October 31, 2023 • 15 mins
Seahawks Legends Ray Roberts and K.J. Wright get together to discuss the benefits of going to therapy and the importance of maintaining your mental health. Today's show: Going to therapy (02:59), Mindful Therapy Group (06:20), K.J.'s retirement speech and being on empty, K.J.'s message to other players on mental health (12:18).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to big raised garage grind.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I want to bring awareness and my voice to something
that's meaningful and purposeful, more than just who's the best
football player, who's the best football team.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The intersection between life, football and mental health.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
When you need help and you ask for help, you're
operating from a position of power. When you need help
and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now here's your host. Seahawks s lushon Ray Roberts and no,
I think about therapy.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I didn't. I didn't. I got this thing about myself.
I don't like bringing work home to my wife and
kids because I tell my wife all the time and
baby ain't the point of us, both of us being stressed.
So she tell me all the time, express open up
to me. But I suck at that, even when it
comes to my wife when it comes to work, because
(00:51):
I want my household to be peaceful. I wanted to
be good, but she was like, I can see it
on you. Yeah, it ain't peaceful. It's not peaceful. I
know what my husband looks like.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
M hm. And so I sucked at that.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And but to answer your question about therapy, I didn't
get therapy until recently. Yeah, this is my first time
going through therapy and been talking to a guy about
this new life that I have, this new transition and
expressed to him how I had some stuff at home
that was building up by use the word riding away.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And it was like, hell, you're talking about righting away.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And I was like, when I retired, I said, I
didn't want to work, I want to chill. But now
I'm in this space like s you know, OK, it's time.
This is your personality. You're a worker, blue collar, get
your ass going. But I told myself, I feel like
I'm riding away these days. So we've been talking and
getting things figured out, but no, just taking it back there.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You're eight man. That was that was probably one of
the worst times.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think it's interesting that you said that that you
didn't know what was happening, that your you know, your
headaches and sweat and you feeling you know, anxiousness and stuff.
And uh. I think that's important to say too, because
a lot of people will say I'm good, right, but
but they may be experiencing those things and not know
what it is experiencing. So when I retired, you we
(02:14):
were talking before we started this and you, uh, you
said I didn't have closure. And so when I retired,
I couldn't get out of the bed. I would I
would go from the from the bed to the couch,
from the couch back to the bed. I would cover
up all the windows so it was dark. I put
the pill over my head to sleep all day. And uh,
I didn't know what. I didn't know what that was.
(02:34):
I just knew it didn't feel good, you know. And
then my wife was like walking around like, you know,
trying to run the house and manage everything, and and uh,
the thing that kind of sparked me to get up
was my I had two sons at the time, but
my youngest son at the time, I heard him tell
his mom, I just want my dad back. And I
heard that when I was with the pill over my
head in the bed, and I was like, man, let
(02:55):
me just get up. And I'm I come from a
family like like you were just saying, well, everybody worked
all the time, and so I'm like, you know what,
like I need to get up and start working. I
need to do something so that I kind of get
my energy going that my kids seated that I'm doing okay,
and then I did do some therapy, but I had
some weird experiences with therapy, so I was kind of
at the time kind of out on that. But that's
(03:16):
when I was able to put words to what I
was feeling. And so I think sometimes today especially men
don't have the words to put to what they're feeling,
and so then they assume that like, here's here's this
thing that I just got to muscle through. I got
to figure out a way to do it by myself,
and then that's that's when dudes end up struggling, you know,
by themselves, and you know, maybe the you know, suicide
(03:38):
or those types of thoughts of more drinking or more
partying or driving fast like I used to get in
my car kJ and I would just I needed a
thrill to kind of feel like I was living again,
probably feeling like I'm rotten away. And I had this
Dodge Ram fifteen hundred that had the Viper engine in it,
and then I had it modified even on top of that,
(04:00):
probably had about fifteen hundred horsepower. And I would go
from Bellevue, I mean, from Redmond to Olympian back as
fast as I could know, I mean, one hundred and
twenty thirty miles just so I could just feel like
like I'm living, you know, and so to me, I'm
thinking like, oh, that's cool. But that was a part
of me trying to figure out what the hell is
going on with me? You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Here's my thing, Ray, if I go to someone, if
I vent to you, if I express how I'm feeling
me and how I want I want. I want like solutions.
I want you to tell me hey, X y Z,
and things will be better. I don't talk and I
don't express myself for people to listen.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's just me.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I express myself and communicate my feelings so I could
formulate a plan to get out of it. It's just
me and so going to like family dynamics, like when
it comes to my wife, she ain't given no advice,
she ain't given no advice. She goes listen, she goes
listen the whole time. But she's not giving no advice.
And that's why I have like certain people that I
(05:03):
like to go to, and that's why I like the
way that I give advice.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I give advice. I'm giving your ass solutions, Hey do this,
this should work to get better.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And so if I feel like I go to you
and you're not giving me nothing that I could take
with me, I'm not going back to you. So I
think people express themselves differently for different reasons. I don't
express myself just to talk.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah. I express myself to get things figured out.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, And I think that's important too, because I'm I
can be both, right, I can. I love giving advice.
I just feel like I'm a counselor. I was born
that way. But then sometimes when I'm feeling a certain way,
I just need to say it out loud to somebody.
So some I have people on my on my on
my team where I just text them like, hey, man,
I'm feeling like this. I don't need I don't need
them to respond back the fact that I said it.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Or like when I'm trying to lose weight, like I
like i show up at the pregame postgame show back
in the day and Jordan Babno would bring like three
dozen of donuts and I'm just advice used to bring
my own foods, and I would just be sitting there like, man,
I want some of those donuts, And I would text
my friend, Hey, they got donuts here. That's all I
needed to say, and that would keep me from eating
eating the donuts. But but yeah, I mean everybody's journey
(06:14):
and everybody's I don't want to say fixed, but processing
it's different, and I think, like, uh, that's the one
thing I like about the Mindful Therapy Group, which The
Mindful Therapy Group, based in the Pacific Northwest, is a
diverse group of qualified mental health providers offering both in
person and virtual care, whether it's talk therapy or medication management.
(06:34):
You can book your first visit within one week. Visit
Mindful Therapygroup dot com to start your journey to better
mental health today. The one thing that's really cool about
the Mindful Therapy Group is they work really hard to
match you with a therapist that kind of vibes what
your processing is. So whether it's someone that's just more
of a listener, most therapists are are gonna challenge you
(06:56):
to come up with the answers from within you you internally.
But then there's there's others that are just more talk therapy,
listen just on you to death and if that and
and if that's something that you're that you need, then
they can find that too, and I think that's what
they specialize in. But I think it's important that that
we shared are two different ways of processing, because there's
not one way and there's multiple ways to do it.
(07:18):
When I talked to Cliff, it was different. When I
talked to Doug, it was different.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And at the end of the day, I understand that
everyone has their way, but doing nothing is that's far
from the way. That's that's not that's not the way
at all. And so whether you need to take somebody,
call somebody, uh, go hit the punching bag.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Go zen out to some yoga.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
There there is a way on a daily basis that
you can get that self self care, that self help,
that self, that self that self health. And so that's
my way. I gotta talk it out. When I talk,
I need to give me something back that's me.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Well we're uh, we're getting closer to end here. I
just had a couple more things I wanted to run
by you, and one was when you were talking in
your retirement interview and you said I gave this game
every ounce I had, every ounce I had in my body.
I gave it my heart and my soul. I put
(08:19):
my body on the line I made sacrifices in my life.
It's safe to say I'm on empty in that moment.
What what were you thinking? What were you feeling as
you as you were saying those words, especially the part
I don't I don't think people understand that. People can
understand that we put our bodies on the line because
they see it. But when you said you make sacrifices
(08:40):
in your life, like, what, what? What does that line mean?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Dang, that's deep.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, Well, when I made sacrifices in my life, that
means that I had to put so much stuff by
the wayside, my own personal things, tooking my kids to
bed at night. I made sacrifice. Is going out there knowing,
damn well, I have no business on this football field,
knowing damn well, I need to be taking all these paymds, knowing,
(09:08):
damn I need to begin this injection in my ankle.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But I did it anyway. I took the torta, all pills.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I played out there at fifty percent because I love
my teammates, because I love this game, because I felt
like a fifty k is better than one hundred percent
someone else. And so I don't think people quite understand
how special this game is why we do it. But
football is it's the best, it's best board on the planet.
(09:37):
And when I said I'm on empty, I had nothing
else left to give. When I went to the Raiders
my last year and I felt the way that I
felt playing under the circumstances that I played in, I
was like, I'm gonna e I cannot do this again.
I can't not see my kids for two weeks at
a time. Forget that, I'm not doing this mess again.
(09:59):
So I gave it all I had from Pop Warner
till now I'm on empty. Game, thank you and onto
the next, on to the next chapter.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, I'm glad you express it that way, because you know,
when I was talking to Doug Baldwin, we were talking
about the humanity of players, and I don't think a
lot of fans some of them just aren't invested in
you that way. They just you're just purely entertainment. But
I don't think that fans, even people that cover the
game that maybe didn't play the game, understand that part
of it, Like like you can literally be in the
(10:30):
game in practice, in preparation, and all that stuff is
going through your mind because you're just you're a human
being just like everyone else. And that also impacts your
play and your mental health and wellness. You know, like
if you're in a bad place and you're and you're
thinking that stuff and you're not uh your plan where
you want to play or doing the things you want
to do, man, you can go to some really dark places.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And it's like, even though I have, I got all
this stuff going on in my life, I can't put
all this detail while I'm watching film. I can't put
all this detail while I'm taking care of myself because
I got other stuff going on, and so on top
of my life that I have, on top of my family,
stuff that I have, on top of my health that
I have.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
The coaches don't give it down.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
They want you to perform at a high level on Sundays,
and so you got all this build up. But when
the fans see you, when the coaches see you, even
when your teammates see you, it's like, it's go time.
We don't have time for your feelings right now. We
don't have time to worry about your injury right now.
If you out here, let's go and you can handle
everything once it's clock kid, zero zero zero. But in
(11:32):
this window and this practice time and this three hour times.
I hate to say this, but your feelings at this moment,
it got to get pushed to the wayside.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's important to note because dudes
are struggling, you know, whether they're planned or retired or
what have you, they struggle.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I just talk with.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
The Virginia Student Aid Foundation or Athletic Foundation and they
have three therapists on their staff there and because of
the pandemic and the three football players that were killed there, uh,
the three therapists are overwhelmed, like the like. So there's
a lot of mental stuff that kids are dealing with,
and now, especially these days in Asia, social media accesses.
(12:12):
You can try to block it out, but you can't,
you know. And so man, it's just a lot that
that athletes are dealing with on top of trying to
win and be perfect, which is is not realistic, you
know what I'm saying, and then trying to show up
and do all those things. Well, this is the last,
the last question I have for you. What would your
message be to uh, your colleagues, you know, like and
(12:33):
I say colleagues like our football family, you know, around
the importance of their mental health and wellness.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Man understand that the world we lived in.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I'm not gonna say it's hard to find, but it's
it's a challenge to find. So you got to find
the next thing that gets you excited, the next thing
that gets you going to get your juices flowing, to
get out of band like dang okay, I get to
do this today. That's what you gotta find. When I
said that, you know, I was talking to my guy said,
I felt like I was riding away. It's like, on
(13:05):
a daily basis, there's seven days after week only feel
only feel like I'm giving myself or being my you
know kJ self, like two or three days out the week.
That's other days when I wake up and look at
my schedule, I'm like, damn, I ain't got nothing to do,
Like I ain't got nothing today.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But some days I wake up like, broh, I got this.
I got that.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I got this, and so it gets me excited, it
gets me going. I do my radio shower. It's like
my favorite day of the week. I do my podcast
with Gee.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I love that. That's my thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
When I come here with Nelson Jam, I'm like, hell yeah,
I get to do something like get to get the
talkball and be around people, and so you gotta find
the next best thing. Just get yourself going because this
football stuff it was fun. It was seven days a week,
was competing against the best. Money was coming in, like
no one ever said no to you. And then that stops.
(13:57):
You come to this side and it's like, Okay, let's
let's find out what's next. Yeah, So that's my biggest advice.
What's that next big thing to really get you excited.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I think that's awesome, dude, because a lot of times
people say that, oh, when you're done football, you gotta
go do real work. It's like, nah, No, it was
real work, bro. Like you may have to just find
a different type of work or a different type of lifestyle,
but it was real work, Like for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I want to.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Thank you kJ for coming on, like you're one of
my Like, since I started this podcast, I've interviewed three
of my favorite people, Cliff, Doug and you, like, Like
I didn't obviously get to play with you guys and
plug against you guys, but watching you guys, I just
realized looking at your bio that I'm freaking twenty years
older than you. I was like, oh my gosh, I
don't feel that way, but but I really do appreciate
(14:42):
you coming on and like, like kJ said, he's the
host of the kJ all Day Podcast with A. G.
Scott and you can catch him on the sports Spotify YouTube,
all those places.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
This has been the eighth episode of Big Raise Garage Grinding.
Like always, if you are experiencing a mental health crisis,
reach out to your physician and mental UH and your
medical staff or providers for assistance. Number two, it's okay
to not be okay. And number three, if you need
help and you ask for help, you're operating from a
position of power. This is Big Ray with Big Rays
(15:16):
Garage Grind, Peace and I'm out.
You're listening to big raised garage grind.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I want to bring awareness and my voice to something
that's meaningful and purposeful, more than just who's the best
football player, who's the best football team.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The intersection between life, football and mental health.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
When you need help and you ask for help, you're
operating from a position of power. When you need help
and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now here's your host. Seahawks s lushon Ray Roberts and no,
I think about therapy.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I didn't. I didn't. I got this thing about myself.
I don't like bringing work home to my wife and
kids because I tell my wife all the time and
baby ain't the point of us, both of us being stressed.
So she tell me all the time, express open up
to me. But I suck at that, even when it
comes to my wife when it comes to work, because
(00:51):
I want my household to be peaceful. I wanted to
be good, but she was like, I can see it
on you. Yeah, it ain't peaceful. It's not peaceful. I
know what my husband looks like.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
M hm. And so I sucked at that.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And but to answer your question about therapy, I didn't
get therapy until recently. Yeah, this is my first time
going through therapy and been talking to a guy about
this new life that I have, this new transition and
expressed to him how I had some stuff at home
that was building up by use the word riding away.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And it was like, hell, you're talking about righting away.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And I was like, when I retired, I said, I
didn't want to work, I want to chill. But now
I'm in this space like s you know, OK, it's time.
This is your personality. You're a worker, blue collar, get
your ass going. But I told myself, I feel like
I'm riding away these days. So we've been talking and
getting things figured out, but no, just taking it back there.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You're eight man. That was that was probably one of
the worst times.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think it's interesting that you said that that you
didn't know what was happening, that your you know, your
headaches and sweat and you feeling you know, anxiousness and stuff.
And uh. I think that's important to say too, because
a lot of people will say I'm good, right, but
but they may be experiencing those things and not know
what it is experiencing. So when I retired, you we
(02:14):
were talking before we started this and you, uh, you
said I didn't have closure. And so when I retired,
I couldn't get out of the bed. I would I
would go from the from the bed to the couch,
from the couch back to the bed. I would cover
up all the windows so it was dark. I put
the pill over my head to sleep all day. And uh,
I didn't know what. I didn't know what that was.
(02:34):
I just knew it didn't feel good, you know. And
then my wife was like walking around like, you know,
trying to run the house and manage everything, and and uh,
the thing that kind of sparked me to get up
was my I had two sons at the time, but
my youngest son at the time, I heard him tell
his mom, I just want my dad back. And I
heard that when I was with the pill over my
head in the bed, and I was like, man, let
(02:55):
me just get up. And I'm I come from a
family like like you were just saying, well, everybody worked
all the time, and so I'm like, you know what,
like I need to get up and start working. I
need to do something so that I kind of get
my energy going that my kids seated that I'm doing okay,
and then I did do some therapy, but I had
some weird experiences with therapy, so I was kind of
at the time kind of out on that. But that's
(03:16):
when I was able to put words to what I
was feeling. And so I think sometimes today especially men
don't have the words to put to what they're feeling,
and so then they assume that like, here's here's this
thing that I just got to muscle through. I got
to figure out a way to do it by myself,
and then that's that's when dudes end up struggling, you know,
by themselves, and you know, maybe the you know, suicide
(03:38):
or those types of thoughts of more drinking or more
partying or driving fast like I used to get in
my car kJ and I would just I needed a
thrill to kind of feel like I was living again,
probably feeling like I'm rotten away. And I had this
Dodge Ram fifteen hundred that had the Viper engine in it,
and then I had it modified even on top of that,
(04:00):
probably had about fifteen hundred horsepower. And I would go
from Bellevue, I mean, from Redmond to Olympian back as
fast as I could know, I mean, one hundred and
twenty thirty miles just so I could just feel like
like I'm living, you know, and so to me, I'm
thinking like, oh, that's cool. But that was a part
of me trying to figure out what the hell is
going on with me? You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Here's my thing, Ray, if I go to someone, if
I vent to you, if I express how I'm feeling
me and how I want I want. I want like solutions.
I want you to tell me hey, X y Z,
and things will be better. I don't talk and I
don't express myself for people to listen.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's just me.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I express myself and communicate my feelings so I could
formulate a plan to get out of it. It's just
me and so going to like family dynamics, like when
it comes to my wife, she ain't given no advice,
she ain't given no advice. She goes listen, she goes
listen the whole time. But she's not giving no advice.
And that's why I have like certain people that I
(05:03):
like to go to, and that's why I like the
way that I give advice.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I give advice. I'm giving your ass solutions, Hey do this,
this should work to get better.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And so if I feel like I go to you
and you're not giving me nothing that I could take
with me, I'm not going back to you. So I
think people express themselves differently for different reasons. I don't
express myself just to talk.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah. I express myself to get things figured out.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, And I think that's important too, because I'm I
can be both, right, I can. I love giving advice.
I just feel like I'm a counselor. I was born
that way. But then sometimes when I'm feeling a certain way,
I just need to say it out loud to somebody.
So some I have people on my on my on
my team where I just text them like, hey, man,
I'm feeling like this. I don't need I don't need
them to respond back the fact that I said it.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Or like when I'm trying to lose weight, like I
like i show up at the pregame postgame show back
in the day and Jordan Babno would bring like three
dozen of donuts and I'm just advice used to bring
my own foods, and I would just be sitting there like, man,
I want some of those donuts, And I would text
my friend, Hey, they got donuts here. That's all I
needed to say, and that would keep me from eating
eating the donuts. But but yeah, I mean everybody's journey
(06:14):
and everybody's I don't want to say fixed, but processing
it's different, and I think, like, uh, that's the one
thing I like about the Mindful Therapy Group, which The
Mindful Therapy Group, based in the Pacific Northwest, is a
diverse group of qualified mental health providers offering both in
person and virtual care, whether it's talk therapy or medication management.
(06:34):
You can book your first visit within one week. Visit
Mindful Therapygroup dot com to start your journey to better
mental health today. The one thing that's really cool about
the Mindful Therapy Group is they work really hard to
match you with a therapist that kind of vibes what
your processing is. So whether it's someone that's just more
of a listener, most therapists are are gonna challenge you
(06:56):
to come up with the answers from within you you internally.
But then there's there's others that are just more talk therapy,
listen just on you to death and if that and
and if that's something that you're that you need, then
they can find that too, and I think that's what
they specialize in. But I think it's important that that
we shared are two different ways of processing, because there's
not one way and there's multiple ways to do it.
(07:18):
When I talked to Cliff, it was different. When I
talked to Doug, it was different.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And at the end of the day, I understand that
everyone has their way, but doing nothing is that's far
from the way. That's that's not that's not the way
at all. And so whether you need to take somebody,
call somebody, uh, go hit the punching bag.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Go zen out to some yoga.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
There there is a way on a daily basis that
you can get that self self care, that self help,
that self, that self that self health. And so that's
my way. I gotta talk it out. When I talk,
I need to give me something back that's me.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Well we're uh, we're getting closer to end here. I
just had a couple more things I wanted to run
by you, and one was when you were talking in
your retirement interview and you said I gave this game
every ounce I had, every ounce I had in my body.
I gave it my heart and my soul. I put
(08:19):
my body on the line I made sacrifices in my life.
It's safe to say I'm on empty in that moment.
What what were you thinking? What were you feeling as
you as you were saying those words, especially the part
I don't I don't think people understand that. People can
understand that we put our bodies on the line because
they see it. But when you said you make sacrifices
(08:40):
in your life, like, what, what? What does that line mean?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Dang, that's deep.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, Well, when I made sacrifices in my life, that
means that I had to put so much stuff by
the wayside, my own personal things, tooking my kids to
bed at night. I made sacrifice. Is going out there knowing,
damn well, I have no business on this football field,
knowing damn well, I need to be taking all these paymds, knowing,
(09:08):
damn I need to begin this injection in my ankle.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But I did it anyway. I took the torta, all pills.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I played out there at fifty percent because I love
my teammates, because I love this game, because I felt
like a fifty k is better than one hundred percent
someone else. And so I don't think people quite understand
how special this game is why we do it. But
football is it's the best, it's best board on the planet.
(09:37):
And when I said I'm on empty, I had nothing
else left to give. When I went to the Raiders
my last year and I felt the way that I
felt playing under the circumstances that I played in, I
was like, I'm gonna e I cannot do this again.
I can't not see my kids for two weeks at
a time. Forget that, I'm not doing this mess again.
(09:59):
So I gave it all I had from Pop Warner
till now I'm on empty. Game, thank you and onto
the next, on to the next chapter.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, I'm glad you express it that way, because you know,
when I was talking to Doug Baldwin, we were talking
about the humanity of players, and I don't think a
lot of fans some of them just aren't invested in
you that way. They just you're just purely entertainment. But
I don't think that fans, even people that cover the
game that maybe didn't play the game, understand that part
of it, Like like you can literally be in the
(10:30):
game in practice, in preparation, and all that stuff is
going through your mind because you're just you're a human
being just like everyone else. And that also impacts your
play and your mental health and wellness. You know, like
if you're in a bad place and you're and you're
thinking that stuff and you're not uh your plan where
you want to play or doing the things you want
to do, man, you can go to some really dark places.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And it's like, even though I have, I got all
this stuff going on in my life, I can't put
all this detail while I'm watching film. I can't put
all this detail while I'm taking care of myself because
I got other stuff going on, and so on top
of my life that I have, on top of my family,
stuff that I have, on top of my health that
I have.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
The coaches don't give it down.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
They want you to perform at a high level on Sundays,
and so you got all this build up. But when
the fans see you, when the coaches see you, even
when your teammates see you, it's like, it's go time.
We don't have time for your feelings right now. We
don't have time to worry about your injury right now.
If you out here, let's go and you can handle
everything once it's clock kid, zero zero zero. But in
(11:32):
this window and this practice time and this three hour times.
I hate to say this, but your feelings at this moment,
it got to get pushed to the wayside.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's important to note because dudes
are struggling, you know, whether they're planned or retired or
what have you, they struggle.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I just talk with.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
The Virginia Student Aid Foundation or Athletic Foundation and they
have three therapists on their staff there and because of
the pandemic and the three football players that were killed there, uh,
the three therapists are overwhelmed, like the like. So there's
a lot of mental stuff that kids are dealing with,
and now, especially these days in Asia, social media accesses.
(12:12):
You can try to block it out, but you can't,
you know. And so man, it's just a lot that
that athletes are dealing with on top of trying to
win and be perfect, which is is not realistic, you
know what I'm saying, and then trying to show up
and do all those things. Well, this is the last,
the last question I have for you. What would your
message be to uh, your colleagues, you know, like and
(12:33):
I say colleagues like our football family, you know, around
the importance of their mental health and wellness.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Man understand that the world we lived in.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I'm not gonna say it's hard to find, but it's
it's a challenge to find. So you got to find
the next thing that gets you excited, the next thing
that gets you going to get your juices flowing, to
get out of band like dang okay, I get to
do this today. That's what you gotta find. When I
said that, you know, I was talking to my guy said,
I felt like I was riding away. It's like, on
(13:05):
a daily basis, there's seven days after week only feel
only feel like I'm giving myself or being my you
know kJ self, like two or three days out the week.
That's other days when I wake up and look at
my schedule, I'm like, damn, I ain't got nothing to do,
Like I ain't got nothing today.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But some days I wake up like, broh, I got this.
I got that.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I got this, and so it gets me excited, it
gets me going. I do my radio shower. It's like
my favorite day of the week. I do my podcast
with Gee.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I love that. That's my thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
When I come here with Nelson Jam, I'm like, hell yeah,
I get to do something like get to get the
talkball and be around people, and so you gotta find
the next best thing. Just get yourself going because this
football stuff it was fun. It was seven days a week,
was competing against the best. Money was coming in, like
no one ever said no to you. And then that stops.
(13:57):
You come to this side and it's like, Okay, let's
let's find out what's next. Yeah, So that's my biggest advice.
What's that next big thing to really get you excited.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I think that's awesome, dude, because a lot of times
people say that, oh, when you're done football, you gotta
go do real work. It's like, nah, No, it was
real work, bro. Like you may have to just find
a different type of work or a different type of lifestyle,
but it was real work, Like for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I want to.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Thank you kJ for coming on, like you're one of
my Like, since I started this podcast, I've interviewed three
of my favorite people, Cliff, Doug and you, like, Like
I didn't obviously get to play with you guys and
plug against you guys, but watching you guys, I just
realized looking at your bio that I'm freaking twenty years
older than you. I was like, oh my gosh, I
don't feel that way, but but I really do appreciate
(14:42):
you coming on and like, like kJ said, he's the
host of the kJ all Day Podcast with A. G.
Scott and you can catch him on the sports Spotify YouTube,
all those places.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
This has been the eighth episode of Big Raise Garage Grinding.
Like always, if you are experiencing a mental health crisis,
reach out to your physician and mental UH and your
medical staff or providers for assistance. Number two, it's okay
to not be okay. And number three, if you need
help and you ask for help, you're operating from a
position of power. This is Big Ray with Big Rays
(15:16):
Garage Grind, Peace and I'm out.
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