On the latest NFL Players: Second Acts podcast, Super Bowl champion Kayvon Webster joins Peanut Tillman and Roman Harper to share his journey from chasing an NFL dream to building a life of purpose beyond football.
Kayvon reflects on growing up with a clear goal of playing in the NFL, his path to South Florida, and his “welcome to the league” moments — including getting drafted by his childhood favorite team, the Denver Broncos, and meeting his idol Champ Bailey. He discusses earning his place in Denver’s legendary No Fly Zone defense, which he says thrived on veteran leadership.
The conversation turns to winning a Super Bowl, the celebration that followed, and the reality of life after football. Kayvon opens up about not giving himself time to dwell on leaving the game, instead pouring his energy into entrepreneurship — launching a food truck while still trying out for teams. His business quickly outgrew expectations, including serving frontline workers during the pandemic.
Kayvon also shares how a torn Achilles sparked a new creative chapter, leading to a children’s book inspired by Black inventors and motivational videos created for his kids. Through business, storytelling, and service, Webster explains how he’s living his purpose by helping others believe in their dreams — the ultimate second act.
The NFL Players: Second Acts podcast is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeart Media.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My rookie year. You know, Champ Bailey got hurt for
six weeks, so I had to play. You know, I
played the first game, you know, Payton through those seven touchdowns.
You know, that was my welcome to the lead moment.
It is just like we're playing against the Baltimore Ravens.
Peyton comes out there, he lights up the show against
you know, the Ravens were playing Joe Flocco. Wasn't that
(00:21):
super Bowl run so flopper them just won the super
Bowl and we lost to them in the playoffs. Coming
in as a rookie, playing the full games of the
preseason and then we're kicking off our season with the
champions of the world, you know, and of the world,
Craig and now you you know you you you seeing
(00:43):
these like how we are approach to this week. It
was just like it's payback week. What up?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Everybody on Peanut to me and this is the NFL
Players Second Act Podcast and with me is always as
my trustee co host, Roman que Dog.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Harpa shout out to the brush. Yeah man, really looking
forward to this. Man, our next guest are very very
successful person on and off the field.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I mean, I'm just trying to go to the restaurant. Honestly,
I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
We should have did this at the relationship, did this
at the restaurant. He's he's an eight year event played
in two Super Bowls, won a Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
He's a restaurant owner, a.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Public speaker, he's an author. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
to the pod Cavon.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
How y'all doing, y'ah doing? How doing? But I like
that jacket right there. Oh yeah, I appreciate that's.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That huge and stuff right there.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, I like that little old school I like it. Thanks, man,
appreciate you up for coming. I'm actually from South Florida
right down the street at my at my little league park,
We've had the pleasure of having Sean Spens, Phillips, Keevon Webster,
Teddy Bridgewater, and you know some other players that came
(02:07):
behind me and for me.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So all through your part growing up, so this is
who you got to see. So it was a lot
of pride, yeah, taking and coming and playing at this park.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Right of course, well not starting out because you know,
didn't know any of these guys, you know, New Stepman,
New New Teddy, because we all played at the park
in the same era, you know the other guys. You know,
you find out as you got older, and you know
it became one thing.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, yeah, all right, so tell me this then, So
we go from the Little League, let's go to high school.
How is it your high school being in the NFL's
Super Bowl High school honor roll? Because Kevon, you played
in Super Bowl forty eight and you won fifty that's correct.
But they had some other guys that that were actually
(02:58):
had been into bows too from your high school, right, Stephen.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Moores, Stephen Morris Van Dyke. Yeah, Joel Rodriguez was my
boys right there. And Dyke was two years ahead of me.
You know, he went to UIM and he got drafted
by the Raiders and uh, he's coaching at the USF
now that the school I went to college at. Uh,
Stephen was my quarterback my senior year at my senior
(03:23):
and Joel was a coach. I had a pleasure of
talking to him going to my senior pace too. I
went to three high schools. Uh. I went to Carol
City first, That's how the journey started for me, and
then I transferred from there. I went to Miami Norland.
I was able to play with the Xavier Rhoads and
(03:46):
uh Antonio Brown and Roads still is big in high school?
Like how big was it in high school? They always
been that size? Okay? He was always tall as yeah yeah, yeah,
always been that size.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Going to three different high schools. I see you were
able to become a three star, three star recruit coming
out of high school. To me, I think it's hard
enough when you to become a three star, but when
you move different schools, I think that makes it harder.
Was the NFL always the goal for you?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No question? You know when you're playing literally you definitely
want to see yourself on TV one day. Yeah, and
you know you put that work in to, you know,
get to that goal, you know, just taking one day
at a time. I didn't really My family is not
from sports background, so I'm like the first playing football,
going to college, NFL type thing. So the support was
(04:41):
just and okay, you guys winning games, not really knowing
about football or the business or about how that stuff works.
So that was a trials and tribulation that I had
took up on myself.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So you make it to the NFL, right, I want
to know what was that?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Welcome to the NFL? Moment a welcome moment for me.
He would be meeting my favorite player, was that Champ
Bailey getting drafted to the Denver Broncos. That was my
favorite team. My first game I saw them, you know,
watching organizing football. The first game I ever watched was
Denver Broncos playing against Atlanta Falcons, and Denver put on
(05:21):
a great show. TV did his thing, and I've been
a fan ever since. Was that like in the Super
Bowl that one. Yeah, my dad loves the Dolphins, and
I've always went against my dad's or whatever he likes.
So Denver was that team for me, and I always
loved Denver, had John Elway Jersey, Terrell Davis Jersey growing up.
(05:45):
So yeah, my welcome and moment would be, you know,
just meeting Champ Bailey and getting drafted to my favorite
team and then you know, playing there four years to
Super Bowls. Hell of a experience. Yeah, my path kind
of chose itself. I started playing sports. I had coaches
taking interest, coaches picking me up for workouts.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay, so then when you reached that go what was
that moment like when you got that call in the
third round?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It was great. It was a great moment. Even though
my phone, even though my phone died in that process.
It was crazy. It was crazy. Did you not have
that thing? So, you know, when you're from so so
this is the thing, right, so to see what happened.
Let me tell you this is the thing. I didn't
really have chances to have a cell phone or and
(06:36):
when I did, it wasn't like I was glued to it. Yeah,
you know, even going to the NFL with the phone dying,
my friend had the phone. He came, brought it to me.
I answered it, you know, speaking for about thirty seconds.
You know, phone dies, plug it up, get to call
them back, set up that trip to go out there.
You know you called them back. Yeah, I kind of
(06:58):
hey you not not really, not really, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
The first guy, yeah that I ever heard who on draft.
They was like, oh, y'all was talking to him for
thirty seconds and my phone died.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
They did. You know? It was a crazy situation. You know.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We had the great Hall of Fame Darryl Green, cornerback,
come on our show, okay, and he's talking about defensive backs,
and he's talking about cornerbacks and he says, there is
a difference. Do you consider yourself a corner or do
you consider yourself a defensive back?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I would say I'm a defensive back because I've had
to play nickel, don safety, and corner at times. I'm
a football player, so I played special team. I played
whatever my coach needed me to play, wherever he said,
K you line up at. That's always been who I am.
And you know, even going to college, I wasn't a cornerback.
(07:51):
I didn't play defensive back. I used to rush the
quarterback sacks. Yeah, I played outside linebacker. I was guarding
running backs and Tidy South Carolina was my first offer
at defensive back to change my mind and say, okay,
I'm gonna have to change another position because my position,
you know, grew over the time of playing football. You know.
(08:13):
First year I played center, but I used to score
touchdowns at center, yeah, with center sneaks. And then I
went to running back, and then I went to linebacker.
Then I went to wide receiver in high school, you know,
and that's how I got my stars.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
U dB or you a corner? Where do you as
you a safety?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah? I'm safe. Don't even you a safety?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Already already for you, I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
A safety, bro, Like, what do you I'm a corner.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, I'm a straight corner, although I did play safety
in high school in college. I played safety strictly in
high school and college.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And you also were a special team too.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I am a special team so I do a lot.
I think the league was the first time that I,
like I legit accepted the fact that I was.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Just a corner. I'm a corner, yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
When I got drafted, they didn't say you were a
corner or safety. It was just like we're drafting defensive,
defensive basia. So I had no clue what I was
when I went to Chicago. So I had to ask
the head coach actually, yeah, we're walking down the hallway
and he was just like, I think we're gonna try
you at corner first, just to see what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And that panned out.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Well okay, yeah, but like you said that, wherever the
coach need to me out of play safety, out of
did out of did whatever he needed me to do.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So yeah, coming into the league, you playing two super
Bowls in your first three seasons, it was NFL's easy.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Uh. Never I thought that the NFL was easy. You know,
I trained with you know, coming out of coming out
and going to the league. I trained with Antonio. He
never made anything easy. Uh. He was the first person
I seen record everything as far as like workouts, so
like when that camera on, you wanted to be your
very best because he was gonna post it. Uh really
(09:57):
that was like that was the mentality back then. You know,
we worked really hard. Bro We swim, we ran on
the track, We did beach workouts, we did a lot
of field workouts. We did a lot of recovery together,
me and him, Xavier Roads, even Geno Smith, Stadman Bailey,
(10:17):
and you know a couple of other guys Jonathan Ciprian
that was from South Florida. We used to get a
lot of working together. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, I guess maybe I think what you were trying
to say though, was ill go a little deeper. Is
not that it was easy, but you went to two
super Bowls like fairly quickly. And guys go their entire
careers yeah without every I mean, guy might go twelve
thirteen years and he finally gets the Super Bowl, and
you got yours pretty pretty early in your career.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So well, I would say I got blessed. I got
to bless Yeah, I'm blessed because my last two years
of college, we lost sixteen games. You know. My senior
year we lost nine games, and my junior year we
lost seven games. But out of those seven games, six
of them we lost on the last player of the game.
So we supposed have been eleven and one at South
Florida and we should have been ranked. But my first
(11:08):
two years we had you know, we won some bowl
games against Clemson and against Northern Illinois. So my first
two years was like my first two years in the league.
It was just like, oh, this is what we're doing,
you know, and then you know, adversity hits you your
last two years of college, and You're like, how are
(11:28):
these people gonna see me if we losing these games
and I'm not able to make these plays? You know,
I just found a way, you know, I used to.
I let the team in tackles my senior year. You know,
even though I wasn't getting thrown that that much, I
was heavily involved in the run game, and so the
opportunity for me to get to the lead always was there.
(11:49):
Just about the mindset that I had.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So super Bowl fifty, obviously, you guys win, we lose,
we get our ring ceremony. I don't think any of
us was like two geeked about getting our nu CE
Championship ring because it was like a second place ring, Right,
you get your ring. What was the first thing you
did when you saw that box? The ceremony of the presentation.
Walk me through that night, talk me through that that
that event.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It was a movie night. You know. You get you
a little date, you go into the I wasn't I'm
not married, so had a date. I was in a
relationship at the time. You young fellaw. We went to
the we went to we pull up, we got you know,
Uber's had just came out, pull up Uber truck to
the stadium. Uh, they got the carpet late carpet. Yeah,
(12:33):
or were even talk about the Super Bowl? The Super
Bowl one was it was magnificent. It was gold. Everything
tables was gold. We had this gold box on our table.
Announcer came in that announces the games. It's just like
a whole movie happening. So everybody has their table, everybody
(12:54):
standing with their dates, coaches announcing things, and then you know,
the rings come out, so every all the phones come out.
Everybody started taking pictures with each other. It was a
great day, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So if I if I heard you right though, y'all
got two rings. Y'all got a f C and a
support ring.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Or y'all just we do. Yeah. Remember we lost, We
lost against Russell, so we got the AFC Championship. But
we had a ceremony. We had a ceremony for that too.
Came in a nice little box with a light on it.
You know, I got to reorder that. You know, I
think I might have lost the ASC ring. You don't
even care about it. I do care about it. It's
(13:33):
just that, you know, when you move in. So through
my journey, I've been able to move from Florida to Denver,
to Denver to uh LA and then from La to
Texas to train and then go to the Houston Texans
back to Florida, you know, to uh New Orleans, then
(13:54):
to Washington. So it was a lot of traveling, a
lot of moving around. Don't know where everything is. You know.
It was only me, you know, taking on this NFL
by myself. You know, my parents didn't really you know,
knew too much about the business side of it or
what's going on. For all they know is just like
my son made it. He in the NFL. You know
(14:15):
a lot of things happening, you know, not not to
say I didn't care about the ring. You know what,
I ain't lose that Super Bowl fifty ring and that
one was the one that you know, we won. And
you know, I'm pretty sure I can get the AFC
Championship ring back. You can. Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
You talked about how you're kind of attacking the NFL
by yourself. Yeah, like you got all these other guys
that you grew up with or that you practiced or
trained with, like that's kind of a support system. But
the fact that like your parents, they weren't football people.
They didn't they weren't there for all those things like
that was not my experience. My experience is both my
parents big football people. My brother played, my oldest brother played,
(14:53):
my sister like grew up around it. My dad coach.
So like I grew up in this football fam, this
football world.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm jealous of you. Yeah, man, no, no, don't. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, That's why I'm asking you.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
What was that Like?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
What was that journey like when you are it was
like one of I guess when when everybody else's world
does not evolve around or revolve around for football.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I would say it was tough because the communication wasn't
there as far as like, you know what you're battling.
They for all they know is my son is strong minded.
He going to do what he needs to do for
his felth and his family. But yeah, a lot of
navigation was, you know, just on just staying positive, staying prayer.
(15:41):
For my grandmother's ninety one. She's always sent me prayers
and you know, things to read every day. So I
think that's what's kept me, you know, a little bit
safer through my journey. Even though I wasn't unable to
communicate with them about certain things, I was able to
communicate about the way I felt about the things I'm
(16:02):
taking on and about where I want to be at,
you know, when I'm done with the game.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, so we obviously were all dbs. We played on
I played on some really good defensive backfields. You played
in some good defensive back fields, not as good as mine.
But I'm just going to throw that out there. You
got a chance to be a part of the No
Fly Zone, and you played against the Legion of boom
Or you got a chance to see them. I would
like to know your impression against them when you saw
(16:29):
them in Super Bowl forty eight. What do you think
of Legion of Boom versus no fly Zone?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Say it, say it, I'm taking a no fly zone.
That's no question talk yo talk. For the simple fact
that because said.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Y'all were better, because y'all played more man so I.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Just so so so I would say, I would say
you you were right. We played man like at the time. Uh,
that was it was incredible, you know, being around to
leave and being a Brown Chris Harris, Uh, those guys
(17:10):
were students of the game. And those two guys, Uh,
they kind of changed the culture of the Denver Broncos
when it came to what it means to be a
professional and being prepared. Everybody was accountable for the film
and uh you know route the route recognition. Uh, just
(17:33):
knowing what your man gonna do on certain downs. That
was a big thing for us. And you would get
called out for that if you didn't know what was
going on. So even you know, being uh not a starter,
you was always a play away from having to go
in the game. And and and the leaders of our team,
they expected the same results whether they was out there
(17:56):
or not. You know, and uh that that raised the
whole morale of the team. We were always together. We
had linebackers watching film, we had d Lin watching film together.
It was just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, I was gonna that was gonna be My question
was it's staying motivated. But it sounds like you had
a great group of veteran guys that continue to pour
into you and then you had this just whereverth all
of like, dude, I'm just one play away.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah. I mean that was the mentality from even when
even when they wasn't there. You know, my rookie year,
you know, Champ Bailey got hurt for six weeks, so
I had to play. You know, I played the first game,
you know, painting through those seven touchdowns. You know, that
was my welcome to the lead moment. It was just
like we're playing against the Baltimore Ravens on this Sunday night.
(18:45):
Payton comes out there, he lights up the show against
you know, the Ravens were playing Joe Flocco. Wasn't that
super Bowl run so flop them just won the super
Bowl and we lost in them in the playoffs. You know,
I wasn't there. I was in college still, so coming
in as a rookie, playing the full games of the
(19:06):
preseason and then we're kicking off our season with the
champions of the world, you know, and the world Craig
and now you you know, you you you seeing these
like how we are approach to this week. It was
just like it's payback week. Were supposed to won that
Super Bowl and so you know, Peyton came out on fire. Yeah,
(19:28):
you know that whole year we was on fire. Yeah,
that's when he had the what was the tight ends name?
That was so Julius Julius. So we had a really
great team that year. It was uh we had Julius,
we had Eric decker Dt, we had Andre Carwell, we
had Wes Welker had the running back, we had no seam,
Mano monte Ball, Julius Thomas. We had a great We
(19:51):
had a great team. And from right then it was
just like you want to play away, you know, you
next man in. So I got to be just as
household name as those players that's before me, and we'll
be right back. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So I want to I want to transition into your
second act. Okay, right, so you're out of the league
and I think you did an interview, and you said
football was something that I did, It wasn't who I was.
And I think a lot of players they struggle with
the identity of letting the game go. They all kind
(20:27):
of go through like a small pout of depression, just
trying to figure out the next step in life. How
did you handle your transition once you left the game.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I didn't even give myself time to sit down and
think about it. I just kept going. I just kept going.
I worked out every day. But I also had a business.
I had already invested a certain amount of money into it,
into the food and beveraors business. So I started my
food truck business when I was playing for the Rams.
(21:00):
It was like right after my surgery. That's Vibe three
or five five food truck. Started that in California. We
was out there for six months, and then when I
went to the Texans, it was still operating and I
just shut it down. When I left the Texans, I
came back to South Florida, and I wanted to bring
my business back, you know, back home. I opened that up.
(21:21):
During the pandemic. I was still you know, training, going
on visits to teams, and you know, that's how I
got into, you know, the food journey, so I never
really had time to sit down and say I'm depressed
about not playing. It was just like, bro, I can't
make no, I can't sit myself down to do this.
(21:41):
I gotta keep going to what's the next thing that's
gonna pivot my life. It was like I had more
longevity and my business life than I had left in
my football life because of the injuries I sustained, you know,
the torn achilles, the beproom terror, the you know, grade
three tear in the qual breaking my hand, those things
(22:03):
with things to think about like them, do I lead
a game now? Because this the most I've ever been injured,
And I had to invest in money. So it's like
I don't trust these people that I'm investing in the money,
And so which one has more life expectancy my money
that I'm investing or me just trying to try out
for these teams and hoping that they see past the
(22:24):
injuries or past whatever they heard about Kaylon Webster going
through the buzz of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
You know, so now that you have your establishments, they're established. Ye,
You're in the food and beverage industry, have you actually
had time to sit down and just process your injuries,
your career, the league and everything else.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Not really, the food and beverage industry is tough, like
everybody knows about that. So every day is about planning
for other people's lives, you know, like how can you
make other people just as successful as you in your vision?
You know? And every day that's what your mind is
(23:09):
is on on, like, man, how could I get better?
How can I make this business better for whoever is
working here? And it just always kept my mind busy
on like what's to do next? So what made you
start food truck? First? Oh, let's see, I had a
private chef in California. What's his name? I had Chef Had.
(23:34):
So I started out with Chef Kayla, and then I
ended up with Chef Flip and Chef Terry. Chef Flip
was the private chef for me for the four months
that I was a part of the the rams. We
started the middle prep program. The prices had got a
little price here, and then I sat down. I watched
(23:57):
a movie called Chef. I sat there watch Chef. If
y'all don't have a chance to sit down to watch
a movie, watch Chef. It was a chef. He worked
in a restaurant for a restaurant owner that didn't want
to let him cook his food. Food critic came by,
bashed him. He wound up getting fired. He left. He
(24:19):
got a food truck. The food truck he took on
the road, and so in my mind I was thinking
I could do the same thing. You know, I had
enough capital. I looked up food trucks researching in Los
Angeles and it was just like, if you own a
food truck and you're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
three hundred thousand gross. You know. I was just looking
(24:41):
at that and I said, well, Chef, this the next thing.
We from Florida. We live in California. There's nothing that
we like to eat out here. It's a need for
what we want to eat. Because my teammates they eat
the food that you make. So let's create something that's
from home and that can get them the same field
I feel when you're making this food. We went and
(25:04):
got a food truck. I opened it up with chef Terry.
Chef Terry's been with me from two thousand and eighteen
until twenty twenty two. A pandemic happened. The food truck
had outgrew the space that it was in, and then
I had to find a place to you know, park it.
We found this a restaurant that was abandoned. It was
(25:28):
during the pandemic, so that was a great time to
negotiate deals. And so that's how I got birth into saying, Okay,
I'm having a restaurant. What kind of restaurant am I
going to have? Is it gonna be a lounge restaurant
or is it just gonna be straight fine dining. At
this time, Chef Flipped wasn't working with me. He introduced
(25:51):
himself to a food critic, which is a Smith, star
x Smith. Star x Smith, I wrote that right, and
so star x Smith was a food critic. He came
by the food truck. I had watched the review of
his right before he got to the space, and immediately
when he began talking, I was just like, instead of
(26:11):
you critiquing, how about your help like and he was like,
no one had ever you know, said that to him,
and me being fresh out of the league, you know,
him being a restaurant tour going to different restaurants and
you know, getting his experience up. I thought It would
have been a great idea to have a food critic
and me partner up, you know, to learn the ropes
(26:34):
of the restaurants of the things that he visited, versus
me being in operation on the food truck. And you know,
Smith and Webster was born, you know, off of that.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So the pandemic was something that the entire world had
to kind of deal with and go through and essential
workers and shutting down certain certain businesses. Frontline workers obviously
they had to continue to keep working. Talk about the
pride you had uh with your with your food truck
feeding first responders.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It was great. It was a great feeling, you know,
being able to still be there during a tough time
where there was uncertainty about where the world was at
and still being able to put a smile on these
people face. You know, you're pulling up to the whole. Uh,
you're pulling up the hospitals and you're just feeding the patients.
You're putting up the fire, fire the stations and you're
(27:27):
feeding them. Man. It just was a great feeling. You know,
people taking your vision and enjoying the vision that you created.
Seeing that is priceless. What's the best thing on the menu.
Mm hmm. It depends if you want to go in
a beef route or if you want to go into
(27:48):
the seafood route. So in the beef route, I would
say we have this eight layered oxtailersion. We it's an
eight hour process. You know, Chef Freddy and Chef Jenney,
they do a great job of, you know, making sure
that's staple for Smith and Webster. It comes with a
three hour marinara sauce eight layer at lasagna. You got
(28:11):
your ricotta on top with a basil leaf and a
sprinkled pa donal grand padano cheese and some chives. That
would be if you going to the beef world. If
you go into the seafood world, I would say, it's
either the catfish or the salmon. Nola. In that nola rice,
(28:34):
it is a Di jon jon rice mushroom rice, but
with a remix in it. It has chopped porking there,
pulled chicken thighs, jerk chicken thighs, and it's finished with
you know, two sixteen twenty shrimps and just glazed with
either a tartar sauce for the fish or miso for
the salmon. Or you can get you know, you go
(28:57):
back into the beef world with the lamb chops, with
the housemaid Timmy Cherry. So my favorite thing would be
everything because it's made from scratch. We know where it's
sourced from. We know what we're doing. We know we're
not warming up food from places. We actually going in there,
playing with measurements and actually trying to be consistent, you know,
(29:22):
with the flavor.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, I'm glad I asked that question. He gave
us the whole rundown on the menu. I mean, if
you're my waiter, I don't know if I would like
that answer because that was too much.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I'm like, see now I don't know what I want.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Now you got the money, Hey, give me everything. What
you just said, I'm gonna just give me everything. I'm
gonna take a little bit of that, a little bit
of this.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Let me tell you another thing. You know, don't you
count my blessings on this? Shows gonna be count my blessing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I want to talk about children's books, right, So I
read earlier that you're an author. I'm an author. I
wrote a kid children's book. And I love this idea
because every year around Black Here Street Mouth, they come
out with all these inventors, and I'm looking at ig
and it has all these these amazing African American poets, artists, inventors,
(30:04):
just everything about what they've contributed to life.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I'm like, damn, I never learned that in school.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
And I love the idea of the fact that you
have this book Kevon's Webster Dictionary, and you have this
book of inventors talk about talk about the idea and
where that idea even came from.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I would say so a lot of my ideas, a
lot of who I am was born when I taught
my achilles. I just had to be innovative because, you know,
going through a process like that, you know, coaches telling
you that you're never gonna run the same or you're
not going to be the player who you was before
these injuries, you know, I just had They just sent
(30:46):
your mind into a whirlpool. And me, I was looking
at these opportunities of staying motivated on my journey to
get back to where I was at so that I
could be, you know, fully functional. It started out as
me just picking words of the week and saying, Okay,
I'm using this word of the week and this time
(31:08):
I'm gonna go about my week with this word. We
recorded some videos, we put it on YouTube and it
got a good response, and then it was just like,
let's just turn this into a book. We can inspire
the next person to not give up through no matter
what trauma they're facing when it comes to injuries or
what they're walking through in life, They'll be able to
(31:31):
pick this book up and be motivated on their journey,
you know. And so that's how the Kid's Book was born.
For me. With the inventors, it was like I read
a book and I was like, I never knew about
half these people. You know, at the cliff notes of
your book it had I'm like, yeah, I didn't even know.
(31:53):
Like it's dope. I love the cause, Like, I didn't
know we was amazing. I didn't know we had the
first bank, Like yeah, you know, I didn't know we
had an amazing idea, we made medical we made patents,
we were inventors of certain things that I didn't know.
So I was just like, well, we got to get
this out, you know. And that's how I went about it.
(32:14):
I was just like, well, let's create something that we
can get out.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, you know, you had an ig posts and this
is what you said. There was a time I was
just trying to survive, trying to figure out life purpose
and how to make my vision real. Yesterday God allowed
me to stand in front of over one hundred young
kings and queens through the Jack and Jail Foundation and
speak life into their dreams. I didn't just share my
(32:39):
journey as a restaurant tour. I shared pain, perseverance, faith,
and proof that obedience of God's plan will take you
places talent alone cannot Kavon.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Are you living your your purpose driven life? Yes, I
feel like I am walking in my purpose because my
purpose is to help other people. I feel like that's
always been my purpose. I'm not I'm not no more
blessed than the next person. I just always take advantage
of my opportunities with other people in mind, saying like
(33:14):
if I was on the other side of that, how
would I be or how would I react? And I
think the biggest thing you could do is to help
someone else grow.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
This is a question that we ask a lot of
our guests that come on the show Mount Rushmore. These
four picks of people that have had influence on you
in your life that helped shape mold and the young man,
the incredible younger man that you are today. If you
have four picks, who would those four people be?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Oh, let's put God first. Let's put Granny next. Granny. Grannie,
I have her kind of like personality. She's always been,
you know, the laid back person. She's always been open
with her home or whatever she has. She's always thinking
of positivity, regardless of being in storms. You know, she
(34:06):
just like, it's gonna work out, baby, don't even think
about it. Just focus on what you could focus on,
and you know, balance the things you can't. So that's
why she would be on my Mount Reskma, because I
always have that, you know, thought of her sending me
that message randomly out of the blue. Next, I would
(34:26):
say my mom, because you know, without her, I wouldn't
be here, you know. And then for number five four
I would say I would just say all of my coaches. Really,
it would be like a multi faced coach. You know.
My high school coach, coach Mario, he was very big
(34:47):
for me growing up, used to pick me up at
five am. We used to work out before class. It
was he was the first person that made me feel
like I could go to college and that I should
go to college. Yeah, because he went to Kansas State.
He was another big reason for me getting introduced to
Jim Levitt at South Florida because he played for him
(35:09):
at you know, k State. Coach Mario is a great guy,
and you know, at the time when I was coming out,
it was just like I wanted to be like coach
Mario being you know, a great guy and you know,
giving back to the youth, helping other people develop their dreams.
Larry Scott, he's a head coach at Howard. He used
(35:31):
to He was there with me my first two years
of college, you know, after going through firings and then
you know, having to deal with that new coach syndrome
of people trying to tell you who you are or
who your cares Like. I had a coach one time
so in college i ran track and he was just like,
you're not dedicated to football. And I was just like,
(35:53):
I don't understand how you feel like that. If I'm
up at six am, I'm on the track. Yeah, I
go to class in the midd or the day, and
I come to football practice like I'm doing more than
anybody here, Like I'm dedicated to this teler I did.
I did, so you said it with your chest yea.
(36:13):
So so in that process, you know, that kind of
that kind of conversation that kind of changed my uh
trajectory kind of say, because I was supposed to be
a starter. I started my freshman year, but then when
we got new coaches, I you know, took the back
seat because of you know, that conversation and some business things.
(36:33):
So you know, I lost my position. I was the
third I went for number one to number three. Uh,
just because they wanted to get other guys who had
seniors looks, that's both, but that was a whole nother thing.
So you know, Coach Scott was kept my mind strong
in that said, Bro, you came for a reason. Don't
let no one deter you from that control of things.
(36:54):
You can balance the things you can't. And you know,
Rick Smith he was big for me mentality wise because
no matter how many players I made or you know,
he always kept his foot on my neck like that
wasn't And so that made me go to practice every
day with my chip on my should like I'm finn
to show him, you know. And uh, you know, coach Skip,
(37:17):
his dad low Hopes came out. You know. He was
our dB coach for a couple of weeks and it
was like you know, talking to an NFL her coach
in college, you know, and it was just like he
was like, you're gonna make it like whatever, you whatever,
you just keep doing what you're doing, Like I don't
know what a is you doing? You know, he got
a little you know, so it was that was those
(37:38):
are surreal moments, you know, having those coaches involved in
my life, you.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Know, kvon Man, I appreciate you man, Thank you stopping
by man, Bro and continue many more blessings and successes. Bro,
your life was different than mine, but I feel like
we share the same souls because with DB's for show,
I mean, well you're a dB, I'm a safety and
I'm a cone coner.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah I play it. I had to play all you know.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah yeah, but you always rise to the challenge. Man,
go up to you man in your restaurant and and
everything else that you're doing in and continue to just
continue to push forward, Man, And anytime we're here in
South Florida, will definitely try and stop.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
By my show.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Thank you all for having me, no doubt Man, Thank
you as always tune it in whether you pick up
your podcast, whether it's Apple podcast, iHeartRadio app. Make sure
you continue to like, share, subscribe, give us a follow,
make sure subscribing and follow same thing Roman, get it right,
and then make sure you leave a couple of comments,
leave a message and Peanut get us out here.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Make sure you tell a friend and tell her what
Tell friend, tel friend, and check us out on the
NFL's YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I'm Peanut Tillman.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
That's Truman Harper, that's Cavon And this is the NFL
Player's second AX podcast and we are out
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Six
My rookie year. You know, Champ Bailey got hurt for
six weeks, so I had to play. You know, I
played the first game, you know, Payton through those seven touchdowns.
You know, that was my welcome to the lead moment.
It is just like we're playing against the Baltimore Ravens.
Peyton comes out there, he lights up the show against
you know, the Ravens were playing Joe Flocco. Wasn't that
(00:21):
super Bowl run so flopper them just won the super
Bowl and we lost to them in the playoffs. Coming
in as a rookie, playing the full games of the
preseason and then we're kicking off our season with the
champions of the world, you know, and of the world,
Craig and now you you know you you you seeing
(00:43):
these like how we are approach to this week. It
was just like it's payback week. What up?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Everybody on Peanut to me and this is the NFL
Players Second Act Podcast and with me is always as
my trustee co host, Roman que Dog.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Harpa shout out to the brush. Yeah man, really looking
forward to this. Man, our next guest are very very
successful person on and off the field.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I mean, I'm just trying to go to the restaurant. Honestly,
I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
We should have did this at the relationship, did this
at the restaurant. He's he's an eight year event played
in two Super Bowls, won a Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
He's a restaurant owner, a.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Public speaker, he's an author. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
to the pod Cavon.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
How y'all doing, y'ah doing? How doing? But I like
that jacket right there. Oh yeah, I appreciate that's.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That huge and stuff right there.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, I like that little old school I like it. Thanks, man,
appreciate you up for coming. I'm actually from South Florida
right down the street at my at my little league park,
We've had the pleasure of having Sean Spens, Phillips, Keevon Webster,
Teddy Bridgewater, and you know some other players that came
(02:07):
behind me and for me.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So all through your part growing up, so this is
who you got to see. So it was a lot
of pride, yeah, taking and coming and playing at this park.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Right of course, well not starting out because you know,
didn't know any of these guys, you know, New Stepman,
New New Teddy, because we all played at the park
in the same era, you know the other guys. You know,
you find out as you got older, and you know
it became one thing.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, yeah, all right, so tell me this then, So
we go from the Little League, let's go to high school.
How is it your high school being in the NFL's
Super Bowl High school honor roll? Because Kevon, you played
in Super Bowl forty eight and you won fifty that's correct.
But they had some other guys that that were actually
(02:58):
had been into bows too from your high school, right, Stephen.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Moores, Stephen Morris Van Dyke. Yeah, Joel Rodriguez was my
boys right there. And Dyke was two years ahead of me.
You know, he went to UIM and he got drafted
by the Raiders and uh, he's coaching at the USF
now that the school I went to college at. Uh,
Stephen was my quarterback my senior year at my senior
(03:23):
and Joel was a coach. I had a pleasure of
talking to him going to my senior pace too. I
went to three high schools. Uh. I went to Carol
City first, That's how the journey started for me, and
then I transferred from there. I went to Miami Norland.
I was able to play with the Xavier Rhoads and
(03:46):
uh Antonio Brown and Roads still is big in high school?
Like how big was it in high school? They always
been that size? Okay? He was always tall as yeah yeah, yeah,
always been that size.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Going to three different high schools. I see you were
able to become a three star, three star recruit coming
out of high school. To me, I think it's hard
enough when you to become a three star, but when
you move different schools, I think that makes it harder.
Was the NFL always the goal for you?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No question? You know when you're playing literally you definitely
want to see yourself on TV one day. Yeah, and
you know you put that work in to, you know,
get to that goal, you know, just taking one day
at a time. I didn't really My family is not
from sports background, so I'm like the first playing football,
going to college, NFL type thing. So the support was
(04:41):
just and okay, you guys winning games, not really knowing
about football or the business or about how that stuff works.
So that was a trials and tribulation that I had
took up on myself.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So you make it to the NFL, right, I want
to know what was that?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Welcome to the NFL? Moment a welcome moment for me.
He would be meeting my favorite player, was that Champ
Bailey getting drafted to the Denver Broncos. That was my
favorite team. My first game I saw them, you know,
watching organizing football. The first game I ever watched was
Denver Broncos playing against Atlanta Falcons, and Denver put on
(05:21):
a great show. TV did his thing, and I've been
a fan ever since. Was that like in the Super
Bowl that one. Yeah, my dad loves the Dolphins, and
I've always went against my dad's or whatever he likes.
So Denver was that team for me, and I always
loved Denver, had John Elway Jersey, Terrell Davis Jersey growing up.
(05:45):
So yeah, my welcome and moment would be, you know,
just meeting Champ Bailey and getting drafted to my favorite
team and then you know, playing there four years to
Super Bowls. Hell of a experience. Yeah, my path kind
of chose itself. I started playing sports. I had coaches
taking interest, coaches picking me up for workouts.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay, so then when you reached that go what was
that moment like when you got that call in the
third round?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
It was great. It was a great moment. Even though
my phone, even though my phone died in that process.
It was crazy. It was crazy. Did you not have
that thing? So, you know, when you're from so so
this is the thing, right, so to see what happened.
Let me tell you this is the thing. I didn't
really have chances to have a cell phone or and
(06:36):
when I did, it wasn't like I was glued to it. Yeah,
you know, even going to the NFL with the phone dying,
my friend had the phone. He came, brought it to me.
I answered it, you know, speaking for about thirty seconds.
You know, phone dies, plug it up, get to call
them back, set up that trip to go out there.
You know you called them back. Yeah, I kind of
(06:58):
hey you not not really, not really, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
The first guy, yeah that I ever heard who on draft.
They was like, oh, y'all was talking to him for
thirty seconds and my phone died.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
They did. You know? It was a crazy situation. You know.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We had the great Hall of Fame Darryl Green, cornerback,
come on our show, okay, and he's talking about defensive backs,
and he's talking about cornerbacks and he says, there is
a difference. Do you consider yourself a corner or do
you consider yourself a defensive back?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I would say I'm a defensive back because I've had
to play nickel, don safety, and corner at times. I'm
a football player, so I played special team. I played
whatever my coach needed me to play, wherever he said,
K you line up at. That's always been who I am.
And you know, even going to college, I wasn't a cornerback.
(07:51):
I didn't play defensive back. I used to rush the
quarterback sacks. Yeah, I played outside linebacker. I was guarding
running backs and Tidy South Carolina was my first offer
at defensive back to change my mind and say, okay,
I'm gonna have to change another position because my position,
you know, grew over the time of playing football. You know.
(08:13):
First year I played center, but I used to score
touchdowns at center, yeah, with center sneaks. And then I
went to running back, and then I went to linebacker.
Then I went to wide receiver in high school, you know,
and that's how I got my stars.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
U dB or you a corner? Where do you as
you a safety?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah? I'm safe. Don't even you a safety?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Already already for you, I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
A safety, bro, Like, what do you I'm a corner.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, I'm a straight corner, although I did play safety
in high school in college. I played safety strictly in
high school and college.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And you also were a special team too.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I am a special team so I do a lot.
I think the league was the first time that I,
like I legit accepted the fact that I was.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Just a corner. I'm a corner, yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
When I got drafted, they didn't say you were a
corner or safety. It was just like we're drafting defensive,
defensive basia. So I had no clue what I was
when I went to Chicago. So I had to ask
the head coach actually, yeah, we're walking down the hallway
and he was just like, I think we're gonna try
you at corner first, just to see what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And that panned out.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Well okay, yeah, but like you said that, wherever the
coach need to me out of play safety, out of
did out of did whatever he needed me to do.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So yeah, coming into the league, you playing two super
Bowls in your first three seasons, it was NFL's easy.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Uh. Never I thought that the NFL was easy. You know,
I trained with you know, coming out of coming out
and going to the league. I trained with Antonio. He
never made anything easy. Uh. He was the first person
I seen record everything as far as like workouts, so
like when that camera on, you wanted to be your
very best because he was gonna post it. Uh really
(09:57):
that was like that was the mentality back then. You know,
we worked really hard. Bro We swim, we ran on
the track, We did beach workouts, we did a lot
of field workouts. We did a lot of recovery together,
me and him, Xavier Roads, even Geno Smith, Stadman Bailey,
(10:17):
and you know a couple of other guys Jonathan Ciprian
that was from South Florida. We used to get a
lot of working together. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, I guess maybe I think what you were trying
to say though, was ill go a little deeper. Is
not that it was easy, but you went to two
super Bowls like fairly quickly. And guys go their entire
careers yeah without every I mean, guy might go twelve
thirteen years and he finally gets the Super Bowl, and
you got yours pretty pretty early in your career.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So well, I would say I got blessed. I got
to bless Yeah, I'm blessed because my last two years
of college, we lost sixteen games. You know. My senior
year we lost nine games, and my junior year we
lost seven games. But out of those seven games, six
of them we lost on the last player of the game.
So we supposed have been eleven and one at South
Florida and we should have been ranked. But my first
(11:08):
two years we had you know, we won some bowl
games against Clemson and against Northern Illinois. So my first
two years was like my first two years in the league.
It was just like, oh, this is what we're doing,
you know, and then you know, adversity hits you your
last two years of college, and You're like, how are
(11:28):
these people gonna see me if we losing these games
and I'm not able to make these plays? You know,
I just found a way, you know, I used to.
I let the team in tackles my senior year. You know,
even though I wasn't getting thrown that that much, I
was heavily involved in the run game, and so the
opportunity for me to get to the lead always was there.
(11:49):
Just about the mindset that I had.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So super Bowl fifty, obviously, you guys win, we lose,
we get our ring ceremony. I don't think any of
us was like two geeked about getting our nu CE
Championship ring because it was like a second place ring, Right,
you get your ring. What was the first thing you
did when you saw that box? The ceremony of the presentation.
Walk me through that night, talk me through that that
that event.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It was a movie night. You know. You get you
a little date, you go into the I wasn't I'm
not married, so had a date. I was in a
relationship at the time. You young fellaw. We went to
the we went to we pull up, we got you know,
Uber's had just came out, pull up Uber truck to
the stadium. Uh, they got the carpet late carpet. Yeah,
(12:33):
or were even talk about the Super Bowl? The Super
Bowl one was it was magnificent. It was gold. Everything
tables was gold. We had this gold box on our table.
Announcer came in that announces the games. It's just like
a whole movie happening. So everybody has their table, everybody
(12:54):
standing with their dates, coaches announcing things, and then you know,
the rings come out, so every all the phones come out.
Everybody started taking pictures with each other. It was a
great day, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So if I if I heard you right though, y'all
got two rings. Y'all got a f C and a
support ring.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Or y'all just we do. Yeah. Remember we lost, We
lost against Russell, so we got the AFC Championship. But
we had a ceremony. We had a ceremony for that too.
Came in a nice little box with a light on it.
You know, I got to reorder that. You know, I
think I might have lost the ASC ring. You don't
even care about it. I do care about it. It's
(13:33):
just that, you know, when you move in. So through
my journey, I've been able to move from Florida to Denver,
to Denver to uh LA and then from La to
Texas to train and then go to the Houston Texans
back to Florida, you know, to uh New Orleans, then
(13:54):
to Washington. So it was a lot of traveling, a
lot of moving around. Don't know where everything is. You know.
It was only me, you know, taking on this NFL
by myself. You know, my parents didn't really you know,
knew too much about the business side of it or
what's going on. For all they know is just like
my son made it. He in the NFL. You know
(14:15):
a lot of things happening, you know, not not to
say I didn't care about the ring. You know what,
I ain't lose that Super Bowl fifty ring and that
one was the one that you know, we won. And
you know, I'm pretty sure I can get the AFC
Championship ring back. You can. Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
You talked about how you're kind of attacking the NFL
by yourself. Yeah, like you got all these other guys
that you grew up with or that you practiced or
trained with, like that's kind of a support system. But
the fact that like your parents, they weren't football people.
They didn't they weren't there for all those things like
that was not my experience. My experience is both my
parents big football people. My brother played, my oldest brother played,
(14:53):
my sister like grew up around it. My dad coach.
So like I grew up in this football fam, this
football world.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm jealous of you. Yeah, man, no, no, don't. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, That's why I'm asking you.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
What was that Like?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
What was that journey like when you are it was
like one of I guess when when everybody else's world
does not evolve around or revolve around for football.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I would say it was tough because the communication wasn't
there as far as like, you know what you're battling.
They for all they know is my son is strong minded.
He going to do what he needs to do for
his felth and his family. But yeah, a lot of
navigation was, you know, just on just staying positive, staying prayer.
(15:41):
For my grandmother's ninety one. She's always sent me prayers
and you know, things to read every day. So I
think that's what's kept me, you know, a little bit
safer through my journey. Even though I wasn't unable to
communicate with them about certain things, I was able to
communicate about the way I felt about the things I'm
(16:02):
taking on and about where I want to be at,
you know, when I'm done with the game.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, so we obviously were all dbs. We played on
I played on some really good defensive backfields. You played
in some good defensive back fields, not as good as mine.
But I'm just going to throw that out there. You
got a chance to be a part of the No
Fly Zone, and you played against the Legion of boom
Or you got a chance to see them. I would
like to know your impression against them when you saw
(16:29):
them in Super Bowl forty eight. What do you think
of Legion of Boom versus no fly Zone?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Say it, say it, I'm taking a no fly zone.
That's no question talk yo talk. For the simple fact
that because said.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Y'all were better, because y'all played more man so I.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Just so so so I would say, I would say
you you were right. We played man like at the time. Uh,
that was it was incredible, you know, being around to
leave and being a Brown Chris Harris, Uh, those guys
(17:10):
were students of the game. And those two guys, Uh,
they kind of changed the culture of the Denver Broncos
when it came to what it means to be a
professional and being prepared. Everybody was accountable for the film
and uh you know route the route recognition. Uh, just
(17:33):
knowing what your man gonna do on certain downs. That
was a big thing for us. And you would get
called out for that if you didn't know what was
going on. So even you know, being uh not a starter,
you was always a play away from having to go
in the game. And and and the leaders of our team,
they expected the same results whether they was out there
(17:56):
or not. You know, and uh that that raised the
whole morale of the team. We were always together. We
had linebackers watching film, we had d Lin watching film together.
It was just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, I was gonna that was gonna be My question
was it's staying motivated. But it sounds like you had
a great group of veteran guys that continue to pour
into you and then you had this just whereverth all
of like, dude, I'm just one play away.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah. I mean that was the mentality from even when
even when they wasn't there. You know, my rookie year,
you know, Champ Bailey got hurt for six weeks, so
I had to play. You know, I played the first game,
you know, painting through those seven touchdowns. You know, that
was my welcome to the lead moment. It was just
like we're playing against the Baltimore Ravens on this Sunday night.
(18:45):
Payton comes out there, he lights up the show against
you know, the Ravens were playing Joe Flocco. Wasn't that
super Bowl run so flop them just won the super
Bowl and we lost in them in the playoffs. You know,
I wasn't there. I was in college still, so coming
in as a rookie, playing the full games of the
(19:06):
preseason and then we're kicking off our season with the
champions of the world, you know, and the world Craig
and now you you know, you you you seeing these
like how we are approach to this week. It was
just like it's payback week. Were supposed to won that
Super Bowl and so you know, Peyton came out on fire. Yeah,
(19:28):
you know that whole year we was on fire. Yeah,
that's when he had the what was the tight ends name?
That was so Julius Julius. So we had a really
great team that year. It was uh we had Julius,
we had Eric decker Dt, we had Andre Carwell, we
had Wes Welker had the running back, we had no seam,
Mano monte Ball, Julius Thomas. We had a great We
(19:51):
had a great team. And from right then it was
just like you want to play away, you know, you
next man in. So I got to be just as
household name as those players that's before me, and we'll
be right back. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So I want to I want to transition into your
second act. Okay, right, so you're out of the league
and I think you did an interview, and you said
football was something that I did, It wasn't who I was.
And I think a lot of players they struggle with
the identity of letting the game go. They all kind
(20:27):
of go through like a small pout of depression, just
trying to figure out the next step in life. How
did you handle your transition once you left the game.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I didn't even give myself time to sit down and
think about it. I just kept going. I just kept going.
I worked out every day. But I also had a business.
I had already invested a certain amount of money into it,
into the food and beveraors business. So I started my
food truck business when I was playing for the Rams.
(21:00):
It was like right after my surgery. That's Vibe three
or five five food truck. Started that in California. We
was out there for six months, and then when I
went to the Texans, it was still operating and I
just shut it down. When I left the Texans, I
came back to South Florida, and I wanted to bring
my business back, you know, back home. I opened that up.
(21:21):
During the pandemic. I was still you know, training, going
on visits to teams, and you know, that's how I
got into, you know, the food journey, so I never
really had time to sit down and say I'm depressed
about not playing. It was just like, bro, I can't
make no, I can't sit myself down to do this.
(21:41):
I gotta keep going to what's the next thing that's
gonna pivot my life. It was like I had more
longevity and my business life than I had left in
my football life because of the injuries I sustained, you know,
the torn achilles, the beproom terror, the you know, grade
three tear in the qual breaking my hand, those things
(22:03):
with things to think about like them, do I lead
a game now? Because this the most I've ever been injured,
And I had to invest in money. So it's like
I don't trust these people that I'm investing in the money,
And so which one has more life expectancy my money
that I'm investing or me just trying to try out
for these teams and hoping that they see past the
(22:24):
injuries or past whatever they heard about Kaylon Webster going
through the buzz of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
You know, so now that you have your establishments, they're established. Ye,
You're in the food and beverage industry, have you actually
had time to sit down and just process your injuries,
your career, the league and everything else.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Not really, the food and beverage industry is tough, like
everybody knows about that. So every day is about planning
for other people's lives, you know, like how can you
make other people just as successful as you in your vision?
You know? And every day that's what your mind is
(23:09):
is on on, like, man, how could I get better?
How can I make this business better for whoever is
working here? And it just always kept my mind busy
on like what's to do next? So what made you
start food truck? First? Oh, let's see, I had a
private chef in California. What's his name? I had Chef Had.
(23:34):
So I started out with Chef Kayla, and then I
ended up with Chef Flip and Chef Terry. Chef Flip
was the private chef for me for the four months
that I was a part of the the rams. We
started the middle prep program. The prices had got a
little price here, and then I sat down. I watched
(23:57):
a movie called Chef. I sat there watch Chef. If
y'all don't have a chance to sit down to watch
a movie, watch Chef. It was a chef. He worked
in a restaurant for a restaurant owner that didn't want
to let him cook his food. Food critic came by,
bashed him. He wound up getting fired. He left. He
(24:19):
got a food truck. The food truck he took on
the road, and so in my mind I was thinking
I could do the same thing. You know, I had
enough capital. I looked up food trucks researching in Los
Angeles and it was just like, if you own a
food truck and you're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
three hundred thousand gross. You know. I was just looking
(24:41):
at that and I said, well, Chef, this the next thing.
We from Florida. We live in California. There's nothing that
we like to eat out here. It's a need for
what we want to eat. Because my teammates they eat
the food that you make. So let's create something that's
from home and that can get them the same field
I feel when you're making this food. We went and
(25:04):
got a food truck. I opened it up with chef Terry.
Chef Terry's been with me from two thousand and eighteen
until twenty twenty two. A pandemic happened. The food truck
had outgrew the space that it was in, and then
I had to find a place to you know, park it.
We found this a restaurant that was abandoned. It was
(25:28):
during the pandemic, so that was a great time to
negotiate deals. And so that's how I got birth into saying, Okay,
I'm having a restaurant. What kind of restaurant am I
going to have? Is it gonna be a lounge restaurant
or is it just gonna be straight fine dining. At
this time, Chef Flipped wasn't working with me. He introduced
(25:51):
himself to a food critic, which is a Smith, star
x Smith. Star x Smith, I wrote that right, and
so star x Smith was a food critic. He came
by the food truck. I had watched the review of
his right before he got to the space, and immediately
when he began talking, I was just like, instead of
(26:11):
you critiquing, how about your help like and he was like,
no one had ever you know, said that to him,
and me being fresh out of the league, you know,
him being a restaurant tour going to different restaurants and
you know, getting his experience up. I thought It would
have been a great idea to have a food critic
and me partner up, you know, to learn the ropes
(26:34):
of the restaurants of the things that he visited, versus
me being in operation on the food truck. And you know,
Smith and Webster was born, you know, off of that.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So the pandemic was something that the entire world had
to kind of deal with and go through and essential
workers and shutting down certain certain businesses. Frontline workers obviously
they had to continue to keep working. Talk about the
pride you had uh with your with your food truck
feeding first responders.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It was great. It was a great feeling, you know,
being able to still be there during a tough time
where there was uncertainty about where the world was at
and still being able to put a smile on these
people face. You know, you're pulling up to the whole. Uh,
you're pulling up the hospitals and you're just feeding the patients.
You're putting up the fire, fire the stations and you're
(27:27):
feeding them. Man. It just was a great feeling. You know,
people taking your vision and enjoying the vision that you created.
Seeing that is priceless. What's the best thing on the menu.
Mm hmm. It depends if you want to go in
a beef route or if you want to go into
(27:48):
the seafood route. So in the beef route, I would
say we have this eight layered oxtailersion. We it's an
eight hour process. You know, Chef Freddy and Chef Jenney,
they do a great job of, you know, making sure
that's staple for Smith and Webster. It comes with a
three hour marinara sauce eight layer at lasagna. You got
(28:11):
your ricotta on top with a basil leaf and a
sprinkled pa donal grand padano cheese and some chives. That
would be if you going to the beef world. If
you go into the seafood world, I would say, it's
either the catfish or the salmon. Nola. In that nola rice,
(28:34):
it is a Di jon jon rice mushroom rice, but
with a remix in it. It has chopped porking there,
pulled chicken thighs, jerk chicken thighs, and it's finished with
you know, two sixteen twenty shrimps and just glazed with
either a tartar sauce for the fish or miso for
the salmon. Or you can get you know, you go
(28:57):
back into the beef world with the lamb chops, with
the housemaid Timmy Cherry. So my favorite thing would be
everything because it's made from scratch. We know where it's
sourced from. We know what we're doing. We know we're
not warming up food from places. We actually going in there,
playing with measurements and actually trying to be consistent, you know,
(29:22):
with the flavor.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, I'm glad I asked that question. He gave
us the whole rundown on the menu. I mean, if
you're my waiter, I don't know if I would like
that answer because that was too much.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I'm like, see now I don't know what I want.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Now you got the money, Hey, give me everything. What
you just said, I'm gonna just give me everything. I'm
gonna take a little bit of that, a little bit
of this.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Let me tell you another thing. You know, don't you
count my blessings on this? Shows gonna be count my blessing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I want to talk about children's books, right, So I
read earlier that you're an author. I'm an author. I
wrote a kid children's book. And I love this idea
because every year around Black Here Street Mouth, they come
out with all these inventors, and I'm looking at ig
and it has all these these amazing African American poets, artists, inventors,
(30:04):
just everything about what they've contributed to life.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I'm like, damn, I never learned that in school.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
And I love the idea of the fact that you
have this book Kevon's Webster Dictionary, and you have this
book of inventors talk about talk about the idea and
where that idea even came from.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I would say so a lot of my ideas, a
lot of who I am was born when I taught
my achilles. I just had to be innovative because, you know,
going through a process like that, you know, coaches telling
you that you're never gonna run the same or you're
not going to be the player who you was before
these injuries, you know, I just had They just sent
(30:46):
your mind into a whirlpool. And me, I was looking
at these opportunities of staying motivated on my journey to
get back to where I was at so that I
could be, you know, fully functional. It started out as
me just picking words of the week and saying, Okay,
I'm using this word of the week and this time
(31:08):
I'm gonna go about my week with this word. We
recorded some videos, we put it on YouTube and it
got a good response, and then it was just like,
let's just turn this into a book. We can inspire
the next person to not give up through no matter
what trauma they're facing when it comes to injuries or
what they're walking through in life, They'll be able to
(31:31):
pick this book up and be motivated on their journey,
you know. And so that's how the Kid's Book was born.
For me. With the inventors, it was like I read
a book and I was like, I never knew about
half these people. You know, at the cliff notes of
your book it had I'm like, yeah, I didn't even know.
(31:53):
Like it's dope. I love the cause, Like, I didn't
know we was amazing. I didn't know we had the
first bank, Like yeah, you know, I didn't know we
had an amazing idea, we made medical we made patents,
we were inventors of certain things that I didn't know.
So I was just like, well, we got to get
this out, you know. And that's how I went about it.
(32:14):
I was just like, well, let's create something that we
can get out.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, you know, you had an ig posts and this
is what you said. There was a time I was
just trying to survive, trying to figure out life purpose
and how to make my vision real. Yesterday God allowed
me to stand in front of over one hundred young
kings and queens through the Jack and Jail Foundation and
speak life into their dreams. I didn't just share my
(32:39):
journey as a restaurant tour. I shared pain, perseverance, faith,
and proof that obedience of God's plan will take you
places talent alone cannot Kavon.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Are you living your your purpose driven life? Yes, I
feel like I am walking in my purpose because my
purpose is to help other people. I feel like that's
always been my purpose. I'm not I'm not no more
blessed than the next person. I just always take advantage
of my opportunities with other people in mind, saying like
(33:14):
if I was on the other side of that, how
would I be or how would I react? And I
think the biggest thing you could do is to help
someone else grow.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
This is a question that we ask a lot of
our guests that come on the show Mount Rushmore. These
four picks of people that have had influence on you
in your life that helped shape mold and the young man,
the incredible younger man that you are today. If you
have four picks, who would those four people be?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Oh, let's put God first. Let's put Granny next. Granny. Grannie,
I have her kind of like personality. She's always been,
you know, the laid back person. She's always been open
with her home or whatever she has. She's always thinking
of positivity, regardless of being in storms. You know, she
(34:06):
just like, it's gonna work out, baby, don't even think
about it. Just focus on what you could focus on,
and you know, balance the things you can't. So that's
why she would be on my Mount Reskma, because I
always have that, you know, thought of her sending me
that message randomly out of the blue. Next, I would
(34:26):
say my mom, because you know, without her, I wouldn't
be here, you know. And then for number five four
I would say I would just say all of my coaches. Really,
it would be like a multi faced coach. You know.
My high school coach, coach Mario, he was very big
(34:47):
for me growing up, used to pick me up at
five am. We used to work out before class. It
was he was the first person that made me feel
like I could go to college and that I should
go to college. Yeah, because he went to Kansas State.
He was another big reason for me getting introduced to
Jim Levitt at South Florida because he played for him
(35:09):
at you know, k State. Coach Mario is a great guy,
and you know, at the time when I was coming out,
it was just like I wanted to be like coach
Mario being you know, a great guy and you know,
giving back to the youth, helping other people develop their dreams.
Larry Scott, he's a head coach at Howard. He used
(35:31):
to He was there with me my first two years
of college, you know, after going through firings and then
you know, having to deal with that new coach syndrome
of people trying to tell you who you are or
who your cares Like. I had a coach one time
so in college i ran track and he was just like,
you're not dedicated to football. And I was just like,
(35:53):
I don't understand how you feel like that. If I'm
up at six am, I'm on the track. Yeah, I
go to class in the midd or the day, and
I come to football practice like I'm doing more than
anybody here, Like I'm dedicated to this teler I did.
I did, so you said it with your chest yea.
(36:13):
So so in that process, you know, that kind of
that kind of conversation that kind of changed my uh
trajectory kind of say, because I was supposed to be
a starter. I started my freshman year, but then when
we got new coaches, I you know, took the back
seat because of you know, that conversation and some business things.
(36:33):
So you know, I lost my position. I was the
third I went for number one to number three. Uh,
just because they wanted to get other guys who had
seniors looks, that's both, but that was a whole nother thing.
So you know, Coach Scott was kept my mind strong
in that said, Bro, you came for a reason. Don't
let no one deter you from that control of things.
(36:54):
You can balance the things you can't. And you know,
Rick Smith he was big for me mentality wise because
no matter how many players I made or you know,
he always kept his foot on my neck like that
wasn't And so that made me go to practice every
day with my chip on my should like I'm finn
to show him, you know. And uh, you know, coach Skip,
(37:17):
his dad low Hopes came out. You know. He was
our dB coach for a couple of weeks and it
was like you know, talking to an NFL her coach
in college, you know, and it was just like he
was like, you're gonna make it like whatever, you whatever,
you just keep doing what you're doing, Like I don't
know what a is you doing? You know, he got
a little you know, so it was that was those
(37:38):
are surreal moments, you know, having those coaches involved in
my life, you.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Know, kvon Man, I appreciate you man, Thank you stopping
by man, Bro and continue many more blessings and successes. Bro,
your life was different than mine, but I feel like
we share the same souls because with DB's for show,
I mean, well you're a dB, I'm a safety and
I'm a cone coner.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah I play it. I had to play all you know.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah yeah, but you always rise to the challenge. Man,
go up to you man in your restaurant and and
everything else that you're doing in and continue to just
continue to push forward, Man, And anytime we're here in
South Florida, will definitely try and stop.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
By my show.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Thank you all for having me, no doubt Man, Thank
you as always tune it in whether you pick up
your podcast, whether it's Apple podcast, iHeartRadio app. Make sure
you continue to like, share, subscribe, give us a follow,
make sure subscribing and follow same thing Roman, get it right,
and then make sure you leave a couple of comments,
leave a message and Peanut get us out here.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Make sure you tell a friend and tell her what
Tell friend, tel friend, and check us out on the
NFL's YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I'm Peanut Tillman.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
That's Truman Harper, that's Cavon And this is the NFL
Player's second AX podcast and we are out
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Six
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