November 5, 2024 • 43 mins
Former Seahawks offensive tackle, Ray Roberts, sits down for another episode to share insights from his life. But this time with fellow radio broadcaster Steve Raible and Jim Zorn. Today’s show: Hurricane Helene’s impact on Ray’s hometown of Asheville (06:48), rookie year memories (08:38), Howard Mudd’s impact on Ray (12:05), Ray’s move to Detroit (18:12), Barry Sanders greatness (20:29), Barry Sanders surprise retirement (25:20), Ray’s work with Special Olympics (33:52), Big Ray’s Garage Grind Podcast (41:18).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Seahawks stories, teaking you behind the scenes
with your favorite Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Set back to Bey and Zorn, who's back to pass
as time looks for the left side line, throws a
bomb down there, he's got a man in front.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
He makes the grab a treble.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's a thirty down.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Of the twenty.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
They'll never get him. He scores touched.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Down Seahawks powered by Seahawks Dot.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Com and Zorn later in perfectly a Rabel who goes
in to score on an eighty yard pass and run play.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now, here's your host, the voice of the Seahawks, Steve
Rabel and Seahawks legend Jim Zorn.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh my goodness. Well sorry, we were laughing as that
was playing. First of all, because our guest today, Ray Roberts,
former Seahawks offensive tackle. I don't know that he's ever
heard that, and it's I think he finds it remarkable.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
That we Actually I was watching he was going Steve Rabel.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Yeah, and they looked at me. They said, I get
they'll never catch him. I'm like, man, I guess Steve
has some yet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
By the Jim during a commercial that made me laugh,
he said, what did you say like, well, perfect path.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Pete said, yeah, he laid it in there perfectly, and
darn right I did.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
Okay. So that's how we start this day on Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And it dawns on me as I have listened back
to a few of our of our shows, Jim, that
I don't do a very good job in kind of
introducing everybody. I just sort of assume everybody knows everybody,
and we just go.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
So in honor of that.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
As you all know, Jim Zorn Ring of honor member, quarterback,
first quarterback for the Seahawks, one of the record setters
for this franchise for so many years, and our guest
today a young man at least in relation to Jimmy me,
I appreciate that. That's okay. You won't be for long,
but that's okay. Is Ray Roberts, offensive lineman, first round
draft choice ninety two, yes, ninety two for the Seahawks,
(01:46):
went on to play for the Lions as well and
block for the incomparable Barry Sanders. All that we can
talk about in just a bit, but we haven't had
a kind of a conversation in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Everything good for you. You were talking Steve, our buddy
Largent the other day. Everything's good.
Speaker 7 (02:02):
Yep, Steve just got back. He and Terry went off
to Maui in Hawaii and had a big time there
with some friends from Tulsa. I don't know why, but
he and Terry love Tulsa. And I'm not saying that
it's not a great place to live. It is, except
it's harsh weather.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
When I was talking to him, he said, zee, man,
the wind has been blowing thirty miles an hour plus
for the last three days, and I'm supposed to get
on my bike and go ride. And he said, you
just can't. You can't look forward to that. Plus you
can't even do it when the wind's blowing that hard.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, and it's in the middle of like Tornado Alley
or something.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
I mean, they have ferocious tornadoes.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Come through that area, and you know, depending on what
you believe in this world today, but it's only going
to get worse. So I wish him and Terry and
all those folks back there.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
But this is a great segue actually into Ray Roberts. Yeah, okay,
because he is from Asheville.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Do you still have family there.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, so my whole family still lives there.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
My my three older sisters lived there, all my aunts
and uncles and things like that. So uh yeah, it
was quite the disaster there. Like even now they still
don't have Like I just talked to my sisters yesterday,
they don't have water that they can consume. So even
if you boil it, they still want They're still waiting
for it to get uh filtered, all the bacteria and
(03:29):
stuff that.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Can you go to stores and purchase things.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Or starting to get that way. Where do There's some
stores that are that were that didn't get demolished, and
there's other stores that have. So there's still like uh
stations that get resources like toilet paper or.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Bottled water or diapers.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Or soap or you know, like the most rudimentary things
that you need for survivor to live. People still need
those types of things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Any I'll will hate to ask, but any losses as
far as your family or your friends, close friends back there,
in terms of loss of life, loss of homes, those
sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Uh, some people lost homes.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
My sisters were didn't lose any of their property, but
things got damaged.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
But I do I just talked to my sister yesterday.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
It was a couple of friends that were missing, and
unfortunately they found them, you know, you know, deceased. Uh
you know, you can tell that they've just got swept
up with all the water and stuff like that, and
just probably I don't want to put any blame on them,
but probably should have gotten out a little sooner. But
it was just really devastating, you know, and just the
(04:38):
the simplest way to put it is that like there's
this Mount Mitchell is like the one of the it's
like about six thousand foot elevation. Our reservoir is about
one thousand feet below that. Well, then that reservoir overflowed
and then so you have thirty inches of water traveling about,
you know, one hundred miles an hour down another four
thousand feet to the city. So it just wiped out
(05:00):
everything in his path, froze bridges, houses, buildings, cars, I
mean whatever it was.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
It just they described how quickly the water went up
or was it just a big wave that just came through.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
It was like a constant flow of water for a
couple days for come and like Ashvill is right in
the middle of all the mountains, so usually when storms
come the mountains break it all up. You maybe get
some rain and some high winds, but never you know,
a hurricane down into the valley and so it's like
putting a hurricane in that water bottle. It had nowhere
(05:33):
to go then, so it just destroyed everything. And the
last time we've had an event like that and Ashwell
was like nineteen sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So none of.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
The infrastructure was designed to handle that type of stuff.
A lot of old roads and old towns back up
in the mountains and things. Some of those places just
got totally wiped off the map, like the roads, the buildings,
the houses, everything, So it's gonna be quite the rebuild.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Was there a large percentage of the families that you
know about that couldn't go to work even or couldn't
like how did they?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
How do you sustain life? You just help help?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Well that's when like the like you know, Steve and
I just did this presentation with Evergreen Health around hospice
care and things, and so one of my topics there
was like the power is showing up and to me, like, yes,
all of that was happening. People weren't working, you know,
businesses weren't even there to go to work too. Then
(06:31):
you didn't have power, you didn't have water, you didn't
have all these different things to actually do to work.
And so that's when like the humanity of people, like
humanity transcends all the other stuff that you know what
I'm saying. So when you can see that someone is
in need and you can show up and help them.
A lot of that is happening in Nashville. So there's
a lot of residents that have resources or they had
new people that knew people that knew people for a
(06:52):
moment there.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
For the first maybe three or four days after all of.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
This, every single road into ash Fill was cut off
either it had been wiped away or all the trees
from now so they hadn't actually helicopter stuff in. So
I couldn't even get my sisters out of town until
they got some of the roads cleared up so we
can get them out. And so so yeah, it took
everything that you could possibly imagine that people needed and
(07:16):
how people received supplies, Like I mean, you had to
you had to use every resource available to do.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, well, thank you for the update, and we're so happy.
We're sorry for the folks who've lost lives and lost homes.
Obviously happy for your families or that they're that they're okay,
and and if anything, this should just give everybody who's
listening to these conversations the the just a couple of things.
First of all, that that there is help out there,
(07:45):
and especially, as as Ray said, in the power of
just showing up the people around you. But also that
these kinds of tragedies affect everybody. They affect our families,
they affect friends that may be well down the line,
they affect professional football players and former.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
Players and all the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So lest we think that only certain people ever get
hit with these things, no, they happened to everyone, and
we should always be.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
Aware of that being of use.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
As someone I talked about our luncheon exactly that day
talked to us one day about b of US. All right,
so we've talked about those things. Now let's get back
to a couple of football related items, not the least
of which is first round draft choice nineteen ninety two
Ray Roberts, offensive tackle out of Virginia, All American. When
(08:36):
you came here, what were you coming into What do
you remember about that.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
First year that you were here with the Seahawks.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Well, the first thing I remember is that growing up
at North Carolina, I hadn't the furthest West I'd ever
been was Chicago, and the only time I had ever
really flown on the plane. The first time I flow
in the plane was at Virginia's and we flew to
Georgia like my first year or something. So I didn't
have a whole lot of experience traveling really far on
the airplane. It was like I was a little kid
(09:02):
going over there, Yeah, over there, Yeah, it's my agent
and I. We actually flew the first direct flight Northwest
Airlines had from DC to Seattle, and so it was long.
It took forever Andy.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
Coming all that way. During the draft, did you have
any other inklings that you were going to be drafted
by somebody else or was it always Seattle?
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
It was really interesting because that morning I woke up
the Indianapolis Colts had the first two picks, and so
they were like, the first pick was going to be
Steve Entpman from University of Washington. He was clearly the
best player in that draft going into the draft, and
then they said, hey, with the second pick, if we
go offense, we're going to select you. If we go defense,
we're going to select Quentin Corriott. So the first I
(09:44):
was on the clock like and like just sitting on
pins and needles, like, oh man, I might be the
second pick in the draft, like this is crazy. And
obviously they picked Quentin Coriott. And then after that it
was just like every team just calling trying to trade
up to get me into The Cowboys called and it's
like hey, like we have this dude that we want
to watch the draft with you. And I'm like okay,
(10:05):
and they're like, is it all right if he comes
to your apartment.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I'm like yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
So as soon as I hung the phone up, the
dude knocked at the door. He was standing at the
door waiting for them to say like yeah, it's okay
to go in, and so he came in. And then
the Cowboys had the fifteenth and I think the seventeenth pick,
and after the like the third or fourth pick, they
were trying to trade up with everybody to try to
draft me and then but nobody would trade. And then
(10:29):
the Seahawks called and was like, hey, we're thinking about
taking here at number ten, and they had like this
contract structure they wanted me to kind of agree to
and my agents like, nah, we don't want to do that.
And then all I heard they just said, okay, we'll
taught to you later. And so then I'm thinking to myself, like, man,
I messed that up, you know what I'm saying. Been
kind of cool to be like one of the top
ten picks, you know what I'm saying. And then I heard,
(10:51):
you know, back in the day, it was you know,
the productionism like what it is now. But there's a
guy that carries a card up to the commissioner and
they pronounced the name and I heard him say Roberts,
and everyone in the room was like, you know, in
our apartments, like having a good time.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And I was just right next to the TV.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I'm like, oh, I think he said Roberts, and so
there's a picture of me just I'm like this closer
than yeah, and I'm like and when he said Ray Roberts.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I'm like, you know, everyone went nuts. But but yeah,
we wash.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
I thought I had blown the opportunity to be like
in the top ten and come to Seattle, but you know,
I was happy that I came here. Like I said,
it's a long, long trip. When I landed was like, man,
it's green and clean here, like it's like it was unbelievable.
But but yeah, I've enjoyed every minute of being here,
even when I played in Detroit.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you know, when I.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Was in Detroit, Jay z was our offense coordinator there
for a year or two too, so so it was
coached by the guy over here. And but love Seattle
and just have never thought about leaving.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I don't know why I'm drawing a blank. But in
ninety two, was Chuck still coaching or was it Tom?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Tom?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Then you played for Dennis are here and then then
I left and went to Detroit.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
Yeah, I was here in ninety seven. I went to
training camp and Rick Meyer was the quarterback. Dennis was
still here. Howard Mud, Howard Mud was still here. So
how many years did you get with Howard as a
football offensive line?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
By the way, well, yeah, one of the great offensive
line coaches ever in.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
The history of the game was right here. And see
thank you God rest his soul.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So Hudson howt uh was the head, was the off
of the line coach, and he when I was drafted
here my first year, and uh, it was really interesting
because he'd always show us film with the Dallas Cowboys
offensive line and he'd be like, oh, look how they
do it. Look at and so you're like, man, like
we're watching them, like like, coach us up, you know
what I'm saying. And then it turns out he went
to coach the Cowboys and then Howard came here, and man,
(12:43):
I'm telling you, like Howard Mud, Uh, there's no coach
I've ever had in my life on any level that
had the impact on my career and on me as
a person than Howard mud Like for whatever reason, Like, uh,
it wasn't like a pretty engagement at first, because he
called me out on a lot of things, and like
that really challenged me, like my work, ethic and the
(13:03):
things I was focusing on and all these And I'm
looking at this dude like, man, you don't even know
me yet, like and you're like, you know, coming at
me like this. But it was something in the way
he said it that I knew that this dude was
looking out for what was best for me, and and
so I just bought into everything that he told me
and talked.
Speaker 7 (13:18):
He was about being practical. Yeah, you could block, you
could block guys with your butt. Oh yeah, you know,
give him the.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Flipper on the backside, on the backside of plays, like
you're trying to cut someone off. Like we would actually
practice posting up like you post up on basketball. You
just used to work outside motion and you just box
out and post a dude up and running back comes
right through, you know. And so guys don't do that
as much anymore. But man, you got your big six
foot six, three hundred pound frame, you know, walling someone off.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Hey, it's a lane to run through.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
What are what are a couple of that? That would
be one of them.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
But he had a really very different philosophy on past
protection on how especially at that position right there. And
he would say, you know, most offensive line coaches want
to build a cup around so that the quarterback can
be there and and but he he never wanted to
build a cup. Howard always wanted to build a dish,
(14:16):
you know, And so he would, Uh, how how different
was that? I mean, think about West I mean, think
about Virginia, Yeah, and then coming here it must have
been just totally.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Well when I when I came into the league, a
lot of people compared like my athleticism and folkwork to
like Jackie Slater, And so Jackie Slater had this really
quick like kick straight back set, and so that's how
Hudson taught me.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
It was a kick straight back.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Well, the problem with that is, you know, six foot six,
long legs. After about three kicks, I start to get tall.
It's hard to stay stay low. So dudes would just
bull rush me a lot. So I had to figure
out how to defend a bull rush. And then so
then Howard came. Howard was like, why do you just
kick straight back all the time?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Like you said?
Speaker 5 (14:56):
And I was just like that's what I've been taught,
Like what else is there to do? And he's like, well,
you have long arms, quick feet, like I want you
to attack. I want you to be more aggressive and
pass blocking, so I want you to like he would
call it short setting. And so his signal for me
was like pulling the chain on a on a chainsaw,
like you know, like he's like, hey, pull the chain,
Like pull the chain.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So he wants me to sort.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And it was scary because you're you have you blocking
Derek Thomas and I'm just like, oh if I missed though,
he has like a ten yard run right at the quarterback,
you know, so you had to get really used to
like being uncomfortable trailing the defender and blocking the back
of his shoulder. So he would go like Ray like
just short set him and then like stay inside and then.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Block the back of his shoulder.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
I'm like, man, that doesn't sound right, Like I'm behind
Derek Thomas blocking the back.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Of his shoulder, Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (15:44):
You know?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And uh, and we would sit, we would just go this.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Hen and I would be out on the practice field together,
just going through play after play after play, footwork after
footwork after footwork, and he was challenging me, be more aggressive,
be more aggressive, be more aggressive, meet him, meet him sooner,
like like like jay Z was saying, like he wanted
to be a flatterline than more of it, you know,
than a cup like this. And so but once I
got comfortable doing it, I meant it just changed my
(16:10):
whole uh success rate in past blocking. And then that
kind of became like my my calling card in the league.
So other offensive line would be like man like like
the way you would go after people, or the quickness
of your feet like all this other kind of stuff.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And all that was due to Howard, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
And then and then off the field, you know, Howard
had a step son, Adam, and Adam, you know, young
fifteen year old kid, like getting into trouble and stuff
around Kirkland and all this other kind of stuff, And
so Howard would call me and go like, hey man,
we can't find Adam.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm like, all right, I'll go find him.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
And so I'd go down through Kirkland and go to
all the little arcades and stuff, and I'd find him,
take him home and or I'd take him to get
something to eat and talk to him and all this
other kind of stuff and try to get him going
and get him going in the right direction. And it
got to the point where when a lot of the
young kids would see me walking in and Kirkling, it'd
be like, oh, yeah, Adams, Adams over there, we know
who you're here to get, you know. So Howard and
(17:04):
I just connected on such a different level than just
football that there's not another coach on the face of
the earth that has just had the impact on me.
Even before I retired in Detroit, he was coaching at Innneapolis.
I called him at three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, hey, Howard,
this is what I'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What do you think? And he goes, well, you've already
answered it.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
You called me at three o'clock in the morning, and
so I'm like yep. So that morning, like five hours later,
I retired from the NFL. And then a year later
the Saints called and said, hey, like want you to
come in, and like we need someone to help with
the younger players.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We need a veteran player.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
So I called Howard like, hey, man, like, this is
what He goes like, remember that call you gave me
a three o'clock in the morning. I go, yeah, he
goes your body's gonna feel like that again. I'm like, yeah,
you're right, so I should probably stay retired. So so
Howard has had such a tremendous impact in my life
that I just I just love the dude.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
There are we could sit here and tell stories all
day just about Howard, And there are coaches like that,
and there are there are those kinds of mentors in
I think all of our lives somewhere along the way.
We're going to talk about that with you here in
just a second. But before we leave the topic of football,
you had a chance you could have stayed here in Seattle, right,
but you also had an opportunity to go to Detroit.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And then once you got there and you saw and
firsthand who and what Barry Sanders really was, that must
have been. That must have been just terrific for an
offensive line.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Well, the hard thing is that I always wanted to play.
I never wanted to leave Seattle. And then I think
I was back then they had the franchise tag and
the transitional tag, and I was like to track this
said a transitional player, And because I was coming off
an injury, they removed the transitional tag and so that
made me a free agent and one that they didn't
have the match offers and all that kind of stuff.
(18:53):
And then it was in the middle of Ken Baron
trying to move the team, like.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It was that same offseason.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
So it's like there's little messages that you get when
you go like maybe I may not be in the plans.
It's because I was the last to learn that they
were trying to move the team to Anaheim, and so
then I'm like, yeah, like maybe you know, my time
here may be done. But the interesting thing is that
when I went to visit Detroit. It was like UVA Midwest.
There was already like five or six UVA players on
(19:21):
the team.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And one of them was.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Herman Moore, who he and I were freshmens together, first
year players together at Virginia. And he left the year early,
was a tenth pick in the draft and I was
the next year. I was a tenth pick in the draft.
And so talking to him, and you know, I was
seeing Barry but not really knowing Barry, and I was
talking to Herman. He's like, dude, we're like so close
to like being like a championship team.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Got all these guys on off.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
You know, we had Brett Perriman, Johnny Morton who was
the fullback, fullback, Cory Schlessinger.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Cory he had no neck, his muscle from.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
His ear all the way to the end of his
shoulders from Nebraska.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
I would say, I asked, I asked h one question.
I said, so, what do you think about when you
go to block a linebacker? Because he had I mean,
he would just pound people. He was really a good blocker.
And he said, he said, here's my philosophy. The closer
I get, the faster I go. That's that was his He.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Was notorious for changing out face masking games because he
would break them, bend them, all kind of stuff. But
he was like he was like he would get fined
a lot in today's game because he was leading with
his big head all the time. But one of the
strangest things about our funniest things about Ben in Detroit
was my first year. Yeah, I tried to pride myself
on like, you know, smart dude from Virginia, Like you know,
(20:38):
we're arrogant a little bit about that. And so I'm
looking at the plays and there's like a linebacker with
an exclamation point over him, and I kept going like, man,
I've never seen that, Like what does that mean? And
so I'm trying to like sort through the playbook. So
finally go hey, coach, like, what does what does this mean?
He goes, Oh, that's Barry's guy. I'm like, well, what
does that mean? Well, on one guy is not going
to block bear a tackle Barry, so we don't have
(20:59):
to block him. And I would just be like what,
like like who is this dude? Like you know what
I'm saying, And so it would always be like a
backside linebacker or something where we just go like, yeah,
we just worked this double team on the backside.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
We're not even to worry about don't don't come off
the double team.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, just stay on the double team because Barry's
gonna make one guy miss every time.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
Frank Fault was the he was the running back coach,
and I asked, I said, so, what's why is Barry who?
You know, why is Berry the way he is? He said,
I've never been around a guy that could see the
line of scrimmage and you can see that linebacker coming,
he said, but Barry.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Can see the safety.
Speaker 7 (21:37):
So he said, he's kind of a three level He's
got like a three level vision where a guy can
run through the line of scrimmage and you know, you
can avoid a linebacker. But Barry could go through the
line of scrimmage. He already he already would deal with
the linebacker as he's going through the line of scrimmage.
But he was always looking at the next guy down
the field and he could see where he was. And
(22:00):
I thought that was an amazing statement by the running
back coach on what Barry.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
Yeah, Barry, Barry was incredible man, And like, uh, I
think the year that he rushed for two thousand yards after.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It was when coach Ross had came. Wayne Fonce had
left and Coach Ross came and I was at the Oh,
yeah you was Georgia Tech. Yeah, that's sorry. And he
had beat us at Virginia.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
So I was like, I used to get thank you,
but I hated that. That's why sometimes, that's why I
try not to say Georgia Tech a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
It's like that other school of Virginia.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Try not to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
If you if you had been the University of Georgia,
I would be even up, but I wouldn't even happier,
more thrilled.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
But but anyway, like I remember, I forget the offensive court,
not the opposite the quarterback coach maybe me.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
No, who's the coordinator then Tom Sylvester Crum.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Was it crew?
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Anyway, they called us to the We had this meeting
and it was uh, some offensive lineman, some some some
of the running backs, quarterbacks like O, hey, what do
we need to do? And after two games we only
had fifty three yards rushing with Barry and I just said, man,
we this is the best running back in the league,
in the world.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Maybe let's just give him the.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Ball until his shoes fall off, like we should have
like a big, huge oxygen tank on the sideline and
he should be exhausted out to every game. And then
from that point on we'd rushed for exactly two thousand
yards in fourteen games, and so we into what twenty
and fifty three yards, and so it was pretty amazing
because we had offense, like, I mean tons of offense.
I think Herman Moore was like getting like one hundred
(23:33):
and fifteen hundred and twenty receptions a year. Brett Perriman
probably had like, you know, close to you know, eighty
ninety catches. Johnny Morton had another fifty or sixty catches. Like,
we had an amazing and then we had Dave Sloan
at tight end, who was a pretty good tight end
we you know, in our offensive line. Because of the
way Barry ran, we never got the credit that we deserved.
But if you if you watch obviously Barry's gonna have
(23:55):
his highlight plays, but if you watch the games, like
we were delivering him to the second level, which is
what we're supposed to do, and Barry does his thing
after that, and there was a lot of that going on,
and so you don't rush for twenty fifty three yards
at Barry just out running everybody, and so it was
it was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, we didn't advance far in
the playoffs. You know, we had some young young secondary
(24:16):
I think we led the league in pass in appearance
calls that year, but but we couldn't seem to get
out of our own way that way. But it was
a It was amazing being able to play in such
a powerful offense and then be able to block for
somebody like barrt Did.
Speaker 6 (24:29):
It surprise you when he retired? So suddenly, yeah, it did. So.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
So Barry and I were like always the team captains
and and then we always roomed together in training camp,
and so when he wasn't didn't come in, like everybody was, like,
I was getting peppered with questions like every daily, did
he show up, Why didn't he show Have you talked
to him?
Speaker 3 (24:46):
All the other kind of stuff?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
And I talked to him one time because at the time,
if he had come back and played and by Thanksgiving,
he would have had the all time record for rushing
because we normally had about eleven hundred yards around that time,
and that was I think what he needed to get
to the record. And I was the only lineman left
that had blocked for him when he rushed for two
thousand yards. So selfishly, I was saying, like, come on back, man,
(25:11):
like get the Thanksgiving and then you can leave, because
then I could be the only dude that blocked for
a two thousand yard rusher and the old time leading rusher.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But it just wasn't happening.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
It was really really strange, you know, Like Barry is
a type of dude though this, like once he decides
he's going to do something he's committed to that he's
convicted by, it's kind of hard to change his mind.
I do think that part of the retirement. Even in
his documentary thing, he didn't really speak to the retirement,
But I think part of it was that the organization,
(25:39):
like we would get players in the field spots and
then as they started to learn our system and then
it was time for them to get paid, Oh let's
switch them out. So it was like we're on his treadmill.
The team just wasn't getting better. We weren't getting good
enough to get past the first round of the playoffs,
and I think that just kind of frustrated Barry and
he's never going to be one of the dudes that
kind of go and say like, hey, I want to
do this, I want to make the calls. You know,
(26:00):
He's never going to pull that stump with people. He
just goes like, well, I guess this is it for me,
and I don't know.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
Well, if you would ask me that question, It's so
funny to listen to a player who you know he
was a teammate and his roommate and for me, Barry.
Barry came in two days before training camp started and
he told Bobby Ross. His words were, I have I
always wanted to play in the National Football League for
(26:28):
ten years and last year was my tenth year.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I'm done.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
Two days before camp.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Yes, yeah, and.
Speaker 7 (26:37):
It was really upsetting. You know you were saying you
were surprised. Well, we were all surprised because I think
our draft that offseason would have been totally different knowing
that Barry was going to retire. But we had the
expectation that Barry was going to be there. And Barry
only knows Hey, in his mind, he was done. And
I don't know when he came to that conclusion, because
(26:58):
I've been a player too. Know, you just kind of
run through and you got to work out a lot
of different things. But he quit two days so we
were left without a star running back, and you know,
one thing led to another. We got another guy, as
you well know, from the Rams, you know, the small
(27:19):
guy from the He was just like Barry, only not
as Bill vers.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
I'll have to go look.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
He was from the Rams, and he had played at
He played either at UCLA or SC or something like that. Anyway,
he was not quite living up to that very few
There's no way I'll never forget Barry when I had
gone there. He would never say a word at practice,
(27:48):
he said nothing. And he would always run sprints by
himself in the heat of the day, right after practice.
He would run like ten hundreds or ten to one tens.
Nobody else would be on the field, and he would run.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I watched him. I watched all ten one day. Yeah,
and he just ran him.
Speaker 7 (28:06):
As hard as he he could. He never just there
was no striding. He just took off and ran as
hard as he could. I don't know what's going on
in his mind.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
But well, it was the first heart I had inkland
that something was going on. Our last game was Baltimore
the year before, and uh and uh. It took him
a long time to get to the bus. Everyone's on
the bus. We're waiting for Barry. So like, Ray, can
you go see what's going on? So I go in
and Barry hadn't even taken a shower yet. He was
still sitting in his locker in his uniform. I'm like, hey, man,
I don't I don't know what's going on, but we
(28:35):
need to get on this bus and get up out
of here.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And uh.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
And so he, you know, obviously got on the bus.
But he was so quiet and never never really talked
to people. But the people that he was close to
that he talked to a lot was Lomas Brown and
Kevin Glover and those are his two dudes. And uh,
and so he's, you know, Kevin, haven't talked to Kevin,
Kevin having conversations with him. I think I think it
was It may have been a combination of the ten
(28:58):
year thing, but it but definitely the direction of the
that the league was going. He wanted to be on
the championship team, he wanted to get to the super Bowl,
he wanted to play in the Super Bowl, that kind
of stuff, you know. And there was always these rumors
that his dad's favorite player was Jim Brown. They said,
you don't want to bring to Jim Brown rectors and
all this other kind of stuff, which his dad is
a totally different story. But you know, I do think that,
(29:19):
you know, maybe the tenure thing has a part to
do with it. But the other part two was that
he had seen his dues be shuffled in and out
and just that cycle of doing that and not really
build the team.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
He was one player, and he can attest to this
where every single person on the Detroit Lions sideline, they
were up as far as you could get up to
the field when Barry was on the field, because he
could go all the way. Let me just hand him
the ball and he'd go all the way. So every
but then you look across the field and every opponent
(29:52):
and player, whether you were on defense or offense, you
were on the edge of the sideline because Barry was
going to pass to get the ball and you wanted
to see that run.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
It was unbelievable, a remarkable talent.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I want to get to a couple of other things
before we go, but one of the things, and you
reminded me of it when you talked about leaving to
go to Detroit and I look back, and since this
is Seahawks Stories and it's about the history of this franchise,
I look back at those kinds of decisions, not so
much the decision by the player, but what they envisioned
(30:28):
was going.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
To happen to them.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
And I looked at it from our time in our
early years, and we had a guy named Nick Bebout
who was one of our offensive tackles. Nick was never
going to be a pro bowler or anything, but he
was such a solid player and such a leader up there,
and they cut him to let a younger guy play
who was not ready to play. And so I thought
that was a kind of a turning point as we
(30:52):
had just started to ascend as a team. Roll ahead
a few years Steve Hutchinson walks away, goes to Minnesota,
ends up being he had to well, guys like transition tag.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Yeah, Well, the thing on our line that we had
here that we're building at Howard was building.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
There was me, Jeff.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Black Chair, Kevin ma Why and Andy Heck and all
of us ended up leaving. Yeah, and so you know,
Kevin ended up going to the Hall of Fame. Jeff
black Chair won the Super Bowl as a playing beside
Jonathan Ogden in Baltimore. Andy ended up going to Chicago
and planning and now he's like the offensive line coach
at Kansas City.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
And then I ended up going to Detroit.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
And blocking Ford the all time all of us were
on the same offensive line at one point.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And then the Sea.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
It shows that that the Hawks were getting the right guys,
and uh and and the building how long do you stay?
I mean, that's you know, that's the internal question, the
question right and we get rid of him suit too soon?
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Or was there a salary cap in those days?
Speaker 7 (31:54):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, there, so the you always had to keep that
in the back and might, just as they do now.
But we didn't have that issue obviously when you and
I started. But then you didn't. You couldn't go any
place anyway. Nobody could offer you a free agent money
because there was no such thing as a free agent.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
Okay, So you.
Speaker 7 (32:11):
Played for some great coaches, you really have, and and
and it's a testament to you because those coaches knew
what to do with your talent, you know what I mean.
They helped you with some techniques, some fundamentals, and you
went out there and battled. But you can see it
today too, right, You're not You're not coaching per se,
although you tried to coach.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, was that all?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well?
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I coached high school football for about seven years, and uh,
and I don't know. My approach to sports and stuff
like that wasn't necessarily the wins and losses of games.
I was trying to win men's souls and hearts and yeah,
make them good citizens of the community, good brothers, good husbands,
good partners, good students, good community people.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That's where my focus was.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
And so I felt good about how I impacted, you know,
young young guys in this area.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Net God.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
I never I did to coach an internship with the
Colts after I retired, and because Howard was there and
he had just had a surgery and he was like, Hey,
I want you to come and work with the young
guys and I'll take the top seven dudes and then
this is how we're going to roll. So I did
that one all season and then I decided like, eh,
I don't know if I'm built for this grind. And
then this one coach came to me and said, hey, man,
(33:20):
I've lived in thirteen different houses, and I'm like, yeah,
I'm not built for that, I promise you, And so
I kind of got away from the professional coaches.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
We had a coach named Any McDonald who was our
running backs coach.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
And special teams.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
He did both in our first few years, and he
always used to say, he said, kid, don't get wall
to wall carpeting, and if you do, don't nail it down,
because that's that's what the business of being a coach
or even a player at times. Yeah, okay, so how
do you go from I love Andy, got left us
far too soon. So you go from that opportunity to
(33:55):
coach and you kind of find your way into this
area now where e'rerope. You're literally travel the country working
with and for Special Olympics and Special Olympics athletes and
the organization and the communities that they're in.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Plus you.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Speak so much mentoring and all those things. Where did
all that come from?
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Well, sometimes there's no self made people, even though people
want to say, like, hey man, I'm a self made millionaire,
I'm a self made Along the way, people encouraged support,
it gave you extra advice, I all that kind of stuff,
and so I just feel like you have to have
a team of people and I like to be on
people's team. Whether I'm getting you from A to B
or B two C or whatever it is, I want
(34:39):
to help you get to the place that you're trying
to get to.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And so that's just kind of how always been.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
And so when I left, I went back to school
to University of Washington, got a master's degree in athletic administration,
and during that I took a lot of diversity, ECO
and inclusion classes. And then this opportunity came up at
Microsoft to work in that area and their gaming division.
So I went and worked at Microsoft as a diversity
specialist for three years. And then as I was doing that,
(35:04):
the special USA Games came to Seattle. We needed ambassadors,
so they had a couple of dudes that was trying
to talk about like inclusion and stuff, and so I
went to the leadership one day and I'm like, hey, like,
the next time, can I get up and talk about
what inclusion is and what it's not. And I did,
And so some of the special limits folks were they
were like, hey, man, like, we're trying to get our
(35:25):
school based programs into the inner city and we're having
a hard time, and we think you can be the
dude to help us. And so that's kind of how
I got into Special Olympics. So I was the director
of Urban Development for Special Lympics. Now I'm the Senior
Advisor for Urban Development for Specialists North America. So I
traveled to all the different inner city schools and communities
and neighborhoods all over the United States trying to help
(35:46):
their school district strategize on how to implement our school
based programs. There's a lot going on and a lot
of things you have to overcome, and nuances and all
that kind of stuff, stigmas you have to overcome.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And so I try to help.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Break down that stuff and then help them strategize on
how to get our stuff into the schools. And then
as it relates to the mental health peace, Uh. Since
I retired the I struggled with depression a lot, and
so I would just sleep on the couch, turn off
all the lights, you know, cover up all the windows,
all that kind of stuff, and then and I would
(36:17):
just battle with it all the time. And then right
before the pandemic, I started having the panic attacks and
I couldn't figure out what was going on. I couldn't
get out the door, go see my kids. I couldn't
get out to go hang out with my buddies. And
you know, Nassa hears me tell the story all the time,
like I'd always go like, hey, N's I'm running late.
But I was running late, not because I got up late.
It's just like I had to talk myself out the door,
(36:38):
down the steps, into my car, get to the red light,
get to the stop sign, like I talked my way
all the way over to the studio.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
But nobody knew why I was doing this, and uh.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
And so then finally one day, I just I mean,
I felt like I was about to throw everything in
my house out the window. I just didn't know what
to do, and so I called my ex wife Beth.
We were trying to figure out places to get into.
We're struggling with that. She called Sandy Gregory, and then
Sandy and Beth put together this plan to get me
to this program called After the Impact that the NFL
sponsors in Manchester, Michigan. And so then I went there
(37:10):
for thirty days. You're supposed to it's a requirement to
stay for two weeks, but I was like, no, I
need longer than that, Like it's not gonna work if
I'm just here for two weeks.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
So I ended up staying there for thirty days.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
And so when I came out of that, I was
just I came to National's like, hey, man, like, I
want to tell my story because I think when I
got to this home where there were six former players,
dudes were suffering in silence. Man Like one dude came
there after his wife found him writing apology letters because
he's about to commit suicide. And so I'm like, man, like,
(37:43):
you can't allow people to live like that in isolation.
And so I just that's why I started the podcast,
to tell my story, to debunk it, to make it,
make it something that people are comfortable talking about and
sharing and reaching out for help. And so we got
the Mindful Therapy Group that came on board as a
title sponsor. And so you know, it's been to me.
It's healing to be able to do it and to
(38:04):
be able to talk about it. And it's also it
makes you feel good when you're out in public and
people are saying, hey, I listened to it. I went
and got help. A guy at the game the other
day came and said, man, I had been thinking about
being a therapist for a long time.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
I listened to your podcast for a.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Little while and then I just went and signed up
to take classes to be a therapist like that kind
of So that type of impact is is what I'm
trying to go for.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
All that all that was before COVID hit. That was
twenty nineteen. Yeah, and then you went through COVID, and.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
COVID made it worse.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
I was everything, yeah, because you're even more isolation, you know,
and to the point where I would tell my kids, like,
I don't know who you guys hanging out with, so
you can't come over here. I'm a diabetic too, so
that was a part of it too. I just didn't
want to have, you know, catch COVID in that situation.
But then the isolation part just made it even worse.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
Did they help you with your identity, like who you
are as a man or how it died you?
Speaker 5 (38:57):
It wasn't necessarily. It wasn't necessarily like who I was
as a man. It was more of the messages I
was telling myself myself talk, you know, like I had
been through a divorce and all this other kind of
stuff and you feel bad about that, and the and
the issues that you create for your kids and your
ex wife and all this other kind of stuff. And
so I felt guilty about that a lot.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
And so I couldn't see the value in what I
was bringing to the world because I had just labeled
myself as that guy. And uh and then and then uh,
and then you start to kind of you know, I've
always wanted to be the world's greatest dad and the
world's greatest husband, and I failed at one of them.
And then I got scared, like I was afraid to
try anything because I'm like, hey, hey, go walk up
(39:39):
the stairs, like I don't know, I might not make it.
I might slip on the third stair like, you know.
So you just talk yourself out of a lot of
things and uh. And so they're in therapy world, are
called cognitive distortions, and so uh. I was then got
the tools to go to challenge those be curious about it,
you know. And then as you start to answer of
(40:00):
those things, to speak truth in fact to it, then
all that stuff calms down and then you're able to move.
So it wasn't a thing about identity or manhood or anything.
It was more of just the self talk, you know.
And we talked to ourselves more than we talked to
anyone else.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Well, it's an amazing story, and it's a story that
I'm sure a lot of your teammates, a lot of
us didn't know quite the detail and the depth of
what you had to fight through and where you are today.
Before two things before we wrap up. First of all,
you mentioned Sandy Gregory. We're going to have her on
this show here one of these days, Nasa, We're going
(40:36):
to have her on the show one of these days.
She was well, she's a fifty year just like we are.
She was there from the very first day of the Seahawks.
She worked in the PR department more importantly than she
moved into kind of community relations. And then after the
fact she's working with helping players find resources everything from
health to financial to educational.
Speaker 6 (40:58):
She's just an amazing person, give so much of.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Her time, and I think all of us can say
that that we have benefited from knowing Sandy and from
all the help that she's been. That's that's the first thing.
Second thing, if people want more of of you, of
your information, of your story, of your advice, where can
they find that.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
Well, my podcast is called Big Raise Garage Grind, and
you can find that on Seattle the seahawks dot com website,
on YouTube dot com, Slash Seahawks, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
any of the podcast platforms you can find that. We
just dropped our latest episode yesterday, I think it was,
And well, it's a long story. Like so, during the pandemic,
(41:42):
my son was playing football and none of the gyms
were open, so we had to work out in the garage.
And so in order to show his coaches that we're
working out, we would post on social media our garage
grind and so they would see him working out. And
then my followers just kind of jumped on the whole
garage grind thing and I just kind of stuck with it.
We called a Big Race Garage Grind Mental Health Edition.
It's kind of like the moment, that's right. I love it,
(42:04):
but uh but yeah, so you can find me there
and then I'm always on Twitter at Big Ray Roberts.
Uh and you know, I can argue and debate with
people some of some of the most mundane things, but
uh but that's usually.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
When I bored.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
So if you see me arguing a lot, it's like, oh,
Ray doesn't have anything to do today. Uh but but yeah,
you can find me on this place. I tried to
be active and obviously on the broadcast team on our
pregame post game shows.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, all I can say is is, uh, Ray Roberts
is just you are a remarkable thing human being. You
were a great football player that h Jame and I'd
still be playing if you were in front of him
and giving him.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
A little protection side guy.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Well he threw to largent and and let me clear
out that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
That's that's another story, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
I don't. That's I don't.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
We want to thank you, thank you for a coming
on here and telling your story, b for bringing all
the great stories and the great Seahawks uh player that
you were all those years. And in the meantime, we
will be back with another Seahawks stories coming up in
the next few weeks as we continue on mister Zorn
and I Ray again, thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
And we will be in touch with you folks again.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Thanks for joining us Cohawks
You're listening to Seahawks stories, teaking you behind the scenes
with your favorite Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Set back to Bey and Zorn, who's back to pass
as time looks for the left side line, throws a
bomb down there, he's got a man in front.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
He makes the grab a treble.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's a thirty down.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Of the twenty.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
They'll never get him. He scores touched.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Down Seahawks powered by Seahawks Dot.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Com and Zorn later in perfectly a Rabel who goes
in to score on an eighty yard pass and run play.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now, here's your host, the voice of the Seahawks, Steve
Rabel and Seahawks legend Jim Zorn.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh my goodness. Well sorry, we were laughing as that
was playing. First of all, because our guest today, Ray Roberts,
former Seahawks offensive tackle. I don't know that he's ever
heard that, and it's I think he finds it remarkable.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
That we Actually I was watching he was going Steve Rabel.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Yeah, and they looked at me. They said, I get
they'll never catch him. I'm like, man, I guess Steve
has some yet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
By the Jim during a commercial that made me laugh,
he said, what did you say like, well, perfect path.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Pete said, yeah, he laid it in there perfectly, and
darn right I did.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
Okay. So that's how we start this day on Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And it dawns on me as I have listened back
to a few of our of our shows, Jim, that
I don't do a very good job in kind of
introducing everybody. I just sort of assume everybody knows everybody,
and we just go.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
So in honor of that.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
As you all know, Jim Zorn Ring of honor member, quarterback,
first quarterback for the Seahawks, one of the record setters
for this franchise for so many years, and our guest
today a young man at least in relation to Jimmy me,
I appreciate that. That's okay. You won't be for long,
but that's okay. Is Ray Roberts, offensive lineman, first round
draft choice ninety two, yes, ninety two for the Seahawks,
(01:46):
went on to play for the Lions as well and
block for the incomparable Barry Sanders. All that we can
talk about in just a bit, but we haven't had
a kind of a conversation in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Everything good for you. You were talking Steve, our buddy
Largent the other day. Everything's good.
Speaker 7 (02:02):
Yep, Steve just got back. He and Terry went off
to Maui in Hawaii and had a big time there
with some friends from Tulsa. I don't know why, but
he and Terry love Tulsa. And I'm not saying that
it's not a great place to live. It is, except
it's harsh weather.
Speaker 6 (02:21):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
When I was talking to him, he said, zee, man,
the wind has been blowing thirty miles an hour plus
for the last three days, and I'm supposed to get
on my bike and go ride. And he said, you
just can't. You can't look forward to that. Plus you
can't even do it when the wind's blowing that hard.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, and it's in the middle of like Tornado Alley
or something.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
I mean, they have ferocious tornadoes.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Come through that area, and you know, depending on what
you believe in this world today, but it's only going
to get worse. So I wish him and Terry and
all those folks back there.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
But this is a great segue actually into Ray Roberts. Yeah, okay,
because he is from Asheville.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Do you still have family there.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, so my whole family still lives there.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
My my three older sisters lived there, all my aunts
and uncles and things like that. So uh yeah, it
was quite the disaster there. Like even now they still
don't have Like I just talked to my sisters yesterday,
they don't have water that they can consume. So even
if you boil it, they still want They're still waiting
for it to get uh filtered, all the bacteria and
(03:29):
stuff that.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Can you go to stores and purchase things.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Or starting to get that way. Where do There's some
stores that are that were that didn't get demolished, and
there's other stores that have. So there's still like uh
stations that get resources like toilet paper or.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Bottled water or diapers.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Or soap or you know, like the most rudimentary things
that you need for survivor to live. People still need
those types of things.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Any I'll will hate to ask, but any losses as
far as your family or your friends, close friends back there,
in terms of loss of life, loss of homes, those
sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Uh, some people lost homes.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
My sisters were didn't lose any of their property, but
things got damaged.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
But I do I just talked to my sister yesterday.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
It was a couple of friends that were missing, and
unfortunately they found them, you know, you know, deceased. Uh
you know, you can tell that they've just got swept
up with all the water and stuff like that, and
just probably I don't want to put any blame on them,
but probably should have gotten out a little sooner. But
it was just really devastating, you know, and just the
(04:38):
the simplest way to put it is that like there's
this Mount Mitchell is like the one of the it's
like about six thousand foot elevation. Our reservoir is about
one thousand feet below that. Well, then that reservoir overflowed
and then so you have thirty inches of water traveling about,
you know, one hundred miles an hour down another four
thousand feet to the city. So it just wiped out
(05:00):
everything in his path, froze bridges, houses, buildings, cars, I
mean whatever it was.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
It just they described how quickly the water went up
or was it just a big wave that just came through.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
It was like a constant flow of water for a
couple days for come and like Ashvill is right in
the middle of all the mountains, so usually when storms
come the mountains break it all up. You maybe get
some rain and some high winds, but never you know,
a hurricane down into the valley and so it's like
putting a hurricane in that water bottle. It had nowhere
(05:33):
to go then, so it just destroyed everything. And the
last time we've had an event like that and Ashwell
was like nineteen sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So none of.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
The infrastructure was designed to handle that type of stuff.
A lot of old roads and old towns back up
in the mountains and things. Some of those places just
got totally wiped off the map, like the roads, the buildings,
the houses, everything, So it's gonna be quite the rebuild.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Was there a large percentage of the families that you
know about that couldn't go to work even or couldn't
like how did they?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
How do you sustain life? You just help help?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Well that's when like the like you know, Steve and
I just did this presentation with Evergreen Health around hospice
care and things, and so one of my topics there
was like the power is showing up and to me, like, yes,
all of that was happening. People weren't working, you know,
businesses weren't even there to go to work too. Then
(06:31):
you didn't have power, you didn't have water, you didn't
have all these different things to actually do to work.
And so that's when like the humanity of people, like
humanity transcends all the other stuff that you know what
I'm saying. So when you can see that someone is
in need and you can show up and help them.
A lot of that is happening in Nashville. So there's
a lot of residents that have resources or they had
new people that knew people that knew people for a
(06:52):
moment there.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
For the first maybe three or four days after all of.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
This, every single road into ash Fill was cut off
either it had been wiped away or all the trees
from now so they hadn't actually helicopter stuff in. So
I couldn't even get my sisters out of town until
they got some of the roads cleared up so we
can get them out. And so so yeah, it took
everything that you could possibly imagine that people needed and
(07:16):
how people received supplies, Like I mean, you had to
you had to use every resource available to do.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, well, thank you for the update, and we're so happy.
We're sorry for the folks who've lost lives and lost homes.
Obviously happy for your families or that they're that they're okay,
and and if anything, this should just give everybody who's
listening to these conversations the the just a couple of things.
First of all, that that there is help out there,
(07:45):
and especially, as as Ray said, in the power of
just showing up the people around you. But also that
these kinds of tragedies affect everybody. They affect our families,
they affect friends that may be well down the line,
they affect professional football players and former.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
Players and all the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So lest we think that only certain people ever get
hit with these things, no, they happened to everyone, and
we should always be.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
Aware of that being of use.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
As someone I talked about our luncheon exactly that day
talked to us one day about b of US. All right,
so we've talked about those things. Now let's get back
to a couple of football related items, not the least
of which is first round draft choice nineteen ninety two
Ray Roberts, offensive tackle out of Virginia, All American. When
(08:36):
you came here, what were you coming into What do
you remember about that.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
First year that you were here with the Seahawks.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Well, the first thing I remember is that growing up
at North Carolina, I hadn't the furthest West I'd ever
been was Chicago, and the only time I had ever
really flown on the plane. The first time I flow
in the plane was at Virginia's and we flew to
Georgia like my first year or something. So I didn't
have a whole lot of experience traveling really far on
the airplane. It was like I was a little kid
(09:02):
going over there, Yeah, over there, Yeah, it's my agent
and I. We actually flew the first direct flight Northwest
Airlines had from DC to Seattle, and so it was long.
It took forever Andy.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
Coming all that way. During the draft, did you have
any other inklings that you were going to be drafted
by somebody else or was it always Seattle?
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
It was really interesting because that morning I woke up
the Indianapolis Colts had the first two picks, and so
they were like, the first pick was going to be
Steve Entpman from University of Washington. He was clearly the
best player in that draft going into the draft, and
then they said, hey, with the second pick, if we
go offense, we're going to select you. If we go defense,
we're going to select Quentin Corriott. So the first I
(09:44):
was on the clock like and like just sitting on
pins and needles, like, oh man, I might be the
second pick in the draft, like this is crazy. And
obviously they picked Quentin Coriott. And then after that it
was just like every team just calling trying to trade
up to get me into The Cowboys called and it's
like hey, like we have this dude that we want
to watch the draft with you. And I'm like okay,
(10:05):
and they're like, is it all right if he comes
to your apartment.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I'm like yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
So as soon as I hung the phone up, the
dude knocked at the door. He was standing at the
door waiting for them to say like yeah, it's okay
to go in, and so he came in. And then
the Cowboys had the fifteenth and I think the seventeenth pick,
and after the like the third or fourth pick, they
were trying to trade up with everybody to try to
draft me and then but nobody would trade. And then
(10:29):
the Seahawks called and was like, hey, we're thinking about
taking here at number ten, and they had like this
contract structure they wanted me to kind of agree to
and my agents like, nah, we don't want to do that.
And then all I heard they just said, okay, we'll
taught to you later. And so then I'm thinking to myself, like, man,
I messed that up, you know what I'm saying. Been
kind of cool to be like one of the top
ten picks, you know what I'm saying. And then I heard,
(10:51):
you know, back in the day, it was you know,
the productionism like what it is now. But there's a
guy that carries a card up to the commissioner and
they pronounced the name and I heard him say Roberts,
and everyone in the room was like, you know, in
our apartments, like having a good time.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And I was just right next to the TV.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
I'm like, oh, I think he said Roberts, and so
there's a picture of me just I'm like this closer
than yeah, and I'm like and when he said Ray Roberts.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I'm like, you know, everyone went nuts. But but yeah,
we wash.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
I thought I had blown the opportunity to be like
in the top ten and come to Seattle, but you know,
I was happy that I came here. Like I said,
it's a long, long trip. When I landed was like, man,
it's green and clean here, like it's like it was unbelievable.
But but yeah, I've enjoyed every minute of being here,
even when I played in Detroit.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you know, when I.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Was in Detroit, Jay z was our offense coordinator there
for a year or two too, so so it was
coached by the guy over here. And but love Seattle
and just have never thought about leaving.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I don't know why I'm drawing a blank. But in
ninety two, was Chuck still coaching or was it Tom?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Tom?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Then you played for Dennis are here and then then
I left and went to Detroit.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
Yeah, I was here in ninety seven. I went to
training camp and Rick Meyer was the quarterback. Dennis was
still here. Howard Mud, Howard Mud was still here. So
how many years did you get with Howard as a
football offensive line?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
By the way, well, yeah, one of the great offensive
line coaches ever in.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
The history of the game was right here. And see
thank you God rest his soul.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So Hudson howt uh was the head, was the off
of the line coach, and he when I was drafted
here my first year, and uh, it was really interesting
because he'd always show us film with the Dallas Cowboys
offensive line and he'd be like, oh, look how they
do it. Look at and so you're like, man, like
we're watching them, like like, coach us up, you know
what I'm saying. And then it turns out he went
to coach the Cowboys and then Howard came here, and man,
(12:43):
I'm telling you, like Howard Mud, Uh, there's no coach
I've ever had in my life on any level that
had the impact on my career and on me as
a person than Howard mud Like for whatever reason, Like, uh,
it wasn't like a pretty engagement at first, because he
called me out on a lot of things, and like
that really challenged me, like my work, ethic and the
(13:03):
things I was focusing on and all these And I'm
looking at this dude like, man, you don't even know
me yet, like and you're like, you know, coming at
me like this. But it was something in the way
he said it that I knew that this dude was
looking out for what was best for me, and and
so I just bought into everything that he told me
and talked.
Speaker 7 (13:18):
He was about being practical. Yeah, you could block, you
could block guys with your butt. Oh yeah, you know,
give him the.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Flipper on the backside, on the backside of plays, like
you're trying to cut someone off. Like we would actually
practice posting up like you post up on basketball. You
just used to work outside motion and you just box
out and post a dude up and running back comes
right through, you know. And so guys don't do that
as much anymore. But man, you got your big six
foot six, three hundred pound frame, you know, walling someone off.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Hey, it's a lane to run through.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
What are what are a couple of that? That would
be one of them.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
But he had a really very different philosophy on past
protection on how especially at that position right there. And
he would say, you know, most offensive line coaches want
to build a cup around so that the quarterback can
be there and and but he he never wanted to
build a cup. Howard always wanted to build a dish,
(14:16):
you know, And so he would, Uh, how how different
was that? I mean, think about West I mean, think
about Virginia, Yeah, and then coming here it must have
been just totally.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Well when I when I came into the league, a
lot of people compared like my athleticism and folkwork to
like Jackie Slater, And so Jackie Slater had this really
quick like kick straight back set, and so that's how
Hudson taught me.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
It was a kick straight back.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Well, the problem with that is, you know, six foot six,
long legs. After about three kicks, I start to get tall.
It's hard to stay stay low. So dudes would just
bull rush me a lot. So I had to figure
out how to defend a bull rush. And then so
then Howard came. Howard was like, why do you just
kick straight back all the time?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Like you said?
Speaker 5 (14:56):
And I was just like that's what I've been taught,
Like what else is there to do? And he's like, well,
you have long arms, quick feet, like I want you
to attack. I want you to be more aggressive and
pass blocking, so I want you to like he would
call it short setting. And so his signal for me
was like pulling the chain on a on a chainsaw,
like you know, like he's like, hey, pull the chain,
Like pull the chain.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So he wants me to sort.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And it was scary because you're you have you blocking
Derek Thomas and I'm just like, oh if I missed though,
he has like a ten yard run right at the quarterback,
you know, so you had to get really used to
like being uncomfortable trailing the defender and blocking the back
of his shoulder. So he would go like Ray like
just short set him and then like stay inside and then.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Block the back of his shoulder.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
I'm like, man, that doesn't sound right, Like I'm behind
Derek Thomas blocking the back.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Of his shoulder, Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (15:44):
You know?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And uh, and we would sit, we would just go this.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Hen and I would be out on the practice field together,
just going through play after play after play, footwork after
footwork after footwork, and he was challenging me, be more aggressive,
be more aggressive, be more aggressive, meet him, meet him sooner,
like like like jay Z was saying, like he wanted
to be a flatterline than more of it, you know,
than a cup like this. And so but once I
got comfortable doing it, I meant it just changed my
(16:10):
whole uh success rate in past blocking. And then that
kind of became like my my calling card in the league.
So other offensive line would be like man like like
the way you would go after people, or the quickness
of your feet like all this other kind of stuff.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And all that was due to Howard, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
And then and then off the field, you know, Howard
had a step son, Adam, and Adam, you know, young
fifteen year old kid, like getting into trouble and stuff
around Kirkland and all this other kind of stuff, And
so Howard would call me and go like, hey man,
we can't find Adam.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm like, all right, I'll go find him.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
And so I'd go down through Kirkland and go to
all the little arcades and stuff, and I'd find him,
take him home and or I'd take him to get
something to eat and talk to him and all this
other kind of stuff and try to get him going
and get him going in the right direction. And it
got to the point where when a lot of the
young kids would see me walking in and Kirkling, it'd
be like, oh, yeah, Adams, Adams over there, we know
who you're here to get, you know. So Howard and
(17:04):
I just connected on such a different level than just
football that there's not another coach on the face of
the earth that has just had the impact on me.
Even before I retired in Detroit, he was coaching at Innneapolis.
I called him at three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, hey, Howard,
this is what I'm feeling.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
What do you think? And he goes, well, you've already
answered it.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
You called me at three o'clock in the morning, and
so I'm like yep. So that morning, like five hours later,
I retired from the NFL. And then a year later
the Saints called and said, hey, like want you to
come in, and like we need someone to help with
the younger players.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We need a veteran player.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
So I called Howard like, hey, man, like, this is
what He goes like, remember that call you gave me
a three o'clock in the morning. I go, yeah, he
goes your body's gonna feel like that again. I'm like, yeah,
you're right, so I should probably stay retired. So so
Howard has had such a tremendous impact in my life
that I just I just love the dude.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
There are we could sit here and tell stories all
day just about Howard, And there are coaches like that,
and there are there are those kinds of mentors in
I think all of our lives somewhere along the way.
We're going to talk about that with you here in
just a second. But before we leave the topic of football,
you had a chance you could have stayed here in Seattle, right,
but you also had an opportunity to go to Detroit.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
And then once you got there and you saw and
firsthand who and what Barry Sanders really was, that must
have been. That must have been just terrific for an
offensive line.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Well, the hard thing is that I always wanted to play.
I never wanted to leave Seattle. And then I think
I was back then they had the franchise tag and
the transitional tag, and I was like to track this
said a transitional player, And because I was coming off
an injury, they removed the transitional tag and so that
made me a free agent and one that they didn't
have the match offers and all that kind of stuff.
(18:53):
And then it was in the middle of Ken Baron
trying to move the team, like.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It was that same offseason.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
So it's like there's little messages that you get when
you go like maybe I may not be in the plans.
It's because I was the last to learn that they
were trying to move the team to Anaheim, and so
then I'm like, yeah, like maybe you know, my time
here may be done. But the interesting thing is that
when I went to visit Detroit. It was like UVA Midwest.
There was already like five or six UVA players on
(19:21):
the team.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And one of them was.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Herman Moore, who he and I were freshmens together, first
year players together at Virginia. And he left the year early,
was a tenth pick in the draft and I was
the next year. I was a tenth pick in the draft.
And so talking to him, and you know, I was
seeing Barry but not really knowing Barry, and I was
talking to Herman. He's like, dude, we're like so close
to like being like a championship team.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Got all these guys on off.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
You know, we had Brett Perriman, Johnny Morton who was
the fullback, fullback, Cory Schlessinger.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Cory he had no neck, his muscle from.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
His ear all the way to the end of his
shoulders from Nebraska.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
I would say, I asked, I asked h one question.
I said, so, what do you think about when you
go to block a linebacker? Because he had I mean,
he would just pound people. He was really a good blocker.
And he said, he said, here's my philosophy. The closer
I get, the faster I go. That's that was his He.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Was notorious for changing out face masking games because he
would break them, bend them, all kind of stuff. But
he was like he was like he would get fined
a lot in today's game because he was leading with
his big head all the time. But one of the
strangest things about our funniest things about Ben in Detroit
was my first year. Yeah, I tried to pride myself
on like, you know, smart dude from Virginia, Like you know,
(20:38):
we're arrogant a little bit about that. And so I'm
looking at the plays and there's like a linebacker with
an exclamation point over him, and I kept going like, man,
I've never seen that, Like what does that mean? And
so I'm trying to like sort through the playbook. So
finally go hey, coach, like, what does what does this mean?
He goes, Oh, that's Barry's guy. I'm like, well, what
does that mean? Well, on one guy is not going
to block bear a tackle Barry, so we don't have
(20:59):
to block him. And I would just be like what,
like like who is this dude? Like you know what
I'm saying, And so it would always be like a
backside linebacker or something where we just go like, yeah,
we just worked this double team on the backside.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
We're not even to worry about don't don't come off
the double team.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, just stay on the double team because Barry's
gonna make one guy miss every time.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
Frank Fault was the he was the running back coach,
and I asked, I said, so, what's why is Barry who?
You know, why is Berry the way he is? He said,
I've never been around a guy that could see the
line of scrimmage and you can see that linebacker coming,
he said, but Barry.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Can see the safety.
Speaker 7 (21:37):
So he said, he's kind of a three level He's
got like a three level vision where a guy can
run through the line of scrimmage and you know, you
can avoid a linebacker. But Barry could go through the
line of scrimmage. He already he already would deal with
the linebacker as he's going through the line of scrimmage.
But he was always looking at the next guy down
the field and he could see where he was. And
(22:00):
I thought that was an amazing statement by the running
back coach on what Barry.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
Yeah, Barry, Barry was incredible man, And like, uh, I
think the year that he rushed for two thousand yards after.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It was when coach Ross had came. Wayne Fonce had
left and Coach Ross came and I was at the Oh,
yeah you was Georgia Tech. Yeah, that's sorry. And he
had beat us at Virginia.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
So I was like, I used to get thank you,
but I hated that. That's why sometimes, that's why I
try not to say Georgia Tech a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
It's like that other school of Virginia.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Try not to.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
If you if you had been the University of Georgia,
I would be even up, but I wouldn't even happier,
more thrilled.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
But but anyway, like I remember, I forget the offensive court,
not the opposite the quarterback coach maybe me.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
No, who's the coordinator then Tom Sylvester Crum.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Was it crew?
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Anyway, they called us to the We had this meeting
and it was uh, some offensive lineman, some some some
of the running backs, quarterbacks like O, hey, what do
we need to do? And after two games we only
had fifty three yards rushing with Barry and I just said, man,
we this is the best running back in the league,
in the world.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Maybe let's just give him the.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Ball until his shoes fall off, like we should have
like a big, huge oxygen tank on the sideline and
he should be exhausted out to every game. And then
from that point on we'd rushed for exactly two thousand
yards in fourteen games, and so we into what twenty
and fifty three yards, and so it was pretty amazing
because we had offense, like, I mean tons of offense.
I think Herman Moore was like getting like one hundred
(23:33):
and fifteen hundred and twenty receptions a year. Brett Perriman
probably had like, you know, close to you know, eighty
ninety catches. Johnny Morton had another fifty or sixty catches. Like,
we had an amazing and then we had Dave Sloan
at tight end, who was a pretty good tight end
we you know, in our offensive line. Because of the
way Barry ran, we never got the credit that we deserved.
But if you if you watch obviously Barry's gonna have
(23:55):
his highlight plays, but if you watch the games, like
we were delivering him to the second level, which is
what we're supposed to do, and Barry does his thing
after that, and there was a lot of that going on,
and so you don't rush for twenty fifty three yards
at Barry just out running everybody, and so it was
it was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, we didn't advance far in
the playoffs. You know, we had some young young secondary
(24:16):
I think we led the league in pass in appearance
calls that year, but but we couldn't seem to get
out of our own way that way. But it was
a It was amazing being able to play in such
a powerful offense and then be able to block for
somebody like barrt Did.
Speaker 6 (24:29):
It surprise you when he retired? So suddenly, yeah, it did. So.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
So Barry and I were like always the team captains
and and then we always roomed together in training camp,
and so when he wasn't didn't come in, like everybody was, like,
I was getting peppered with questions like every daily, did
he show up, Why didn't he show Have you talked
to him?
Speaker 3 (24:46):
All the other kind of stuff?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
And I talked to him one time because at the time,
if he had come back and played and by Thanksgiving,
he would have had the all time record for rushing
because we normally had about eleven hundred yards around that time,
and that was I think what he needed to get
to the record. And I was the only lineman left
that had blocked for him when he rushed for two
thousand yards. So selfishly, I was saying, like, come on back, man,
(25:11):
like get the Thanksgiving and then you can leave, because
then I could be the only dude that blocked for
a two thousand yard rusher and the old time leading rusher.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But it just wasn't happening.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
It was really really strange, you know, Like Barry is
a type of dude though this, like once he decides
he's going to do something he's committed to that he's
convicted by, it's kind of hard to change his mind.
I do think that part of the retirement. Even in
his documentary thing, he didn't really speak to the retirement,
But I think part of it was that the organization,
(25:39):
like we would get players in the field spots and
then as they started to learn our system and then
it was time for them to get paid, Oh let's
switch them out. So it was like we're on his treadmill.
The team just wasn't getting better. We weren't getting good
enough to get past the first round of the playoffs,
and I think that just kind of frustrated Barry and
he's never going to be one of the dudes that
kind of go and say like, hey, I want to
do this, I want to make the calls. You know,
(26:00):
He's never going to pull that stump with people. He
just goes like, well, I guess this is it for me,
and I don't know.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
Well, if you would ask me that question, It's so
funny to listen to a player who you know he
was a teammate and his roommate and for me, Barry.
Barry came in two days before training camp started and
he told Bobby Ross. His words were, I have I
always wanted to play in the National Football League for
(26:28):
ten years and last year was my tenth year.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I'm done.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
Two days before camp.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Yes, yeah, and.
Speaker 7 (26:37):
It was really upsetting. You know you were saying you
were surprised. Well, we were all surprised because I think
our draft that offseason would have been totally different knowing
that Barry was going to retire. But we had the
expectation that Barry was going to be there. And Barry
only knows Hey, in his mind, he was done. And
I don't know when he came to that conclusion, because
(26:58):
I've been a player too. Know, you just kind of
run through and you got to work out a lot
of different things. But he quit two days so we
were left without a star running back, and you know,
one thing led to another. We got another guy, as
you well know, from the Rams, you know, the small
(27:19):
guy from the He was just like Barry, only not
as Bill vers.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
I'll have to go look.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
He was from the Rams, and he had played at
He played either at UCLA or SC or something like that. Anyway,
he was not quite living up to that very few
There's no way I'll never forget Barry when I had
gone there. He would never say a word at practice,
(27:48):
he said nothing. And he would always run sprints by
himself in the heat of the day, right after practice.
He would run like ten hundreds or ten to one tens.
Nobody else would be on the field, and he would run.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I watched him. I watched all ten one day. Yeah,
and he just ran him.
Speaker 7 (28:06):
As hard as he he could. He never just there
was no striding. He just took off and ran as
hard as he could. I don't know what's going on
in his mind.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
But well, it was the first heart I had inkland
that something was going on. Our last game was Baltimore
the year before, and uh and uh. It took him
a long time to get to the bus. Everyone's on
the bus. We're waiting for Barry. So like, Ray, can
you go see what's going on? So I go in
and Barry hadn't even taken a shower yet. He was
still sitting in his locker in his uniform. I'm like, hey, man,
I don't I don't know what's going on, but we
(28:35):
need to get on this bus and get up out
of here.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
And uh.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
And so he, you know, obviously got on the bus.
But he was so quiet and never never really talked
to people. But the people that he was close to
that he talked to a lot was Lomas Brown and
Kevin Glover and those are his two dudes. And uh,
and so he's, you know, Kevin, haven't talked to Kevin,
Kevin having conversations with him. I think I think it
was It may have been a combination of the ten
(28:58):
year thing, but it but definitely the direction of the
that the league was going. He wanted to be on
the championship team, he wanted to get to the super Bowl,
he wanted to play in the Super Bowl, that kind
of stuff, you know. And there was always these rumors
that his dad's favorite player was Jim Brown. They said,
you don't want to bring to Jim Brown rectors and
all this other kind of stuff, which his dad is
a totally different story. But you know, I do think that,
(29:19):
you know, maybe the tenure thing has a part to
do with it. But the other part two was that
he had seen his dues be shuffled in and out
and just that cycle of doing that and not really
build the team.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
He was one player, and he can attest to this
where every single person on the Detroit Lions sideline, they
were up as far as you could get up to
the field when Barry was on the field, because he
could go all the way. Let me just hand him
the ball and he'd go all the way. So every
but then you look across the field and every opponent
(29:52):
and player, whether you were on defense or offense, you
were on the edge of the sideline because Barry was
going to pass to get the ball and you wanted
to see that run.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
It was unbelievable, a remarkable talent.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I want to get to a couple of other things
before we go, but one of the things, and you
reminded me of it when you talked about leaving to
go to Detroit and I look back, and since this
is Seahawks Stories and it's about the history of this franchise,
I look back at those kinds of decisions, not so
much the decision by the player, but what they envisioned
(30:28):
was going.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
To happen to them.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
And I looked at it from our time in our
early years, and we had a guy named Nick Bebout
who was one of our offensive tackles. Nick was never
going to be a pro bowler or anything, but he
was such a solid player and such a leader up there,
and they cut him to let a younger guy play
who was not ready to play. And so I thought
that was a kind of a turning point as we
(30:52):
had just started to ascend as a team. Roll ahead
a few years Steve Hutchinson walks away, goes to Minnesota,
ends up being he had to well, guys like transition tag.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Yeah, Well, the thing on our line that we had
here that we're building at Howard was building.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
There was me, Jeff.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
Black Chair, Kevin ma Why and Andy Heck and all
of us ended up leaving. Yeah, and so you know,
Kevin ended up going to the Hall of Fame. Jeff
black Chair won the Super Bowl as a playing beside
Jonathan Ogden in Baltimore. Andy ended up going to Chicago
and planning and now he's like the offensive line coach
at Kansas City.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
And then I ended up going to Detroit.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
And blocking Ford the all time all of us were
on the same offensive line at one point.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
And then the Sea.
Speaker 7 (31:37):
It shows that that the Hawks were getting the right guys,
and uh and and the building how long do you stay?
I mean, that's you know, that's the internal question, the
question right and we get rid of him suit too soon?
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Or was there a salary cap in those days?
Speaker 7 (31:54):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, there, so the you always had to keep that
in the back and might, just as they do now.
But we didn't have that issue obviously when you and
I started. But then you didn't. You couldn't go any
place anyway. Nobody could offer you a free agent money
because there was no such thing as a free agent.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
Okay, So you.
Speaker 7 (32:11):
Played for some great coaches, you really have, and and
and it's a testament to you because those coaches knew
what to do with your talent, you know what I mean.
They helped you with some techniques, some fundamentals, and you
went out there and battled. But you can see it
today too, right, You're not You're not coaching per se,
although you tried to coach.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, was that all?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well?
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I coached high school football for about seven years, and uh,
and I don't know. My approach to sports and stuff
like that wasn't necessarily the wins and losses of games.
I was trying to win men's souls and hearts and yeah,
make them good citizens of the community, good brothers, good husbands,
good partners, good students, good community people.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That's where my focus was.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
And so I felt good about how I impacted, you know,
young young guys in this area.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Net God.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
I never I did to coach an internship with the
Colts after I retired, and because Howard was there and
he had just had a surgery and he was like, Hey,
I want you to come and work with the young
guys and I'll take the top seven dudes and then
this is how we're going to roll. So I did
that one all season and then I decided like, eh,
I don't know if I'm built for this grind. And
then this one coach came to me and said, hey, man,
(33:20):
I've lived in thirteen different houses, and I'm like, yeah,
I'm not built for that, I promise you, And so
I kind of got away from the professional coaches.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
We had a coach named Any McDonald who was our
running backs coach.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
And special teams.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
He did both in our first few years, and he
always used to say, he said, kid, don't get wall
to wall carpeting, and if you do, don't nail it down,
because that's that's what the business of being a coach
or even a player at times. Yeah, okay, so how
do you go from I love Andy, got left us
far too soon. So you go from that opportunity to
(33:55):
coach and you kind of find your way into this
area now where e'rerope. You're literally travel the country working
with and for Special Olympics and Special Olympics athletes and
the organization and the communities that they're in.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Plus you.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Speak so much mentoring and all those things. Where did
all that come from?
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Well, sometimes there's no self made people, even though people
want to say, like, hey man, I'm a self made millionaire,
I'm a self made Along the way, people encouraged support,
it gave you extra advice, I all that kind of stuff,
and so I just feel like you have to have
a team of people and I like to be on
people's team. Whether I'm getting you from A to B
or B two C or whatever it is, I want
(34:39):
to help you get to the place that you're trying
to get to.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And so that's just kind of how always been.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
And so when I left, I went back to school
to University of Washington, got a master's degree in athletic administration,
and during that I took a lot of diversity, ECO
and inclusion classes. And then this opportunity came up at
Microsoft to work in that area and their gaming division.
So I went and worked at Microsoft as a diversity
specialist for three years. And then as I was doing that,
(35:04):
the special USA Games came to Seattle. We needed ambassadors,
so they had a couple of dudes that was trying
to talk about like inclusion and stuff, and so I
went to the leadership one day and I'm like, hey, like,
the next time, can I get up and talk about
what inclusion is and what it's not. And I did,
And so some of the special limits folks were they
were like, hey, man, like, we're trying to get our
(35:25):
school based programs into the inner city and we're having
a hard time, and we think you can be the
dude to help us. And so that's kind of how
I got into Special Olympics. So I was the director
of Urban Development for Special Lympics. Now I'm the Senior
Advisor for Urban Development for Specialists North America. So I
traveled to all the different inner city schools and communities
and neighborhoods all over the United States trying to help
(35:46):
their school district strategize on how to implement our school
based programs. There's a lot going on and a lot
of things you have to overcome, and nuances and all
that kind of stuff, stigmas you have to overcome.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And so I try to help.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Break down that stuff and then help them strategize on
how to get our stuff into the schools. And then
as it relates to the mental health peace, Uh. Since
I retired the I struggled with depression a lot, and
so I would just sleep on the couch, turn off
all the lights, you know, cover up all the windows,
all that kind of stuff, and then and I would
(36:17):
just battle with it all the time. And then right
before the pandemic, I started having the panic attacks and
I couldn't figure out what was going on. I couldn't
get out the door, go see my kids. I couldn't
get out to go hang out with my buddies. And
you know, Nassa hears me tell the story all the time,
like I'd always go like, hey, N's I'm running late.
But I was running late, not because I got up late.
It's just like I had to talk myself out the door,
(36:38):
down the steps, into my car, get to the red light,
get to the stop sign, like I talked my way
all the way over to the studio.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
But nobody knew why I was doing this, and uh.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
And so then finally one day, I just I mean,
I felt like I was about to throw everything in
my house out the window. I just didn't know what
to do, and so I called my ex wife Beth.
We were trying to figure out places to get into.
We're struggling with that. She called Sandy Gregory, and then
Sandy and Beth put together this plan to get me
to this program called After the Impact that the NFL
sponsors in Manchester, Michigan. And so then I went there
(37:10):
for thirty days. You're supposed to it's a requirement to
stay for two weeks, but I was like, no, I
need longer than that, Like it's not gonna work if
I'm just here for two weeks.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
So I ended up staying there for thirty days.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
And so when I came out of that, I was
just I came to National's like, hey, man, like, I
want to tell my story because I think when I
got to this home where there were six former players,
dudes were suffering in silence. Man Like one dude came
there after his wife found him writing apology letters because
he's about to commit suicide. And so I'm like, man, like,
(37:43):
you can't allow people to live like that in isolation.
And so I just that's why I started the podcast,
to tell my story, to debunk it, to make it,
make it something that people are comfortable talking about and
sharing and reaching out for help. And so we got
the Mindful Therapy Group that came on board as a
title sponsor. And so you know, it's been to me.
It's healing to be able to do it and to
(38:04):
be able to talk about it. And it's also it
makes you feel good when you're out in public and
people are saying, hey, I listened to it. I went
and got help. A guy at the game the other
day came and said, man, I had been thinking about
being a therapist for a long time.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
I listened to your podcast for a.
Speaker 5 (38:16):
Little while and then I just went and signed up
to take classes to be a therapist like that kind
of So that type of impact is is what I'm
trying to go for.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
All that all that was before COVID hit. That was
twenty nineteen. Yeah, and then you went through COVID, and.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
COVID made it worse.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
I was everything, yeah, because you're even more isolation, you know,
and to the point where I would tell my kids, like,
I don't know who you guys hanging out with, so
you can't come over here. I'm a diabetic too, so
that was a part of it too. I just didn't
want to have, you know, catch COVID in that situation.
But then the isolation part just made it even worse.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
Did they help you with your identity, like who you
are as a man or how it died you?
Speaker 5 (38:57):
It wasn't necessarily. It wasn't necessarily like who I was
as a man. It was more of the messages I
was telling myself myself talk, you know, like I had
been through a divorce and all this other kind of
stuff and you feel bad about that, and the and
the issues that you create for your kids and your
ex wife and all this other kind of stuff. And
so I felt guilty about that a lot.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
And so I couldn't see the value in what I
was bringing to the world because I had just labeled
myself as that guy. And uh and then and then uh,
and then you start to kind of you know, I've
always wanted to be the world's greatest dad and the
world's greatest husband, and I failed at one of them.
And then I got scared, like I was afraid to
try anything because I'm like, hey, hey, go walk up
(39:39):
the stairs, like I don't know, I might not make it.
I might slip on the third stair like, you know.
So you just talk yourself out of a lot of
things and uh. And so they're in therapy world, are
called cognitive distortions, and so uh. I was then got
the tools to go to challenge those be curious about it,
you know. And then as you start to answer of
(40:00):
those things, to speak truth in fact to it, then
all that stuff calms down and then you're able to move.
So it wasn't a thing about identity or manhood or anything.
It was more of just the self talk, you know.
And we talked to ourselves more than we talked to
anyone else.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Well, it's an amazing story, and it's a story that
I'm sure a lot of your teammates, a lot of
us didn't know quite the detail and the depth of
what you had to fight through and where you are today.
Before two things before we wrap up. First of all,
you mentioned Sandy Gregory. We're going to have her on
this show here one of these days, Nasa, We're going
(40:36):
to have her on the show one of these days.
She was well, she's a fifty year just like we are.
She was there from the very first day of the Seahawks.
She worked in the PR department more importantly than she
moved into kind of community relations. And then after the
fact she's working with helping players find resources everything from
health to financial to educational.
Speaker 6 (40:58):
She's just an amazing person, give so much of.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Her time, and I think all of us can say
that that we have benefited from knowing Sandy and from
all the help that she's been. That's that's the first thing.
Second thing, if people want more of of you, of
your information, of your story, of your advice, where can
they find that.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
Well, my podcast is called Big Raise Garage Grind, and
you can find that on Seattle the seahawks dot com website,
on YouTube dot com, Slash Seahawks, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
any of the podcast platforms you can find that. We
just dropped our latest episode yesterday, I think it was,
And well, it's a long story. Like so, during the pandemic,
(41:42):
my son was playing football and none of the gyms
were open, so we had to work out in the garage.
And so in order to show his coaches that we're
working out, we would post on social media our garage
grind and so they would see him working out. And
then my followers just kind of jumped on the whole
garage grind thing and I just kind of stuck with it.
We called a Big Race Garage Grind Mental Health Edition.
It's kind of like the moment, that's right. I love it,
(42:04):
but uh but yeah, so you can find me there
and then I'm always on Twitter at Big Ray Roberts.
Uh and you know, I can argue and debate with
people some of some of the most mundane things, but
uh but that's usually.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
When I bored.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
So if you see me arguing a lot, it's like, oh,
Ray doesn't have anything to do today. Uh but but yeah,
you can find me on this place. I tried to
be active and obviously on the broadcast team on our
pregame post game shows.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, all I can say is is, uh, Ray Roberts
is just you are a remarkable thing human being. You
were a great football player that h Jame and I'd
still be playing if you were in front of him
and giving him.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
A little protection side guy.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Well he threw to largent and and let me clear
out that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
That's that's another story, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
I don't. That's I don't.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
We want to thank you, thank you for a coming
on here and telling your story, b for bringing all
the great stories and the great Seahawks uh player that
you were all those years. And in the meantime, we
will be back with another Seahawks stories coming up in
the next few weeks as we continue on mister Zorn
and I Ray again, thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
And we will be in touch with you folks again.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Thanks for joining us Cohawks
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