Joey Harrington: Find Joy in the Struggle

Joey Harrington’s NFL journey was marked by high expectations and hard lessons, but it wasn’t until the Detroit Lions traded him to Nick Saban’s Dolphins in 2006 that he began to rediscover himself. In Miami, the quarterback found clarity, resilience, and perhaps his most meaningful season — not in terms of wins and losses, but in personal growth. Contributors to this episode include Sevach Melton and Dolphins Productions. Theme song created and performed by The Honorable SoLo D. Mid-roll commercials Break 1 – 20:10.5 Break 2 – 35:42.5

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're now diving.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Little who.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Sitting down with Seth Living Oh Jay, Well, and this
is strictly for I'm a.

Speaker 4 (00:18):
True Dolphin number one of course, y'all, just and all
the never sports talk that might have been.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
That Welcome back to the Fish Tank, presented by iHeartRadio.
Right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast Network, Seth Levitt
and the toughest podcaster Dan Marino ever played with. He
is o J McDuffie. Juice. How are we doing today? Brother?

Speaker 4 (00:37):
You know, man, Seth, why didn't even ask that question?
You know how pumped I am about, you know, playing
with a guy, you know, a guy on the podcast.
It's on the right side of the football. Yeah, I
Onlyn that the guy that I make sure you make
sure you love and show love the guys like this
when you're a wide receiver.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Man, So when we get a quarterback on, yeah, you know,
I'm super pumped.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know you're always loving up on the quarterbacks. Oh,
I don't think it's a coincident, right, No, I don't
think it's a coincidence.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Oh, man, Seth, you know what I mean. And it's
a fellow big ten guy now too, so that helps,
you know, smart. We're smart in a big ten bro Oh,
look at that.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
It's all starting to come together, not wasting any time. Well, listen,
you heard the voice, and I guess if you clicked
on the podcast, you already know the guests. There's no surprise,
but we are absolutely pumped up to have Joey Harrington
join us here in the fish tank. Joey, first and foremost,
thank you. We had a I guess kind of weather

(01:32):
the time difference, but we figure it out and you're here,
and we're grateful.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I appreciate you having me. Yeah, this is uh, I
don't know, it's I'm just so used to Pacific time
that i don't even think about, like you know, it
was okay, here's the thing. When I started, God, I
got drafted, I went straight to Detroit and that was
East Coast time, and I couldn't I couldn't finish watching
a football game, like you know. I turned on the

(01:59):
TV at like five o'clock expecting a kickoff and now
it's not until like eight eight thirty back then, and
so halftime hits about eleven, Like god, I'm asleep. So
uh yeah, I'm a nice, comfortable Pacific time kind of guy.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Not surprised, not surprised at all. And how often do
you even get to talk Miami Dolphins these days?

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Absolutely never. And it's funny because it's actually kind of
the spot that people forget that I was even you know,
involved with, you know, because it was such a quick
I was traded god like six weeks before the season started,
and I was savings last year, and so everybody got
cleaned out after he left, and so it was I

(02:40):
barely had enough time to even rent a house. So yeah,
it was a pretty it was a pretty influential part
of my career. And so yeah, it's nice to have
a chance to chat.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, we're breaking bearers here, Jos, We're breaking barriers.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
And they definitely are. Man, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Just ive right into that Dolphins tenure. Man, you have
to talk about a little bit. Four years in Detroit,
the Lions match commission obviously to look for a new
NFL home, and in May of two thousand and six,
you are traded to the Miami Dolphins under the two
leads another head coaching job of Nick Saban. The Dolphin
means well had to make you know, they had to
move away from Gus Farott, and they made the you know,

(03:15):
the now infmosphic decision to choose Dante Colepepper over Drew
Brees to take over as the team's started quarterback. What
was it about Miami that was appealing to you and
what were your expectations when you got here?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
It was cut and dry, to be honest. I had
a conversation with Nick when I was looking for a
place to get traded, and he said, we traded a
second round pick for Pep. We're going to trade a
fifth round pick for you. I don't care what you're
being paid. I don't care what he's being paid. He's
going to get the first reps, you're going to get
the second reps. Whoever's better is going to play. Can

(03:51):
you deal with that? That's all I've been looking for
for four years in my career, right That's I was
just looking for somebody to be straightforward, to be honest,
to stand by their word, right. You know it's people
think that hearing bad news or hearing hey, somebody telling

(04:14):
you your benched, right, that that's going to be a
bad thing. There's a fear around that. Right now, I
don't want to be the one to deliver that news.
But you know what, and you know to j like,
as athletes, you would rather have somebody be straight up
with you, to say, hey, look, here's where it is,
here's where you stand, here's where someone else stands. You've
been good enough, you haven't been good enough that you
can adjust, you can, you can make changes, you can

(04:39):
you know you can deal with that type of that
type of information. And for the first time in my career,
really Nick provided that for me, right, you know, came
in and you know, Pep started the first couple of games,
I played the next twelve. You know, that was all
I was looking for at that point in my career
is somebody to look me in the eye. I say,

(05:00):
here's where you stand. If you do this, you will play.
If you don't, you won't. And yeah, while while it
wasn't always the prettiest, it wasn't you know, inevitably we
didn't end up making the playoffs, but you know, we
had a pretty good stretch going there the middle of
that season, and it was because of that confidence that

(05:21):
was instilled in me from from coach Saban and the others.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
I like that, man, man, Joe, you don't I don't
know if you know this about me, but once I
finished playing, I became the biggest Doll fan ever at
season tickets in.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
The first row and the end zone.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's it's something about the outfit. I'm not really sure,
pretty ambiguous.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
But yeah, man, I remember that like it was yesterday, bro,
and it was it was crazy to see all that
was going on, and uh, yeah, I get it, man,
And honestly, I don't think anybody knows and if you
can back me up on this, I don't think anybody
knows that that was the conversation that was had between
you and Nick and you know, the whole thing between
you and Danton.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
That's amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
B Yeah, I mean I've never heard that before till
we heard it here. The perception was because again we
always heard they had to make a choice. It was
going to be Breeze or was it going to be Dante.
Was it going to be the shoulder issue or was
it going to be the knee? Like what were they
going to roll the dice on? But the conversation never,
you know, we never got that fast forward to Okay,
now that Joey's here, how are we evaluating this? But

(06:24):
you know, the head coach if the head coach sits
you down and tells you that and there. People have
said a lot of things about Nick Saban, and it's funny, Joey,
We've had this running thing where I've was not the
biggest fan of Nick Saban, even though my boss is,
like we say, kind of his son, right, you know,
like j J T does call him daddy, and it's
okay that he does, and I don't hate him for it,

(06:45):
and it's understandable. But every guy, maybe Sam's Zach Thomas,
it's come on this show and said, look, Nick wasn't
my buddy, but man I respected the hell out of him.
And it's kind of what you said. He was straightforward.
What you saw is what you got. It didn't seem
like he the kind of guy that talked out of
both sides of his mouth, except for when he said
he wasn't leaving, But other than that.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
In all honesty, I mean, and I've I've had people
asking this before. What what do you expect him to say? Right? Right?
You got four games left to go in the season.
Somebody asked him, are you going to be leaving to
go to Alabama? Well, yeah, I think I'm gonna go
what do we do as like as pairs like and
and he was very and I'm guessing part of without

(07:31):
I'm trying to think of how to avoid I'm not
going to talk about how other people may feel or
why other people may feel a certain way about him, right,
But Nick was very much this is my job, this
is what I do. This is your job, this is.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
What you do.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
And if his job is to be the head coach
for the Miami Dolphins at that point in time, what
is the best thing to do to say, to be
the head coach for the Miami Dolphins, No doubt you're
not going to Alabama because the moment he says that
is the moment you lose the locker room. And at
what point we were still you know, we were still
in the playoff mix, right, And so I don't fault

(08:10):
him for the way that he handled it. I'm sure
that there were a lot of people who were frustrated
about it. But when you look at that situation as
a whole and what his options were, I think that
was the best thing that he that he could have done.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
It makes sense. And look, if you got for.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Sure, it's the best thing he could have done right, clearly.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah. And if VI had gone to Alabama juice and
it was a dumpster fire, nobody we wouldn't care, right,
But then he went on to be the greatest college
football coach in the history of the game. And so
all of us in Miami are jilted lovers, and you know,
what are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
What are you gonna do? All right?

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, speaking of expectations, you know, there were serious ones
surrounding the Dolphins that particular year. A big part of
it was Nick Saban's reputation. He'd won the national championship.
He'd come in here and things started slow. But then
the Dolphins close out oh five with six straight wins,
and there were a lot of dudes on both sides
of the ball. But the season didn't start the way

(09:04):
anybody had hoped that it would. And the next thing,
you know, we're looking at that one in three record.
Dante's still kind of dragging his knee around a little bit.
I think he even did bang up his shoulder at
some point, and coach Saban decides he's going to make
a change, and I don't know, you know, we're on
the outside looking in. I've heard a million stories. I
certainly you know, guys I'm very close to, including the

(09:25):
one who signed my paychecks, were there. But Dante felt
the communication was maybe a little different than what Nick
Saban felt it was. And there was this well documented
epic blow up in practice one day, and so we've
heard about all that, and I've heard it from different players.
Channon Crowder does tells a great version of the story.
Who knows if it's true or not, but it's a

(09:46):
great version of the story. But when all this shit's
going on, Joey like, I would love to hear from
your perspective, like, well, you know, because you told us
what he told you coming in. But you're the guy
who's like, okay, next man up, and a football decision
was made and you can't get caught up in that.
You got to go out there and lead this football team. Now.
I'm just curious with all of that madness even in

(10:09):
the moment, and what you were told beforehand, and I
would just love to hear your perspective as to how
all that went down.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I'm going to start by asking what you know or
what has.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
This is a smart I want a quarterback.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I have never told my version of what happened on
that Friday practice, right on a nationally syndicated you know,
I mentioned people, and it's like, all right, this isn't
really going to get out because if it did, like, oh, so,
what do you know about what may or may not

(10:47):
have happened on that Friday afternoon practice?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Sure? Well, from what I understand, Dante went out to
practice that day believing he was the starting quarterback of
the Miami Dolphins and Nick Saban was ready to start practice,
and in his mind, Joey Harrington was the starting quarterback
of the Miami Dolphins, and Dante didn't take it very well,

(11:12):
and the two of them spoke to each other like
two angry grown men do speak to each other in
typically not in the workplace. So that I mean, those
are without cutting too deep into it, everything that we've
been told was Dante felt that Nick either didn't tell
him or told him something that was different than what

(11:32):
was delivered that day at practice, and he was he
you know, I'm sure his pride was hit, but he
was also pissed and felt betrayed, and a lot of
expletives were thrown out, and yeah, that's what we I'm.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Not going to ever speak for other people. I'm just fair,
what was what your knowledge of the events that may
or may not the words that may.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Or may not have been shared, the yeah, you know, the.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Physical like how yeah, we don't we don't necessarily, okay.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And I and just to clarify my question, I'm not
asking you could tell me Dante said this to Nick,
and Nick said that to Dante. I kind of want
you know, there's a third party in this thing, and
it's the other guy that has to now go be
the because that's got to be a little bit. You know,
in most jobs in America, when you get a job,

(12:27):
it's because someone else left or someone else was fired
or whatever. But you don't have to then go sit
next to the guy in the cubicle who and whose
job you just took, and he and his he and
his boss or your boss or MF and each other
like that's that's not a normal thing that happens. And
so I the reason I asked the question is to
get the perspective from the third party in all of this,

(12:50):
you know, who now has all of that looming over
like oh shit, like I just you know kind of
I just came from a dysfunctional situation, and now I
got this chance to go be the version of me
and all of this stuff is happening around me. So
that's the question.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
If you guys wanted to talk about dysfunction, you came
to the right guysanding, okay, my understanding of the situation. Dante,
like you said, had been having kne issues and coach
said to him in any I should say, he said

(13:26):
to us as a quarterback group, Coach Garrett, you know,
Jason Garrett was was there. Look, if you're having issues,
take the week off, go to your treatment. Joey's going
to take all the reps. We got to Friday and
there wasn't a clear, definitive, you know, decision on what
his health was. So coach Saban said, we have to

(13:47):
get Joey ready to play on Sunday in a ten
period practice. Joey's going to take the first five. You're
going to take the second five. That was the understanding
coming out boot. We go out to start practice. I
start jogging out to the huddle and I see Pep
coming in, and so I start jogging backwards like, no,
we're not We're not doing this. The the events happen

(14:11):
and yeah, it was surreal. I mean too, there's no
other word to really describe it. Like, those type of
altercations aren't normal workplace environment, normal workplace occurrences. Right, So
as somebody who has to do their job is still

(14:37):
I don't I don't know. I mean that there's it
didn't really change anything for me, right, I think that's
the best way to describe it, because at that point
in my career, I'd seen some I'd seen some crazy stuff. Yeah,

(14:58):
that was kind of just enough. They're like, whoa, I've
never seen that before, right, all right, right, and now
we move on which is which is again kind of
like to the point I was making earlier. It's like,
as an athlete, you're able to compartmentalize, You're you're able

(15:18):
to say, this is what I can control, this is
what I can't control, this is what I do well,
this is what I need to work on, this is
what I have to do now, this is what I
can save for later. Right, those are the things that
as an athlete you're able to deal with. For me
in that situation, I don't know, you just kind of say,

(15:40):
next man up, this is my opportunity to go play.
Did I necessarily expect it to happen that way. No,
I didn't, but I knew, you know, based on how
we came out of you know, like I said, the
conversations that Nick and I had coming into the season,
the way that Pep and I had come out of
training camp essentially and kind of like you know, one

(16:01):
A one B kind of way. I knew that it
was a possibility, and that week of practice we had
been preparing for that to be the case. So the
fact that I became the starter and played what the
next ten twelve games wasn't a surprise to me. The
way in which all the other stuff happened around it. Yeah,

(16:25):
is that a your answer?

Speaker 3 (16:27):
It's a great answer. No, I mean it's it's the
one component that we haven't heard now. We haven't had
Pep on the show yet, and it's crazy in five years,
and obviously if and when we would get his perspective,
we kind of heard from everybody else around it and
then what was reported. But like I said, you you
were the third party in this, and.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
So the most important of the three big seth right.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Well, he certainly became that way.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right because he's the.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Guy who's going to touch the ball. Now for every
flip and play for the rest of the season. And
so the last question I have for you regarding that
whole scenario to the extent that you want to share,
and I hope, I hope it's positive answer. But like
you came from an environment where you weren't overwhelmingly supported
by your teammates towards the end, right, And I think

(17:13):
I've read that, and so clearly Dante copever was very
upset and his issue was with Nick Saban. Did you
ever feel any of that projected towards you or were
you just able to show up and do your job?
And you guys were okay, but there was a there
was an issue with management.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh I got I got nothing with that. You know,
he is he is his own man, and I understand,
you know, if that's if that was his understanding of
the situation. Yeah, you know, I'd be frustrated too. The
one thing I will say, I will never forget. It
was a preseason game, but it continued on, you know,

(17:53):
the entire year. I God, I think I fumble a snap.
You know, it was one of those things, new center,
new team, You're in the preseason, trying to figure it
out and I fumbled a snap in a preseason game
and I came off the sideline and for a whole

(18:15):
host of reasons, you know, this was pretty much the
lowest time of my career, coming those those months, coming
into Miami, that first part of you know, the time
in Miami. And it wasn't just I mean, there was
all sorts of things that we don't need to dive into,
but I like to dive into.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
I like that fish tank. We love to dive.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
We dive in.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
We can we can dive. But I walked off the
sideline and Kevin Carter grabbed me mm hm, and he
grabbed me by the shoulders. He said, look, I don't
care what just happened, and I don't care how your
teammates treated you where you came from. But here, we've
gotten Chubb's back, We've got your back. We're going to
go get this football back for you.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Love that.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
And sure enough they went out and caused caused a
fumble and got the ball back and Kevin Carter comes
over is like, you're good, like we got you here
between him Zach, you know, Jason, I mean, there were
so many vets on that team, guys that were good

(19:23):
not just incredible football players, but good strong leaders, good people,
good like men of character. That was a really refreshing
change for me and very impactful at that time. You know,
my relationship with the rest of that team was was

(19:44):
nothing but supportive, every single one of them, whether it
was you know, a young Channing Crowder or you know
the old you know, god, big Daddy was still a
Big Daddy. Wilkinson was still on that team, and you know,
coming in with his briefcase, and every single one of
the guys in that locker room was incredibly supportive. That

(20:07):
wasn't something that I had experienced to that point.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
In the NFL, no doubt.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
And we're going to talk about, you know how that
season pretty much unfolded.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Man.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
But let's talk about a few of the guys that
were on the raw street. You talk about some guys
on the defense side of the football. Let's talk about
some of the guys that you know, you had on
the offensive side of the of the ball, man. I mean, hell,
at my favorite position, you had three guys that I
freaking love, man, you know, Chris Chambers and Marty Booker
and young Wes Walker back then, you know who was

(20:35):
you know, just a season away from becoming one of
the greatest all time pretty much slot receivers in my
in my opinion, then you're throwing Randiycmichael at tight end,
Ronnie Brown in the backfield. Tell us what you remember
about that that offensive side of the football, and then
we'll talk a little bit more, probably about the defensive side.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay. A couple of things that stick out to me. One,
I remember looking at west and training camp and being like, right,
I think this you got cut from something. Okay, I

(21:12):
think I'm gonna throw this by the ball a little
bit more. You can be pretty good. I also remember
thinking that Chris Chambers is one of the most talented
wide receivers I've ever seen in my life, and I
wanted him to just I wanted him to be a keishaw.
I wanted him to say, throw me the damn ball,
like I wanted him to to get up on third

(21:34):
down and come over and grab me and be like,
I don't care who's across from me. I'm gonna be
a You know, I'm gonna be twelve yards down on
the sideline. You cut that thing loose and I'm gonna
go get it. But that wasn't his personality, right, No,
So we had this really interesting mix of a Randy McMichael,
who was that personality who.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
Will all right, you were covered, man, like you were slow,
Like come on, you're big and strong, but you're slow.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
You ain't getting loose bow, shut up, give me the
ball and then you hold that. You know, Marty Booker,
who was like, dude, still got some life in him,
Like he's still got some Like I never knew book
you know. I thought of him in Chicago and I
was like, man, this guy's talented. And then you and
then you you got Chris who was just kind of
so quiet and reserved and just had all the talent

(22:26):
in the world. And then you had this like little
engine that could that just like like never stopped running
but had this incredible feel for the game. So like,
we had this really interesting mesh of guys who were
incredibly talented in their own ways, but nobody who is

(22:47):
truly like the guy. Nobody who was like the Julio
Jones or you know, the Megatron or the you know,
pick your guy, you know, tiny grown that. Like, we
had a lot of really really good playoffs, and I
think you'll see if I'm not mistaken. I think we

(23:07):
had all four of those guys or maybe over sixty seven,
you know, sixty catches that year. You know, we've known
a couple of running backs that I mean. I think
we had four or five guys over fifty five sixty
catches that year, And that really spoke to that where
it was like, man, every single one of these guys

(23:29):
can do it, but nobody is really grabbing it and
saying like this is ya, this is mine, and everybody
else fall in line, which you know, it's it's funny.
I never really played with a guy like that. So
I hear people talk about, oh, it's third and you

(23:52):
know it's third and six, you're looking right to this receiver.
I never had that's got it. I had guys where
it was I know they were going to get open
and snap of the ball covered two, okay, that you know.
I got Cloud on the outside. I'm working in backer
slides this way. This dictates I go here, as opposed

(24:14):
to saying, where is my wide out, I'm going there,
Like there was a difference between playing with that one
type of guy versus playing with this group of players
that were so they were all really, really really good.
Nobody was.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
The Hall of Famer the guy that's really interesting. I wonder, well,
a couple of things I think of as you're saying
all that one Juicy needed to go give them a
pep talk, because he would have found a way to
tell him that. He would have found a way to
tell him how that's supposed to look. But I wonder,
I almost wish you had played with that guy so
you'd have that perspective to compare it to right, because
it sounds like. And then the last thing is you

(24:55):
were spot the heck on was twenty years ago. But
Chambers had fifty nine receptions, Book had fifty five, West
had sixty seven, and Randy Mack had sixty two. So yeah, man,
exactly what you said.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, they were all right in and it was you asked,
how did I like playing in that offense? I remember
a couple games where we just got into a shotgun
in an empty sense, and it was Mike Malarkey and
we would just go boom, like, hey, balls in your hands,
you're going where you see it, We're going, no huddle.

(25:29):
Those are the times when I felt most comfortable because
I knew that every single one of those spots out
there they could get open. Hey, coverage dictates ball goes here,
ball goes there. Randy with Michael's ready coverage dictates ball
goes here. Wes Welker, there you go. Like that was
what was so great about playing with guys like that

(25:50):
is I had come from a place where, you know,
Charles Rogers was supposed to be the guy, and he
got hurt the first two years, and you know, things
did not go the way I think anybody would have
hoped for. Charles roy was, you know, the next guy
we drafted, you know, he did well. Mike Williams was
the next guy we drafted in Detroit and he barely

(26:13):
you know, saw the field. So there was always like
a guy and then kind of some also rams right
in Miami. It was guy guy, guy guy, and it
was all the way across, and so there was a
level of comfort that I felt just sitting back there
and shotgun and I was like, yeah, kind of like this.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, I'm gonna tell you what I mean. Wes Welker
heard what you were talking about. As he went on,
you know, years after that, having one hundred and ten
plus grabs, he said, you know, he might have have
heard you say that, Joey, but getting one hundred and
ten plus grass five about the next six years afterwards,
was like, yeah, I'm the guy.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I'm the freaking guy. Well, the thing.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Is he played even in that system, he wasn't the
guy because they had written Moss outside right. I ran
into West. I ran into well Wes at the Combine
a couple of weeks ago for the first time since
almost twenty years, right since since oh six o seven,
And we talked about like talking with the young receivers

(27:13):
and talking with the young you know, the college guys
coming out in the draft, and it's like, how do
you find a niche how do you find a way
to fit in this league? Because people think of Wes
Welker in one hundred and ten catches, but what they
don't think about is he ran a four to six
at He didn't get invited to the Combine. I ran
four six at his pro day. He ended up as

(27:33):
a as a free agent in San Diego. You know,
was there for a cup of coffee before you know,
I ended up in Miami. But the thing that was
so great about Wes was this incredible work ethic, but
his understanding of the game right, his understanding of where
to be and why to be there. This is where

(27:54):
I have to be, this is when I have to
be there, and this is why I have to be there.
And that's you know, the difference between me giving him
sixty five balls and Tom giving him one hundred and ten.
That was a little bit better than me. You know,
let's say it was sade here. Okay, he was able
to take advantage and really utilize Wes for what he was.

(28:16):
Because God, when you put a guy like that inside
of a guy like Randy Moss, like, what do you do?
What do you do to put to possibly stop that?

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Absolutely crazy? What also is interesting? And maybe you know
this again, you're clearly playing certain things close to the
vest that are other people's conversations, which I respect. But
Chris on this show told us how when he reflects
back on his career, he wished that he had been
more of the guy that was a little bit more
outspoken and a little bit more that he's like, man,

(28:49):
everyone talks about how nice I am, and I appreciate it,
but damn it, I wish I had a little bit
more you know, loud asshole in me, quite frankly, because
maybe I could have maximized my career differently. And he
also said that coach Saban pulled him into the He
had so much appreciation for Coach Saban because he said
he pulled him into the office one day and he's like,
if you're not the best version of you, we can't win.

(29:12):
And he's like, I need you to step up. And
he was kind of shocked to hear that because it
was a team that had these giants in JT and
Zach and all the guys you mentioned earlier, and that
was empowering for him. So those are kind of the
things I've heard on this show that have made me
look at Nick Saban differently. But Chris said he took
that with him the rest of his career.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Oh, I will never forget. We were playing at the
Jets and we're down maybe three touchdowns in the fourth
quarter and just kind of how it played out, Yeah,
we started making a comeback. And the way it played
out is, hey, Chris started getting some you know, a
lot of these balls here in the fourth quarter and

(29:52):
he made a catch. He made a catch in the
end zone front corner that it was one of those
moments where it was like, oh, my god, Like, where
did that come from?

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:08):
And every once in a while those moments would just
like pop out, and that was one that like that
sticks out for me. We were on our sideline, we
were going that way. It was the far front corner
and the end zone over there, and god like, and
then it kind of he kind of shrink back a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
I think I think a lot of us wanted him
to be wanted to take that and you know, come
back to the huddle and hand me the ball and
say you see that. I'll do that every game play
if you get it to me. It was like, great, sweet,
I'd love to you know. Yeah, And I'm sure that
there are plenty of you know, plenty of things that
people could say to me, you know, twenty years later,

(30:49):
would say to me. You know, you know, I don't
mean that to be a criticism, but more of just
a praise of how incredibly talented he was and how
interesting it is to reflect, you know, ten twenty years
later and say, God, I probably would have done that
a little bit different.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, Like I said, I don't think he'd argue with
you so well, I will dive back into the season
and you know, it'd be great if there was a
magic wand and you stepped in and it was this,
you know, this fairy tale, But it didn't start out
that way. We drop another three in a row as
you're kind of getting commanded the offense, and if you
go back and study at juice, I was looking at
it like the average points per game started to climb up,

(31:28):
even though it took us a few weeks to get
a win. But we went from like averaging twelve or
thirteen points a game to averaging sixteen seventeen. And so
there was start you started the season progress. But then
we're one in six and you guys are heading up
to Chicago and the Bears are seven and zero, and
nobody in the entire friggin planet that has any sense
about him gives the Dolphins any chance. But you guys

(31:51):
go in there and just beat the brakes off of them,
which becomes the catalyst for this four game win streak,
a run of five out of six games. As you said,
you know, in the season, part of the reason why
Nick Saban couldn't say anything other than what he did
is because there was still a chance to make the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
There.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
What do you remember specifically from that game against the
Chicago Bears, and then what you know, what do you
think started to click for you guys.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
You know, it's funny you mentioned that we lost three
straight when I started, I didn't remember that because I
remember going up to Boston. I remember going up to
New England. It was a pretty close game if I remember,
you know, I remember, I remember that one, and I
almost sometimes think that we won that game. But yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Do be more fun to remember it that way.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, exactly, back to that point. Actually, you know, circle
back on this, Okay, focus on your question and then
we'll come back to something else. What do I remember
about that? I remember the defense just being incredible. Yeah,
I mean, I really do. They were. I was so
lucky as a quarterback who was trying to just get

(32:57):
my feet under me to be able to have a
defense like that, and to I mean, pick a guy,
go down the list, coach Saban, whatever it is. You know,
Jason won Defensive Player of the Year. Yeah, it was
pretty dang good. I remember getting set up by the
defense a couple of times and then damn touchdown. Get

(33:19):
set up by the defense. Damn touchdown? Right and before
you look and it was one of those things where
it was like before you you kind of take a
deep breath and look back, it was like, oh, we
got him on the ropes here. Yeah, there were moments
in that stretch where you looked at it and saw
and said, oh, that's what we could have been, like oh,

(33:41):
like okay, if we can get an off season, or
if we could have had a like hey, let's get
a piece, let's kind of figure this. But it was,
you know, like we've talked about, there were a lot
of you know, a lot of things moving at that time,
but there were moments when you saw it and it's like, oh,
that's how good we could be. And then like you know,

(34:02):
whether it was the next week or the next half,
like you look at it and say, oh, man, we suck.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
That's gotta be fun.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Oh god. I remember walking off the field at Buffalo
and I think that was you know the only time
I had like a zero point zero passing rating and
my I mean it was windy and it was you
know whatever, like and I walk off and Nick Saban
looks at me. He's like what are you doing? It's
like what do you mean? It's like, why are you stop?

(34:31):
What is something wrong, like why are you.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
So bad to them?

Speaker 1 (34:35):
And I was looking. I was like, I don't know, Coach,
I'm trying. And he looks at Jason Garrett. He's like,
why is he doing this?

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Somebody needed to have an answer.

Speaker 6 (34:44):
I'm trying to fix it, man, Like you know, so
you had that the complete polar office ines of like
one minute, it's like we can't even you know, we
can't even tie our shoes.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Well we I couldn't even tie my shoes. And on
the other side, it's like, oh, Sam, everything is clicking,
you know, Chicago Detroit, like you go, like you can
list like you know, three or four games where it
was like New England at home. That's the one that
I was thinking of. Like and and I tell I

(35:16):
tell my kids, So Jack is fifteen and Emma is
twelve now, but you know when they were little, and
you know you're reading them stories at bed time and
you know, all right, time to tuck you in, all right,
good night, God bless you. Daddy loves you. Don't ever
forget that your dad beat Tom Brady.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Make sure he knows that's right.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
I love that that is that's good.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
So you mentioned it briefly just now Thanksgiving in Detroit, Joey,
you know what I mean. So here you are Allion's
former number three overall pick, and uh, you know you
just spent you know, four difficult years there and now
you're headed back in the forefield on Thanksgiving. Bro we
a three game winning streak and the dramas high. Tell

(36:04):
us what you remember. I know you remember a lot.
You have to remember a lot. Tell us what you
remember from the week leading up to the game, and
obviously the game itself where you balled out, bro and
just you know, some high level you know, just just
just tell us what you remember from that. Then that
whole experience had to be unbelievable for you.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
You know, I honestly don't remember much of the week
leading up to it. I don't My memories around it
start during player introductions, Saban coach Saban had you know,
you go on the road and you choose, Hey, are
they going to do starting lineups for offensive defense? I'm
sure for this very reason and because their defense was incredible,

(36:45):
you know, Saban says, all right, starting starting lineups are
going to be for defense. So they go through you know,
all the We're lined up all the offensive guys right
are lined up on the field. All the defensive guys
come running around of the tunnel and Zach and Jason
and Kevin Carter, you know, all right, they get through
all of them, and then they start playing Billy Joel

(37:05):
in the back or like on the big screen, and
I kind of look over and I see images of
me getting sacked.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Wow, and like ear.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Hold while piano man. I start playing piano right so
and and you know, it's probably five ten seconds of
me just getting my teeth kicked in. And then I
hear and welcome back starting quarterback and wow. And one
of my justin Peel, he and I played an organ

(37:38):
together and he was Randy's backup a tight end. We're
on that team together, and he kind of grabbed me
and he looks and we kind of start laughing. He's like, damn,
he made a hell of an impression here. They went
out of their way to introduce the defense and then
personally introduce me with Billy Joel piano man. Because I

(38:01):
never did understand why in Motown, of all places like
the city that celebrates music, they just had a really
they had a hard time understanding that. I write piano
like whatever, like maybe we do something, maybe we raise
some money. Anyway, But so we go out and started
it started out, were we down fourteen? Nothing? We were down.
They came out quick, and I remember thinking like, oh

(38:24):
damn not, you know, not this And then things just
started to click and click, and about midway through the
second quarter we just went.

Speaker 7 (38:35):
Book had one, Randy had one, and honestly, like, you
get into those zones and you hear it where you
just feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
And maybe it was because I'd played there for four years,
or maybe it was because you know, I just wanted
to flip the bird to everybody in this hands for
you know.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Reasons, reasons.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, but I kind of slid into that zone in
through the third quarter and we built up a lead.
It's funny you look at the stats. I end up
throwing three touchdowns that day, which you know, fine, great,
it's you know, that was it was good. But it's
one of the reporters said to me afterwards, you know,

(39:22):
you only threw for like two hundred and twenty yards.
Why is this such a big deal? And and then
somebody I can't remember who it was, slides a stat
sheet over and says you guys didn't throw a pass
in the fourth quarter. I was like, oh, well, we
threw for two twenty and three touchdowns, but we didn't

(39:43):
have to throw the ball in the fourth ran every
single play because we were beating your ass for me,
right cool? I felt pretty good. The funny thing. Okay,
I know I've told this to plenty of people, but
I don't know if it's gotten back to my So
we go Thanksgiving, all right, play it on Thursday. And

(40:05):
from the years in Detroit, I knew that there was
a direct NonStop from Detroit back to Portland after the game,
and so Coach Stavens like, yeah, you can take off.
I went back. The team flew back to Miami. I
flew back to Portland, you know, be with family, be
with my fiance now wife, Emily, and flew back in time,

(40:29):
you know, for practice. The next week. I get back
to the facility and on my stool in my locker
there's a FedEx envelope. It's from somewhere in the Hampton
So I was like, who do I know in New York?
So you open it up and take it out. There's
a letter that says, dear mister Harrington, my name is
so and so I'm the personal assistant for Billy Joel. Enclosed,

(40:50):
you will find a note from mister Joel. Wow, pull
it out and sure enough, like on stationary William Joel.
And you know, dear Joey, you know this is Billy Joel.
I heard that they used my song to introduce you
at the Detroit Lions game on Thanksgiving. You know, I

(41:11):
would be honored if you know, you wanted to use
my music as an intro for for any of your
games down the road. I've just moved to Miami and
would you know, love to get together and the off season. Ps,
maybe Detroit should use my song. We didn't start the
fire as there?

Speaker 3 (41:31):
That is so good.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
I was all right, cool, good.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Do you still have that letter?

Speaker 1 (41:36):
I still have the letter? Ye keep that like right
after the off season, so I never got a chance.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
But the letter is forever though, forever the letters. Yeah,
oh wow, that would be great.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
And Enjoey that honestly, that game had to be probably
the most gratifying game of a career when you have
an opportunity going there and you know, I mean and
stick it to the team that that really did give
you the best opportunity to be successful.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, I mean for a long time, I was bitter.
I mean, I'll be honest like I was. I was
bitter for a long time. And at a certain point, oja,
you just say, like what's the point? Like why why
are you holding.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
On to this?

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Was it arguably the you know, if I look back
at my career, which isn't full of you know, zero
playoff games, and you know, like it wasn't it wasn't
exactly the picture of excellence, that game is is probably

(42:48):
the most meaningful. But I think less so for wanting
to stick it to him, right, and more so now
just as a rep presentation that you know what I
can do this. Yeah I could do that right, because
that's a part of you know, I touched on it

(43:09):
a little bit, you know when I got to Miami.
That was that was as low as I had been
in my lifetime. I mean, in a whole host of areas,
and for a whole variety of reasons. I was doubting myself.
I was, you know, struggling with self worth. I was,
you know, do you deserve to be here? Who are

(43:30):
you if you're not a football player anymore? Like you've
just gotten run out of town and you know your
job was to go and you know, save this team,
and you failed and you're a failure, and you know,
don't show your face in public, like there were some
there was some stuff going on, and to look back
and know, like, yeah, was I was I always the best? No? No,

(43:55):
I wasn't. But for a time in my life I
was one of the thirty two best people in the world.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, there's thirty two starting quarterbacks in this world. And
for more than half a decade, I was one of
the thirty two best people in the world at my job.
And that's something It's that there aren't there aren't too
many people in any profession that can say that, right,

(44:23):
So was it nice to go stick it to them? Sure?
You know, And and there was gratification, you know, when
I was still bitter and angry, like there was you know,
that was gratifying. But I think I've moved to a
point where it's like, hey, life happens, right, you know,

(44:45):
that's you go in trying to do the best you
can and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And
in that case, it didn't. And honestly, like that experience
has helped me so much as I've gotten older personally
and in the way that I raise my kids. Right,
So it's an interesting kind of two pronged. It was

(45:08):
awesome to go back and beat the brakes off them, Yeah,
it was pretty cool. But at the same time, it's like,
I think it was just more of a solidified for
me that this is something I can do.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, yeah, And I'm listening to this Joey and I.
There's something that Mike McDaniel, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel says.
He said it a bunch of times in his tenure here,
and it's always caught my attention because I've never really
heard anybody say it as obvious as you would think
it would be. But he talks about just how people

(45:41):
can't fully understand or appreciate the level of pressure that
is played and expectations that are placed upon first round
draft picks, and especially the higher you are in that
first round, if you're a top fifteen, top ten, and
especially at your position, right, Like, he's like, look, we're
in a pressure business. This is the results oriented business.

(46:02):
We understand it the way it works, but there's something
unique to being drafted and give I give juice a
hard time all the time being a first round So
I'm coming from a different but I'm coming from a
different perspective as much as I bust your jobs. Is
that it's really interesting to hear Mike McDaniel say that,
and then you look at guys like what happened with

(46:24):
Sam Darnold, who was, like you, third overall I think
his year. Baker Mayfield was drafted number one overall that year.
Zach Wilson's with the Dolphins now, you know, looking for
this other opportunity to show that he can be a
certain type of player or find whatever that thing is
that you found in yourself once you left Detroit. And again,

(46:44):
I just think, and maybe it just kind of shared it,
but how much do you think it's important when guys
are in that situation and things don't go the way
everybody planned and they do have the weight of an
entire franchise in their shoulders, that just getting some to
wear a different color laundry and be in a different space, like,
how much does that give you an opportunity to kind

(47:06):
of breathe and maybe find some semblance of yourself that
was there before you went through all that shit?

Speaker 1 (47:13):
It helps to change laundry. But what you hope, and
I think what you have to the key in all
of it is that you're not broken by the time
you get to that point. And that's what for me
is I was. I was broken. I was a shell
of who was four years prior when I got to Miami.

(47:35):
I mean, looking over your shoulder. I remember telling Coach
Garrett like, you don't need me here, like why am
I even? Why am I here? Like you don't you
don't need me? Like why do you want me? Like?
So I was able to rebuild to a point where
I could be competent. I was a competent starting quarterback

(47:58):
for the Dolphins. I was a competent starting quarterback for
the Falcons, but I was coming from such a place
of brokenness that had I had no chance to get
back to a place like Sam Darnold has or to
see what Baker Mayfield has done. You don't understand the

(48:23):
general public cannot understand, and frankly, a lot of guys
in the locker room can't understand what it's like to
have that type of pressure put on your shoulders. And
I had lived it for a couple of years prior
when I was in college. They took my picture and
put it on a ten story billboard, you know, Kittie

(48:44):
Corner from Madison Square Garden. You know, I tell people
I had the first Instagram post. You know, I got
a million views a day. It was right at the top, right,
you know, and people either loved it or you hated it.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Right.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
And had we gone on seven and five that year,
it would have been the biggest flop in in history.
But instead we went eleven and one, and we put
an organ on the national map. And you know, I
played thirty games in college and we won twenty seven
of them. Like I had come from this place of
just like build upump, build a pump, build a pump,

(49:19):
build and so that pressure never it like football became
who I was, Like, it became my identity. It became
everything about me. And so when it came crashing down,
it was it was this I had never dealt with
that type of failure. I'd never you know, you deal

(49:40):
with adversity in a quarterback competition, right quarterback and quarterback
b You fight it out, you have a bad day,
you have good day, figure it out, you go play right.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
But when you walk.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Off the plane in Detroit for the first time. And
I was literally walking off the jetway and into the
end of the terminal and a guy looks at me
is like, oh, Joey, Hey, welcome to Detroit. You've got
one of the tough two toughest jobs in the city.
Goalie for the Red Wings and quarterback for the Lions.
And we haven't had a quarterback here since Bobby Lane

(50:14):
in nineteen fifty four. Hey, don't worry. The fate of
the city rests on your shoulders. Good luck. That was
the first thing anybody said to me. Wow, And I
loved it because I had only had those positive experiences
leading up to it.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
So I got this.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, I got this. How great is it gonna be
for me to turn around an entire city? Man, this
is incredible. Oh my god. Okay, here we go, first
year rookie starting quarterback. Hey, we're gonna have our bumps. Okay,
we end up three and three and thirteen. Great, we
draft Charles, Okay, here we go. Charles comes in, he
and I have four touchdowns in six games. He breaks
his collar bone. Okay, right now, we're gonna draft Roy

(50:53):
and everything's gonna be good. He's gonna pay him on
the other side of Charles, Charles breaks his collar bone again. Okay,
let's draft Mike to replace them. And Mike had been
out of the league for a year because you know,
I hadn't been eligible for the draft and didn't like
it was the series of things that all kind of
played into each other, but it everybody got put onto
the quarterback. You didn't do your job, and like you

(51:15):
hinted at, you know, with teammates in Detroit and not
really being very supportive. You know that ended up and
you know, teammates going on Sports Center and saying, it's
Joey's fault, We're terrible. You know that had when your
entire being and your entire reason for living, because that's

(51:35):
what it is. Being a starry quarterback in the NFL
is truly all encompassing. You eat it, you sleep it,
you drink it. Every decision you make around your your
life is based on that job. Do I go skiing
with my family, Nah, I might get hurt. Do I
go out to dinner or have that extra Nah, because

(51:58):
you know I might put in a compromising sitution. Like
literally everything you do is around this, and so when
you have failed, so publicly, and not just publicly, but
in a way that, like your teammates, Like the locker
room is supposed to be sacred, the locker room turns
on you publicly when you feel like, you know, my

(52:20):
reason for being on this earth is like going away,
and I have not just disappointed, but I have like
let down an entire city of people. Yeah, that that
has a way of of reckon you. Right, So Mike
is right, Like the level of and whether it's whether

(52:41):
people mean to do it or not, you know, whether
it's inadvertent, Like the level of pressure that exists as
a starting quarterback in the NFL is is something that
very few people you know, will ever have to deal
with in their lifetime.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Ye know.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
And you know, Joy Man, I say it's all time
except for attests to this man, the most important position
in all sports, the most criticized position in all the
sports is NFL quarterback. You can look at any other sport.
That could be the best shooting guard. So for basketball,
that could be the best shortstop. In baseball, it could

(53:18):
be the guy. But the freaking quarterback position is so
critical in the sport. And man, I was just like
I was reading something and what you're saying is so powerful.
But I think you realize when you got to Miami
that fucking football is not.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Going to define Joey Herrington. You know, that's what I
was reading.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
It's not going to define you, man, you know, and
I had to have to imagine that was really fulfilling
for you, Like, think about, you know, all this football
is great. You talk about, you know, not going skiing,
you talk about, you know, not want to go out
in public for the most part, But it did not
define you who you are Joey Herrington.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Right, It doesn't now, but at the time it did.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
It did, of course.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
I mean that was and frankly, that's part of the
reason why I ended up just walking away, you know,
you know, after all the experiences, you know, the stuff
in Detroit and thinking I was getting my feet back
under and in Miami and then Nick left and I
ended up in Atlanta and thinking, okay, who's the most
stable quarterback in the league. All right, let's go be

(54:20):
Mike Vick's back up. And then well that didn't go
so well, and you know, then it was literally like
this this one after another after another, and I got
to the point and I was like, no, thanks, like,
there are other things in life that are more important
than playing professional football. And I'm relatively healthy, I'm relatively young,

(54:45):
just had my first first son, Like, let's go home.
But it took me a while. You know, that was
six when I got to Miami and kind of really
started figuring that stuff out. And then I hung it
up in O nine. But it it took me a
few years to really figure that out and say, you
know what, there's more to it than than chucking a

(55:06):
leather a leather oval around on Sundays.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
Right, no doubt about it. I think they don't. People
don't realize how hearted is to do that. Man. I
was talking to somebody the other day, like, you know,
as a wide receiver, I didn't care what the offensive
line was doing. As an offensive line, they didn't care
what the wide receivers are doing. But the quarterback has
to worry about what the hell everybody else is doing.
People don't get all the all the shit that the
quarterback has to deal with, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
It's like, uh so, yeah, man, it's it's tough. Man. Anyhow,
we're keeping you a long, bro.

Speaker 4 (55:35):
We're gonna move on right here a little bit joy
and we definitely appreciate all the time that you put
in with it so far.

Speaker 6 (55:41):
Man.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
But before we knock out our final segment, I think
you will appreciate and be do very well in our
final segment. But tell us about your foundation, man, and
your event that's coming up, because it looks like it's
gonna be, you know, a lot of fun, and I
think I need to start getting my swinging together.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Man, you'll be well. I was working on my weal
email before I hopped on the on the show here.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
So wait, you actually do the welcome email.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Man, I do. It's the Harrington Family Foundation.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
That's it's just me.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Hotel see like he'll see like it's just me and
my cousin run. We just run it.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Yeah, So it's funny. The Harrington Family Foundation I actually
started when I got drafted. So I took my signing
bonus and started the foundation knowing that at some point
in my life I would want to do something philanthropic.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Right.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
You know, when you're twenty three, you don't know what
that is. You don't know what it looks like. You
don't So we started by just giving small grants to
anybody who applied we built a science lab in a
Southeast Portland, you know, grade school. We gave soccer balls
to kids in Uganda. Like, we literally did all everything right.
So I got I retired, and I said, you know what,

(56:51):
I'm gonna run my foundation. Went to the the president
of a bank who had been supportive of us, had
helped with a fundraiser concert, and I was like, all right, Brian,
let's do it, you know, let's do this foundation thing.
And he looked at me and he said, and you know,
I come in not knowing exactly what I what I
was pitching. And he said, Joey, I love your passion,

(57:12):
I love your commitment to the city and the state.
But if you're telling me that the money I give
to you, you're just going to turn around to give
it to Boys and Girls Club, Why wouldn't I just
give it to Boys and Girls Club?

Speaker 3 (57:22):
YEP?

Speaker 1 (57:23):
I was like, you got a point. I don't have
an answer. I'll call you in six months. So I
went back to the drawing board and I said, all right, like,
what is it that? What is it that defines me?
What is it when people think of the Harrington Family Foundation,
what are they going to think of they're going to
think of me. I was a quarterback. A quarterback is

(57:46):
a position of leadership. I left Oregon for a while,
I came back. I'm from here, I'm invested here. So
I came up with this idea of the community quarterback.
Be a quarterback in your community. And so what we
do is we give five twenty five thousand dollars college

(58:06):
scholarships to graduating high school seniors from around the state
based on financial need and community leadership. No grades, no
test scores, No, I don't care if you you know,
if you've only got a three six because you weren't
into Henry David throw and you got to see in
your high school English class, who cares? Maybe you're passionate
about social justice and you are every weekend volunteering with

(58:31):
some organization out in the community. We look for those
students who may get looked over because they don't have
perfect grades or they didn't get a sixteen hundred on
their SATs, but are still incredibly invested in building our community.
So we find those students from all over the state.

(58:51):
And the other part is giving them access and whether
it's financial access, whether you know they have a lack
of access because of geographic reasons. We connect them with
mentors throughout the state to help open doors. And it's
not like, hey, you know, oj, I'm calling you. You're
doing your homework to get your test done, like, not
that type of mentorship. It's it's more of just creating

(59:15):
a network that the students know that we're there for. Hey,
I'm looking for something in you know, in this space
in engineering architecture in the summer. Is there someone that you,
guys might be able to help connect me with. Oh yeah, absolutely,
let me give you a call. Let's go have coffee.
And the best part, honestly, guys, is we've been doing

(59:36):
this for twelve years now and every year we have
well we've had sixteen students. We just up to five scholarships.
So we've got four freshmen, for sophomores, for juniors, four senior's.
Sixteen students in school all around the state. And they
you know, they don't have to go to you a vote.
They can go to Workankly, they can go to we
have one at Rogue Community College. You can go to

(59:58):
art school, you can like we we are truly trying
to build the next generation of leaders. But as they
graduate they go off. We've had students that have gone
back to DC that have worked you know as clerks
or interns you know in Congress and then come back
and say, hey, Joey, how can I help? Well, you
know how you can help is you can start, you know,

(01:00:20):
let's go ahead and run for office in your community
and then come to dinner, come to our family dinners.
So now they get established in their careers and they
start coming back and have just started coming back and
say how can I help your current students' best. What
we're doing is we're building a network of people who
care about their community, who care about Oregon, who want

(01:00:42):
to go out and share their gifts and then come
back and help other people get to the point where
they are. So, you know, it's really fulfilling work to
be able to look around. You know, we've got our
scholarship dinner coming up where actually we've just closed our
application period and we're going to start review here this
week for this next year. But to look around at

(01:01:03):
our scholarship dinner in May and see the community that
we've put together of people who you know, by all means,
we are not the same. You know, we got people
from inner City Portland. We got you know, people from
rural central Oregon, southern Oregon coast, but we're all invested
in the same place. And that's a really cool thing

(01:01:24):
to see a group of people that come together, that
have all decided that they want to help each other
make our home better.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Juicyeah, you better start loosening up that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Back, man, get it going. John going to carry me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Yeah, he'll be ready, He'll he'll definitely be ready. Well,
great stuff. As Juice alluded to, we do have this
last segment, then we'll get you out of here because
you probably got more than you bargained for with us.
But you shouldn't have been so damn interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
We were.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Yeah, we could just breeze right through this thing. So
the reason he said he thinks you're gonna do fine
on this last segment is we end every episode of
the podcast the same way. It's our fish tank two
minute drill. Historically the quarterback, yeah, they usually do pretty good.
And the two minute drill, you can. We're gonna put
two minutes on the clock. You can, you know, just
keep that in the back of your head if you

(01:02:16):
think you need a time out. You can call it.
We'll give you a time out if you need it, if.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
You don't want to ask you right, if we got
to ask you first, do you need the time out? Joe?
You think you need a time out?

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
I don't even know what we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
He's a pragmatic guy. I think he's gonna keep the
time out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
If we're going to keep the.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Century literature or world geo.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Joey Herrington, it's Joey Harrington stuff. Yeah, you should be
an expert in this particular field for sure. So all right,
let's have some fun two minutes, Juice, your up clock
is running, all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Right, Joe, here we go.

Speaker 4 (01:02:49):
You are a proud alumness of Central Catholic High School
in Portland, Oregon. Do you know what other former Miami
Dolphin quarterback also attended a Central Catholic High School just
in another state.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Dan Marino, state of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Boom, there it is right here we go, look at that. Yeah,
first down, here we go. All right, it is well
documented and we talked about it earlier. You're an accomplished
pianist and you have played in some really cool shows.
Forget your favorite football moment. What is your favorite moment
that you've ever had playing the piano.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
We hosted a fundraiser concert I talked about earlier at
the Crystal Ballroom here in Portland. It was with Blues
Traveler and Jason Moraz and I got down and play
for about a thirty minute set on the encore with
all of them, and then that was recorded and put
on Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Night Football Rockstar right there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Oh you know, I mean, I know we got the
clock is running there. But I.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Played saxophone growing up, and all I could play was
Happy Birthday. Man, this dude was playing in So it's
a whole different world right here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
And it's set.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Yeah, like you could get away if you know how
to play chopsticks or something, but thirty minutes is going
to expose you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
You've got to be a real deal.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
Keep it as a wide out for life. You know,
Guys at my position, you know you live by the
model look good, feel good, feel good, play good. No
team in sports, obviously you know this. You know, no
team in sports more fits at than the Oregon Ducks.
But what is Joey Harrington's favorite uniform combination?

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Well, obviously it has to be the original green helmet.
You know. That's That's what I'm going to say, are
our first because my sophomore year is when we switch
to the iridescent green with a yellow. Oh, but we
only had one uniform. We had a home uniform and
on a white uniform. Like people think we're just changing,
that's all. It was so uniform combination.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
It's hard, man, It's gotta be hard for.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Stays easy juice, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Us Hold on the Rose Bowl that Oregon played against
Wisconsin in two thousand nine, it was the what do
they call it, like liquid chrome with the wings down
and de Anthony Thomas hits a kick return and just

(01:05:10):
wam and he takes off up the sideline and as
he's going down, you know the game and you know
Pasadena has always played at two o'clock kickoffs, so the
sunset that you could see the sunset reflecting off of
the hills in his helmet as he's going down the sideline,
and it's like that is the moment of like the
pure Oregon football uniform for me. So that's that's the

(01:05:33):
uniforms they wore in that Rose Bowl with the liquid chrome.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
Hard to top it, hard to top it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
All.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Right, here we go, we're in the red zone. Final question,
if Wikipedia is accurate ro golf Okay, I mean that
does as a blanket statement, but ro golfer Patrick Harrington
is a distant cousin potentially okay, and and professional poker
player Dan Harrington also a relative. Okay. So tapping into

(01:06:01):
these bloodlines, I want you to think of every NFL
head coach you ever played for and tell us which
one would be the best golfer, which one would be
the best poker player, and who would be the best quarterback.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Oh my god, Okay, So I played I had eight year,
seven seasons in the NFL. I had ten head coaches.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
You understand, all right, So you get you've got to pull.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Three Morning Wegg, Steve, Marry Ucci, Dick Geron, uh Rod Marinelli,
Nick Saban, Cam Cameron, Bobby Petrino, emmittt Thomas, Mike Smith,
Sean Payton, boom ten.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
That is a wow. Ten and seven seasons. It's almost
hard to do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Player.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
I mean, Nick's the guy has said that he's not
going out Obama. He had a poker face with that statement, right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
But he was straight up with him.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
I'm gonna go okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold, on. Okay,
two three, we got him. There's too many to think through.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
That's the.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Okay. Best quarterback would be Sean Payton.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Okay, got that one out of the way. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Yep, best quarterback Sean Payton. Best poker player is gonna
be Steve Mariucci because what's that?

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
A lot of bluffing, A lot of bluffing, a.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Lot of making people feel good, a lot of like,
you know, Steve can smile. Yeah, he can be your
best friend. It's like, all right, you can work a room,
you know, but I can see him working a table.
It's oh, yeah, what do you got? Oh my god,
that's such a great hand. Damn too as.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
There Yeah, nothing here?

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
What best golfer man? Although I'm gonna go back on
this because Bobby Patrino. Okay, hold on, So Bobby Patrino,
after our game, I think it was a Thursday night.
I think it was a Monday night game. Maybe because

(01:08:21):
uh we had a Monday night game, I believe so
against the Colts. Maybe anyway, they'll get confused. Bobbi Patrina
walks into the locker room and after the game, we
got a tail kicked, and he says every single one
of you need to go home, look at yourself in
the mirror, and decide what you can do to help
this team get better. The next morning, there was a

(01:08:41):
note on our locker that he had left, and that
night he was in Mabell, Arkansas doing Pig suey.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
So I'm gonna go back say that he took all
your money.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
But Bobby Petrino would be the best poker player because
he could look you straight in the eye and tell
you the biggest lie and then flip and do what's
best for Bobby afterwards. Okay, there we go. That's the
best poker player. And I'm actually gonna say the best
golfer would be So none of them were good, and

(01:09:19):
I'm gonna say the best golfer could be, could be
isn't but could be Mooch because he's not gonna get
too upset about it. Right. We are not professional golfers.
We are rundown former football players, you know, decrepit old
guys who think they can still move a little bit.

(01:09:40):
But Mooch could. I could see him just getting out
there and be like, yeah, I'm gonna have some fun,
so tell you, you know, just not even work because
the guys that get all pissed off and were you know,
they start playing terrible, the ones who think they're actually
good and I just relaxed enough. Or's like, yeah, I'm
not gonna try and be good and I'm just gonna
be me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
There it is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
That's the two minute drill you definitely had. There was
a that was a muddy pocket.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
You had a lot of a lot of coaches to
sort through, and you kind of but he found it.
He found the end zone.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Juice you give me. That's like saying, what's your favorite
crayola you know, crayon color back of like two sixty.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
Four, Yeah, with the sharpener built in and the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
Law number or do you want? I don't think you
knew I had ted coaches before you had.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
I didn't know you ted. I was thinking, all right,
he was on three T you know, like I just
thought it was gonna be quick and easy. But I
you know now that you say it, Yeah, but great answers,
great answers, regardless whatever it took for you to get there.
All we care about is getting the great answer. And
there were a whole lot of them today. Man, this
was so much fun. Appreciate you just being so gracious
with your time, and especially if you're sending those letters out.

(01:10:52):
I'm onna let j T know that you send your
own white letters out. Oh yeah, you know what he's
gonna tell me though, you know I work for Harvey
Green and Jason Taylor, same kind of boss. He's gonna say, well,
if you want me to send letters, what the hell
am I paying you for? So that's what he's gonna
tell me. But good luck with the event, and you know,
if you want, if we can send out I don't

(01:11:13):
know, if you guys do an auction or something, we'd love
to send something out to you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
I appreciate it. Yeah, no, it's uh oj I'll tell
you all about it once.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
He's uh, once he gets his email.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah, it's a yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty
unique uh pretty unique events, not like anything you've been
to before. So looking forward to sharing it with some
with a new group of guys.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Looking forward to it. Joe Hey, Joey, thank you for
diving in man my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Guys, thanks for having me. You're diving.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Just like Jew said, Thanks for diving into the fish
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