NT Seth Payne: Part 2 | Where Are They Now?

Dieting goals, whispering in the locker room and anger on the road were all topics of discussion between former Texans defensive lineman Seth Payne and Drew Dougherty of Texans TV.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome in. This is Where are They Now?
And it's me with missus Drew Doherty with Seth Pain.
And you might be saying, wait, I've already heard Seth
Pain on where are They Now? Well, you're getting a
double dose. It's good to be with you, Seth. Hey,
it's good to be with you. I feel I'm a
little bit apprehensive because because you invited me back, and
I don't know if I if I said something like controversial,

(00:23):
then I need to clarify or something. Well, yeah, I
wanted to get your thoughts on current events at Yeah,
don't do that because we all agree about everything in
this world. So let's do that. But no, in the
last one I mentioned, Hey, we're talking with you is
like skipping a stone because there's a lot of stuff
that I wanted to ask but just couldn't get to
because we went forty five minutes. Yeah, and there's a

(00:43):
lot of other stuff that I wanted to ask. Your
time's valuable, My time is valuable. So we're not going
to get into all that other stuff either. What we're
gonna do is talk about stuff that got dredged up
from others after they heard our podcast. Oh really, Okay,
that's so this reactions like like I'm doing a Q

(01:04):
and A from the listeners. Almost. No, it's actually people
that I've worked with here that some are still here,
some are gone. But they're good friends of mine who
heard the podcast and they liked it. They're like, man,
that's good here and seth again like that because they
love hearing. Some of them don't live here anymore. So, yeah,
they hadn't heard from you, and they just rattle off
funny anecdotes about you from the past, from your playing

(01:25):
days and from your early retirement days. So first thing,
we're gonna start full, we're gonna get into that. But
camp is here. Yeah. I was talking about this with
John Harris earlier. It's it's remarkable seeing the Texans practice
on Friday, practice on Saturday, and then have Sunday off, right.
I mean, I'm sure you've talked about this on the air,

(01:46):
but does that just blow your mind because you guys
went what seventy eight straight days of two days? You
would go, Yeah, I know, it's not as much because
it's been a steady change in the right direction. I think,
like when I was a player, I've always felt that
training camp in football for whatever reason, just because the
tradition was for a long time way overblown like they did.

(02:10):
There was no other sport where they where they try
to weaken you as much as possible right before. And
it's because football coaches forever have like they've wanted to
pretend that their World War Two generals and they felt like,
we need to give them the basic training experience and
so we can send them over to Ewo Jima or something.
And it's dumb. It's it was dumb forever. It was Okay,

(02:30):
well we're gonna we're gonna dehydrate him and wear him
down for six weeks right before the actual game starts.
So I'm I'm totally cool with things being easier than
they used to because I think it's smarter, and especially nowadays,
where you know, it's been a long time since guys
were working normal jobs in the offseason. Right back in
the day, they used to have to go. They used
to go work as a meat distributor or something. Careful,

(02:53):
don't get into jj Reddick territory, right, oh he he uh.
He basically called NBA guys from like the fifties and
sixties in seventies, when Jerry west was sorry. He called
him plumbers and he denigrated the quality play. Oh really,
and Jerry west Clapp did he really see it? No,
I wouldn't denigrate like this. I don't think it affected

(03:13):
their quality of play. But I don't think that they
were in football shape in the off season. Sure, you
can shovel like like with physical labor, like I learned
this on the farm. You can work really really hard
doing physical labor for twelve hours a day, but then
it's not the same thing as being in football shape.
Exactly Likewise, being in football shape, you can go right
out of being in the best shape of your life.

(03:33):
Then you go and try to shovel twelve hours a
day and it doesn't work. So yeah, I think that
those guys, those guys weren't working out the same way
in the off season where nowadays they are, And if anything,
you just need to maintain their physical conditioning and then
get them mentally sharp. So I think they do it
the right way now. And I'm glad you brought up
for me because we touched on that in the first
Where Are They Now podcasts to go back and listen

(03:54):
if you haven't heard it and enjoy it. But camp
obviously different, and it's obviously not as long, and that's
I think a good thing for by and large. I mean,
there are perhaps some drawbacks. Maybe some guys like Kurt
Warner stories aren't going to happen because they don't get
the reps because they were the fifth RUA. But I
think by and large, you know, they get a little
bit of time off. And can you point to and

(04:17):
I'm not looking for examples, but don't you think some
of the stuff that you did in July and August
maybe might have worn you down a little bit in
December January. Yeah, oh totally. I think, I mean some
of the some of the injuries and just you know
that we used to have a strength coach here, Dan Riley,
who I've only heard wonderful things about him. Yeah, he
was awesome, and he was like it was funny because

(04:38):
he was one of the first strength coaches in the NFL.
He's actually one of the first strength coaches in college
football to be a full time strength coach at West
Point way back in the day. And he had a
very practical approach to it where he wanted to keep
guys as strong as possible at the end, he wanted
me to be as close to their full strength at
the end of the season as they were at the

(04:58):
beginning of the season, where I think a lot of
people kind of like the old school mentality was like, well,
you're just bound to atrophy along the way because this
is a man's game and we wear you down. So
it would start in training camp where you would you
would just get worn down. Mmember coach Kapers. Once I
disagreed with him on this, he brought up the Tour
de France, which goes on during training camp, as an

(05:20):
example of Hey, you know they say that by the
end of the Tour de France, after this grueling ordeal,
people are actually in better shape than when they began.
I'm like, yeah, but they're also they're not going right
out and doing another tour to France, like they're pretty
worn down too. So just what I felt like he
was trying to argue that we should like, it doesn't

(05:42):
matter how much we beat you up, because you could
just go right out and do the Tour de France afterwards,
whereas there's a there's more nuance to it than that.
So would your eyebrows just raise and you stay silent
when something like that comes up as a player. When
you just something you totally disagree with it, you just like,
oh yeah yeah, because stone face, you don't even make
them make them. It's the old soldier's prayer, where like

(06:02):
mine is not to reason why. Mine is just to
fight and die. See, I like to pretend not that
I'm the general, but I'm the actual, the actual soldier.
Rum I'm doing the same thing. Close for you to
West Point where where you grew up, was that I
was like five or six hours only no. I played
there once my freshman year at Cornell. We played like
our freshman It wasn't officially a JB squad or anything,

(06:24):
but like the freshman sophomores played each other. And those
are some pent up, angry dudes because they're not allowed
off base. They're freshman year, and they're all badasses. I
mean their Division one A football players who also haven't
been allowed to see anybody or anything in like four months.
And with reference to Dan Riley starting out at West Point,
which I didn't know, that had to be a challenge
in and of itself as a strength coach, because those

(06:45):
guys are going through all that physical activity, you know,
like that that's a as far as like push ups, yeah, basic,
not basic, but like whatever the PT the physical training
and cleab summer that the Navy anyways, and they've got
known and they've got they've got duties as cadet or
as first year guys and an upper classmen or messing
with him. Yeah, it's tough. I had a friend that

(07:05):
I had a friend that was at Air Force Academy
and he said his freshman year, like, after all of that,
like he said, he lost a bunch of weight, and
he's like, I was incredible shape, and I could go
all day getting my ass beat. It was like I
could get my He's like, I could get my ass
beat up and down the field all day long and
never get tired. But I was getting killed. Different type

(07:26):
of football shape versus getting your ass. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
All right, let's move into this that I teased. But
I had a friend say he laughed out loud when
he heard your I don't know when you said this,
but your goal for dieting, and I'm paraphrasing this is
I want to get to the point where if someone

(07:46):
saw me eating in my car, I would not be embarrassed. Yeah,
I don't remember when I said that, I didn't say
it in the podcast. I can't remember what. I think
I said that at a public speaking appearance or something,
or maybe at it in the rate. Yeah, it's uh,
you know if you're you know when you see when
you see a fat person eating in the car, they're like,
oh many where if you see somebody who's fit, like

(08:09):
some of these guys I know that run triathlons and everything,
you see them eat in the car and you're like, oh, yeah,
they're refueling, he gets a pass. Yeah, Like I just
want to see it. Like it doesn't really, it doesn't
register where. Yeah, It's like if you see somebody that's
coughing and smoking a cigarette. Oh boy. So like I
don't want to be. I don't want to be somebody
somebody takes pity on when they see me eating in

(08:30):
the car. I feel like I'm right there at the brink.
I like somebody if they saw me, it would all
be a matter of like how tidy I was being
with the eating. It looked like I was devouring it.
Then they might they might question you, do you eat
much in your car? No, that's actually that's one of
the best health tips I stumbled into, which was my
wife convinced me one time when we got a new car, like, hey, seth, oh,

(08:51):
why don't we try maybe not eating in the car
so much? And in that tone of voice was sarcastic
or pascific. She disguises her passive aggressiveness very well. She's
genuinely being helpful, but shells like she'll tease me and
she'll like, yeah, you know, maybe maybe if you weren't
eating a car three times a day, you'd keep it
cleaner and nicer. So I did, and it does. It

(09:13):
is amazing, Like with that little bit of discipline, like
that one rule, then all of a sudden, you don't
catch yourself on road. You know, like on road trips,
if you buy like three bags of something, you're gonna
eat all three bags. Whereas if you're on a road
trip and you stop to eat, it's the opposite. You're like,
I gotta get back on the road. Yeah. So you
you buy a couple of snacks, you eat them, and
then you get moving. So what are your what are

(09:34):
your road trips snacks? Because for me, yeah, sunflower seeds
a bottle like a regular bottle of diet doctor pepper
and a cup so I can spit the sunflower seeds
into the cup. Yeah, that's prov that's a good idea too,
because that keeps you awake like that. Yeah, that's why.
That's why. Yeah, yeah, because I get I get drowsy. Yeah,

(09:56):
you know that little bit of that task. I just
it is a test. It discovered this physical tests. I'm
laughing because I discovered the same thing. But about Starburst, Okay, yes,
it's a little a little to the trick of unwrapping
it and everything while not looking. That keeps you awake again,
not so healthy because you're gonna eat two of the

(10:18):
full sized sticks of Starburst that you get at the
gas station. It used to be it used to be Starburst,
so it's Starburst. Get what it would drink? Is I
usually I'm trying to if I if I let myself go,
it's some kind of energy drink. Like that's the only
time I'll drink a Red Bull or something like that
is when I'm driving. Those are toxic, like you got
to you gotta flush it out with a gallon of water.

(10:38):
If it does, it tastes wrong. Yeah, it's like when
you're a kid and you're doing something you know, it's wrong.
You like, I don't even enjoy this. Yeah, Like I
feel like I feel like whatever whatever sense of morality
I have, this is what it feels like. That's what
I feel like when I'm drinking an energy drink. Oh
you speaking of Starburst, it made me think of this.
You've got you've got children, you have a daughter. Yeah.

(10:59):
I don't know how much you were involved ever with
drop off or going to birthday parties or anything, but
when I had to drop off some of my children
at preschool in the morning, you have to give them
a like a breakfast snackcause you'd feed eating break but
then they had a snack there. But it also involved
many times a Caprice sun pack. And my theory is

(11:20):
there are a few things more embarrassing or potentially embarrassing
than trying to open one of those, yeah, in front
of other people. Yeah, because it's like sometimes it just
doesn't work. It's like disarming a bottle into that. I
think anything that involves manual dexterity in front of people,
teeny tiny little straw, yeah, it's it's potentially embarrassing. That's no,

(11:41):
And I get yeah, I can totally empathize with that.
I think you get a certain frantic part about you
where you don't want to don't want to be looked
at as a quitter either, right, and you're so like, wait,
you're saying, do I just quit on this thing or
do I go you know where? I'm like that, um
and COVID. COVID made this difficult. COVID magnified a lot
of things. Covid. I'm making this motion, the listeners can't

(12:03):
what do you think I'm doing. It's a downward and
it's like Johnny Manzell's money thing, but you're pointing down now.
Imagine I'm in a grocery store. What is the produce bag?
Oh yeah, trying to open the produce bag in a
grocery store without licking your fingers, which well they're just
trying to get it open. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, that's
a totally that's in the same category for sure, for sure,

(12:24):
and a lot of times there on too. I'm glad.
I don't want to I don't want to look like
a quitter, but I really honestly might just walk out
right now because I can't get this thing open. Listeners,
if you have a potentially embarrassing thing in public, that
doesn't seem embarrassing like Seth Pain and I have just
embarrassing tweet at us. So let us know. Okay, moving on,
all right. So that's one thing that someone brought up. Okay,
another thing. There was a gentleman who used to work here.

(12:47):
He was very very high up in the organization. Brilliant man,
very powerful, very knowledgeable. Wise mister Burgear. Oh yeah, Philip Burge. Yeah.
He said one time at a public event about you
that he was so impressed with how hard a worker
you were because you were here in the weight room

(13:08):
working out on Christmas Day and everybody gave big round
of applause, and then you got up and I think
you popped the balloon by saying I was just there
because my in laws were incounter and I want to
get away from it. It was the day after Christmas.
I think you were just going for the big joke
and big laughing. Yeah, you know what, my that's actually
one that my wife was upset with me about, not

(13:29):
because not because it was a slight against her in laws,
but because she pointed out I think accurately. So that
was a little bit like it was. It was a
little bit of a taking away credit for something that
I was doing. I was actually just working out there,
um and b that It's a little bit like mister
brig Garrett could have looked at that as a little

(13:50):
bit of a slight you know, that I kind of
that I took the air out of his story, or
that I probably valued the story. I think he probably
appreciated that, because I've I saw him take the air
out of other stories, which which I appreciated. I'd like
when I saw mister brighear talk. I'll tell you a
story about mister brighere, who's really I liked him a
lot because he was one of the minority owners. But

(14:11):
he was around, you know, and I think I think
Bob McNair must have looked at him as a as
a friend and maybe an advisor, you know, kind of yeah,
that's that's that might be the right the right way
to say it. So he had duty's above and beyond
what a lot of the minority owners have. But he
passed away I think maybe two thousand. Um, well, I'm sorry,

(14:31):
his wife passed away uma back in two thousand and
four or two thousand and five or so, and and
his son at the time might have been a young
college student. I think he was right out of college. Yeah,
and uh, I went to missus Brighear's funeral and and
and their son got up and delivered the eulogy and
just did an incredible job. And I remember just thinking,

(14:54):
my God, like, I look, if if I'm ever in
a situation like that, I hope I can. He did
such a great blend of maintaining his composure while also
truly speaking from the heart and kind of like divulging
a little secret that he had that he and his
mom had kept from mister Bregre. And it was really
just it was it was one of the more moving

(15:15):
things I've ever seen I get in a very difficult
moment in his life for a young man. Yeah, the
same way when I see people pull off eulogy just
because the one time I did, I blubbered through. I
mean just that's good though, too. Snoting through it that
gets people crying. It's a it's a natural reaction. You
just you see the person break down, and then you
start breaking down. That's all it takes. Naturally. You didn't

(15:35):
fake crying. Yeah, it was like looking up at the crowd,
is your tell me, do you remember or what are
some of your nicknames that you've been given? Or somebody
hit me with this the other day because I saw
a friend of mine from college and I had completely
forgotten about it. It was gorilla because I was just
a big angry climate. Yeah, it was. I think they

(15:58):
gave it to me after some they saw me do something.
I think I's actually like climbed up a balcony or
something and they said, that just looks like a big, big,
big gorilla there smart to climb up balconies all yeah, right, yeah,
opposable thumbs. I had pretty much. I ticked off a
lot of boxes the stuff we did in our younger day.
Did you did you get some did somebody bring some up? Well?
One was you. You were on the message boards of

(16:21):
Texans message boards. But you're still around, but not as
much anymore because social media has kind of taken their
the inflictor of pain. I like that one. Yeah, that's
a good one. If I ever saw that, I wonder
if that was just somebody they this isn't again one
of the guys I used to work here, really, oh,
because I guess he dealt with message boards and he
loved that. Oh okay, yeah, it was. It was an

(16:41):
endearing Yeah, yeah, it was an endearing nickname for you.
That was um. When I was in high school, my
friends called me Cliffy because like Cliff Claven from Cheers,
I knew. I knew a bunch of like a lot
of random, nonsensical facts about just not even not even
really trivia, just stuff that shouldn't even be trivia, just
stupid stuff that I read about. I have. I have

(17:03):
an ability to retain things that don't matter to anybody
at all. One of the all time great TV characters,
and that was on Cheers, and then he's got the
second act. I guess as an entertainer. He's the voice
on a character I know in toy Story, and then
in another one too, he's a he's in another cartoon
animated feature. I should have done my research. But anyways,

(17:24):
it's kind of ironic that I John Ratzenberger. Okay, good,
I'm glad you're gonna say that, because I say it
was pretty ironic that I can't remember the name of
that guy that knows all the stupid stuff. Yeah, well
that's an actually important thing. His last name, so it is. Okay,
have you ever been angrier football wise? Than you were

(17:44):
in two thousand and five at Seattle. Oh yeah, that's good.
A lot of people could have told this story because
that was when we got throttled by Seattle on national television.
Was it a Sunday night or a Thursday night game?
It was I'm not sure about that, but I Sean Alexander,
I think had a pretty big day. It was bad.

(18:06):
It was really bad. It was really really bad. And
there was a guy. There was a guy in Seattle
who stood, a Seattle fan who stood at the tunnel
where we entered and left, and he's really really loud
beforehand when we're going out for introductions. He was really
really loud at the half, and like by the end,
by the halftime, it was already that game was over,

(18:27):
if I remember correctly, pretty much, and then when we
came back out at halftime, he was just wouldn't shut up.
And the game keeps going. Everybody leaves. By the fourth quarter,
it's empty and not this guy. Yeah, by the end
of the game, I'm walking out and just the guy's
there and he's like just piling on about how much
we sucking everything, and I just snapped because I'm just

(18:49):
that's enough. This is cruel. At this point, I was
so pissed and I challenged him to come down and
fight me. You refused, So yeah, thank god, they really
thank god. Um, And then I went into the locker room.
I was like a first guy in the locker room
and it's the only time in my life I've ever
done this. But it was just such a frustrating feeling.

(19:09):
It was. Honestly, it was so humiliating that I I
think I picked up a laundry cart and threw it
into a bank of lockers and broke a bunch of
broke a bunch of locker partitions and everything. It was really, uh,
it was really like embarrassing in hindsight, although it was
genuinely angry, and I don't think that many people saw it. Um.

(19:29):
And the and the one thing Jamie Sharper, who Jamie Sharper,
who was like a really bright guy. He and I
were talking about it later and he's like, yeah, but
you know, when you do that stuff, you're really just
you're just wanting everybody else to see how angry you are,
Like you just want trying to show everybody how much
you care. And yeah, if you're mean an honest for yourself. Yeah.
Like usually most people when they throw tantrums, whether it's
John mckenry or anybody else, it's really not for yourself.

(19:52):
It's like, like I want everybody else to know that
I'm upset that I suck. Also, yeah, like I know
you think I sucked, but I want you to know that,
and I also think I suck. Yeah, and I'm angry
about Yeah, I'm angry about it because I care. It's
funny you bring that up, because you know, we've seen here,
We've seen all around the NFL over the years, folks

(20:13):
interact with other coaches, players interact with fans in a
bad way, and they go at it and it's it
usually doesn't end well. So in my former life, in
between two thousand and two thousand and four, I was
a producer at a TV station up in Dallas. They
kind of it was kind of like a precursor to
the CSN Houston, except it covered the state and so
we dealt with the Texans, with the Astros San Antonio Spurs,

(20:36):
as well as all the Dallas teams. And one of
the things we did we had a weekly TV show
at a Hooters on Tuesday nights with Randy White, NFL
Hall of Famer, played on the interior defensive line, one
of the greatest defensive lineman ever. And he told a
story about how when they were at RFK back in
the early eighties, maybe even the late seventies. He said
he was walking into the state, walking into the stands.

(20:59):
I don't know if they last or if they'd won,
but they're walking in the tunnel and some fan challenged
him to a fight, and he said he was about
to go in, and Charlie about to go into the
stands and just heard about going to the locker room
and just and not do it. And either he said
it or Charlie Waters said, effort, let's go. And then

(21:21):
he said they went in and they hit everything that moved. Really,
he said they had their helmets on. Yeah, And Randy
White was like a black belt. He's just killers. Aside
from being a monster. He used handwork drills, yeah, he knew,
he knew karate. He taught Leroy Glover contemporary of yours. Yeah,
a lot of handwork drills. Yeah. Yeah. But he said,
Charlie Waters and I went into the stands and we

(21:43):
hit every single thing that moved, And I don't know
how that nothing ever came of that. They just you
know what, Okay, people were less litigious, yep. And there
weren't cameras everywhere, ye, so including like the television cameras
were they weren't running as I mean that might even
back when they were using an actual film probably only
run the cameras so much without wasting money. Can you

(22:03):
imagine that though? If that happened today and you see
say Aaron Donald, because I mean they're kind of s
or JJ Watt just going to the stands with a
pretty good waters was a good safety and they just
hit everything that moved, those guys would be they'd be
playing for free for like the next three years. It
would be Yeah, the Adam Sandler movie, whatever, the football movie. Okay.
So along those lines, back when I was at TXCN,

(22:25):
we would get all the raw locker room footage from
you guys, like the interviews and back in those days,
so I'd started in two thousand and we kind of
covered the run up to the Texans beginning and then
you guys get there. You were along with David Carr,
Kylie Wong, Gary Walker, you guys were sort of the
go to guys media wise, it would seem like we

(22:48):
always got sound from you all. It'd be at least once,
you know, like a Wednesday or whatever. Yeah, and I
noticed with you back then. I didn't know you, they
didn't know much about you, but I noticed it almost
was like you were whispering when your answered questions. Was
it Was it because like you didn't want to talk
to really draw too much attention, or am I man no, no, no, no, no,
that's that's like an early impressionive. No, that's probably right.

(23:09):
That's interesting because now I'm the opposite. I shout all
the time. He was awest. It was always like you're whispering,
but it's always like, wow, that's that's kind of deep.
That doesn't really sound like the normal. Yeah, football players
normally say it was very informative. I think part of
it is because I know I have a loud voice,
and in a locker room environment, I didn't want to
bleed over into other stuff. So like if I'm at

(23:30):
a restaurant, Yeah, if I'm at a restaurant or apparently
being interviewed in a locker room, in a crowded locker room,
I do end up being the exact opposite because I'm
trying to be conscious of the fact that I don't
want to be. I don't want to be using my
radio voice and annoying people or divulging my secrets. Are
there a few things restaurant wise, worse than when you
get seated at one of those one side's of booth,

(23:53):
the other side's a table, when all the tables are
pretty much connected, you're next to strangers. Yeah, there's people
that are totally one hundred percent eaves dropping, even because
they want to, but they can, yeah, because approximity. Yeah.
And then I'm but I don't mind as much sometimes
I kind of that's a that's the trouble of being
in this profession, and my wife can sense it sometimes.
Then I started almost like I started almost performing. You know,

(24:16):
I might as well entertain these people while we're here.
Maybe they'll tip me on their way out. Oh man,
uh okay. Final thing, there's a guy who you know,
John Schriever. He's phenomenal in charge of ticketing. I guess
you came in when his daughter was in kindergarten, her
first grade, So this is back in the odds when
you're a player. Yeah, And he was in here on
a Saturday at the office, brought his daughter to work

(24:40):
to hang out. Well, you know, and you've evidently popped
your head in and said hello, and you're a nice
tour and he thought, hey, that's pretty cool. And when
you left, really oh and that he said, isn't that
nice to his daughter? And she's like non. Plus she
just goes, there's a seth in my class. And now
she works she works for the Texans. Now I saw her. Yeah,
she didn't tell me that story that she was unimpressed.

(25:02):
I'm gonna I'm gonna snubber the next time I see
pretty good stuff. Yeah, okay, let's wrap this up be quick. Uh.
I wouldn't change a thing if I could go back
and do it again. Does that chap you when you
hear people say that, because I'd go back and I'd
change a lot of Oh, I'm not a I'm a
you know, you're you're kind of disappointed you didn't make it.
You know, you know you can't go back to it.

(25:23):
But yeah, um yeah yeah, because when then you have
the whole butterfly effect, you know, like, how's it gonna
change me? Now? Um? But you think about that when
I do think if there's one nothing you would change.
If there's one thing I would do and if I
were if I were to like give advice to people, UM,
I would say I wish I had been bolder in
terms of UM believing what I could do. UM and

(25:49):
sometimes in the face of maybe other people's advice, UM,
I wish I would have been bolder. Like I honestly
like guys like J. J. Watt and others that UM
very openly talk about how they want to be great
and you know what they think of themselves as a player,
not in a boastful way, but just almost in a
matter of fact, like this is what I believe about. Yeah,

(26:09):
And you know, I was raising a family where you're
you know, very you're you're discouraged to be pretty modest
about a lot of things. So UM, like I'm not.
I think I can see where my upbringing. I'm not
blaming anybody for anything. I think it's I was taught
to be very polite. UM. And the mistake I made
was mistaking sometimes uh, confidence for impoliteness, or at least

(26:31):
talking about it. Because I think that I heard somebody
talking about this the other day that sometimes you know,
as much as especially intelligent people want to believe that
their intelligence is going to serve them. Well, boldness might
be way more important. There's there's plenty of there's plenty
of dumb bold people who are very successful in history
has proven that time of time again, it's right now. Yeah.

(26:53):
So I had a coach, Frank Gant Senior, who was
one of the all time best speech givers and in
terms of pep talks and locker room lessons and all
that stuff. And one of his quotes, he had a
lot of different quotes about boldness. I think it was
the faint heart never won the fair lady. Things like that.

(27:15):
He would he would say a lot, yeah, you know
the other old quote, which is what love like you
never been hurt, worked like he got no money, and
dance like nobody's watching. Yeah, that kind of stuff. And
he's actually a first guy. I came across him in
my fifth year in the NFL and he kind of
worked one on one with me a little bit because
he wanted to use me in special teams more than
I had been. And he was the first guy that

(27:36):
ever really started pumping me full of good stuff like that,
like really, you know, believing that I was more than
what maybe I was pigeoned holed as as a player,
and I was lucky enough to have a couple of
guys like him and sports psychologists and elsewhere that by
the time I got here, I was I was a
better player, just simply buy a change in mindset for

(28:00):
a few years before I started getting injured. How public
was he about pumping you up? Was it just like
was he pulling you aside and telling you this close?
Was he saying it kind of in a not like
big setting, but a group setting where you're hearing it?
Was it both? How because um, I mean, I'm I
coach kids now yea through baseball and I I it's
interesting seeing that dynamic of not shaming but shaming, praising

(28:24):
in public, pulling him aside one on one. How do
they absorb it? Because everybody's different. He was very much
like he'd be very loud in both praise and criticism.
But he did he did two things really really well. Um,
and I really learned a lot of lessons from him.
And he passed away a few years ago. Um, but yeah,
I learned a lot of lessons about dealing with other people.
One was that he would always stress that he was

(28:45):
not attacking the person or criticizing the person, he's criticizing
the problem effort in the yeah, like, hey, you and
I have the same Well, you and I have the
same problem. It's you know that on this play, the
the L four run kickoff needs to do this and
it's not getting done. So you and I, you happen
to bebl four. You and I have the same problem,
so we got to fix this. So I'm not attacking you,
I'm attacking this problem. But the other would be that

(29:08):
he would be very vocal in his criticisms, but he
would also be very very vocal, almost doubly so when
you fix the problem. So there was always that perpetual
carrot on a stick, and he was a guy that
you wanted his approval. So it was like, man, when
he criticized you, You're like, you wanted to fix it,
but you also knew that once you did fix it,
he was going to be more excited for you than

(29:29):
you were for himself. So he was public, but he
also some of the stuff I'm talking about was when
I was working in the offseason just on stuff one
on one that so that stuff was kind of private
and kind of you know, getting me to believe in
myself more, and a lot of the stuff he taught
me about special teams ended up making me a better
player on defense, just in terms of tackling and all

(29:52):
those things. Yeah, you're a wrestler, right, Yeah, we're to
wrap this up with the wrestling stuff. So we were
talking last week with Justin mccraie. Plays on the offensive
line here, and he was one of about six or
seven guys who came into the team last year on
both sides of the line really, who had extensive, decorated
high school wrestling backgrounds. Yeah, and you could throw him

(30:16):
in there with Malie Collins, with Justin Britt on the
offensive Lineez. There's a few others that I'm leaving out.
Every single one of them, if you talk to them,
believes they could beat the other guy. I was state champion,
Dada da da. That guy has no chance yea, every
single one last week. I mean from state to state too.
Some states have more respect McRae. Guy. Okay, so Florida

(30:42):
doesn't have as much respect to say some of the
Midwestern states when it comes to wrestling. Right, what was
your background there? I was I okay, so I wrestled
all the way you know, from second grade up through
high school, my brother was a really really good wrestler.
Um and what side was he ultimately? Like he was
when he was wrestling at he was a smaller guy,

(31:04):
but he was also a late bloomer. He had like
he was like way premature with a fall birthday, so
he was basically like he was a year ahead of
where he should have been. So he was undersized ultimately,
though he would end up wrestling both one seventy seven
and heavyweight in college. Wow. Yeah, because he when he
got to college, he still wasn't that big of a guy,

(31:24):
but he's still growing, so he was sucking wait, sucking wait,
sucking waight and just emaciated when he was one seventy seven,
And he ended up being an All American in college
at Clarion, which is a Division one wrestling school. There's
much schools up in Pennsylvania. Their Division one for wrestling
because they're so good. Yeah, their Division two for everything else.
So my brother was very good at it. My after
my sophomore year of high school wrestling, I was the opposite,

(31:47):
Like I was this big, tall, lanky, stork looking kid
who was always kind of okay at wrestling, but I
just wasn't as strong as my brother. So I was
all right. Um, but I started getting really good towards
the end of my soft More year. But I was
going into a year, my junior year more I was
gonna be I was basically gonna have to be JV
because there was this kid, Casey Lamb, who was one
of the best guys in the state at two fifteen.

(32:11):
Yeah it was two fifteen at the time, um, and
and like there was just no way I was gonna
beat him, like like for everything I just said about,
you know, positive affirmations and everything, like Casey was a
full grown man. Yeah, I was like still like not
even fully through puberty, you know. Like, so he was
gonna I wasn't gonna beat him. So I was gonna
have to go to JV. UM. So I said, you know,
and I'm just not gonna wrestle. I'm gonna focus on

(32:32):
just trying to get bigger for football and everything. And
I remember coach Mandara, who who I love and he's
still my friend to this date, but he gave me awful,
awful advice because he said, Seth, it sound like you're
gonna go pro or something. Like I think about where
you're throwing away laugh every time, and you know we did.
We laugh about it now. He's like, oh gosh, I
gave you some bad advice. I was it was the

(32:52):
right advice. It just wasn't ultimately ninety nine times out
of one hundred that would have been the right advice. Sure, yeah, yeah, No.
I just love that little dynamic of these these guys
all and they've all stuck. You know, I don't think
any of the wrestlers it signed last year gone, yeah,
it's well, I think it is. I think there's a
little something. You know, I have great respect for the

(33:14):
sport of wrestling and people who wrestle because it is
it's a grueling of all the high school sports. Just
the preparation alone. Yeah, you don't even go to a meet,
just like getting ready for them. Yeah, I saw a
vision quest, so I mean, yeah, exactly noticeable because you
add to it that a lot of guys are dieting
while they're doing it, so it's you're it's the most
physically taxing of all the high school sports. Really, any

(33:37):
kind of Marshall sport just ends up being that much
more grueling, and and you're doing it well, dieting and
not to mention a lot of them unfortunately or dieting well,
they're also like going they're going through puberty, their home
roones are all screwed up, their body's trying to grow.
So it's a it's a lot of hardship. Um but

(33:58):
having for all of it at I think that guys
who wrestled tend to have I think maybe it's the
closest you can find out to where you used to
want to try to grab guys off the farm because
they tended to have a certain work ethic about them,
in a certain character to them. Um So now yeah,
I always whenever I find out a guy wrestled and
was like and cared about wrestling, I always kind of
keep an eye out and for him. And they tend

(34:19):
to be those types of guys like they're just um,
I don't want to say badasses, but they they're scrappy.
They just they're gonna fight, they're gonna play hard all
the time. No, nobody in the NFL really at their
core lacks confidence, but those guys especially, they do not
lack confidence. It's funny to see. It's really cool to see.
All Right, On that note, you gotta wrap things up.
This is This has been over thirty minutes. It's been fun.

(34:41):
Appreciate you taking time to come in. Let's do it
against something. Yeah no, this is awesome. They do it
as often as you want. Man within reason, the Great
Seth Payne. This has been aware. Are they now