game or wrestling or lifting or whatnot.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
But playing down.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
There it helped turn that switch off that I had
been carrying on for nineteen years after and I mean
it was an experience of a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Being a Wildcat was also the end of the what
if game? What if he had stayed at Ferris, What
if he had followed his father and brother further into football.
There are questions that can haunt the mind for years,
maybe forever.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
It was closing a chapter in my life that never
got closed after my first year or you know at Farris.
So when you work so hard for something throughout your
younger years.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
And then you give up on it, I mean I quit.
I was a quitter. My family didn't raise quitters. That
was the hardest thing for me. So finishing the game, finishing.
Speaker 9 (36:00):
The school, it just closed that chapter that needed to
be closed.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
It's over now. Memory, it's a great memory.
Speaker 9 (36:09):
I'd really have no complaints of that period in my life.
I mean other than not being around my son's on
a more regular basis. But God intended that happen without
anyone knowing.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
For Mike and other members of the team, Andy's presence
was something special. It's hard to go through life thinking
something isn't possible when your teammate returned to college football
at an age most guys are thinking about their prostate health.
Here's Mike.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
He was He was an all conference player.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I mean, it wasn't like he was some you know, kicker,
a bench guy or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
He played, and he played a lot. I guess it
just goes to show you me and you just never know,
and you can be done doing something or not. But
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I just one of those things that it's impressive and
to know that if he could do it, somebody else
do And.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think that resilience is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Today Andy doesn't really need to be reminded of his accomplishment.
His body does that every day. He probably needs knee
surgery for starters.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I don't recommend guys going to doing it paying for it.
Speaker 9 (37:20):
Now I can barely walk. The pain is ten times full.
I was in pain doing it, but now it's with me.
Twenty four to seven. I sell diesel engines, sit behind
the desk, so I'm not really moving too much anymore.
But I definitely wouldn't recommend it to any other thirty
eight thirty nine year old.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Boys to go play nose tackle.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
And while there's no chance Andy is going to become
a forty eight year old sensation on any field, it's
not because he wouldn't want to try.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
You know, if I can still play to this day,
I'd play every single day in my life. I love
stepping on that field. There's no other feeling in the.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
World except, of course, the feeling that comes with finishing
what you started on a field near the Mississippi, or
maybe the feeling you have watching your son step onto
the field today. Luke Andy's youngest son plays college ball
at Northern Michigan, where he's also a Wildcat.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
He's enjoying it. He's a good sized kid.
Speaker 9 (38:21):
He's six ' four about two fifty two fifty five,
just continuing the family tradition.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
He's playing d lion.
Speaker 9 (38:29):
He's starting long snaper on punk. He's got an unbelievable snap.
It's rare to see him.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Make a mistake when it comes to the snap.
Speaker 9 (38:38):
And I told him that's healthier anyway, I said, your
body doesn't get beat up being a lot of snap. So,
like I said, there's no other feeling in the world
but that hell. I mean, it's something that not many
men get to experience, especially at the collegiate level.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And just play every game like at your last This.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Time, Andy finally is what those Culver Stockton players originally
imagine him to be.
Speaker 5 (39:03):
On his first day of training.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Someone's proud cheering from the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
I cannot believe that story. I mean, okay, you have
to understand I'm kind of like an accident Maven, Like
I'm down to go forty miles an hour and hit pavement.
There's no way you could get me. And I'm a
little older than this guy. There's no way you get
me on a football field and have three hundred pound
men hit me over and over again and be like, yeah,
I can do this, I can take it. And I'm
not even afraid of getting hit by a car.
Speaker 8 (39:36):
I'm afraid of everything, and football scares me so much.
Even now, I can barely touch my toes. I don't
know how someone his age was doing the physical feats
he was.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Do you feel like you understand your husband a little
bit better now though?
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (39:48):
Absolutely, Although he has told me stories about playing football
in high school and getting like multiple concussions, and I'm like,
I do not know why people do this on purpose,
but they do, and they love it, and it's important
to America as.
Speaker 6 (40:03):
A culture completely, and all of my doctors, there are
parts of my body I can't even feel anymore, like
one of my knees, like I can put in a
position you can just put fire on it.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
I feel that so very special character. Yes, I have
one who's yours. I'm gonna go with the coach because
here's what I what I like about the coach. Everyone
in college football he's competing against, like they are recruiting
their kids, yes playing football, and he decided to go,
(40:34):
you know, a little, a little outside the box, way
outside and just find an older man who was physically
much larger than everybody.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
And could be the father of most of the other teammates.
Speaker 8 (40:46):
My very special character is an implied character. Oh, he
or she is not actually in the episode, but it
is Andrew's orthopedist, and I just want to give respect
where respect is do?
Speaker 6 (40:59):
I like that? Good call. My very special character is
also somebody who is not actually featured in the episode,
But I want to know who was it who robbed
the six foot five defensive taxi when he was in
the repeat college Yeah, repeat, He's like, I kept getting robbed.
I'm like, who's robbing this?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
It's a real Like was it like a trickster? Because
I couldn't have been through brute force?
Speaker 7 (41:20):
Zaren have you cast this one?
Speaker 6 (41:21):
I did? I'm glad you asked Jason. I thought a
lot about this because there's a lot of big guys,
you know, You're like, oh, maybe a young Vincentinofrio, maybe
that guy from like you know, their new Reach, your
TV show. Oh yeah, a little more muscle and weight
on him. But I was like, you know what, no,
I've got it, and a lot of people they they
may not see this and may not agree, but hear
me out. Put a little extra weight on him. Maybe
(41:42):
go send him over to Italy on a eating tour. Yeah,
Adam Driver, he's got the height and also he's got
the intensity. You don't think about it, but he's got
the intensity.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
He played an older man in Ferrari.
Speaker 6 (41:53):
Yes, there you go.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
He can pull that off.
Speaker 8 (41:56):
I think I don't think he's tall enough, but I
would love a role that brings chubby Chris Pratt back.
Oh yeah, I would love if he got back into
that that physique.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Like it.
Speaker 7 (42:07):
Here's who I would cast and bring it back to
our conversation at the top, But I think we put
Jason Kelcey and Travis Kelcey in this together. I don't
know which one plays Andy, which one plays his brother,
but I think they're going to be looking for something
after this whole football thing and movies about football is
a nice podcast.
Speaker 5 (42:28):
Don't Last Forever?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
Yeah that's right. Where are they? Where are they? Where
are they now?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
You know?
Speaker 6 (42:34):
Oh, they rented a building. That makes sense. I liked
also the story because it had a kind of like
a Paul Newman in Slapshot feel. I'm not sure if
you know that movie, but it's just like this chaotic
sports energy and you're just like, I love this. It
makes you all of a sudden feel like in that
case it's hockey, but this case was football because I
played football, and listening to the guy, I'm like, I
could feel the hits. I was like, oh man, this
(42:56):
is authentico.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 7 (42:58):
And also a very special behind the scenes character producer
Josh Fisher over there for sound designing those hits and
making me feel like I'm concussed, which is great. That's
what you want to put people in the story. Well, well, Zaron, Dana,
thank you for schlepping out here to Vegas, and we're
(43:18):
gonna go to a nice team dinner tonight. I don't
think there'll be tiktoks, but if there are, follow Dana's TikTok.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
I can't wait, thank you.
Speaker 8 (43:27):
This was such a delight to finally get to hang
out with you guys in person.
Speaker 6 (43:31):
I'm so glad to be here with you guys.
Speaker 7 (43:33):
Yeahs Aaron, We've probably been on hundreds of hours of
Zoom together. The first time we have physically met in person, Dana,
it's been a couple of years since, uh, since I've seen.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
You, and you knew me back in my post grad days.
Speaker 7 (43:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Yeah, And can I be real with you guys, You
guys were way cooler than I thought you were be
in person.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
Yeah, I'll take it.
Speaker 8 (43:53):
I don't play football, but I do try to be
slightly cooler than people expect in person.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
See, I don't do that. I'm the exact opposite. So
that's why I can say that. I'm like, oh, well,
you know, I tried. Sorry, Well, thank you for listening.
We'll be back with another one of these next Wednesday. Yeah,
very special episodes is made by some very special people.
Speaker 7 (44:16):
This episode was written by Jake Rawson. Our producer, editor
and sound designer is Josh Fisher. Additional editing by Jonathan Washington,
mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser. Original music by Alice
McCoy Our researchers are Austin Thompson and Marsa Brown. Show
logo by Lucy Kintonia, and again, just want to thank
(44:40):
Aaron Kaufman and Kurt Garren from the iHeart team for
letting us come hang out here. And you know, I'm
sure they got eight hundred other things they'd rather be doing.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
Great sports. Thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Dana Schwartz
Jason English
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