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May 31, 2023 44 mins
Seahawks Legends Doug Baldwin and Ray Roberts sit down to discuss stigmas about mental health in athletes, life after football, fatherhood, and more.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Big Raised Garage Grind. I want to
bring awareness and my voice to something that's meaningful and purposeful,
more than just who's the best football player, who's the
best football team? The intersection between life, football and mental health.
When you need help and you ask for help, you're
operating from a position of power. When you need help

(00:21):
and you don't ask for help, that's the weakness. Now
here's your host, Seahawks legend Ray Roberts. What up, fam,
and welcome to Big Raise Garage Grind Mental Health Edition.
This is intended to be a conversation with my guests
about our thoughts and experiences with our mental health journeys.
We are still in the month of May, which is

(00:41):
Mental Health Awareness Month, and we are excited to be
joined by one of my all time favorite Seahawks and
one of the old time Seahawks on and off the field.
He's a Stanford graduate, signed with as an undrafted receiver
with the Seattle in twenty eleven, finished here in twenty eighteen,
fourth enfranchise histy and receiving yards third in franchise history

(01:02):
and receiving touchdowns, and led the league in touchdowns I
think with fourteen in twenty fifteen, right, and then two
time Pro bowler, Super Bowl Chance, super Bowl forty eight champion,
CEO of Vaults eighty nine Ventures, and CEO of Vin Trek.
Is that how you say that?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Trick?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Vin Trick and then also the founder of the Family
First Community Center in Renting. He's a proud father, husband
and brother, certainly not just a football player. And we'd
like to welcome mister Doug Baldwin to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I'm glad to be appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
No, it was you know, when NASA told me that
I was gonna have a chance to have you on
the show, it was pretty excited. I was excited because
you're You're a dude that I've watched a lot from Afar,
not just what you do on the field, but like
all the stuff that you've done off the field, and
just the way you think about UH. You know, how
you move, you know, through through the world. Really and honestly,

(01:52):
like one of the UH one of the words that
kind of came up to my mind today and I've
never been able to use it until now, thanks to you.
UH is meta cognition, and people usually don't it's a
it's an interesting word. But it's the it's the process
of thinking about what you're thinking. And uh. And to me,
that that is Doug Baldwin, like like you seem like

(02:14):
a dude that's very intentional and purposeful about how you
move and uh. And so I was like, man, like,
he embodies that word. I've never been able. It's an
s a T word. You know what I'm saying. It's
a good scrabble word if you can get enough letters.
And I was like, man, like, I'm gonna get a
chance to use this word, use this word with uh,
with Doug. But no, it's it's great to have you,
it's great to have here. And like I said in

(02:35):
the opener, uh, you know this is about our mental
health journeys. And so uh the next question I wanted
to ask you, and it's kind of a kind of
a fun thing. I don't I don't know exactly where
you might sit with it. But this whole idea around
angry Doug, Like, where did that come from? And what
is that all about?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Honestly, I don't know who who started that word. I mean,
you know, obviously got wind of it on social media,
but I think I think where it came from is
I'm an ultimate competitor, you know, And I say ultimate,
I would like to say, you know, if I'm boasting
and bragging about myself, I like the say I'm an
elite competitor. Right. It doesn't matter what it is. If

(03:13):
it's football, basketball, tennis, golf, which I haven't started yet
because I know I'm going to be consumed with it
when I do chess, checkers, it doesn't matter. I want
to win, you know. And people saw that I was
able to express that on the football field, but it
also came out a number of different ways. And yeah,
you could say you could look at my my demeanor

(03:34):
and my disposition on the football field, and you can
say he's angry. Really, what it was I was there
to win. I'm only I'm only here to win. I
don't care about anything else. I'm here to win. And yeah,
you know that sometimes came across angry when I felt
like we weren't all on the same page, were moving
in the same direction. But the end of the day,
it wasn't necessarily you know, angry, like negative angry to

(03:59):
that degree. I just think it was a passion for
trying to get a team of culture moving in a
direction so that we could be successful at winning.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I got you, And it's it's interesting because it'd be
for me. When I played, I fought a lot like
I was. I was angry, like you know, and fought
all the way through college, all the way through the
NFL and uh, but off the field, I was a
totally different dude, and people couldn't sometimes reconcile the difference.
And so for you were you were you? I know

(04:27):
you said you're competitive and checkers and you know at
our house we play ultimate.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Uh uh uh.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's a game monopoly, Like you can get physical because
you want to win. But how how did how did
that serve you off the field, Like it's that that
kind of focus angry if you want to call it mentality.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I mean it it serves me in the realms
where I'm able to be competitive, right where in business
now like that, I have found that outlet to be
one that's similar to football in the sense that I
can be competitive, right. Granted I don't have the daily
threat of physical violence, right, that's a big, key, huge key,

(05:09):
but I can still be competitive. So it does serve
me well in that realm. However, when it comes to
like you know my three daughters, Right, I'm so used
to physically imposing my will on another human being on
the football field. I can't do that. I can't force
my daughters to you know, I can't force them to
do anything really, to be honest with you, right, And

(05:32):
it's just my daughters are teaching me a lot about
the other side of that competitive nature, right, like being
competitive in a sense of how can I show more
patience and more kindness to my daughters? Right? How can
I compete at that? And so it's just a it's
just a mind shift. So I would say that that
that skill set, if you will, it has definitely been

(05:53):
a benefit from me post football career.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
So that's that's interesting that you said that, you know,
trying to just your approach to your daughters. But you've
been trained in this football arena to, like, like you said,
solve a lot of things, take care of a lot
of things physically. How hard of a mental flip was
that for you to do?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah? I think this is well documented now. But when
I retired in twenty nineteen, my first daughter, she was
born three days after I retired, and so I really
didn't have any time to mourn you know, retiring from
the NFL, I went right into fatherhood and you know,
a lot of people don't talk about this, and I'm
grateful that you are taking the time and talk about

(06:36):
mental health. Thank you, because I think, and we talked
about this before, there's a lot of stigma around mental
health and really understanding like how does that impact you
as a human being and how do you show up
for people around you? Right, And when my daughter was born,
what I didn't realize. I always knew that potentially sometimes
women have postpartum depression that they deal with. I didn't

(06:58):
know that it's very prevalent for men too, you know
that I became aware of that after the fact, and
I realized like I was going through some significant mental challenges,
both because I was retiring from the NFL. Right, I've
been playing football since I was six years old, so
it's all I knew. So not having that and then
having this new human being to take care of for

(07:23):
about eight months, I would say I was in a deep,
really deep depression. Had a whole bunch of counseling, Yeah,
got an amazing wife, got an amazing family and support
system around me. So I was able to come out
of that in a healthy way. I believe in a
healthy way. But yeah, it was it was really, really,
really and I can't understand that very challenging.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, well, that's that's news to me. I mean, I
had obviously heard. I have three kids on my own,
and so I've heard of the postpartum depression for women.
I had never heard of that for men. But that's
pretty thank you for sharing that. And then and then
as as it relates to that, what what types of
things were triggering, what was triggering the depression, and then

(08:02):
what was the what was the focus of the counseling
in that.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
So I, on the surface, I think what was triggering
was having a lack of control, right. You know, in
our world, in the football world, like we feel like
we can go out on the football field and control
the outcome. Right, throw me the ball. I'm gonna be open,
Throw me the ball, right, Whereas with kids and with
life outside of that world, it's not necessarily as straightforward.

(08:29):
It's not as black and white as you know, being
able to control getting open and catching the ball. Right.
If I drop a pass, I know exactly what I
have to go do in order to not drop that
pass again, right, but if my daughter's crying right at
two o'clock in the morning and I changed the diaper,
I feed her, I'm holding her and she's still crying,
I don't know what to do. I mean, yes, yes,

(08:52):
And so there's there's like there's that I don't even
know what to call it, but that it was that
challenge got so yeah, that specifically was you know, and
I got three daughters now, and so that that challenge
became easier as as I had more children, and I
would I would I'd like to think that my youngest

(09:14):
daughter now, she's a model citizen. She's she's nine months old,
model model citizen, just you know, goes to bed on time, like,
doesn't cry through the night, sleeps through the night. Just amazing.
And I you know, I like to think it's because
of all the lessons that my wife and I had
learned from the previous two children. You know it really
it's kind of like giving up that control right that

(09:37):
was really really hard for me.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, I mean, I think this is pretty amazing that
that you found your way to therapy around that, because
I think, like you said, what we were saying before,
most men probably wouldn't admit that Yeah, most athletes who
are super like you just said, you're an elite competitor,
Like we're competitors with ourselves sometimes like I'm not gonna
let this thing get me. I don't need someone's help.
I can like work my muscle my way through it.

(09:59):
And so the the idea that you went and got therapy,
what was the impetus to get you to the therapy?
Was it like your wife or was it like what
was that conversation?

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Like? Oh man, So there's obviously there's a whole bunch
of context here, but I'll try to give you the
cliff notes version of this. So when my wife and
I were engaged, you know, we had our struggles, right
as as I think most couples on this planet when
they make a determination to be together, Like, you know,
there's there's struggles. And I'm coming from the NFL, right

(10:31):
you think about a twenty one year old coming to
the NFL with a whole bunch of money, a whole
bunch of attention and success at early on, like, there's
this there's a lot of stuff that comes with that, right,
and challenges that you.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Have yourself a little bit.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, there's I don't want to call it
a God complex, but I that's pretty much what it is,
let's be honest, you know. Yeah, And so my wife
was like, you know, my she was my fiance at
the times. You're like, no, we need to go with counseling,
We need to go and you know, and I give
all the credit in the world because it wasn't from
a negative standpoint. It's just like, look, I want us

(11:02):
to be as healthy as we possibly can, not only
for us, you know, as a couple, but also if
we're planning on having children, we need to be better
human beings for our children, right. And so that was
impetus for me. I got to be a better human
being for my daughters from you know, I didn't know
I was gonna have three daughters at the time, but
for my children, right, And so she was a catalyst
for that. And you know, the initial part was we

(11:24):
went to go see a marriage specialist, right, So this
was before we got married, just to kind of get
everything kind of on some sturdy foundation, right. Uncovered a
lot of things through that and realized like, oh man,
there's there's a lot that I haven't even addressed with
myself right yet. And so through that then we found

(11:45):
individual counselors, and then we found another couple's counselor because
the one that we were seeing like that is you
kind of had to graduate from that course or that class,
if you will, and so and I still have those
counselors to this day, right. Uh. You know that's we've
been married. We'll have been married five years in July,

(12:05):
and I don't know where we would have been if
it wasn't for us seeking that counseling and you know,
personally me giving up that pride in that ego and saying,
you know what, No, there's there's some stuff here that
I need to deal with. And in order for me
to be the best father and the best husband, the
best man that I want to be, I need to
deal with this.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah. I think it's important too. The way you just
put that is the way you reference that the therapy
for marriage wasn't from a negative perspective, because a lot
of people think of mental health is this bad thing.
And I think of it as like if you're a Ferrari,
if you have a Ferrari and the all gizlo, you
take it in to get the all check and get
more oil in it. So it performs the way it's

(12:43):
supposed to perform. That's what we That's what we do
as people. That's what you guys did as a couple,
like you were trying to prepare your your your your
parenting and marriage Ferrari to be its best self exactly,
you know. And so I think sometimes when it comes
around to mental health, people think like, oh, man, that
means I'm crazy or like you know all this other stuff.
It's like, man, it's so much more than that. Like
it can it can help you not feel that way,

(13:06):
but it's also much more. It can be much more
of a positive thing in your life than a reaction
to something that you feel as negative.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, And I'd even put it in another way because
I was actually having this conversation recently with a colleague
of mine and we were just talking about he's going
through some struggles in his marriage, and I asked him
if he was, you know, if he was seeing a
counsel and he said, no, it's same thing, like counseling
means I'm weak right on one of the negative guys,
I don't. I don't look at it that way. And

(13:35):
because he's my colleague and business we were talking about
it and the lens the analogy of investment, right, It's
like you make an investment, right, You you put money,
you put a commitment in this investment. Aren't you willing
to do what's best for this investment to succeed? Right? Right,
So it's not necessarily like and even let's say the

(13:55):
investment was not going well, wouldn't you want to put
some resources around it so that you could help it
grow and stabilize and then scale. Right. So it's to me,
it's no different like you have a relationship you're investing
in somebody. You're investing in a relationship. To your point,
even if it was a ferrari, right, you got to
go make sure the ferrari is is running smoothly because

(14:16):
you don't want to get down the road and then
all of a sudden something happened because you weren't doing
the work that you were supposed to be doing on
the front end.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Exactly. Yeah, Yeah, And I think it's too. The other
thing that's important too, and especially speaking to the to
the marriage piece and then is that there are all
types of relationships we go into, whether it's just your
boys or your romantic one. We bring all our stuff
with us, and then sometimes we're responding in a way
that we don't understand why we're responding in that way.

(14:43):
And so being able to go to the you know,
the therapy or to have someone to talk to to
kind of dig down into those things to help uncovered.
It helps you just show up as a better person
all I mean better person, as your best self, you know,
all the way exactly your full self. That's a good
way to put it. And then thinking about that, we're
going to go backwards a little bit. But this is

(15:05):
the second interview. I interviewed Cliff April last week from Florida.
Great football player, somehow got out of the state of Florida.
And you're the same dude, like you like out of
the state of Florida, ended up in Stanford. Like how
did such a great athlete, I'm sure you played other
sports and just football, how did you get out of

(15:25):
Florida to Stanford? And then what was that transition like
being away from family and like you're kind of you know,
comfort zones and things like that.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, you said it. I mean, so long story short.
A family member of a scout, actually the father of
one of the scouts that worked at Stanford. He was
he worked at the Pensacola News Journal, and so he had,
you know, because he was working on the sports side
of things, he had watched a few of my games
and he told his son, Hey, you need to come

(15:53):
look at this kid. And so they did, and I
think it was during my spring game of my junior year,
and they offered me shortly after that, and so they
were the only D one school, D one A school
to recruit me. And you know, my mom was Stanford.
She wouldn't let me pass that up, right, so I
had to go. But yeah, that was that was a

(16:14):
really challenging time of my life as well, Like you said,
moving away, and you know, I'm super close to my mom,
my grandparents, my brother, he was five years old at
the time I left. So it was really really hard
for me to leave them, right because I was so
close to them. But I will say, even though it
was really challenging, even though it was a culture shock

(16:36):
coming from you know, the South, in a very conservative
part of Florida in the South, going out to California,
you know, had a whole bunch of challenges just adjusting
to that. It was probably one of the best decisions
I've ever made in my life.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Why would you say that?

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Because it really challenged everything about me. You know, it
challenged me getting, like you said, getting out of my
comfort zone, right, not living up under my mom and
my dad and depending on them for everything. Now I
had to be an adult and really figure out my
own way. And it wasn't as easy as like, you know,
driving home three hours to get home right now, I
would have to get a plane and then probably fly

(17:16):
to Atlanta and then fly to Pencacola or to Houston,
you know what I mean. So it's not a quick
trip home if I got a problem, right, So, I
really had to figure things out on my own, and
so that, you know, that was that kind of propelled
me to be more independent and to see myself outside
of my you know, my mom and dad in that way,

(17:37):
really growing into a man, right, you know. And I
don't think I would have been able to do that
if I stayed closer to home, because I would have been,
you know, I would have been leaning more on my
family and kind of just I don't want to say
handicapped in that way, but you know, to some degree mentally,
I don't know if I would have grown and had
evolved and developed as much as I did being away
from home.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, I think that's like you said, like, it seems
like theme of this uh conversation so far is this
positive perspective of mental health because you just mentioned it again, right,
like this this experience allowed you to grow mentally, uh
to you know, maybe that's toughness. So like, I don't
use the word as mental toughness as much as I

(18:19):
use mental flexibility, because toughness sometimes makes it sound like
if I slip, I fall the way back down to
the bottom. Flexibility means and go right left, up down.
You know. It's just it's like the ivy growing up
the side of a building. It goes all over but
eventually gets to the top, you know. So that's that's
kind of how I think about it. And so it's
it's and when I was when I was preparing for this,
I was thinking of you in that way, like I'm like,

(18:41):
I'm sure this dude has had some challenges, but man
like he seems to manifest this mental health thing in
a positive way. Yeah, and uh, and and that's and
that's what is so like just reading your story and
just reading some of the things that you've done and
been able to accomplish. Like that's the only way I
can look at it, Like it's like this dude, like
you know, you're not a big dude, you know, And

(19:03):
then you just said you were not recruited like the
big schools, and you go to a place like Stanford,
like all the way across the country, like like the
trying to navigate all of that. I went six hours
away from home and still had a tough time with that,
you know, So to go all the way across the country,
it's been incredible. So you get to Stanford, you have
a great, you know, career there, and then you get
drafted or you signed with the Seahawks. You go undrafted?

(19:26):
How did You're a very tough minded dude, right, that
had to have some type of impact. Yeah, so talk
to us a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah. Obviously, as a young man growing up, you know,
you watch the draft every year, and you know, for me,
part of the allure at that time was like hearing
my name called. You know, I knew I wasn't going
to rock a walk across across the stage, right that.
I knew that was out of the cards. But at

(19:55):
the very least somebody calling my name at the podium
saying I've been drafted, right, and to not have that,
you know, I mean, you build up this this fantasy,
this image in your head about what's going to happen,
and it doesn't happen in this you know. It was
a devastating letdown. And at the time we were it
was the lockout, so after the draft was done, no

(20:16):
teams could talk to you. So I didn't know what
was going to happen, right, Like, so I graduate from college,
I have no job now, you know what I mean,
what am I gonna do? And so my you know,
I'll basically put all my eggs in one basket for
the NFL. And didn't hear my name called. So I
remember exactly where I was. I was at a Mexican

(20:37):
restaurant across the street from Mars Stand and my my
girlfriend at the time, I'm my best friend at the time.
I sent them home and I just sat there in
the Mexican restaurant and like I'm in the corner by myself,
you know, looking up at the TV and just you know,
just thinking, like, man, I was crying, I'm not gonna lie.
I was crying just thinking like what is what am
I going to do with my life. I've been playing
football since I was six years old. That's all I've known,

(21:00):
you know, Don't get me wrong, Like I went to
Stanford because of the prestige and the academics, but I
also went because I was trying to get to the NFL,
you know what I mean. So at this stage, it's like,
I have no idea what I'm gonna do now. And
that was really that was really really challenging too. But
I remember, you know, I so during the draft, teams

(21:22):
could call you, and so the Seahawks did call me
and they basically said like, look, hey, we're probably not
gonna draft you, but we want to bring you in
for camp. And Shermless had got drafted, and sherm was
was talking it up, and you know, and of course
I wanted to be with my boys, so Seahawks was
there was a process, but you know, I eventually made
the decision to come to the Seahawks. But I remember

(21:42):
telling myself, like, you know, I'm gonna make all thirty
two teams, even including the Seahawks. I'm gonna make them
regret not drafting me. Right when I signed with the Seahawks.
It was like, I'm still gonna make you regret not
drafting me, but I'm gonna make you even that much
more appreciative of signing me, right, you know that was
just my my mentality, my competitive spirit. And so when

(22:03):
I came here in twenty eleven, I literally came here
with and E K the equipment staff, He'll tell you this.
I came here with one pair of shoes and three
pairs of clothes and that was it. And I said,
you know, this is this is it. Either I'm here
or I don't know where I'm going to be. So wow,
we're putting all leggs in one basket.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Well, the thing that's interesting is like just hearing you
just talked today is like I think it's really important
for fans to hear that the humanity of you, Like
like like some people just think we woke up, put
our cleats on, dominated in high school, dominating college, and
then off somewhere in the NFL. They don't see the
journey that we went through all the other stuff just

(22:46):
that's just the football stuff. They don't see, like the
life stuff. You know, maybe like I grew up in
a very tough environment, you know, and things like even
though we're in the mountains of North Carolina and it's
not New York City or LA, it was still tough,
you know, and so understanding that we're are human and
that we have these things that happened with us. I
did a talk, i want to say, a couple of

(23:07):
days ago for the Seahawkers here in Seattle, and I
challenged them to be curious about other people, not just
be cheers, not just to cheer the team on, but
be curious about the people around them. Be curious about
the guys on the team, because then it opens a
pathway to kind of know who the person is. You
know what I'm saying. You never know what work you're
going to be, what you're encounter if you remain curious
like that. And so by you sharing some of your

(23:30):
story today, I think it kind of opens the door
for other people to kind of see the humanity of
what players are. And then that makes this mental health
thing even more important, you know, because you do, like
you said, you were sitting in this place crying. You know,
I cried driving off the field, you know, in a
golf cart. When I retired in Detroit, like you know,
it's it was so final. It was such a grief,

(23:50):
a grieving moment. So but you did get to the
Seahawks and you guys had a fantastic team, yes, and
you said all your boys and stuff, and so how
how did that factor into just the mental strength of
all those players, because it seemed like you guys kind
of fed off each other. So I would imagine there
had to be some conversations at times, you know, when

(24:11):
when a guy was struggling or something did what was
that like?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, So to your point about you know, the humanity
of guys, right, I think, and I don't know if
John and people say this, but I think they got
lucky to some degree. They got a whole bunch of
guys in a room on a team together that had,
I don't want to say similar backgrounds, but we had
all come came from backgrounds that precipitated a a reflection

(24:36):
of the struggle that we went through, right, and we
were all kind of intertwined in that, and we were
all kind of connected through that. And so you had
all these guys who came from various you know, walks
of life all across the country, but we all knew
a similar struggle, right, and we shared that. And when
you're in the locker room, when you're you know, when

(24:57):
you're in the off season, in the dog days of
the offseason, running up this hill right for the eighteenth time,
and you know, you look to the guy next to you,
and the guy that I think about all the time
is Ricardo Lockett. You know, I just remember, can I
cuss on this? No, I can't cuss on this. I

(25:21):
just we were we were we were struggling on this hill, right,
and I look over Ricardo and I said, f this
hill and He's like, yeah, We've been through tougher than this,
you know. And then it was a bonding moment that
it was subtle, and you know, you look at on
the surface and it's not it ain't that much. But
like when you do that over and over and over

(25:42):
and over again, and you look at the guy and
you recognize that that's your brother, you do anything for him,
you know. And even to this day, Ricardo's my brother.
I literally on the way to work this morning, I'm
talking to him on the phone. You know, that's my brother. Like,
I know, I could call him at any point any
day about anything, and he's in Atlanta right now. I

(26:03):
know he would hop on a plane and come to
help me out whatever I need, you know, and vice versa.
And I think when you go through uh and I
don't want to say, I don't want to say the
NFL is hard. It is hard. It's challenging, right, There's
a lot of challenges that come with being in the NFL.
There are there are their blessings right at the same degree,
but it is challenging. When you go through challenging things

(26:26):
with people that you care about and that also care
about you, you build a bond. And that also, I
think that strengthens your mental flexibility, right, It gives you
kind of a foundation of knowing that like, Okay, I
may struggle here, but I know my boys got my back,
right Or it could be a really really hard day.
But then when I go home, like I get to

(26:47):
joke around with Ricardo, you know, he he he jokes.
It makes me laugh and brings life and energy back
into me, and vice versa. And when you have folks
like that around you, it makes going through the challenges
of the end and life in general, because yeah, we
you know, we were all growing up together too. It
makes it that much easier. I shouldn't say easier.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
But you can manage it.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
You can manage it, Yeah, yeah, you can.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah. And the thing I can I played, you know,
for nine years, I didn't really have a connection like
that to you have a connection, but not to that degree.
But this time last year I did. Through the NFL,
I admitted myself to a residential facility for mental health
and I was there for thirty two days and I
can remember getting there and there's six five other former

(27:32):
players there and they bring you're on a in a
home on like six acres. They bring all the therapy
to your cognitive therapy, one on one therapy, group therapy,
recreational therapy, occupations, it all comes to the house. And
I was walking in. I'm thinking, like, man, like, what
are these dudes going to think about me? You know, like,
and I didn't, you know, I didn't know any of them.
And so one I got there on a Thursday. So

(27:54):
that Friday they're like, Hey, we're going to all go
to the movies. And so one of the things I
was suffering with was these panic attacks where I can't
I can't make myself leave the house, and so I'm
just thinking like, dang, like if I can't go, that
means we all can't go because they're like either everyone
goes or no one goes. And so I came out
and so I'm fifty three years old. You know, bodies
beat up. You know, I'm trying to be comfortable. I'm

(28:15):
not astylish dude I used to do. So I had
like my little black hokahs on, like the sneakers are
really comfortable sneakers. And this one brother was like, yo, dang,
look at ray Man got those those hocus on like
the like the old people and the diabetics where and
I just started laughing and like it was because he
that felt like the locker room to me, you know
what I'm saying, Like like we used to have dudes

(28:35):
that used to sit at the door on when we're traveling.
They be watching everybody's outfit. Oh man, what is ray wear?
Let get his socks? Jacket don't even match, like all
that kind of stuff. And so it was that connection though,
because I knew, like, Okay, that guy, that's that's gonna
be my guy because he got me. Because the thing
that was funny is that I am I was the
oldest dude there and I'm a Type two diabetics, so
it made the whole thing was kind of funny, you know,

(28:56):
you know what I'm saying. And so, but that connectivity, right,
So now guy and one other guy that I was
there with, we probably text each other every other day
for then for the last year, and so they're the people,
like you were saying, like Ricardo, when I'm having a
tough day, I can just text. I don't even have
to say what I'm having a tough day with. I
just go to man, I'm having a tough day, and
then they're just come by, Hey man, remember your routine,
you know, remember to get out and do your walks,

(29:18):
get your walk, like count all the small victories, all
those types of things, because you I get to a
place where it's black or white live, you know, and
there's no gray area. But we live in the gray area,
you know what I'm saying. And so just having that
connectivity and someone that can kind of push that button
to kind of get your reset is important to have,
you know, And so it's great that you guys are
able to find that. And I know we're kind of

(29:38):
running a little bit short on time, but I did
want to get to I was reading an article by
Michael Sean Duger that you did, I think in twenty
twenty two, and it's talking about your entry into this
tech world, the stuff that you're doing now, the CEO
of the two organizations that you're that you have, and

(29:59):
I found like some really interesting comments in here, and
uh one of them was, uh, you're talking about I
think one of the platforms provides like physical like a
physical therapy platform, which also speaks to a person's mental health,
you know, to feel better, live better, all that kind
of stuff. Uh. And then also you were talking about

(30:22):
when the uh heal it is that how you say
his name Jerome He Yeah, like how his words impacted
you and how it made you feel like he saw
the the you, he saw he saw the human in you.
Like talk talk to me a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, how much time we got? Okay, all right, I'll
try to keep this short, so I guess, you know,
to to paint the picture of the impact of that. So,
you know, when I was getting kind of my older
years in the NFL, I recognized that a lot of
people were celebrating me as the athlete, right, and I

(30:59):
remember specifically we're at training camp one time and I'm
walking up and this lady goes, Doug, I love you,
And I was like, hold up, time out. I was like, lady,
you don't even know me, right. You know, I could
be a serial killer and have their bodies in our backyard, right,
and you saying you love me just because I played football.
I appreciate that, but you don't necessarily know me. So

(31:20):
you know, let's have a conversation, you know. And I
say this all the time the kids, when kids come
up to me and they're just like they just they
would want to take a picture. They don't even they
don't say hi. They don't even say their name. They're
just because they're shy or whatever it may be, and
they just want to take a picture. No, introduce yourself. Hi,
my name's Doug. What's your name? You know what I mean?
And going back to your point about the humanity, right,

(31:41):
I think it becomes very easy for us to look
at our fellow human being on this planet. We look
at them as an asset, right, especially in the NFL world,
we look at them as an asset or not really
as a human being. Right. And so for whatever reason,
that was really really important to me my last few
year years in the NFL, and then obviously when I retired,

(32:03):
like that didn't change, and so I immediately went to
go work for Intellectual Ventures after I retired. And this
guy who was running you know, the one of their
their investment funds at the time, Jerome Hewlett, he basically
was like, I don't really care what you did in football, right,
That's what he said to me.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
So he had right from the beginning.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yes, he said, I don't really care what you did
in football. I appreciate the skill set the football taught you,
but I want you to be able to lead this team,
help this team, advise this team. And so he gave
me the opportunity to be something other than a football player. Right.
He saw me as that. And not only did he
see me as that, he encouraged that in me. You
know his and to this day we probably talk almost

(32:46):
every day still and it's not you know, it's not
just the positive encouragement. I mean, I guess it is
all positive, but it's also constructive criticism too, right, And
I needed that because, let's be honest, when you're in
the football world and you're doing well, there's not a
lot of people who want to tell you the truth
about what you're not doing well. Right, He was not that.

(33:09):
Jerome was adamant about telling me what I was not
doing well, and but in a loving and kind and
patient way, and he spoke life into me. He allowed
me to see something greater inside myself that was more
than just a football player. I had always envisioned that
and I had craved that, right. I desired that not
only from my family and from the fans, but just
in general even for myself. And so to have a

(33:31):
person who knew my sports background but also was well
established in his own career and you know, Jerome is
he's he has pioneered a number of industries in a
number of ways. And so for him to see that
in me, and also like it was important it was
another black male, you know, for him to speak that
life into me, I mean, it was everything at that point,

(33:54):
you know. And again, I was going through a really
hard time, you know, struggling with retiring, struggling with you know,
being a new father, and then to have this male
come to me and say, no, you can do this,
and you're going to do it well, and here's how
you're going to do it.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, I think it's pretty awesome too that, like you said,
it was another like like NASA knows and the guys
on our broadcast team, like I tell him I love
them all the time. You know. I try to encourage
because we just from one brother to another. That just
happened a whole lot because we're kind of conditioned that
we have to make we have to do things on
our own, we have to survive on our own. We
have to build our life life on our own. It's like, hey,

(34:28):
I'm a self made person. No one's self made. You know,
someone always helping you along the way, whether it's a
word of encouragement or just a little fist pump or something.
You know. And so this guy's words spoken to you
in a way that it that it ignited that that
part of you that you really want people to know,
that you really want people to see, which is another
mental health thing. Which as to what you're talking about

(34:50):
the positivity of it that you come from, like I
feel like it's all positive, like you said, but I
came from this dark place where and I couldn't get
out the house. I was stuck on the couch, which
I was full of anxiety, and all this other kind
of stuff I just needed to get. I need to
get my whole engine remodel, you know, redone, and I
didn't just need to all change, but you are. You're

(35:12):
overwhelming approach to this has been one of positive positivity,
like making sure that you're in the right headspace to
accomplish the things that you want to accomplish, which leads
me to, like one of the last lines in this article,
you said, I do miss the camaraderie of the locker
room and my boys and my brothers. Other than that,
I'm in a good place. What is a good place

(35:34):
for Doug baldos.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Well, I can't give you the picture of the good
place without giving you the context of what that good
place is built upon. Now, so I know we only
got probably twenty seconds here, but you're gonna have to
bear with me and you have to do some edits,
So here we go. You know, I want to be
very clear about this and speak on it holistically because

(36:00):
because I think it's important for me to express it.
But it's also for me to be very clear about
it because I don't want it. I don't want people
to get confused about this. Right. I'm a man of faith.
And when I say a man of faith, I mean
I believe in Jesus Christ. Now when I say I
believe in Jesus Christ, I know that can be offensive
to some people. So I want to be again, I
want to be very clear about what that means to me.
So I'm a Christian. That means I believe in Jesus Christ.

(36:21):
That means I believe in his teachings. And he said, ultimately,
if you sum up the entire word and all the
commandments and all the law, what he said was love
God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And then the question, so I like math, and so
I like putting things into equations, and so the math
to me then is like okay, Well, then what does

(36:42):
love mean? And he gave a definitions in Corinthians which
says love is patient, love is kind. Love does not boast,
it does not brag, it's not it does not demand
its own way. It does not rejoice when injustice wins.
It celebrates when justice wins out right. And there's some more,
but I think the key point there is that I
believe in love. I believe in hope, So that positivity

(37:06):
is not necessarily of me being taking a conscious effort
of saying, like, you know, find the silver lining. I
gotta be positive about this. It's not it's not the
effort in that way. It's I genuinely believe that there's
something greater than this planet, than my life, and that
I'm here to impact in a positive way, but also
knowing that like there's you know, there's suffering going on

(37:27):
all around us. So if that's the case, and if
if love is the ultimate, is the ultimate, then that's
really all that matters to me, right And I and
I think from a grand scale, you know, yeah, I'm
navigating that as a as a young man in the NFL,
even prior to the NFL, But I don't think it

(37:47):
really resonated with me until I had my daughters. Right,
and I'm looking at the world to their eyes, and
I'm looking at like, what do they really care about?
They don't care about how much money we have. They
don't care about what clothes they have on their on
their their backs, they don't care about what shoes they're wearing.
They honestly don't even care how their hair is done right.
They don't care about any of that. The only thing
they care about is can I play with Daddy when
I wake up? Is Daddy here? And is he showing

(38:09):
me love? That's all they care about. And when I
give them that love, when I'm their present, patient and
kind with them, they're secure and they don't need anything else.
And I think about me as a young boy. You know,
I didn't get that to that degree, right, I don't
think any of us ever gets it to that, you know,
the pure love degree that I'm talking about. But you know,

(38:31):
I just imagine how I would be different, How my
parents would be different, how my grandparents would be different,
how this world would be different if we activated and
we acted on any decision that we had based on
the foundation of love that are just defined, like if
we moved in the world in that, we wouldn't have
any problems. Right if we looked at our neighbor as

(38:53):
a human being on this planet trying to survive and thrive,
and that to your point, they are showing up in whatever,
in whatever situation, their fullness, with all of their history, right,
all of their childhood trauma, all of that coming there
with them. If we could look at the other human
being with that perspective, we wouldn't be mad at them,
We wouldn't be judging them, because honestly, I don't know

(39:13):
what I would do if I had to go through
some of the childhood trauma of my friends, right, I
don't know what decision I would make, and they don't
know what decision they would make if they were in
my shoes, And so how can I judge them on that?
And so now I can look at them as just
an imperfect human being, which is fine, but I can
love them as such as well, right, And when I

(39:35):
have that image and that view and that perspective, you know,
I look at the world, I'm like, yeah, this suffering
is inevitable. We're going to be dealing with challenges and
difficulties all of our lives. But that's okay, not to mention, like,
that's actually what strengthens us if you allow it to, right,
It gives you a different perspective, It gives you a

(39:55):
stronger perspective. And for me, you know, again taking it
back to my daughters, I know that I can't control
everything that goes on in their lives, right, and so
the only thing that I can do is show them love,
teach them the foundation of love. Be the father that

(40:15):
I would want to be for them, and that they
would want for me to be for them as well. Right,
and then when they go out in the world, whatever
happens to them, all of the trauma that is going
to come inevitably, that that's going to come into their lives. Right,
at least they have a foundation of love. And I'm
not saying that that is the answer for everything. I
do believe it is the answer for everything. But for

(40:36):
anybody who says that it may not just be the answer,
I say, you may be right, but at least they
have a chance, you know what I mean. It may
not be the answer for everything, but at least I'm
giving them a chance. And I just the analogy and
leave I'll leave it this. If I'm trying to land
on the moon, I'm going to aim for the moon. Right.

(40:57):
I may not land on the moon. I may go
past the moon, land on the star next to moon.
But I'm aiming for the moon. But if I'm not
aiming for the moon, if I'm aiming, if I'm aiming
at the ground, how would I ever get to the
moon exactly? So I got to aim for that. And
so if I'm aiming through that with love, with this
perspective and this lens of love. Then yeah, to your point,
it's all positivity because I can find that love in anything.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Well, shoot, man, you might have to be pastor Doug.
Like you just graduated from angry Doug the pastor because
I felt like going, well, well, well that was like
my pastor will say, that's some good word right there.
That needs that needs an amen. Uh. And I will
say this too, like there's a there's an African proverb
that I that I kind of live by, and it
says that all love is love, but self love is

(41:41):
supreme among them because if you can love yourself, because
it's hard to give what you don't have, right, and
so if you can love yourself, you can set yourself
up to love people the way the way you just
explained it. And in that way, everyone is showing up
in their fullness. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Sot out to my wife. She's the one who taught me.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
That, Oh that's awesome, dude, it's a good No, I
was do great stuff like that. They don't get they
don't get a whole lot of credit for so I
know we're wrapping it up, and I noted on Friday,
June the twenty third, you guys have Champions of Change
basketball game yep, coming up, So you want to just
kind of share a little bit about that. What that's
all about.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Myself, Cliff Avor, Michael Bennett, we came together just because
we were we were doing stuff in the community, serving
the community. We always found ourselves being at the same place.
And so instead of doing it individually, as you said,
you know, let's come together and build this together. We
decided to do that and that's Champions of Change. It
culminates on the twenty third at Climate Pledge of Reena

(42:37):
will host a celebrity basketball game and all star basketball games.
We're calling it a lot of you know, well known
athletes and celebrities from the Seattle region coming to support
the benefiting partners that we were gonna we'll talk about more,
not right now, but we talk about more. So you know,
really are you we're using our platform to lift up
these organizations that are doing amazing work on the ground,

(43:00):
you know, really really doing the work. We want to
lift them up and provide resources for them to continue
to do what they're doing.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Well, that's good stuff, man. So again, I want to
thank you for coming on today and sharing sharing with us.
It's sometimes really tough to kind of go to that
space for guys, and so I really appreciate you modeling
that for everyone else. So look forward to following all
the work you do off the field. And now that
we've kind of sat and had this conversation, I feel
like I'm a little tighter with Doug Baldon, which is

(43:28):
exciting to me. And then I just want to remind
people of the three mental health and wellness concepts I
want to finish with. It's one, it's okay to not
be okay. Number two is contact your medical provider for
guidance and assistance for access and help that you need.
And number three, when you need help, you ask for help.
You're operating from a position to stress. So thank you
for signing on coming on with us. Thanks to everybody

(43:50):
from listening, be good and Peach
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