July 2, 2020 • 22 mins
John Eisenberg talks to former Ravens pass rusher Peter Boulware, who has had so much post-career success that he doesn't even identify as a former NFL player.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Greetings and welcome to What Happened to That Guy? A
new Ravens podcast about former Ravens players and life after football.
I'm your host, John Eisenberg. I've been writing opinion columns
and game analysis on the Ravens website and app for
almost a decade. I'm guessing you've agreed with what I
say at times, and at other times I've made you scream,
(00:34):
maybe want to throw darts at my picture. Hey, no
offense taken anyway. I wrote the same sorts of things
for the Baltimore Sun for twenty four years before I
started with the Ravens. Overall, this is my forty first
season of covering football at some level. As hopefully I've
learned a few things about the game that I can
impart to readers. But all along, I've had a parallel
(00:57):
writing life, one that involves finding interest stories and telling
them in book form. If you look me up on
Amazon dot Com, you'll see I've done it a lot.
My dirty little secret is I consider myself a storyteller
first and foremost, and I'm always looking for new material.
That's why I can't hide the fact that I'm excited,
really excited about this podcast. It's the perfect format for
(01:20):
taking a deep dive into a subject that fascinates me,
the lives of former NFL players Ravens in this case,
who doesn't want to find out how and what they're
doing now years after their playing careers ended. We remember
these former players as young men in their athletic primes,
performing amazing feats on Sunday afternoons. But years have passed
(01:41):
and they aren't those people anymore. They're older, wiser, usually
a little thicker around the middle, and they moved on
to something else in life. In the first episode of
What Happened to That Guy, I profiled Jermaine Lewis, the
Pro Bowl kick returner from the Ravens early years. He
told me he made no plans whatsoever for his life
(02:03):
after football, and it cost him dearly, cost him a
lot of pain and heartache. Fortunately, he's doing better now.
He's working for under Armor and he's coaching high school football.
In this episode, I'm going to focus on a guy
from the opposite end of the spectrum, where players start
planning for life after football long before they hang up
their cleats. They are, for lack of a better description,
(02:25):
the adults in the room, the locker room. I mean,
Peter Bullware could be the poster child if you need
an introduction. Bullware is one of the all time great Ravens,
a ferocious outside linebacker and pass rush specialist from the
franchises early years. Next time you're at M ANDT Bank Stadium,
you can find his name on the interior facade alongside
(02:48):
the names of everyone else in the team's Ring of honor.
Few players have accomplished more in their years in Baltimore's
Here's a pleasure time here with the sack. Bulware was
groomed to become a star. The fourth choice in the
first round, the Baltimore Ravens select Peter Bulware, defensive van
(03:10):
Florida State. Some high draft picks don't live up to expectations,
but Bullware did from the outset. He was the NFL's
defensive Rookie of the Year in nineteen ninety seven. A
year later, he made the first of his four Pro
Bowl appearances. He started alongside Ray Lewis on the Ravens
first Super Bowl team in two thousand. The next year,
(03:32):
he led the AFC in sacks, pressure and plumber is
down Peter Bullware, coming off the left edge shack to
pass his couch. He gets hit at his feet. He's
going down as he got sacked on the play by
Peter Bulware. Sure and he sat down. Goes Steve McNair,
and it's Peter Billwahware him a sack number eleven and
a half. Peter Bullwair was so good for so long
(03:56):
that the Ravens didn't think twice about putting him in
their Ring of Honor. Well, thank you guys so much.
This is definitely a privilege and honor to get accepted
into this ring of honor. But you knew who isn't
impressed by all those accomplishments. Peter Bullware. Now he's forty
four years old and living in Tallahassee, Florida, and he's
the opposite of a former athlete reliving past glories. He
(04:20):
cowns a car dealership, he's an educator, the founder of
a Christian school. He's a father of five. Shoot, he's
even taken a stab at politics since he left football.
When we spoke, I asked him if he still self
identifies as a guy who played in the NFL. He
didn't hesitate long before answering, it's hard for me to
(04:40):
think aboutself that way. It sounds funny, but the NFL
seems like a lifetime ago for me. It was fun,
I did it, but I'm just still like I'm in
a different life, in a different world. I'm looking at
the game now and I'm like, yeah, I get yeah,
I did used to do that. The way the game's
played down, these guys are fast, they're awesome. The game
seems like a life I go for me and again,
(05:00):
I live in a stall town. It's how I ask
you to everyone's hey, you play Florida State. That kind
of brings that up. But I don't really look at
myself as a Baltimore Ravens fourth take and ring of honor.
I don't really look at that. I'm a dad of
five kids, director of school and that's kind of where
I feel. And I love that. I love that about
(05:21):
who I am. Like other sports, football is deep into
the age of data and analytics. The yards are running
back gains after contact, the likelihood of a fourth round
draft pick becoming a superstar, a quarterback's completion rate on
third downs in the red zone. No matter what you're
(05:41):
looking for, there's data for it. A lesson to be
imparted teams have entire rooms of analysts crunching numbers, trying
to get to the bottom of things that might help
them win. It's no surprise, then, that there are statistics
about what happens to players after they retire. All no surprise,
I guess that those statistics aren't pretty. You hear a
(06:03):
lot of stories about former players struggling to adapt. According
to a Sports Illustrated article from two thousand and nine,
seventy eight percent of former NFL players are broke within
two years of ending their careers. Seventy eight percent. Honestly,
knowing what I do about the former player population, that
sounds a little high. Regardless, it's still an insanely high number.
(06:26):
Throw in the fact that former NFL players get divorced
at a much higher rate than the national average, and
you get the idea. It's tough out there. And what's
really tough is sometimes you can kind of predict what's
going to happen. I asked Peter Bullware about that. When
you were playing. Could you look around and say, I
got an idea, Who's going to be all right after football?
(06:48):
And I got something that I'm worried about? Could you
tell there are guys who are look and say, you
know it because of lifestyle decisions whether they we're having.
You were like, look, you can't maintain that lifestyle outside
of the NFL, or you can't continue to behave like
that and go into a regular job and think that
you're going to keep that job very long. So yeah,
(07:10):
there were build guys out there like you do that
that's kinded to be well for you with the games
over with, and then vice versa, there were other guys
out there like, man, you've got some good habits. That's
going to thurve you incredibly well when you're done. So yeah,
there are a handful of it making good choices. If
there were others out there that you're right, yeah, rather
not going to go well for you when you're done
playing the sport. Peter Bullware was exhibit a of a
(07:32):
player with good habits and the right instincts. While he
was playing, both in college and for the Ravens, he
was always thinking about what he would do when he
no longer played. The mentality was, look, you know, you
get hurt at any time. Even if you have a
great career eight ten, twelve years, you still have another
thirty forty years you have to get out there and
do something. I'd always have that mentality, you know, And
(07:55):
so I was always just kind of preparing for when
that day would come that I would have to step
away from the game. I really the game would step
away from me. I needed to have something in place
to be able to provide for myself. It's an adult approach,
no doubt, planning ahead for the future as opposed to
giving in to temptation and possibly squandering everything. Now, I
(08:18):
thought former Ravens head coach Brian Billick would have an
interesting perspective on Bullware and his approach. When Billock became
the head coach in Baltimore in nineteen ninety nine, Bullware
was in his third season with the team and starting
to take off. He was here when you got here,
and he is, let me put it this way, he
is an adult. I'm just wondering as a coach, was
(08:40):
he always an adult? Yes, one of those guys that
you knew just had the bigger picture, you know. When
we came in, Peter was one and had been very
successful up to that point. But we had to ask
a number of players, not the least which Peter Bullware.
Michael McCrary guys that were being paid to put that
pressure off the edge. But you came in and I
made it very clear, you're gonna have to make a choice.
(09:01):
You want to go to Pro Bowl, you want to
go to the the Super Bowl. We're going to ask some
things you that may not be in your individual best interest,
but in the best interest of the team and the
team's success. And Peter Bolware was clearly one of those guys.
It's easy to say, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm in coach
when you're not having to give anything up. And by
that I mean a lot of your incentives are tied
(09:21):
to your sacks, your catches, your tack, whatever it may
be that quantifies your position. Not that we didn't want
him to sack the quarterback a lot, but we asked
him to fit into a defense, to ask him to
do more things and to maybe not have to be
that one trick pony, so to speak, off the edge,
and he embraced it and was a huge part of
that mentality that led to our first Super Bowl. Light
(09:42):
Bulware Billick could look around the locker room and pick
out which players we're going to struggle later in life
and which we're going to be fine. Now, the same
guys that you know when you get that phone call
in the middle of the night that something has gone
on with one of your players. When you pick that
phone up, you can immediately run through the list. Well,
Peter Bullware is not going to be one of them,
just because the way he conducts themselves. And the more
(10:04):
players you have like that in your locker room, the better,
because these young players come in and they're constantly searching
and looking around and going, Okay, well, how does this work?
And what does it mean to be a veteran? And
when you have a guy like a Peter Bullware that
they can look at and go, oh, okay, maybe that's
the way I need to conduct myself both on and
off the field. Because I've always said there's not something magical.
(10:26):
An uncharactered, undisciplined individual doesn't step into your locker room
or cross that white line onto the field and then
become those things. So if they're uncharactered undisciplined in their
personal life, they likely are going to be that way
on the field. When you have that carry over in
Peter Bullware were not only in terms of the way
he conducted himselves, but way the young people could look
(10:48):
to him to recognize maybe that's the kind of guy
I need to emulate. I think a little background is
in order. Bullwear's mature perspective didn't just come out of nowhere.
His father was a doctor, his mother's stressed academics. Growing
up in Columbia, South Carolina, he was one of four kids,
all great athletes who went on to accomplish big things.
(11:11):
But they were taught from the outset that sports should
not be and would not be, the only egg in
their baskets. They got the message. Peter's older brother was
a high school and college football star who played on
a national championship team at Georgia Tech. He became an engineer.
Peter's sister was a state track champion who went to
(11:32):
Notre Dame on an athletic scholarship. She followed her father's
lead and became a doctor. My dad and my mom
were great parents. They were great role models. And you know,
I get an opportunity to speak to kids all around
the country, and typically when you hear athletes speaking, it's
how they overcame at versity or at bab overcome some
(11:52):
type of tough homewife. Mine is the exact opposite. Mine's
a story of great mom, great dad, stable how hold,
and just a standard being set in my home that
I wanted to try to get to. Peter was a
top recruit who went to Florida State when the Seminoles
were on top of the college football world, but he
(12:13):
always had his eyes on the world beyond the game.
The statistics for kids making it to the NFL are
so low, and so even when I got recruited, in
my backup around, I was like, I'm not going to
the NFL. This is just not going to happen. Very
few people get drafted. So for really, I going to
Florida States thinking I've got to get a degree. I've
got to eat a job when I get out. We
had the number one recruiting class in the nation. We
(12:35):
won a national championship. I came into a class of
superstar football players and I was like, look, I was
going to get my degree, and that was kind of
my mentalities. He did get that degree, but his football
prospects soared and he turned pro after his junior year
and became an immediate difference maker for the Ravens. He
was in his twenties a famous NFL sackmaster. Plenty of
(12:57):
you guys have made a lot of hay with that
developed signal. Your sack dances taken on a cartoonish persona,
but that was not in Peter Bullware's DNA. I would
say my parents could be grounded our faith, our Christianity
just relying on hubility. That's one thing my dad and
my mom taught me. Everything you do, be humble, be thankful,
(13:18):
be grateful for everything that you have. At any moment,
anything can be taken away, or never taking things for granted.
It was a sudden that it was always drilled into
all of us. Work extremely hard, nothing's going to be
given to you. We took that approach to everything that
we did, especially as sports. No surprise, at the peak
(13:39):
of his football career, he was already deep into his
preparations for when he no longer played. Around the time
the Ravens won their first Super Bowl, he and a
friend invested in a BMW dealership in Tallahassee, and the
offseason Bullwar went home and immersed himself in the business.
After a few years, he sold it and bought a
Toyota dealership. When his career ended to the effects of
(14:01):
several injuries. He settled in Tallahassee with his wife and
became a businessman and family man. Soon enough, there were
five kids in the house. But even though he had
his life in order, Peter struggled to adapt to life
without football. It's quite the cautionary tale. This is a
(14:21):
guy who had his act together still wasn't just transmitted.
It's really tough. I had a pretty good plan in place.
It wasn't like football in it for me, and I
just you know, I didn't know what I was going
to do. I had a plan in place. I thought
I was pretty well grounded. Nothing can prepare you for
(14:41):
when you retire from your sport. It's super hard. It's
something that you've done your whole life, and it's something
that you've been really really good act. And then at
the age of thirty one, two three four, because of
injury or whatever, you're out and you're forced to go
into a different career or go into something different. No
(15:02):
longer can you get up and play on Sunday and
has sixty seventy thousand people charing for you. No longer
are you going to Pro Bowls or going to Super Bowls.
If you're into the workforce. You're getting up at eight
and work and you're coming home at five, six o'clock.
It is a shock, even if you're ready, even if
you have a plan in place, it's a emotional and
(15:23):
a mental thing that you just have to get through.
So it took me a couple of years to work
through that. I wasn't depressed, you know, I didn't do
anything crazy, but it was just an incredibly tough transition.
After a year, so I was able to work my
way through it and get, you know, mistily refocused on
what else God had me to go into. If you
(15:44):
don't have a planning, or if you don't have finance
to say, man, that it can just be absolutely devastating.
Fortunately for Peter, money wasn't a concern. But wasn't there
more to life than just owning a business? As a
man of great faith, he assumed there was A friend
mentioned the possibility of his running for elected office. His
initial reaction was are you kidding? But he decided to
(16:07):
try running for a seat in the Florida House of
Representatives as a Republican in a district that leansblew. He
won the primary, but lost the general election by four
hundred votes. So what approached me about the opportunity We
play football, you do a lot of community service were
and someone approached me with an opportunity, you can serve
our community, you can referral this year. I wasn't looking
(16:28):
for that position. It was more of something somebody came
to me and they're like, look, this is a good
opportunity for you to serve. And I was like, you
know what, Heck, I'll give it a shot. I didn't
know what I was doing, really, but I knew I
wanted to try to get involved. Maybe nailed out. It
was a great experience for me, learned a lot. Losing
the election was disappointing, but the experience eventually impacted him
(16:51):
in a way he never could have foreseen. The governor
of Florida liked what he said on the stump and
appointed him to the state Board of Education. He spent
a year learning the intricacies of the education sector, along
with its politics and challenges. Around the same time, he
and his wife were wondering how to educate their own kids.
My wife, she was kind of homeschooling at first. We
(17:13):
were trying to figure out where do we want to
do with our kids? Public school, private, school. So we
just kind of start looking around an option. Obviously, we're
Christians and our faces important us and we just couldn't
really find what we were really looking for. And so
we went and visited a private school in Jacksonville, and
we fell in love with that school. We're like, man,
this is an awesome school here. The problem is it's
(17:35):
in Jacksonville. That's two and a half hours away. The
people at the school in Jacksonville suggested that he start
a similar school in Tallahassee. I was like, yeah, whatever.
I didn't even think anything about it. But my wife
sulked it up the way home. She's like, what do
you think about starting the school? I was like, man,
no way possible. I'm an ex football player, I've got
a cart the others. It's a way I'm gonna start
(17:57):
at school. And she's like, well, just think and pray
about it, and so I did. After I did, I
just didn't think it about it. I just can't get
this off my mind. A long story. Stort iBOT, you
know what, I think we need to do this. I
think we need to take the leap of phase to
do this school that was a decade ago. Bullway had
no idea what he was doing, and no idea if
(18:19):
the idea would fly. He started off with twenty or
thirty elementary school age students. They kept coming back. Year
after year, more students came, Bullwear hired teachers, specialist, a headmaster.
This year, his school, the Community Leadership Academy, will celebrate
a decade in business. More than three hundred students who
(18:41):
are enrolled. It'll soon be a full fledged K through
twelfth school. It's been an absolute blast. If you'd have
told me after I retired from the NFL, you're going
to be running a private school out and told you
no way possible. But I've been doing it for ten years.
I love it. I love what we do with these kids.
I think we're making an impact on their lives. And
the school is grown and it's been really, really good,
(19:03):
despite the fact that I knew nothing about running a school.
Between the school, his Toyota dealership, and his wife and
their five children, he has a little time for contemplation.
His days are full, his to do lists long. He
isn't looking ahead to what he might do next, but
he's aware he's just forty four and his kids. Eventually
we'll be out of the house. I'm going to keep
(19:24):
doing it until something else comes up where I feel
like there's another opportunity. But for now, this is where
I'm supposed to be. With each passing year, his time
with the Ravens has less and less to do with
his life. Now. He seldom comes to Baltimore to gaze
at his name on the facade at M ANDT Bank Stadium.
He'll occasionally text with former teammates if he sees something
on Facebook, but he seldom sees them. Basically, he is
(19:47):
living out the guiding principle his parents reinforced years ago.
Sports should not be the only egg in your basket.
These days, sports really aren't even in his basket. It's
a story that more of today's players could stand to
here bullware beliefs, but he sees a little reason to
try to spread the word. I do feel like I
have something to offer, some wisdom and some advice that
(20:10):
I could give. Even when I played, there are guys
that came before me to have wisdom and advice when
it comes to the NFL. Now, I don't think there's
a lack of wisdom, advice, and good information out there.
When it's all said and done, are these guys gonna listen?
I was there. It's tough when you're on top of
the world. You're making millions of dollars step to hear
(20:32):
an old washtoop guy like me said, Hey, it's gonna
be over one day. Pair yourself, save your money, be wise.
For somebody reason, it's super hard for guys to hear that.
A lot of guys out there that do here, but
there's a majority of guys that kind of air whatever,
I'll be fine, or it's not gonna happen to me.
Or if guys messed up, I don't think it's because
(20:53):
of a lack of knowledge or a lack of resources
out there. You've got to be able to listen to
it and be able to hear it fl it to
your life, because again, if here, how good you are,
it will come to an end one day. And when
it comes to an end, I hope that you've prepared
well for it. That's it Episode two of What Happened
(21:19):
to That Guy? My Thanks to Peter Bullware for taking
the time to tell us his story. You can find
out more about him and his career at Baltimore Ravens
dot com, slash what Happened to that Guy? Another new
episode will drop in two weeks, and they'll keep coming
every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season.
If you like it, don't hesitate to leave a five
(21:41):
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. My hope is you'll start to see
and understand the extent of the impressive history the Ravens
have built since they kicked off in Baltimore in nineteen
ninety six. You probably know that they've won two Super
Bowls and a bunch of other games, gone to the
(22:03):
playoffs eleven times. But it's the people, the characters, not numbers,
that make a franchise's history come alive. And the Ravens
already have a former player roster of more than a
thousand guys. It's an amazing and diverse group that includes doctors, lawyers, coaches, educators, dentists, comedians, Yes, comedians.
(22:27):
It wasn't hard for me to find guys to feature
in the podcast. It was hard to decide which guys
to feature. I hope you keep listening to what Happened
to that Guy? I'm John Eisenberg,
Greetings and welcome to What Happened to That Guy? A
new Ravens podcast about former Ravens players and life after football.
I'm your host, John Eisenberg. I've been writing opinion columns
and game analysis on the Ravens website and app for
almost a decade. I'm guessing you've agreed with what I
say at times, and at other times I've made you scream,
(00:34):
maybe want to throw darts at my picture. Hey, no
offense taken anyway. I wrote the same sorts of things
for the Baltimore Sun for twenty four years before I
started with the Ravens. Overall, this is my forty first
season of covering football at some level. As hopefully I've
learned a few things about the game that I can
impart to readers. But all along, I've had a parallel
(00:57):
writing life, one that involves finding interest stories and telling
them in book form. If you look me up on
Amazon dot Com, you'll see I've done it a lot.
My dirty little secret is I consider myself a storyteller
first and foremost, and I'm always looking for new material.
That's why I can't hide the fact that I'm excited,
really excited about this podcast. It's the perfect format for
(01:20):
taking a deep dive into a subject that fascinates me,
the lives of former NFL players Ravens in this case,
who doesn't want to find out how and what they're
doing now years after their playing careers ended. We remember
these former players as young men in their athletic primes,
performing amazing feats on Sunday afternoons. But years have passed
(01:41):
and they aren't those people anymore. They're older, wiser, usually
a little thicker around the middle, and they moved on
to something else in life. In the first episode of
What Happened to That Guy, I profiled Jermaine Lewis, the
Pro Bowl kick returner from the Ravens early years. He
told me he made no plans whatsoever for his life
(02:03):
after football, and it cost him dearly, cost him a
lot of pain and heartache. Fortunately, he's doing better now.
He's working for under Armor and he's coaching high school football.
In this episode, I'm going to focus on a guy
from the opposite end of the spectrum, where players start
planning for life after football long before they hang up
their cleats. They are, for lack of a better description,
(02:25):
the adults in the room, the locker room. I mean,
Peter Bullware could be the poster child if you need
an introduction. Bullware is one of the all time great Ravens,
a ferocious outside linebacker and pass rush specialist from the
franchises early years. Next time you're at M ANDT Bank Stadium,
you can find his name on the interior facade alongside
(02:48):
the names of everyone else in the team's Ring of honor.
Few players have accomplished more in their years in Baltimore's
Here's a pleasure time here with the sack. Bulware was
groomed to become a star. The fourth choice in the
first round, the Baltimore Ravens select Peter Bulware, defensive van
(03:10):
Florida State. Some high draft picks don't live up to expectations,
but Bullware did from the outset. He was the NFL's
defensive Rookie of the Year in nineteen ninety seven. A
year later, he made the first of his four Pro
Bowl appearances. He started alongside Ray Lewis on the Ravens
first Super Bowl team in two thousand. The next year,
(03:32):
he led the AFC in sacks, pressure and plumber is
down Peter Bullware, coming off the left edge shack to
pass his couch. He gets hit at his feet. He's
going down as he got sacked on the play by
Peter Bulware. Sure and he sat down. Goes Steve McNair,
and it's Peter Billwahware him a sack number eleven and
a half. Peter Bullwair was so good for so long
(03:56):
that the Ravens didn't think twice about putting him in
their Ring of Honor. Well, thank you guys so much.
This is definitely a privilege and honor to get accepted
into this ring of honor. But you knew who isn't
impressed by all those accomplishments. Peter Bullware. Now he's forty
four years old and living in Tallahassee, Florida, and he's
the opposite of a former athlete reliving past glories. He
(04:20):
cowns a car dealership, he's an educator, the founder of
a Christian school. He's a father of five. Shoot, he's
even taken a stab at politics since he left football.
When we spoke, I asked him if he still self
identifies as a guy who played in the NFL. He
didn't hesitate long before answering, it's hard for me to
(04:40):
think aboutself that way. It sounds funny, but the NFL
seems like a lifetime ago for me. It was fun,
I did it, but I'm just still like I'm in
a different life, in a different world. I'm looking at
the game now and I'm like, yeah, I get yeah,
I did used to do that. The way the game's
played down, these guys are fast, they're awesome. The game
seems like a life I go for me and again,
(05:00):
I live in a stall town. It's how I ask
you to everyone's hey, you play Florida State. That kind
of brings that up. But I don't really look at
myself as a Baltimore Ravens fourth take and ring of honor.
I don't really look at that. I'm a dad of
five kids, director of school and that's kind of where
I feel. And I love that. I love that about
(05:21):
who I am. Like other sports, football is deep into
the age of data and analytics. The yards are running
back gains after contact, the likelihood of a fourth round
draft pick becoming a superstar, a quarterback's completion rate on
third downs in the red zone. No matter what you're
(05:41):
looking for, there's data for it. A lesson to be
imparted teams have entire rooms of analysts crunching numbers, trying
to get to the bottom of things that might help
them win. It's no surprise, then, that there are statistics
about what happens to players after they retire. All no surprise,
I guess that those statistics aren't pretty. You hear a
(06:03):
lot of stories about former players struggling to adapt. According
to a Sports Illustrated article from two thousand and nine,
seventy eight percent of former NFL players are broke within
two years of ending their careers. Seventy eight percent. Honestly,
knowing what I do about the former player population, that
sounds a little high. Regardless, it's still an insanely high number.
(06:26):
Throw in the fact that former NFL players get divorced
at a much higher rate than the national average, and
you get the idea. It's tough out there. And what's
really tough is sometimes you can kind of predict what's
going to happen. I asked Peter Bullware about that. When
you were playing. Could you look around and say, I
got an idea, Who's going to be all right after football?
(06:48):
And I got something that I'm worried about? Could you
tell there are guys who are look and say, you
know it because of lifestyle decisions whether they we're having.
You were like, look, you can't maintain that lifestyle outside
of the NFL, or you can't continue to behave like
that and go into a regular job and think that
you're going to keep that job very long. So yeah,
(07:10):
there were build guys out there like you do that
that's kinded to be well for you with the games
over with, and then vice versa, there were other guys
out there like, man, you've got some good habits. That's
going to thurve you incredibly well when you're done. So yeah,
there are a handful of it making good choices. If
there were others out there that you're right, yeah, rather
not going to go well for you when you're done
playing the sport. Peter Bullware was exhibit a of a
(07:32):
player with good habits and the right instincts. While he
was playing, both in college and for the Ravens, he
was always thinking about what he would do when he
no longer played. The mentality was, look, you know, you
get hurt at any time. Even if you have a
great career eight ten, twelve years, you still have another
thirty forty years you have to get out there and
do something. I'd always have that mentality, you know, And
(07:55):
so I was always just kind of preparing for when
that day would come that I would have to step
away from the game. I really the game would step
away from me. I needed to have something in place
to be able to provide for myself. It's an adult approach,
no doubt, planning ahead for the future as opposed to
giving in to temptation and possibly squandering everything. Now, I
(08:18):
thought former Ravens head coach Brian Billick would have an
interesting perspective on Bullware and his approach. When Billock became
the head coach in Baltimore in nineteen ninety nine, Bullware
was in his third season with the team and starting
to take off. He was here when you got here,
and he is, let me put it this way, he
is an adult. I'm just wondering as a coach, was
(08:40):
he always an adult? Yes, one of those guys that
you knew just had the bigger picture, you know. When
we came in, Peter was one and had been very
successful up to that point. But we had to ask
a number of players, not the least which Peter Bullware.
Michael McCrary guys that were being paid to put that
pressure off the edge. But you came in and I
made it very clear, you're gonna have to make a choice.
(09:01):
You want to go to Pro Bowl, you want to
go to the the Super Bowl. We're going to ask some
things you that may not be in your individual best interest,
but in the best interest of the team and the
team's success. And Peter Bolware was clearly one of those guys.
It's easy to say, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm in coach
when you're not having to give anything up. And by
that I mean a lot of your incentives are tied
(09:21):
to your sacks, your catches, your tack, whatever it may
be that quantifies your position. Not that we didn't want
him to sack the quarterback a lot, but we asked
him to fit into a defense, to ask him to
do more things and to maybe not have to be
that one trick pony, so to speak, off the edge,
and he embraced it and was a huge part of
that mentality that led to our first Super Bowl. Light
(09:42):
Bulware Billick could look around the locker room and pick
out which players we're going to struggle later in life
and which we're going to be fine. Now, the same
guys that you know when you get that phone call
in the middle of the night that something has gone
on with one of your players. When you pick that
phone up, you can immediately run through the list. Well,
Peter Bullware is not going to be one of them,
just because the way he conducts themselves. And the more
(10:04):
players you have like that in your locker room, the better,
because these young players come in and they're constantly searching
and looking around and going, Okay, well, how does this work?
And what does it mean to be a veteran? And
when you have a guy like a Peter Bullware that
they can look at and go, oh, okay, maybe that's
the way I need to conduct myself both on and
off the field. Because I've always said there's not something magical.
(10:26):
An uncharactered, undisciplined individual doesn't step into your locker room
or cross that white line onto the field and then
become those things. So if they're uncharactered undisciplined in their
personal life, they likely are going to be that way
on the field. When you have that carry over in
Peter Bullware were not only in terms of the way
he conducted himselves, but way the young people could look
(10:48):
to him to recognize maybe that's the kind of guy
I need to emulate. I think a little background is
in order. Bullwear's mature perspective didn't just come out of nowhere.
His father was a doctor, his mother's stressed academics. Growing
up in Columbia, South Carolina, he was one of four kids,
all great athletes who went on to accomplish big things.
(11:11):
But they were taught from the outset that sports should
not be and would not be, the only egg in
their baskets. They got the message. Peter's older brother was
a high school and college football star who played on
a national championship team at Georgia Tech. He became an engineer.
Peter's sister was a state track champion who went to
(11:32):
Notre Dame on an athletic scholarship. She followed her father's
lead and became a doctor. My dad and my mom
were great parents. They were great role models. And you know,
I get an opportunity to speak to kids all around
the country, and typically when you hear athletes speaking, it's
how they overcame at versity or at bab overcome some
(11:52):
type of tough homewife. Mine is the exact opposite. Mine's
a story of great mom, great dad, stable how hold,
and just a standard being set in my home that
I wanted to try to get to. Peter was a
top recruit who went to Florida State when the Seminoles
were on top of the college football world, but he
(12:13):
always had his eyes on the world beyond the game.
The statistics for kids making it to the NFL are
so low, and so even when I got recruited, in
my backup around, I was like, I'm not going to
the NFL. This is just not going to happen. Very
few people get drafted. So for really, I going to
Florida States thinking I've got to get a degree. I've
got to eat a job when I get out. We
had the number one recruiting class in the nation. We
(12:35):
won a national championship. I came into a class of
superstar football players and I was like, look, I was
going to get my degree, and that was kind of
my mentalities. He did get that degree, but his football
prospects soared and he turned pro after his junior year
and became an immediate difference maker for the Ravens. He
was in his twenties a famous NFL sackmaster. Plenty of
(12:57):
you guys have made a lot of hay with that
developed signal. Your sack dances taken on a cartoonish persona,
but that was not in Peter Bullware's DNA. I would
say my parents could be grounded our faith, our Christianity
just relying on hubility. That's one thing my dad and
my mom taught me. Everything you do, be humble, be thankful,
(13:18):
be grateful for everything that you have. At any moment,
anything can be taken away, or never taking things for granted.
It was a sudden that it was always drilled into
all of us. Work extremely hard, nothing's going to be
given to you. We took that approach to everything that
we did, especially as sports. No surprise, at the peak
(13:39):
of his football career, he was already deep into his
preparations for when he no longer played. Around the time
the Ravens won their first Super Bowl, he and a
friend invested in a BMW dealership in Tallahassee, and the
offseason Bullwar went home and immersed himself in the business.
After a few years, he sold it and bought a
Toyota dealership. When his career ended to the effects of
(14:01):
several injuries. He settled in Tallahassee with his wife and
became a businessman and family man. Soon enough, there were
five kids in the house. But even though he had
his life in order, Peter struggled to adapt to life
without football. It's quite the cautionary tale. This is a
(14:21):
guy who had his act together still wasn't just transmitted.
It's really tough. I had a pretty good plan in place.
It wasn't like football in it for me, and I
just you know, I didn't know what I was going
to do. I had a plan in place. I thought
I was pretty well grounded. Nothing can prepare you for
(14:41):
when you retire from your sport. It's super hard. It's
something that you've done your whole life, and it's something
that you've been really really good act. And then at
the age of thirty one, two three four, because of
injury or whatever, you're out and you're forced to go
into a different career or go into something different. No
(15:02):
longer can you get up and play on Sunday and
has sixty seventy thousand people charing for you. No longer
are you going to Pro Bowls or going to Super Bowls.
If you're into the workforce. You're getting up at eight
and work and you're coming home at five, six o'clock.
It is a shock, even if you're ready, even if
you have a plan in place, it's a emotional and
(15:23):
a mental thing that you just have to get through.
So it took me a couple of years to work
through that. I wasn't depressed, you know, I didn't do
anything crazy, but it was just an incredibly tough transition.
After a year, so I was able to work my
way through it and get, you know, mistily refocused on
what else God had me to go into. If you
(15:44):
don't have a planning, or if you don't have finance
to say, man, that it can just be absolutely devastating.
Fortunately for Peter, money wasn't a concern. But wasn't there
more to life than just owning a business? As a
man of great faith, he assumed there was A friend
mentioned the possibility of his running for elected office. His
initial reaction was are you kidding? But he decided to
(16:07):
try running for a seat in the Florida House of
Representatives as a Republican in a district that leansblew. He
won the primary, but lost the general election by four
hundred votes. So what approached me about the opportunity We
play football, you do a lot of community service were
and someone approached me with an opportunity, you can serve
our community, you can referral this year. I wasn't looking
(16:28):
for that position. It was more of something somebody came
to me and they're like, look, this is a good
opportunity for you to serve. And I was like, you
know what, Heck, I'll give it a shot. I didn't
know what I was doing, really, but I knew I
wanted to try to get involved. Maybe nailed out. It
was a great experience for me, learned a lot. Losing
the election was disappointing, but the experience eventually impacted him
(16:51):
in a way he never could have foreseen. The governor
of Florida liked what he said on the stump and
appointed him to the state Board of Education. He spent
a year learning the intricacies of the education sector, along
with its politics and challenges. Around the same time, he
and his wife were wondering how to educate their own kids.
My wife, she was kind of homeschooling at first. We
(17:13):
were trying to figure out where do we want to
do with our kids? Public school, private, school. So we
just kind of start looking around an option. Obviously, we're
Christians and our faces important us and we just couldn't
really find what we were really looking for. And so
we went and visited a private school in Jacksonville, and
we fell in love with that school. We're like, man,
this is an awesome school here. The problem is it's
(17:35):
in Jacksonville. That's two and a half hours away. The
people at the school in Jacksonville suggested that he start
a similar school in Tallahassee. I was like, yeah, whatever.
I didn't even think anything about it. But my wife
sulked it up the way home. She's like, what do
you think about starting the school? I was like, man,
no way possible. I'm an ex football player, I've got
a cart the others. It's a way I'm gonna start
(17:57):
at school. And she's like, well, just think and pray
about it, and so I did. After I did, I
just didn't think it about it. I just can't get
this off my mind. A long story. Stort iBOT, you
know what, I think we need to do this. I
think we need to take the leap of phase to
do this school that was a decade ago. Bullway had
no idea what he was doing, and no idea if
(18:19):
the idea would fly. He started off with twenty or
thirty elementary school age students. They kept coming back. Year
after year, more students came, Bullwear hired teachers, specialist, a headmaster.
This year, his school, the Community Leadership Academy, will celebrate
a decade in business. More than three hundred students who
(18:41):
are enrolled. It'll soon be a full fledged K through
twelfth school. It's been an absolute blast. If you'd have
told me after I retired from the NFL, you're going
to be running a private school out and told you
no way possible. But I've been doing it for ten years.
I love it. I love what we do with these kids.
I think we're making an impact on their lives. And
the school is grown and it's been really, really good,
(19:03):
despite the fact that I knew nothing about running a school.
Between the school, his Toyota dealership, and his wife and
their five children, he has a little time for contemplation.
His days are full, his to do lists long. He
isn't looking ahead to what he might do next, but
he's aware he's just forty four and his kids. Eventually
we'll be out of the house. I'm going to keep
(19:24):
doing it until something else comes up where I feel
like there's another opportunity. But for now, this is where
I'm supposed to be. With each passing year, his time
with the Ravens has less and less to do with
his life. Now. He seldom comes to Baltimore to gaze
at his name on the facade at M ANDT Bank Stadium.
He'll occasionally text with former teammates if he sees something
on Facebook, but he seldom sees them. Basically, he is
(19:47):
living out the guiding principle his parents reinforced years ago.
Sports should not be the only egg in your basket.
These days, sports really aren't even in his basket. It's
a story that more of today's players could stand to
here bullware beliefs, but he sees a little reason to
try to spread the word. I do feel like I
have something to offer, some wisdom and some advice that
(20:10):
I could give. Even when I played, there are guys
that came before me to have wisdom and advice when
it comes to the NFL. Now, I don't think there's
a lack of wisdom, advice, and good information out there.
When it's all said and done, are these guys gonna listen?
I was there. It's tough when you're on top of
the world. You're making millions of dollars step to hear
(20:32):
an old washtoop guy like me said, Hey, it's gonna
be over one day. Pair yourself, save your money, be wise.
For somebody reason, it's super hard for guys to hear that.
A lot of guys out there that do here, but
there's a majority of guys that kind of air whatever,
I'll be fine, or it's not gonna happen to me.
Or if guys messed up, I don't think it's because
(20:53):
of a lack of knowledge or a lack of resources
out there. You've got to be able to listen to
it and be able to hear it fl it to
your life, because again, if here, how good you are,
it will come to an end one day. And when
it comes to an end, I hope that you've prepared
well for it. That's it Episode two of What Happened
(21:19):
to That Guy? My Thanks to Peter Bullware for taking
the time to tell us his story. You can find
out more about him and his career at Baltimore Ravens
dot com, slash what Happened to that Guy? Another new
episode will drop in two weeks, and they'll keep coming
every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season.
If you like it, don't hesitate to leave a five
(21:41):
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. My hope is you'll start to see
and understand the extent of the impressive history the Ravens
have built since they kicked off in Baltimore in nineteen
ninety six. You probably know that they've won two Super
Bowls and a bunch of other games, gone to the
(22:03):
playoffs eleven times. But it's the people, the characters, not numbers,
that make a franchise's history come alive. And the Ravens
already have a former player roster of more than a
thousand guys. It's an amazing and diverse group that includes doctors, lawyers, coaches, educators, dentists, comedians, Yes, comedians.
(22:27):
It wasn't hard for me to find guys to feature
in the podcast. It was hard to decide which guys
to feature. I hope you keep listening to what Happened
to that Guy? I'm John Eisenberg,
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