July 5, 2020 • 23 mins
A brutal knee injury ended cornerback Gary Baxter's NFL career, but also set him on a course to start a business helping other athletes recover from injuries.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's not hard to get a look at what former
Ravens cornerback Gary Baxter believed at the time was the
absolute worst moment of his life. Just go to YouTube,
type the words Gary Baxter and knee injury into the
search field. A video pops right out. Second down for Plumber.
He's going deep down the sidelines for Walker, almost a
(00:27):
leaping catch. He was covered well as Gary Baxter ad position.
The clip is from an NFL game played on October
twenty second, two thousand and six, Cleveland Browns against the
Denver Broncos in Cleveland. Baxter is playing cornerback for the Browns.
He had joined the Ravens six years earlier as a
second round draft pick from Baylor, the number sixty two
(00:49):
overall selection in two thousand and one. That's pretty high.
Baxter was fast and smart, a good cover corner. By
his second season, he was starting on a very good
Baltimore defense, and he continued to start until his rookie
contract expired, at which point he became a free agent
and signed with the Browns. That's a whole other story
(01:10):
I'll get to in a few minutes. But first back
to the game in two thousand and six. It's the
second quarter. The Broncos are ahead and driving, and one
of their receivers, Javon Walker, runs a deep route down
the near sideline into the red zone. Baxter runs right
with him. Denverse quarterback Jake Plummer lobs a pass toward them.
It's not a great pass, it's short. Walker and Baxter
(01:33):
both turned and jump for the ball, which falls to
the ground incomplete. It's an innocent looking play, but there's
nothing innocent about it. Walker quickly gets to his feet,
but Baxter stays on the ground, clearly in discomfort and
increasingly agitated. Walker bends over to look at him and
immediately begins motioning to the Browns bench. There's no doubt
(01:53):
what he's saying, Get over here now. Baxter looks like
he's hurt his leg. Twist it underneath him as it
was trying to go back. It looked like one of
his knees just got trapped underneath. No one could have
known it at the time, but Baxter had just taken
his last snap in the NFL. He was a high
price free agent, still young, a starter in the prime
(02:14):
of his career, with years of good football ahead of him,
it seemed, but he never played another down. Welcome to
What Happened to That Guy? A podcast about former Ravens
and life after football. I'm your host John Eisenberg. Today's
episode is about how your worst nightmare can turn out
(02:35):
to be not so bad after all, and actually, weirdly,
maybe the best thing that ever happened to you. That's
Gary Baxter's story. We spoke on the phone recently. He's
forty years old now and living and working in Texas,
where he was born and raised. FYI, he was on
a cell phone in the back of an uber when
we spoke, and the sound quality isn't the greatest, but
(02:57):
it's the best we could do. Hooking up with Gary
wasn't easy. He is a busy guy. If you had
not been hurt, and I know you had a very
serious injury with your patella right on both knees at
the same time, If you had not been hurt like that,
would you have come to this? Do you think? I mean?
What I'm asking is, do you the injury was the
(03:17):
best thing in a weird way. It was. It shaped
the rest of your life. It did. If I wouldn't
have been hurt, I wouldn't never be here. Today had
turned out to be one of the worst ents for me,
turning that to be one that absolutely past the If
I wouldn't have been hurt, I wouldn't be here right now.
I'll probably be doing marcial real estate. And this is
(03:39):
a whole new world that's opened up to me and
and absolutely amazing. I love what I do. I have fun.
I'll get to what he's doing now in a minute,
and by the way, I completely agree it is amazing.
But first, let me finish the story of his injury,
because that's the key to everything. When the Browns doctors
got Baxter off the field and checked him out that
(04:00):
day in Cleveland, they were shocked by what they found.
He had torn the poteller tendon in his right knee
and the pateller tendon in his left knee. It was
like something Stephen King might have written in one of
his horror novels, both knees wrecked simultaneously. Cleveland's head coach
Romeo Crenell wore a shocked expression as he gave the
(04:22):
news to the media after the game. I've never seen
anything like this in thirty five years of coaching, Kronell said.
Two days later, Baxter underwent surgery on both knees. It
was a catastrophic situation. He stayed in the hospital for
two months, but he was young and strong otherwise, still
thought he was bulletproof, and he vowed to play again.
(04:44):
The Browns got him going on what was at the
time a standard rehab program for athletes who had undergone
knee surgery. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, lots of exercise, and
time in the gym. Baxter did it all, but all
along he was now by the thought that a more
effective rehab program, a better solution, might be available somewhere
(05:05):
out there in the world. That's how his mind works.
By the way, then and now, he earned a degree
in communications at Baylor. But he's really a natural tinkerer
that and an entrepreneur, a guy who takes stock of
situations and wonders, what are my options here? And could
I be doing something better? That's what he thought for days,
(05:26):
for weeks, for months as he stared down at his
injured knees. Am I doing the right thing? Is this
really my best option when I have my knee injury?
I know we got the basic regular OTPC play. I'm
looking for something special, and no one knew what the
hell I was talking about it. It's got to be
(05:47):
a place that I can go to that if I
want to go and try to figure out how to
get better, and there was none. I decided that I
was going to go outside of the country. I want
to counter them with the Germany, with many other different
places to look and learn. And that's why I really
got and understanding medicine than said, well, it doesn't exist,
(06:09):
and I'm gonna build what it is that I'm looking for.
Did you hear him? He wasn't satisfied with the rehab
program that had been prescribed for him, so he started
jumping on airplanes and looking elsewhere Canada, Israel, Germany, and
he was much happier with what he found in those places.
When he says it didn't exist, he means it didn't
(06:31):
exist here in the United States. Without getting into too
much detail. Today, in twenty nineteen, the fields of sports
medicine and athletic performance and recovery are far more sophisticated
than they were in two thousand and six when Baxter
got hurt. There's a lot of technology involved, better monitoring
of the body, better ideas about how to anticipate injuries
(06:53):
and recover from them, and according to Baxter, many of
these advanced techniques were available in other countries before they
came to America. When he was back home for good
in early two thousand and seven, he spoke with trainers
and doctors about what he'd seen abroad, wondering why he
couldn't access it at home. I was trying to suit
the own people and complain as the people, and people
(07:15):
was like, yeah, no, well it doesn't exist. It's so
good if I haven't anyone, that's just it, and I
ran so a bunch of resistance. Baxter eventually rehabbed his
knees to the point where he could get back on
the practice field. He went to training camp with the
Browns in the summer of two thousand and seven, but
there was no fairy tale ending. It became apparent that
(07:36):
he couldn't play, at least not well enough to suit
up in the regular season. The Browns parted ways with him.
His career was over. What would you do now? A
young man with decades of life ahead of him. Ironically,
it was his nightmarish injury experience that set him on
the right course trying to get a better grip on
(08:00):
just who Gary Baxter is. I spoke to Brian Billick,
the Ravens former head coach and a recent inductee into
the team's Ring of Honor. He was coaching the team
when Baxter was drafted, sum him up as the guy
that came in and as a player, you know, anytime
you bring a young player in, it's a transition, and
there are certain guys. Gary was one of those that
(08:21):
immediately you gravitated towards him because you saw there was
a great character there. You saw that he got it.
Sometimes things pan out, sometimes they don't, but he was
one early on that you recognized, this is the kind
of guy you wanted to have in the organization. He
is now a CEO and founder of a healthcare company. Wow,
(08:42):
and why does that not surprise me? Pardon Parcel was
saying earlier he had a sense of the bigger picture.
A lot of times you get young guys in and
it's understandable they're very focused on themselves, are very focused
on their specific situation. But you got that sense that
Gary did have that bigger perspective and understood how it
all worked. Now, as in the media or the fans,
they no one saw that. But you you just saw
(09:04):
you do because you see not only in the day
to day the way he conducts himself, but the way
he interacts with his teammates, the way he interacts with
the coaches, the way he interacts with Jeff, everybody in
the organization. When I would go out and interact with
players that we were going to draft, you'd go out
ostensibly to work them out, but you really need to do
do you had the film, you had the combine, I
really would want to spend time, and I'd take him
(09:25):
out to dinner because I want to see how did
he deal with the waitress, how did he deal with
the guy park in the car, how to deal with
the other people, just in terms of what kind of
personality he had. And Gary was one of those guys.
That's why he doesn't surprise me that he's gone on
and done the things that he's done, because you could
tell with the way he interacted with everybody in the
building that he was one of those guys that just
(09:46):
got it. By two thousand and four, his fourth year
in Baltimore, Baxter was a standout on one of the
NFL's best defenses. He had more solo tackles that season
than any Raven other than Ray Lewis. Chris McAllister was
the cornerback on the other side, a pro bowler, and
teams shied away from him, so Baxter got to work
out and he held up. He was credited with more
(10:08):
passes defended that season than any member of the Baltimore
secondary other than ed Reid. Baxter could have and probably
should have been in Baltimore for a lot longer than
four years. In those days, really still, when they hit
on a high draft pick, the Ravens try to find
a way to keep the guy. But in two thousand
and four, the rest of the NFL noticed that the
(10:29):
cornerback playing opposite McAlister was pretty good, and Baxter's rookie
contract expired after that season, making him a free agent.
Other teams showed interest. Baxter was conflicted. He wanted to stay,
but he scheduled a trip to Cleveland. The Ravens didn't
want to lose him. General manager Ozzie knew Some called
and asked him meet with him. Before Baxter got on
(10:50):
the plane. They met, and I swear I am not
making this up. They met at a McDonald's. A kid
was having a birthday, party. At the next table, when
Back and Ozzie got together to talk finances and the
future of the Ravens Secondary. They spoke softly so they
wouldn't ruin the party, and they made plans to get
back together and keep talking, maybe not at McDonald's when
(11:13):
Baxter got back, but he never did come back from Cleveland.
The Browns made him a big offer, and Baxter signed.
He went to Cleveland, thinking he'd be there for years,
maybe he become part of the franchises architecture. But he
only played five games in two thousand and five before
a torn pectoral muscle ended his season. Then he tore
up his knees in October two thousand and six. A
(11:34):
year later, when he realized he was done with football,
he went home to Tyler, Texas, a bustling small town
east to Dallas, where he'd grown up and played on
a state championship high school football team a decade earlier.
Now he was twenty nine and at a crossroads. He
had a lot going for him, a college degree, money
in the bank, name recognition, an upbeat personality. He started
(11:58):
selling commercial real estate. Making deals was interesting to him,
even thrilling, But Baxter wasn't satisfied, Longing for a greater challenge,
he honed his skills as a businessman. He took classes
and he joined a consortium that develops CEOs. I learned
how to become a businessman, got in and I applied
(12:19):
myself and decided that I wanted to become one of
the best business persons in the areas, and I want
to own in on my skills and take the education
that I need to keep sharpening the things up and
working around very smart people every day. While all that happened,
he retained vivid memories of his injury, his rehab, and
(12:41):
the sports science he had encountered, and he stayed abreast
of any new developments in that industry. He was looking
for a project, a business opportunity, and he had a thought,
why not what I know? Why not sports medicine. You
may have heard of Tyler, Texas, because it's also the
(13:03):
hometown of one of the greatest football players ever produced
in Baxter's football mad home state, Earl Campbell, the Bruising
Hall of Fame running back, grew up in Tyler and
played for the University of Texas and the Houston Oilers
before calling it quits after nine years in the NFL.
Campbell was so linked to his hometown that it was
(13:24):
part of his nickname, the Tyler Rose. People called him Tyler,
you see, is the rose capital of Texas. There's a
rose festival there every fall. Campbell, famous for steamrolling defenders,
was no one's idea of a rose on the football field.
He was, in fact, a thorn in the side of
every defense he came up against. Now he's in his
(13:45):
sixties and although he's lived in Houston since he played
for the Oilers, he hasn't forgotten about his hometown. Carl
Campbell Well both way to the same high school. Stay
were state champions, were state champions obviously earlier, twenty four
years older than He's from Tyler and I'm from Tall,
the same high school. We always see each other at
(14:05):
advance and we always do each other and we always
kept in touch. And one day ll act, you know,
we need to do something for our hometown. I've been
working on something and I said that, you know, I
don't want it to do anything like everybody else. You know,
we don't need money here. We do this, so we
do that that. I want to do something meanful and impactful.
(14:28):
General said yes, I do too. Baxter told Campbell about
the idea he'd been kicking around, a sports science and
research operation promoting health and wellness for athletes. Baxter explained
that he had literally gone around the world studying the
subject and had all sorts of ideas. Campbell listened intently.
(14:49):
The tyler Rose had paid a heavy price for his
years on the football field. He dealt with numerous ailments
since he retired. The guy his attention and we stored
falcon and we store that eventual conversations meeting. One day,
Earl looked at me said do you think we can
do this? Absolutely? And he said, well, let's make it happen.
(15:12):
That was a few years ago, and they did make
it happen. The idea Baxter and Campbell talked about has
become the Project Rose Research Institute for Sports Science, located
at a top hospital in East Texas. It's a multifaceted
organization with a sports medicine program, a sports science research program,
a general health and wellness program, and a sleep clinic.
(15:35):
Clients include individual athletes, high school and college sports teams,
people from the general public. Baxter is the founder and CEO.
Campbell the co founder. They work with doctors, scientists and researchers,
all with the goal of helping athletes achieve maximum performance,
recover from injuries, and enjoy life when they're through playing.
(15:55):
And we decided that lose the madas on a building, right,
we spotify people in his eraror my era when he
was coming through the game, technology, the training, the recovery,
the surgeries and the injuries, and then we went and
looked at my time. So we did a lot of
leads or to put this together. And finally, like I
(16:18):
told him, be playing eight years, I had eight surgery,
traveled around the world to find out what's the best
technology out there, What is it that we can do
that we can bring some people and really have a
meeting for impact. I presented this the Earl and Earls said,
let's roll with it. So as the founder, he's the
co founder, and we decided that we was gonna make
(16:42):
this happening, and we end up doing it, and we
trund some medical providers who loved our ideal, and that's
when they hit me, there's plenty money in the world
the people who invest, but there's not a lot of
great ideas and what we found for a lot of
people will need to come on board and not just
invest money, but also be a part of what you're doing.
(17:04):
And so that's when we realized we had something very
special and understanding the impact that we wanted to have,
not just in our community, but we wanted to start
out our goal was to positively affect that East Texas
region first, then go to the States of Texas and
then can roll it out to the rest of it
in the state. He's been an excellent party to work with.
(17:27):
I mean, he's our old Campbell and I will say
his son told me he said, out of all the
things Earl has ever did, he's never been more in
in days more positive about this one project. I mean,
that's super exciting. We work with a lot of cool doctors, sciences, researchers,
a lot of great people, a lot of great technology
(17:48):
out here, and we're for bring it, take it to
the market so that we can positively affect people lives
in a positive world. When Baxter gets going talking about it,
isn't husiasm is so great he can barely stop every day.
I'm excited. I love it. I'm a science health and
well on it and more importantly, we know what we're
(18:12):
doing is he's going affects so many people alive, and
it's in house people. So figures out my new college.
A passionate about this check I was with the ball.
The project. Rose Research Institute for Sports Science is growing rapidly,
not unlike a young, healthy tree, developing more branches. A
brain function study is in progress, as is a deep
(18:34):
dive into the effects of ACL surgery. Baxter is always
recruiting more investors. There are plans to open branches in Dallas,
Houston and other parts of Texas. They're tinkering with how
to use artificial intelligence. The longer we spoke, the more
I had a question I was dying to ask. Finally
I did the Gary Baxter that's in the Ravens locker
(18:57):
room all right in two thousand and two, two thousand
and three. If someone had, you know, come to you
and said Gary, here's what you're going to be doing,
what would have been your reaction. I wouldn't have believe them.
I wouldn't believe them because I started working on this
project since two thousand and six. So it's just a
(19:21):
long time in order for us to get here. And
it was it was a deal for me to where
I knew I wanted to do something spression. I just
didn't know exactly how I was going to do it.
But this right here is it's amazing for me because
the research that I made to do with it and
the information that I'll be able to tell to other
(19:43):
athletes when they're done. This is a place that you're
going to want to come and go to because we're
gonna understand your knees and what it is that that
you're doing. And everyone is different, right, Everyone is different
like DNA, And this is why it's so unique and
book us because we're taking a lot of this a
lot of our data and doing that the AI to
(20:07):
that data, and I'm Gonnell with solutions. For the record,
he isn't working twenty four seven on Project Rose. He
still has his hand in the local commercial real estate world.
He's also the secretary of the NFL Alumni chapter located
in Dallas. This past summer, he was in Baltimore for
a football clinic. He hasn't left football entirely behind. Baylor,
(20:29):
His alma mater recently put him in its Athletic Hall
of Fame, as did the school district in Tyler. Listen,
if you live in Tyler, you have no choice but
to follow the lions of John Tyler high. Whenever he
sees Ozzie Newsom, the former Ravens general manager who drafted
him to the NFL, they laugh about the time they
(20:49):
negotiated a contract at McDonald's. But there's no doubt where
his heart is now Project Rose and will not wake
up in society because it's well, who am I meeting today?
Where am I going to him? What we got on
the attenda? And it's always exciting. I don't know. Life
is good. It's a passion of mine. So I don't
(21:12):
consider this work. I considered this doing something that I
love to do. That's a passion of dealing with the
high level professionals like that every day, the signs its researchers.
I mean it is very fun for me, you know.
I love thinking with the Scots, figuring out some of
the weirdest, geekiest teams there is and just coming out
(21:34):
with a solution we all celebrate. It's just amazing what
my new celebration now. He is from being on a
football field to when we discover something, it's just exciting.
It carries the same way that value has been on
the football field. Man, it's like intercepting the past and
running back for touchdown. Right there. It is, right there,
(21:57):
having fun every day. We like that I'm black, we're black,
and our goal is to black other people. There you
have it, Episode four of What Happened to That Guy?
My thanks to Gary Baxter for carving out some time
in his busy schedule to speak to me. You can
(22:20):
find out more about him and his career at Baltimore
Ravens dot com slash What Happened to That Guy? With
this episode, we're halfway through the first season of the podcast.
There's plenty more to come. A new episode will drop
in two weeks, focusing on Matt Burke, the center on
the Ravens twenty twelve Super Bowl team. In his post
(22:40):
football life, He's gone down a road that I feel
safe in saying this. Very few former NFL players have
taken What Happened to That Guy? He's doing stand up comedy.
New episodes on Interesting Former Ravens will continue to drop
every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season.
I hope you keep listening. If you like what you're hearing,
(23:01):
don't hesitate to leave a five star rating and write
a review. Also subscribe to it so you don't miss
any episodes, and share it with friends. All that helps.
This podcast and The Lounge, the excellent weekly podcast from
my colleagues Rhyan Mink and Garrett Downing are part of
the Baltimore Ravens Podcast Network. You can tell people just
(23:21):
search for that wherever they get their podcasts, Baltimore Ravens
Podcast Network and everything will come up. Missus, John Eisenberg,
I'll talk to you in two weeks
It's not hard to get a look at what former
Ravens cornerback Gary Baxter believed at the time was the
absolute worst moment of his life. Just go to YouTube,
type the words Gary Baxter and knee injury into the
search field. A video pops right out. Second down for Plumber.
He's going deep down the sidelines for Walker, almost a
(00:27):
leaping catch. He was covered well as Gary Baxter ad position.
The clip is from an NFL game played on October
twenty second, two thousand and six, Cleveland Browns against the
Denver Broncos in Cleveland. Baxter is playing cornerback for the Browns.
He had joined the Ravens six years earlier as a
second round draft pick from Baylor, the number sixty two
(00:49):
overall selection in two thousand and one. That's pretty high.
Baxter was fast and smart, a good cover corner. By
his second season, he was starting on a very good
Baltimore defense, and he continued to start until his rookie
contract expired, at which point he became a free agent
and signed with the Browns. That's a whole other story
(01:10):
I'll get to in a few minutes. But first back
to the game in two thousand and six. It's the
second quarter. The Broncos are ahead and driving, and one
of their receivers, Javon Walker, runs a deep route down
the near sideline into the red zone. Baxter runs right
with him. Denverse quarterback Jake Plummer lobs a pass toward them.
It's not a great pass, it's short. Walker and Baxter
(01:33):
both turned and jump for the ball, which falls to
the ground incomplete. It's an innocent looking play, but there's
nothing innocent about it. Walker quickly gets to his feet,
but Baxter stays on the ground, clearly in discomfort and
increasingly agitated. Walker bends over to look at him and
immediately begins motioning to the Browns bench. There's no doubt
(01:53):
what he's saying, Get over here now. Baxter looks like
he's hurt his leg. Twist it underneath him as it
was trying to go back. It looked like one of
his knees just got trapped underneath. No one could have
known it at the time, but Baxter had just taken
his last snap in the NFL. He was a high
price free agent, still young, a starter in the prime
(02:14):
of his career, with years of good football ahead of him,
it seemed, but he never played another down. Welcome to
What Happened to That Guy? A podcast about former Ravens
and life after football. I'm your host John Eisenberg. Today's
episode is about how your worst nightmare can turn out
(02:35):
to be not so bad after all, and actually, weirdly,
maybe the best thing that ever happened to you. That's
Gary Baxter's story. We spoke on the phone recently. He's
forty years old now and living and working in Texas,
where he was born and raised. FYI, he was on
a cell phone in the back of an uber when
we spoke, and the sound quality isn't the greatest, but
(02:57):
it's the best we could do. Hooking up with Gary
wasn't easy. He is a busy guy. If you had
not been hurt, and I know you had a very
serious injury with your patella right on both knees at
the same time, If you had not been hurt like that,
would you have come to this? Do you think? I mean?
What I'm asking is, do you the injury was the
(03:17):
best thing in a weird way. It was. It shaped
the rest of your life. It did. If I wouldn't
have been hurt, I wouldn't never be here. Today had
turned out to be one of the worst ents for me,
turning that to be one that absolutely past the If
I wouldn't have been hurt, I wouldn't be here right now.
I'll probably be doing marcial real estate. And this is
(03:39):
a whole new world that's opened up to me and
and absolutely amazing. I love what I do. I have fun.
I'll get to what he's doing now in a minute,
and by the way, I completely agree it is amazing.
But first, let me finish the story of his injury,
because that's the key to everything. When the Browns doctors
got Baxter off the field and checked him out that
(04:00):
day in Cleveland, they were shocked by what they found.
He had torn the poteller tendon in his right knee
and the pateller tendon in his left knee. It was
like something Stephen King might have written in one of
his horror novels, both knees wrecked simultaneously. Cleveland's head coach
Romeo Crenell wore a shocked expression as he gave the
(04:22):
news to the media after the game. I've never seen
anything like this in thirty five years of coaching, Kronell said.
Two days later, Baxter underwent surgery on both knees. It
was a catastrophic situation. He stayed in the hospital for
two months, but he was young and strong otherwise, still
thought he was bulletproof, and he vowed to play again.
(04:44):
The Browns got him going on what was at the
time a standard rehab program for athletes who had undergone
knee surgery. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, lots of exercise, and
time in the gym. Baxter did it all, but all
along he was now by the thought that a more
effective rehab program, a better solution, might be available somewhere
(05:05):
out there in the world. That's how his mind works.
By the way, then and now, he earned a degree
in communications at Baylor. But he's really a natural tinkerer
that and an entrepreneur, a guy who takes stock of
situations and wonders, what are my options here? And could
I be doing something better? That's what he thought for days,
(05:26):
for weeks, for months as he stared down at his
injured knees. Am I doing the right thing? Is this
really my best option when I have my knee injury?
I know we got the basic regular OTPC play. I'm
looking for something special, and no one knew what the
hell I was talking about it. It's got to be
(05:47):
a place that I can go to that if I
want to go and try to figure out how to
get better, and there was none. I decided that I
was going to go outside of the country. I want
to counter them with the Germany, with many other different
places to look and learn. And that's why I really
got and understanding medicine than said, well, it doesn't exist,
(06:09):
and I'm gonna build what it is that I'm looking for.
Did you hear him? He wasn't satisfied with the rehab
program that had been prescribed for him, so he started
jumping on airplanes and looking elsewhere Canada, Israel, Germany, and
he was much happier with what he found in those places.
When he says it didn't exist, he means it didn't
(06:31):
exist here in the United States. Without getting into too
much detail. Today, in twenty nineteen, the fields of sports
medicine and athletic performance and recovery are far more sophisticated
than they were in two thousand and six when Baxter
got hurt. There's a lot of technology involved, better monitoring
of the body, better ideas about how to anticipate injuries
(06:53):
and recover from them, and according to Baxter, many of
these advanced techniques were available in other countries before they
came to America. When he was back home for good
in early two thousand and seven, he spoke with trainers
and doctors about what he'd seen abroad, wondering why he
couldn't access it at home. I was trying to suit
the own people and complain as the people, and people
(07:15):
was like, yeah, no, well it doesn't exist. It's so
good if I haven't anyone, that's just it, and I
ran so a bunch of resistance. Baxter eventually rehabbed his
knees to the point where he could get back on
the practice field. He went to training camp with the
Browns in the summer of two thousand and seven, but
there was no fairy tale ending. It became apparent that
(07:36):
he couldn't play, at least not well enough to suit
up in the regular season. The Browns parted ways with him.
His career was over. What would you do now? A
young man with decades of life ahead of him. Ironically,
it was his nightmarish injury experience that set him on
the right course trying to get a better grip on
(08:00):
just who Gary Baxter is. I spoke to Brian Billick,
the Ravens former head coach and a recent inductee into
the team's Ring of Honor. He was coaching the team
when Baxter was drafted, sum him up as the guy
that came in and as a player, you know, anytime
you bring a young player in, it's a transition, and
there are certain guys. Gary was one of those that
(08:21):
immediately you gravitated towards him because you saw there was
a great character there. You saw that he got it.
Sometimes things pan out, sometimes they don't, but he was
one early on that you recognized, this is the kind
of guy you wanted to have in the organization. He
is now a CEO and founder of a healthcare company. Wow,
(08:42):
and why does that not surprise me? Pardon Parcel was
saying earlier he had a sense of the bigger picture.
A lot of times you get young guys in and
it's understandable they're very focused on themselves, are very focused
on their specific situation. But you got that sense that
Gary did have that bigger perspective and understood how it
all worked. Now, as in the media or the fans,
they no one saw that. But you you just saw
(09:04):
you do because you see not only in the day
to day the way he conducts himself, but the way
he interacts with his teammates, the way he interacts with
the coaches, the way he interacts with Jeff, everybody in
the organization. When I would go out and interact with
players that we were going to draft, you'd go out
ostensibly to work them out, but you really need to do
do you had the film, you had the combine, I
really would want to spend time, and I'd take him
(09:25):
out to dinner because I want to see how did
he deal with the waitress, how did he deal with
the guy park in the car, how to deal with
the other people, just in terms of what kind of
personality he had. And Gary was one of those guys.
That's why he doesn't surprise me that he's gone on
and done the things that he's done, because you could
tell with the way he interacted with everybody in the
building that he was one of those guys that just
(09:46):
got it. By two thousand and four, his fourth year
in Baltimore, Baxter was a standout on one of the
NFL's best defenses. He had more solo tackles that season
than any Raven other than Ray Lewis. Chris McAllister was
the cornerback on the other side, a pro bowler, and
teams shied away from him, so Baxter got to work
out and he held up. He was credited with more
(10:08):
passes defended that season than any member of the Baltimore
secondary other than ed Reid. Baxter could have and probably
should have been in Baltimore for a lot longer than
four years. In those days, really still, when they hit
on a high draft pick, the Ravens try to find
a way to keep the guy. But in two thousand
and four, the rest of the NFL noticed that the
(10:29):
cornerback playing opposite McAlister was pretty good, and Baxter's rookie
contract expired after that season, making him a free agent.
Other teams showed interest. Baxter was conflicted. He wanted to stay,
but he scheduled a trip to Cleveland. The Ravens didn't
want to lose him. General manager Ozzie knew Some called
and asked him meet with him. Before Baxter got on
(10:50):
the plane. They met, and I swear I am not
making this up. They met at a McDonald's. A kid
was having a birthday, party. At the next table, when
Back and Ozzie got together to talk finances and the
future of the Ravens Secondary. They spoke softly so they
wouldn't ruin the party, and they made plans to get
back together and keep talking, maybe not at McDonald's when
(11:13):
Baxter got back, but he never did come back from Cleveland.
The Browns made him a big offer, and Baxter signed.
He went to Cleveland, thinking he'd be there for years,
maybe he become part of the franchises architecture. But he
only played five games in two thousand and five before
a torn pectoral muscle ended his season. Then he tore
up his knees in October two thousand and six. A
(11:34):
year later, when he realized he was done with football,
he went home to Tyler, Texas, a bustling small town
east to Dallas, where he'd grown up and played on
a state championship high school football team a decade earlier.
Now he was twenty nine and at a crossroads. He
had a lot going for him, a college degree, money
in the bank, name recognition, an upbeat personality. He started
(11:58):
selling commercial real estate. Making deals was interesting to him,
even thrilling, But Baxter wasn't satisfied, Longing for a greater challenge,
he honed his skills as a businessman. He took classes
and he joined a consortium that develops CEOs. I learned
how to become a businessman, got in and I applied
(12:19):
myself and decided that I wanted to become one of
the best business persons in the areas, and I want
to own in on my skills and take the education
that I need to keep sharpening the things up and
working around very smart people every day. While all that happened,
he retained vivid memories of his injury, his rehab, and
(12:41):
the sports science he had encountered, and he stayed abreast
of any new developments in that industry. He was looking
for a project, a business opportunity, and he had a thought,
why not what I know? Why not sports medicine. You
may have heard of Tyler, Texas, because it's also the
(13:03):
hometown of one of the greatest football players ever produced
in Baxter's football mad home state, Earl Campbell, the Bruising
Hall of Fame running back, grew up in Tyler and
played for the University of Texas and the Houston Oilers
before calling it quits after nine years in the NFL.
Campbell was so linked to his hometown that it was
(13:24):
part of his nickname, the Tyler Rose. People called him Tyler,
you see, is the rose capital of Texas. There's a
rose festival there every fall. Campbell, famous for steamrolling defenders,
was no one's idea of a rose on the football field.
He was, in fact, a thorn in the side of
every defense he came up against. Now he's in his
(13:45):
sixties and although he's lived in Houston since he played
for the Oilers, he hasn't forgotten about his hometown. Carl
Campbell Well both way to the same high school. Stay
were state champions, were state champions obviously earlier, twenty four
years older than He's from Tyler and I'm from Tall,
the same high school. We always see each other at
(14:05):
advance and we always do each other and we always
kept in touch. And one day ll act, you know,
we need to do something for our hometown. I've been
working on something and I said that, you know, I
don't want it to do anything like everybody else. You know,
we don't need money here. We do this, so we
do that that. I want to do something meanful and impactful.
(14:28):
General said yes, I do too. Baxter told Campbell about
the idea he'd been kicking around, a sports science and
research operation promoting health and wellness for athletes. Baxter explained
that he had literally gone around the world studying the
subject and had all sorts of ideas. Campbell listened intently.
(14:49):
The tyler Rose had paid a heavy price for his
years on the football field. He dealt with numerous ailments
since he retired. The guy his attention and we stored
falcon and we store that eventual conversations meeting. One day,
Earl looked at me said do you think we can
do this? Absolutely? And he said, well, let's make it happen.
(15:12):
That was a few years ago, and they did make
it happen. The idea Baxter and Campbell talked about has
become the Project Rose Research Institute for Sports Science, located
at a top hospital in East Texas. It's a multifaceted
organization with a sports medicine program, a sports science research program,
a general health and wellness program, and a sleep clinic.
(15:35):
Clients include individual athletes, high school and college sports teams,
people from the general public. Baxter is the founder and CEO.
Campbell the co founder. They work with doctors, scientists and researchers,
all with the goal of helping athletes achieve maximum performance,
recover from injuries, and enjoy life when they're through playing.
(15:55):
And we decided that lose the madas on a building, right,
we spotify people in his eraror my era when he
was coming through the game, technology, the training, the recovery,
the surgeries and the injuries, and then we went and
looked at my time. So we did a lot of
leads or to put this together. And finally, like I
(16:18):
told him, be playing eight years, I had eight surgery,
traveled around the world to find out what's the best
technology out there, What is it that we can do
that we can bring some people and really have a
meeting for impact. I presented this the Earl and Earls said,
let's roll with it. So as the founder, he's the
co founder, and we decided that we was gonna make
(16:42):
this happening, and we end up doing it, and we
trund some medical providers who loved our ideal, and that's
when they hit me, there's plenty money in the world
the people who invest, but there's not a lot of
great ideas and what we found for a lot of
people will need to come on board and not just
invest money, but also be a part of what you're doing.
(17:04):
And so that's when we realized we had something very
special and understanding the impact that we wanted to have,
not just in our community, but we wanted to start
out our goal was to positively affect that East Texas
region first, then go to the States of Texas and
then can roll it out to the rest of it
in the state. He's been an excellent party to work with.
(17:27):
I mean, he's our old Campbell and I will say
his son told me he said, out of all the
things Earl has ever did, he's never been more in
in days more positive about this one project. I mean,
that's super exciting. We work with a lot of cool doctors, sciences, researchers,
a lot of great people, a lot of great technology
(17:48):
out here, and we're for bring it, take it to
the market so that we can positively affect people lives
in a positive world. When Baxter gets going talking about it,
isn't husiasm is so great he can barely stop every day.
I'm excited. I love it. I'm a science health and
well on it and more importantly, we know what we're
(18:12):
doing is he's going affects so many people alive, and
it's in house people. So figures out my new college.
A passionate about this check I was with the ball.
The project. Rose Research Institute for Sports Science is growing rapidly,
not unlike a young, healthy tree, developing more branches. A
brain function study is in progress, as is a deep
(18:34):
dive into the effects of ACL surgery. Baxter is always
recruiting more investors. There are plans to open branches in Dallas,
Houston and other parts of Texas. They're tinkering with how
to use artificial intelligence. The longer we spoke, the more
I had a question I was dying to ask. Finally
I did the Gary Baxter that's in the Ravens locker
(18:57):
room all right in two thousand and two, two thousand
and three. If someone had, you know, come to you
and said Gary, here's what you're going to be doing,
what would have been your reaction. I wouldn't have believe them.
I wouldn't believe them because I started working on this
project since two thousand and six. So it's just a
(19:21):
long time in order for us to get here. And
it was it was a deal for me to where
I knew I wanted to do something spression. I just
didn't know exactly how I was going to do it.
But this right here is it's amazing for me because
the research that I made to do with it and
the information that I'll be able to tell to other
(19:43):
athletes when they're done. This is a place that you're
going to want to come and go to because we're
gonna understand your knees and what it is that that
you're doing. And everyone is different, right, Everyone is different
like DNA, And this is why it's so unique and
book us because we're taking a lot of this a
lot of our data and doing that the AI to
(20:07):
that data, and I'm Gonnell with solutions. For the record,
he isn't working twenty four seven on Project Rose. He
still has his hand in the local commercial real estate world.
He's also the secretary of the NFL Alumni chapter located
in Dallas. This past summer, he was in Baltimore for
a football clinic. He hasn't left football entirely behind. Baylor,
(20:29):
His alma mater recently put him in its Athletic Hall
of Fame, as did the school district in Tyler. Listen,
if you live in Tyler, you have no choice but
to follow the lions of John Tyler high. Whenever he
sees Ozzie Newsom, the former Ravens general manager who drafted
him to the NFL, they laugh about the time they
(20:49):
negotiated a contract at McDonald's. But there's no doubt where
his heart is now Project Rose and will not wake
up in society because it's well, who am I meeting today?
Where am I going to him? What we got on
the attenda? And it's always exciting. I don't know. Life
is good. It's a passion of mine. So I don't
(21:12):
consider this work. I considered this doing something that I
love to do. That's a passion of dealing with the
high level professionals like that every day, the signs its researchers.
I mean it is very fun for me, you know.
I love thinking with the Scots, figuring out some of
the weirdest, geekiest teams there is and just coming out
(21:34):
with a solution we all celebrate. It's just amazing what
my new celebration now. He is from being on a
football field to when we discover something, it's just exciting.
It carries the same way that value has been on
the football field. Man, it's like intercepting the past and
running back for touchdown. Right there. It is, right there,
(21:57):
having fun every day. We like that I'm black, we're black,
and our goal is to black other people. There you
have it, Episode four of What Happened to That Guy?
My thanks to Gary Baxter for carving out some time
in his busy schedule to speak to me. You can
(22:20):
find out more about him and his career at Baltimore
Ravens dot com slash What Happened to That Guy? With
this episode, we're halfway through the first season of the podcast.
There's plenty more to come. A new episode will drop
in two weeks, focusing on Matt Burke, the center on
the Ravens twenty twelve Super Bowl team. In his post
(22:40):
football life, He's gone down a road that I feel
safe in saying this. Very few former NFL players have
taken What Happened to That Guy? He's doing stand up comedy.
New episodes on Interesting Former Ravens will continue to drop
every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season.
I hope you keep listening. If you like what you're hearing,
(23:01):
don't hesitate to leave a five star rating and write
a review. Also subscribe to it so you don't miss
any episodes, and share it with friends. All that helps.
This podcast and The Lounge, the excellent weekly podcast from
my colleagues Rhyan Mink and Garrett Downing are part of
the Baltimore Ravens Podcast Network. You can tell people just
(23:21):
search for that wherever they get their podcasts, Baltimore Ravens
Podcast Network and everything will come up. Missus, John Eisenberg,
I'll talk to you in two weeks
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