December 29, 2025 • 38 mins
We’re back with another year-end special pulling from some of the best interviews we did all year—conversations worth revisiting, plus a few moments you may have missed the first time around. This edition features ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, Super Bowl–winning QB Joe Flacco, Chiefs Chairman & CEO Clark Hunt, longtime coach Jim Mora, and college football analyst David Pollack.
From inside-the-building reporting and front-office leadership to quarterback longevity, coaching philosophies, and how the sport looks from the booth, these interviews cover a lot of ground—fast. It’s a highlight reel of the stories, perspectives, and straight-talk that made these sit-downs stand out all year.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's a podcast call twenty five WIST stuck in parts
and they go a whizz.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So, yeah, it's too.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Bad, But what did you expect?
Speaker 4 (00:13):
It's a podcast call twenty five WIST.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
So twenty line. We've had some awesome guests sit down
with us all through twenty twenty five. So let's look
back at some of our favorite interviews that maybe you missed.
First up, ESPN senior writer and New York Times best
selling author Seth Wickersham. Set's one of the best long
form NFL storytellers out there. He put out a book
(00:38):
called American Kings, a Biography of the Quarterback, So we
talked about a lot of quarterbacks. Big thanks to Seth.
Here he is, Seth Wickersham. All right, Seth Wickersham is
on with us.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Great to see you, man, good to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, congratulations on the book. Let's talk about arch Manning
for a second. And you know you write about how
how ruthless the recruitment was, how did they settle on Texas?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
So go with the book. You know, what I wanted
to do was show what it's like to do this
very uniquely American job, very unique American responsibilities at like
every level from current high school to college, pro retired
Hall of Famer and Arch was interesting to me because,
you know, it was a window into this entire iconic
quarterback family, and so I was able to kind of
(01:20):
like or I was hoping to try to tell the
entire Manning story through Arch and specifically through Arch's recruitment,
and it got so competitive. I think that, like even
being there, it was interesting just to see, especially in
the NIL era, how hot it got for Arch. You know,
I think that it came down to Alabama, Georgia, and Texas.
(01:42):
The reasons why he picked Texas were I think they
were pretty wise. I mean, in no particular order. Number One,
Steve Sarkigian he's the play caller and the head coach,
so he's not going anywhere. He's not gonna be one
of these guys who gets poached to be a head
coach somewhere else. Number Two, he really liked that Texas
might you know, was going to be a team on
the upswing. Here's a chance to win a national championship there.
(02:02):
It kind of helped elevate it.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
He liked that it was at school.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
That had a ton of talent, and I think after
being at eastand or Newman which is obviously a pretty
pretty small school in New Orleans. He wanted to be
on a team that had, you know, other five star players.
And then finally, and this is the one that I
personally find the most interesting, is that, you know, Austin's
a big enough city, you don't even call it a
college town. It's a city that he thought he could
(02:26):
be pretty anonymous there. And that, to me is the
most interesting aspect of it all, because here you have
arch Manning and you know, member of like you know,
Football Royalty, and you know, part of the reason why
he picked Texas was because he thought, and we'll see
how well that works out, that you know, he could
be anonymous there. And I think that, like even some
of the reporting of my book, you know, shows that
(02:46):
like that itself was was too difficult to ask for.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
How influential were Archie, Cooper, Peyton eli All in Archer's
recruitment and actually helping him achieve his destination of Texas.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
He did it himself.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
And I think that like they're all really hyper aware
of looking like they had a hidden hand. And Nelson Stewart,
you know, so arch is sophomore year obviously they realized
he was going to be a top prospect. So Nelson Stewart,
the head coach at Newman, and Cooper Man to get
together and they try to think about like how they
want this recruitment to look like, and this is looking
like staring at a tsunami from a distance, like there's
(03:24):
no stopping this thing. And so Cooper said, I want
this to be a nineteen seventy five recruitment and Coach
Stewart was like, what do you mean? And Cooper was like,
I want you to run point. I want you to
be the gatekeeper. And we're not going to take offers.
We're not going to be posting on social media every
time a school offers to us how grateful we are.
We're going to do things a little bit different to
(03:44):
try to give Arch as semblance of a normal high
school life and you know, maintain his love of the game.
And I think that's really important. And so it was
Arch striving things and obviously, like the family members, you know,
could weigh in when they wanted. But you know, they
went to University of Virginia, where Arch's older sister made goes,
(04:05):
and as they were walking around campus, Cooper was like, look,
you know, this isn't a bad choice. You know, it's
a beautiful campus, great school. You know, it's not football crazy,
and I think that like maybe your life could be
more normal here. And you know, obviously Virginia wasn't a
school that he you know, ended up considering. At the
end of the day, it was him that was driving
this and he's the one who decided on Texas really,
(04:25):
just like Peyton did with Tennessee and even Eli. Did
you know back in the day with ole.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Mis, you're right about Joe Namath then before both of
our time obviously, Joe Namath, I think about nineteen sixty
nine h him guaranteeing him wearing the fur coats, him
being like in New York. But it was an odd
juxtaposition because he played at Alabama, like all of that.
We didn't get to experience it, but we're only catching
it like through story like folklore even And so yeah,
(04:51):
what did you think of Joe namath cultural impact once
you started to really get into it at a deeper level.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Well, I mean, look, all quarterbacks are cold archetypes of
John Unitis and Joe Namath. I mean, like those two
guys are huge pillars, and you know, as I show
in the book, there are other guys who who helped
set them up, especially Bob Waterfield. In the nineteen forties,
he was married to Jane Russell. They were like the
first couples first, you know, the country's first power couple.
(05:17):
But really name it is, you know, a watershed moment
in so many ways. And it was interesting because I've
been with Joe Namath at events in New York and
I've been with him at one event at the University
of Alabama at the stadium, and just my personal opinion,
I thought that he was way more revered, way more
(05:41):
sought after, almost looked like with a type of reverence
that was different when he was at Alabama rather than
the events in New York. I think that like Alabama
has such a a you know, a vast you know
history throughout college football, and obviously name it has so
much cultural template that he started once he was with
the Jets and kind of blossomed into you know, this
(06:03):
guy who first offered the idea of quarterback as like
a lifestyle. But at Alabama, you know, he said that
Barry Bryant said that he was the finest player he
ever coached, and I think that, like you know, when
you listen to Joamath talk about his career, I think
in a lot of ways you hear him talking about
more joy when he was at Alabama than even during
(06:25):
his heyday in New York.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I love your work just generally too, So good luck.
I hope the book sells a ga billion copies and
hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
Hey man, thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I love all the trinkets on your desk, and I
really appreciate your time, and thank you very very much.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I seth have a good day, man. Next up is
Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. Joe has played in the
NFL for close to twenty years, a lot of memorable moments.
One of those moments came when the lights went out
when he was playing in the Super Bowl against forty
nine ers. It was crazy. And how his body's feeling
playing in his forties, which we talk about here. Congrats
to Joe on still being in the league playing in
his forties. Here he is Joe Flacco, my partner that
(07:02):
I work with a lot, as Matt Castle, who played
in the league for a long time, and he talks
about once he started to be a bit older and
he had dealt with injuries that the hardest part was
not not getting injured, it was bouncing back, because as
you get older, it's harder to bounce back. At your
stage right now, is that the hardest part is when
(07:25):
something hurts, does it take longer to heal?
Speaker 7 (07:27):
I think you got to make sure that you get
to the point where nothing you minimize the amount of
build up that happens. Obviously, throughout the course of a game,
you're going to deal with acute injuries that you have
to try to heal from as quick as possible. But
I think for me, as I get a little bit older,
it's just that maintenance routine. It's getting a good routine
so that little things don't turn into big things. And
(07:49):
when I was younger, you kind of run through those
little things in a week, and now that I've turned forty,
they kind of build up, they don't go away, and
before you know it, you're hurting a lot more than
you want to.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Does it hurt after every game or is there an
occasional game where you're like you look down, You're like,
I'm okay.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
That's the beauty about playing quarterback, is that, Yes, you
do look down after some games and say, oh, wow,
I came out of that one great, And you don't
really deal with anything. The other ten eleven guys on
the field, the other twenty one guys in the field,
when you're out there, they are dealing with it week
in and week out. I would say that I have
it easy, as you know, as it comes to the
(08:27):
NFL standard.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Why are you still playing? You love it?
Speaker 7 (08:31):
I better love it if I'm doing this. Yeah, yeah,
I listen. I have one thing, maybe maybe hopefully a
couple more than one thing, but one thing that I
really really enjoy doing, one thing that I feel like
I can really do at a high level, and I've
never really thought about not doing it. I've been able
to do it since I've been a kid, and I
(08:52):
kind of just want to keep that dream alive. I
still feel like I can do it at a high
level and have a lot of fun doing it. So yeah,
that's kind of why I still do it. It's kind
of a weird question to talk about, but it's a
lot of fun and I do love it. I love
being in that locker room with all the players. I
love being in the huddle, that feeling that you get
(09:15):
before before game time. I wouldn't say that I'm totally
in love with that, but when you don't have that
for a few months, you realize that you miss it
and it's just something that's pretty special.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Can you give me a memory from when the lights
went out in the super Bowl? Because that was weird
for us. I can't imagine you're freaking playing in the
Super Bowl and it all goes down, Like what are
you guys even talking about when that happens.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
I remember sitting on the bench and kind of the
lights go out and you kind of just look around, like,
what the heck is going on? I wish I had
more memories of it. It's funny because after the game,
everybody kind of started expressing to me what they thought,
and some people were scared.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
I mean a lot.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
I had a lot of friends and family that were
nervous as what was going on, and thankfully for me,
that never really crossed my mind. I kind of just
took it for what it was, sat on the ground,
stretched out a little bit. You know, you think it's
going to be two or three minutes. You don't realize
it's going to be twenty or thirty or however long
it was, so I think if I had to guess
(10:14):
how my mindset was, it was probably taking it like
every two or three minutes, thinking it was going to
they were going to come back on and we were
going to get right back to it.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Playing at Pittsburgh and College and then Delaware. Like, to me,
that's cold weather sounds terrible, But you've played in cold
weather places in the NFL for the most part, too.
Is that even a thing? Do you even get cold?
Or is that just normal?
Speaker 7 (10:36):
There's definitely things about that that are not ideal. I
think you just you put that big coat on, you
sit on the heated bench, and you deal with it
for the five ten minutes that you're not sitting on
that bench. But we got it. We got it pretty easy.
The fact that we got guys waiting for us on
the sideline to throw a big coat over us and
sit on a you know, one hundred degree warming bench.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
When you're out there playing, you're honestly not thinking about it.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
It's like the first thirty seconds that you take that
code off that you're thinking what the hell am I doing?
Or pre pregame warm ups are actually probably more miserable
in the game, because you're like, do I want to
even go out there and warm up? Or do I
just want to kind of hang out in the locker
room and say say, I'm good, I'll be ready to
go once the game starts.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And warmups probably no adrenaline, right.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
Yeah, exactly, you're not. You're just like, I'm not playing
the game. Why am I going to go out there
and do it to myself? And I don't have to,
So it's a little bit harder mental hurdle to get
a ticket out there for pregame.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
At the height of your career or when you will
say that your arm was the healthiest it may even
be now. You ever just chunk a ball to see
how far you could throw a ball?
Speaker 7 (11:40):
You know, I used to when I was in college,
but like when I was in late college, early part
of my career in the NFL, I was probably more
interested in seeing how far I could throw it and
doing some long casts. These days, I just kind of
do it to keep my arm in shape. I'm not
necessarily super wired about where I can throw the ball
through the uprights from uh. When people ask me, I
(12:02):
always to say I can probably I could throw it
around seventy five yards.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
I don't. I don't know, maybe give or take a
few yards here and there, so.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Eighty eighty five.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
I honestly, if I could touch eighty, I would probably
say eighty. I don't think I've ever thrown a football
eighty yards unless I would unless I was down on
the Jersey shore on the beach with a forty mile
an hour winds.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
I wasn't throwing the ball eighty yards.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So that's a good point, because if I'm lying about
driving a golf ball, I never lie short. I always
or I always estimate a little long. It's like, what
do you do? Yeah, I got to sixty five average,
and really it's not that so I guess right, Yeah,
that's a good point. When did you realize in your
youth that you had a really strong arm?
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Oh, I guess growing up on the schoolyard, just kind
of playing two hand touch. I could always throw that
little ball that you know, the little pee wee ball
that kind of everybody plays with.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I think, you know, we might have had a Minnesota.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
Vikings or probably a Philadelphia Eagles rubber football that we
could kind of I could throw the length of a
schoolyard and nobody else could really do that. So you
kind of figure, all right, nybe, I could throw the
ball a little.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Bit when these guys are getting ready for draft day,
draft night, if it's night one or second round or
third night, like, what was your draft night like?
Speaker 7 (13:11):
So I was sitting on my couch in my parents' house.
I really didn't want to let cameras in because I
was unsure about where I was going to be picked,
and just kind of wanted to be more private in general.
But obviously I got talked into, you know, allowing them
to come into the house. And I was just kind
of sitting on the couch and waiting to see what happens.
And we were all watching the draft, excited and kind
(13:33):
of eager to see what was going to happen. But
coming from Delaware, I didn't know if I was going
to be There was a lot of momentum probably behind
where I was going.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
To be picked.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
I felt like I was probably going to be picked
decently high. But I could have been a first round pick.
I could have been a third round pick. I had
no idea. So I was a little bit I was excited, obviously,
because at that point I didn't really care where I.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
Was going to be picked.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
I knew that I was going to be an NFL
draft pick, and I think that was the most exciting thing. Yeah,
there was probably a little bit of uncertainty in my
mind too, because you just don't know where you're going
to go and where you're going to spend the next
you know, you plan on spending the next fifteen years
of your life probably wherever.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
You end up getting picked.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
So it was, yeah, definitely definitely a little bit of
a mixed feelings about where that could be.
Speaker 6 (14:16):
Who called you, Ozzie called me.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
Ozzie called me, and I think they were I think
they traded up with Houston, I want to say. And
he said, hey, Joe, we're about to you know, we're
about to trade up here with Houston into the eighteenth
pick and and select you to become a Baltimore Raven.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And you know, obviously, like the whole.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Room that I was sitting in kind of went nuts
because they were, you know, they realized I was on
the phone call and I was kind of giving them
a head nod or whatever I was doing to let
them know, like, hey, it's about to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
How much sleep do you try to get a night.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Right now.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
Yeah, we're going to pivot into health.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Man.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
I got to tell you there was a time where,
like my kids were younger, and we could actually enjoy
three hours on the couch being my wife by ourselves
from like seven thirty to ten thirty or eleven o'clock
eleven thirty, whatever we wanted to do. You know, we
could put those kids to bed. But now my kids
are getting older, they complain about bedtime every night. It's
getting pushed, you know, further and further back, and I'm
(15:15):
usually knocked out on the couch at nine o'clock and
then at ten fifteen I'm waking up with my wife
going back to bed, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Sleeping till six thirty, six forty five every day.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So is there a you get to a game, because
there are mornings if I'm either doing the show or
if i'm even if I'm on touring doing stand up
my bra I just have brain fog some days and
if I sleep maybe something my eight. You ever get
to the game day and you're like, man, like I'm
just not fully there and you have to go all right, guys,
my brain's not clicking the right way and need you
to help me out a little bit.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
Listen, there's times, Yeah, I don't know about my brain,
but your body definitely wakes up a little bit tired sometimes,
And listen, it's not ideal for us. We're waking up
even if most of the time, even if you're at home,
you're waking up in a hotel, you don't get to
sleep in your own bed. And definitely if you're on
the road. And honestly, I'm not great at at falling
(16:07):
asleep and sleeping well. In a hotel, I usually can
kind of turn my mind off and not worry about anything,
and that I'm the same way the night before the game.
I'm not really thinking about it. I feel like if
I do have things on my mind, I can actually
relax and go to bed and kind of put it
out of my mind. But just a night's sleep in
a hotel, I've never quite gotten used to it. So
there's always probably a little bit of that.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Three final questions that leads me to that. So do
you stay at home? Do you stay in the same
hotel room, in the same bed to at least have
some sort of consistency.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Man, I've been all over the place the last few years.
I have no idea.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
It's been I think typically, Yes, you're in the same
room all year.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Like in Baltimore's same room, Saints, same room, same room. Joe,
we appreciate the time, and I thank you for spending
some time with us.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
No, I appreciate it. You guys have a good one,
all right, Thanks Joe.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Now we'll get to former NFL and current college head
coach Jim Mora. Coach. Moro was the head coach in
Atlanta when Michael Vick was our quarterback. So I asked
him what it's like to coach Michael Vick, especially during
that time. Here's what he said.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
He was unbelievable. Number one, he was a really good person.
He is a really good person. We stay in touch.
I'm happy he's coaching. He's going to have a great
impact on Norfolk State and all those student athletes. But
every single day, every single day on practice, on the
practice field, he would do something that you would just
let go.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Did he just do that?
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I mean, the most unbelievable athlete I've ever been around.
We're playing the Carolina Panthers. We win the game, I
think we win the division or I don't know something,
and it's a fourth down and goal, and you know,
if we don't score a touchdown, the game's over. Our
coordinator we call time out. Coordinator comes over and gives him,
you know, all these instructions, like, you know, you got
(17:51):
to look here, you gotta look at this guy. You
gotta look at that guy this year number one read.
Mike starts to run on the field. I bring him
back and I go, hey, Mike, I go listen. Man,
if you don't like it, just frigging run, Just take
off and go. And that's that that. You can find
it on YouTube, a picture of him diving into the
end zone against Carolina, his knees about an inch off
the ground. And that was the kind of guy. He was,
(18:12):
like you just like I tell him every every week,
just go be you. You know, like we've worked hard
all week. Your skill set's improving, your understanding of the
concepts are improving. But at the end of the day,
don't be paralyzed by trying to do things that you're
not comfortable doing. Just go be you. And he was man,
he was fun to be around.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
He was something just to watch like his old YouTube
because obviously I watched it as a kid, but to
watch it now and to just see the separation at
almost at will. It's crazy to watch now that far
remove from it, just how athletically superior he was.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
His burst.
Speaker 8 (18:46):
Yeah, you know you remember that that that game against
the Vikings where he split the two defenders.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And you'd see that every day. But his arm was
like a whip.
Speaker 8 (18:55):
I mean, there was that commercial who was throwing it
out of the stadium and I know that was you know,
it wasn't real, but I think he could probably do that.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
It was.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
I mean, he was a cultural icon and he made
a huge impact on this league. I think he changed
the direction of how people look at quarterbacks. And yeah,
he was really fun and just funded to know as
a person.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Next up, our interview with Kansas City Chiefs chairman and
CEO Clark Hunt. Clark grew up around the league, with
his family being a huge part of NFL history, and
now he's leading one of the most successful franchises in
all of sports. Big thanks to Clark for coming on
with us here. He is Clark Hunt. First of all,
mister Hunt, I would like to say that I cannot
wait for you to be in the Hall of Fame.
I want to say what I've seen from your organization.
(19:40):
I'm ready whenever you're on television and that jacket, I'll
be like, that's my guy right there. So congratulations on
just massive success over the past decade.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
Yeah, well, I sure appreciate it. It's absolutely been a
very special time to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.
You know, really, from the day that Andy Reid walked
into the building in twenty thirteen, we've been building for
this moment. We've had an incredible amount of success over
the last six years, and hopefully we'll be able to
carry that forward.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The legend of the Andy Reid interview is nine hours.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 9 (20:14):
That is accurate, and it's hard to believe in retrospect.
I'm not sure what we talked about for nine hours,
but it was a great opportunity to really get to
know each other, and I think we just realized that
we had tremendous chemistry and that relationship was going to
be a good fit. I also had a lot of
(20:36):
my staff there who got to spend time with Andy,
which I think was good for them and as well
as good for Andy. And there was just a lot
of comfort all the way around, and we were able
to get him to Kansas City later that week and
he's been there ever since.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
How important was culture versus X's and O's when making
that decision.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
Well, we've been through a very challenging couple of seasons
leading up to that hiring in twenty thirteen, and I
felt that we needed a very experienced leader, somebody who
had experience in championship games, which Andy certainly did. Interestingly,
(21:17):
our twenty twelve team had I believe six Pro Bowl
players on it, and that was a team that won
only two games, so it wasn't like we didn't have
some talent on the roster. And I think what Andy
did when he arrived in Kannessee was he really changed
the culture. He changed the expectations, he changed the relationship
(21:39):
between the coaching staff and the players, and he was
able to immediately get off on a great start. The
team won nine straight games at the beginning of that
twenty thirteen season, and I just think it shows what
a great coach he is, both from a culture standpoint
as well as from the next.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
AS and o's.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
If I was the owner, I don't want to do
like player stuff. Do you ever go work out with
the players like cut off a shirt and hop in.
Speaker 9 (22:06):
So during training camp, when I, you know, spend a
more time around the team, I will occasionally end up
in the gym with the players, and I have to
say it's very humbling or maybe even humiliating.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
That's awesome. I feel like I would be doing that
all the time. The folklore of the mister Clark Hunt
graduating first as class at SMU true or false.
Speaker 9 (22:29):
It's hard to believe, but but it's true. I have
several children who are at SMU recently graduated from SMU,
and it's it's it's a great university, and I had
an amazing experience there. I'm not sure how I pulled
that off.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Patrick Mahomes as a person. What's he like? What's your
relationship like with him? As people?
Speaker 9 (22:50):
Yeah, he's just an awesome human being. As good a
football player as he is, he's an even better person.
Of course. Everyone knows about his leadership ability in the
locker room, but he's a guy that really cares about
the people around him, and I think that's part of
the reason why his teammates love playing with him, is
(23:11):
that they know that he cares about them both on
and off the field. He's a terrific guy, you know,
lots of fun, loves to play golf, He's a tremendous
family man, and it's you know, so much fun to
get to see him be a dad.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I want to make a comparison, and you're definitely way
more successful, way smarter, and better looking than me. But
when I started to have a bit of success and
I was like touring, I'd have all this people come
up like, I'm your cousin, let me get tickets. When
you guys started to crush it, did you have more
friends all of a sudden that wanted to be like,
you know, on the field, Oh Clark, it's me, your
buddy from my school.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
You know, that's one of the blessings that comes with
having a little bit of success. And I have a
great group of friends and I love having them around
for these championship opportunities. That's something when I look back
on this time period that I'm going to remember getting
to celebrate it with my family and friends. So that's
(24:09):
totally a positive that I've got some guys that have
reached out that I haven't seen.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
In a little while.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah, I had people on twenty three and meters like
like one percent match, They're like, I'm your cousin, let
me get in see I'd be afraid with the Chiefs,
they'd be a lot worse than that, mister Hunt. I'm
always super curious about successful people and driven people, like
what they read. Like I would imagine you're a studious person, Like,
what are your favorite books?
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Yeah, so I don't have a lot of time to
read books. I spend a lot of time reading literature
that's related to the sports business and just sort of
staying up on what's going on both in the National
Football League and you probably know that we're also involved
in Major League Soccer. So it's really more focused on
(24:55):
newspapers and magazines. You of course access online today that really,
you know, helped me stay up to speed on what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
What about listening to people that have opinions that have
no idea what they're talking about. Do you ever come
across that, like on social media or anybody like this
guy thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't.
Speaker 9 (25:17):
Certainly, social media has changed how we consume news, and
it's opened up the ability to have a lot of
other people that are commenting on sports, and so you've
got a lot more perspectives out there. Not everybody's going
to agree, and that's okay.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
When you were growing up, who was your favorite player?
Speaker 6 (25:37):
It was Lynn Dawson.
Speaker 9 (25:39):
You know, I grew up during that era where the
Chiefs went to Super Bowl, won and lost, and then
made it back in Super Bowl four and beat the
Minnesota Vikings. I got to spend some time around around
the team as a kid with my dad, and you know,
Lynn was definitely a hero for me. I was also
a big fan of your on Stin Rude because I
(26:01):
was a soccer player and Johan, of course was one
of the first soccer style placekickers in the National Football League,
and so I love getting to hang out with him
as well.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
We have three more questions for you, mister Hunt. And
you're sitting in front of a wall of accolades, a
team accolades for sure, a lot of balls. Which ball
behind you brings up the quickest, greatest memory.
Speaker 9 (26:25):
Well, I'm not going to stand up and you know,
pick one of the balls. But one of them back
there has the signatures of our Super Bowl team from
twenty nineteen and that was obviously special because it was
our first trip back to the Big Game in fifty
years and you know, being able to get across the
(26:48):
finish line there and win that game that was so special.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
There he is mister Clark Hunt Chiefs. That's all see yeah,
all right. Final interview is with former Georgia All American
and longtime college football analyst David Pollock. David was one
of the most dominant David was one of the most
dominant defensive players in the country during his playing days,
and then he became one of the most recognizable voices
(27:13):
breaking down the sport every single Saturday. Thanks to David
for hopping on all with us. Here he is David Pollack. David,
good to see you man.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Great to see brother.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Thanks for having me out a couple things. What does
Saturday like at your house?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Probably the laziest human in the world.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I always wake up and make sure that I get
my workout in, you know, get some steps in because
the rest of the day is going to consist of
watching football, multiple screens and multiple games going.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I got my laptop in front of me taking.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Notes of everything that I see in the observations, and
it's literally it's a quick grind from twelve o'clock to
night time. It's like what just happened. It was fast
and furious. But it's so much dagga fun too. It's
not like it's really working. And think about this, man
if says, like, what do you want to do?
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Something you want to do?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Like, sorry, bet, I gotta work.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Like I got to sit here right on the couch
and work. So it's a lot of consuming for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Do you still catch the West Coast games too? Or
is it bedtime?
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Oh god, no, we're catching them all, brother, Like, we're
not going to bed till, you know, till one or two.
I mean it's you know, I was up watching by
you late, you know, this past after this past Saturday,
after everything was commencing. Actually I'm sorry Sunday morning. So no,
you definitely stay up and watch as much as you
can to to make sure you're educated. There's some good
football out west man, Like, it's fun to it's fun
(28:33):
to watch that and consume that as well.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Can you watch NFL though recreationally because you're watching college obviously,
because you're an expert. Can you watch NFL with a
little less attention?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Man, I just try to. I tried not to on Sundays.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I try to just get away from it, and we've
got church, and we've got you know, a small group,
and we've got other things.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
So it'll be on like during the day at the
end of the day. But now we.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Definitely try to do more as a family and get
up and move a little bit more and do like
I love to play golf in the afternoon if I can,
if I can stink that in. But now I can't
watch any game like a normal like just sit back
and relax and watch like I'm definitely always looking at
the game from an analytical view, probably one of the
only things that won't turn my brain off. But NFL
(29:18):
football is fun and different. And I've played fantasy for
years and that's kind of changes the way you look
at the game. But this year I told I committed.
I said, I'm not watching for fantasy.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I'm not doing it. I'm not getting upset, like I'm
just cheering my guy on.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So I try to decompress a little bit on Sundays
after you finished playing after your injury. And I have
different friends that played different positions and their bodies did
different things after they retired. Some of them put on
a bunch of weight, some of them lost a bunch
of weight. You played a position nowhere, I'm not sure
if you had to keep your weight up or down
because you played a very athletic position, but it was
on the line. What happened to you physically after you
(29:52):
stopped playing.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Yeah, I was a chunky. I was a chunky monkey.
I always was growing up. And it's funny your identity
gets you know, it's okay when you're a football player
to be thicker and be bigger and so defensive lineman.
I was two ninety two at my heaviest, and you do,
you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You go one or two ways.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
You either keep the habits you had and if you do,
you're going to keep growing, or you start.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
To change the eating habits.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
And so I've definitely lost like fifty sixty pounds from
my top playing weight, and it's a different look. I
eat to survive. I'm not one of those persons that
has a lot of these like temptations and food like
I don't care where we go eat.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I just I want to eat the same thing.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
I want to know what I'm eating, and definitely me
and my buddies. When you go back to reunions, it's
it's you're a one hundred percent right.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
It's one or the other.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It's get really skinny and trim, or it's put on
a little bit of weight and you look like you
played a totally different position.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You said you work out every day before, or you
try to work out every day, same with me, But
I assume our workouts are a bit different. Just looking
at us, I would think visually, Uh so are you
still a guy who does heavy weight or how have
you changed your workouts?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, I'm done with heavyweight, man, Like heavyweight does nothing
for me. I'm not trying to have any more surgeries
or put my body through anything I don't need to.
Like I squatted almost seven hundred pounds in college, but like,
I'm not going over you know, two seventy five on
a squad now, and I'll just do twenty five reps bench.
I'm not going to do over two twenty five. I'll
do twenty five to thirty reps if I need to
(31:23):
do twenty five to thirty reps, or I'll slow it
down big time. Like the other day, we did sets
of ten and I did you know, five count down
with two twenty five hesitate and then come up, Well,
you do ten reps like that it'll hurt, like you
can make the weight hurt. So to me, it's more
about moving fast. We're big on the row machine. We're
big on the bike, especially assault bike, because that thing
(31:45):
will whip your Heini like.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But it's definitely a different way of training.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I'm not trying to get big and to have all
this mass, you know as we get older, trying to
fight father time and continue to be able to do
some explosive things, but not be like a big corn
fed mule. I've had those days. Those days are gone.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Was there ever a game where they rushed it either
where you lost and it's just awkward and you're like,
oh man, these fans are everywhere or the opposite where
it happened, and you're like, man, this is crazy, Like
we won and the fans are all down on top
of us.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
When you're a player that loses, you're pissed off and
you got all these people that they're not meaning to,
but they're running into you like they're running on the
field and they're they're kind of bumping with you, and
you literally want to lower your shoulder and eliminate a
human being out of your way cause you're you're upset,
right like you're you want to take it out, but
you know, you know you can't do that, but it
is it's hard to keep your composure when that's when
(32:36):
that's happening. But when you're a student and that's happened
for you, like the passion and energy because because you
get so much like the dog walk at Georgia when
I was there, man, like to go through and watch
these people's eyes and to watch how much like passion
they have. Like, man, if it doesn't get you excited
to play, I don't know what does.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
If they're that excited, you dang sure better be.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
And and the thing I always loved about Georgia, like
you can bark it another human being, like a grown
adult can bark engine. That's and that's socially acceptable. Like
I'm all in for that kind of culture, but I
can see how it could lead to some bad I'm
surprised we haven't had more of the other like people
getting upset, people getting ran over, you know, because you're
you're literally running on the field with a bunch of
(33:18):
folks that are you know, not in the greatest of spirits,
that are sometimes angry and upset because they just lost.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I mean, I think Aligarrett Blunt, that was not a
positive one. When they ran down and punched them. I
mean that that was a bad one. But yeah, I
think I would. That's why I would react to fans
ran down and I lost. I do not think. I
think i'muld be so triggered from losing that it would
not be a positive environment for me.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, I mean, you're the emotions are not fun. Like
you're trying your best to be a good sport and
like shake hands and do that part, and then but
now you've got people running and bumping into you left
and right, like, yeah, that's not going to bring out
the best most of the time in a human being.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
In high school, for you, when did you become dominant?
Ninth tenth grade? When was it for you physically and
mentally that the game was very easy?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So so my freshman year was okay. I was an
offensive lineman, a little bit chubby, still hadn't grown into
my body. Actually, they asked me the first day, like
what position do you play? I was like, you know,
full back in the linebacker. They're like, not with the
six flat forty you play offensive line. And then my
second year I got a little bit better, but I
was stuck between JV and varsity and I actually quit.
(34:22):
I was like, bro, this sucks. Like football is hard
enough and not playing isn't cool. And then between my
sophomore and junior year, I grew six inches and gain
sixty pounds. And I don't know if you know this,
but like football is a lot more fun when you're
the hammer and not the nail.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Like it just makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
But like, obviously, my junior year started to have success,
started to get recruited a little bit. But I'll never
forget man. Before my senior year, my coach, I had
a brand new coach. He calls me into his office
and he's like, hey, man, and I had offers from Georgia, Clemson,
like Ohio State and company going into my senior year.
He's like, if we're going to be a great team,
I need you to be the best player on the
(34:59):
field every single play. And I'm like, I'm your best player,
like you know, a cocky punk at that age. And
and he put on like six clips in a row
of me kind of jogging to the football and I
was like, oh my gosh, Like he's not wrong. Like,
that's really that's lazy. And I started practicing like an animal.
I started flying around and he helped me see something
(35:19):
in myself that I didn't see, and it took away
that blind spot and showed me I needed to really
really work. And then I became a really, really good
football player. You know, my senior year of.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
High school, why Georgia? What was it?
Speaker 4 (35:31):
This is the simplest answer that you've asked yet. My
baby doll, Lendsay Pollack, that was that was that was
their best. That was the feather in the cap of Georgia.
My dad grew up My dad grew up up north.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
He was a Giants fan. We didn't pay attention to
much college football.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Moved down south when I was four, so we watched NFL,
not college. But when I started getting recruited, I started
seeing all the atmospheres.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was like, this is dope.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
But my baby doll, Lindsay Pollack, my only girlfriend, the
only girlfriend I've ever had now my wife.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Like, I drove to Gainesville, Florida with Steve.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Spurrier and I was like, oh my gosh, that's forever away,
you know, from her, And so being fifty five minutes
down the road right there in Athens.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Was like, yeah, that'll work.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
You have your seatball, get ball signed behind you. So
and you do a couple of podcasts, and we're always
finding and recommend a good podcast to our listeners. So
what are we gonna hear on that podcast?
Speaker 6 (36:19):
Man?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
I love college football with everything in me and right
now with our season of life and my wife, like
a lot of people know, she's she got diagnosed with
brain cancer, and like, so your your priorities and your
travel and your schedule is a lot different. So like
television absolutely not going to be a thing, but like
football is so fantastic and so great and that's literally
what you're gonna do. I have my buddy, that's my
(36:40):
neighbor on the podcast with me, who works for Pro
Football Focus and has all the numbers.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
But like we come to you, you.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Know, four days a week and just talk football, unbiased,
strong opinions that are not like everybody else's. We're going
to watch a lot of tape and just I mean,
it's football, it's college football. It's the best there is
and so just having that and being able to follow
it talk about it is something that I enjoy and
I just can't imagine life without it, and that's what
you'll get several days a week on YouTube and on
(37:08):
all the platforms for podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Hew you guys. Check it out Sea Ball, Get Ball
with David Pollock. Hey, big fan. Hated you at Georgia
when you played us, but loved you all the other times.
And then I was with a bank. I love watching
with the Bengals too, So yeah, big fan of you,
especially on television. So thank you for the time. Man,
really appreciate it and hope the podcast is killing it well.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Thank you so much, Man, appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of some of
your favorites from twenty twenty five. We hope you have
an awesome new year. Be sure to give us a
follow on socials at twenty five Whistle Sports. Also leave
a comment on Spotify, subscribe to our show, help us out,
tell your friends. Appreciate you guys so much. Have a
great week. Theme song written by.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Bobby Bones That's Me and performed by Brandon Ray. Follow
Brandon on Socials at Brandon Ray Music. You can follow
the show on Instagram at Bobby Bones Sports. Thanks to
our crew co host at producer Ready segment producer at kickoff,
Kevin and Executive US are at Mike Gistro, but most importantly,
thank you for listening.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Bobby Bones.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
We'll talk to you next time here on twenty five
whistles
It's a podcast call twenty five WIST stuck in parts
and they go a whizz.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So, yeah, it's too.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Bad, But what did you expect?
Speaker 4 (00:13):
It's a podcast call twenty five WIST.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
So twenty line. We've had some awesome guests sit down
with us all through twenty twenty five. So let's look
back at some of our favorite interviews that maybe you missed.
First up, ESPN senior writer and New York Times best
selling author Seth Wickersham. Set's one of the best long
form NFL storytellers out there. He put out a book
(00:38):
called American Kings, a Biography of the Quarterback, So we
talked about a lot of quarterbacks. Big thanks to Seth.
Here he is, Seth Wickersham. All right, Seth Wickersham is
on with us.
Speaker 5 (00:48):
Great to see you, man, good to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, congratulations on the book. Let's talk about arch Manning
for a second. And you know you write about how
how ruthless the recruitment was, how did they settle on Texas?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
So go with the book. You know, what I wanted
to do was show what it's like to do this
very uniquely American job, very unique American responsibilities at like
every level from current high school to college, pro retired
Hall of Famer and Arch was interesting to me because,
you know, it was a window into this entire iconic
quarterback family, and so I was able to kind of
(01:20):
like or I was hoping to try to tell the
entire Manning story through Arch and specifically through Arch's recruitment,
and it got so competitive. I think that, like even
being there, it was interesting just to see, especially in
the NIL era, how hot it got for Arch. You know,
I think that it came down to Alabama, Georgia, and Texas.
(01:42):
The reasons why he picked Texas were I think they
were pretty wise. I mean, in no particular order. Number One,
Steve Sarkigian he's the play caller and the head coach,
so he's not going anywhere. He's not gonna be one
of these guys who gets poached to be a head
coach somewhere else. Number Two, he really liked that Texas
might you know, was going to be a team on
the upswing. Here's a chance to win a national championship there.
(02:02):
It kind of helped elevate it.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
He liked that it was at school.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
That had a ton of talent, and I think after
being at eastand or Newman which is obviously a pretty
pretty small school in New Orleans. He wanted to be
on a team that had, you know, other five star players.
And then finally, and this is the one that I
personally find the most interesting, is that, you know, Austin's
a big enough city, you don't even call it a
college town. It's a city that he thought he could
(02:26):
be pretty anonymous there. And that, to me is the
most interesting aspect of it all, because here you have
arch Manning and you know, member of like you know,
Football Royalty, and you know, part of the reason why
he picked Texas was because he thought, and we'll see
how well that works out, that you know, he could
be anonymous there. And I think that, like even some
of the reporting of my book, you know, shows that
(02:46):
like that itself was was too difficult to ask for.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
How influential were Archie, Cooper, Peyton eli All in Archer's
recruitment and actually helping him achieve his destination of Texas.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
He did it himself.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
And I think that like they're all really hyper aware
of looking like they had a hidden hand. And Nelson Stewart,
you know, so arch is sophomore year obviously they realized
he was going to be a top prospect. So Nelson Stewart,
the head coach at Newman, and Cooper Man to get
together and they try to think about like how they
want this recruitment to look like, and this is looking
like staring at a tsunami from a distance, like there's
(03:24):
no stopping this thing. And so Cooper said, I want
this to be a nineteen seventy five recruitment and Coach
Stewart was like, what do you mean? And Cooper was like,
I want you to run point. I want you to
be the gatekeeper. And we're not going to take offers.
We're not going to be posting on social media every
time a school offers to us how grateful we are.
We're going to do things a little bit different to
(03:44):
try to give Arch as semblance of a normal high
school life and you know, maintain his love of the game.
And I think that's really important. And so it was
Arch striving things and obviously, like the family members, you know,
could weigh in when they wanted. But you know, they
went to University of Virginia, where Arch's older sister made goes,
(04:05):
and as they were walking around campus, Cooper was like, look,
you know, this isn't a bad choice. You know, it's
a beautiful campus, great school. You know, it's not football crazy,
and I think that like maybe your life could be
more normal here. And you know, obviously Virginia wasn't a
school that he you know, ended up considering. At the
end of the day, it was him that was driving
this and he's the one who decided on Texas really,
(04:25):
just like Peyton did with Tennessee and even Eli. Did
you know back in the day with ole.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Mis, you're right about Joe Namath then before both of
our time obviously, Joe Namath, I think about nineteen sixty
nine h him guaranteeing him wearing the fur coats, him
being like in New York. But it was an odd
juxtaposition because he played at Alabama, like all of that.
We didn't get to experience it, but we're only catching
it like through story like folklore even And so yeah,
(04:51):
what did you think of Joe namath cultural impact once
you started to really get into it at a deeper level.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Well, I mean, look, all quarterbacks are cold archetypes of
John Unitis and Joe Namath. I mean, like those two
guys are huge pillars, and you know, as I show
in the book, there are other guys who who helped
set them up, especially Bob Waterfield. In the nineteen forties,
he was married to Jane Russell. They were like the
first couples first, you know, the country's first power couple.
(05:17):
But really name it is, you know, a watershed moment
in so many ways. And it was interesting because I've
been with Joe Namath at events in New York and
I've been with him at one event at the University
of Alabama at the stadium, and just my personal opinion,
I thought that he was way more revered, way more
(05:41):
sought after, almost looked like with a type of reverence
that was different when he was at Alabama rather than
the events in New York. I think that like Alabama
has such a a you know, a vast you know
history throughout college football, and obviously name it has so
much cultural template that he started once he was with
the Jets and kind of blossomed into you know, this
(06:03):
guy who first offered the idea of quarterback as like
a lifestyle. But at Alabama, you know, he said that
Barry Bryant said that he was the finest player he
ever coached, and I think that, like you know, when
you listen to Joamath talk about his career, I think
in a lot of ways you hear him talking about
more joy when he was at Alabama than even during
(06:25):
his heyday in New York.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I love your work just generally too, So good luck.
I hope the book sells a ga billion copies and
hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
Hey man, thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
I love all the trinkets on your desk, and I
really appreciate your time, and thank you very very much.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I seth have a good day, man. Next up is
Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. Joe has played in the
NFL for close to twenty years, a lot of memorable moments.
One of those moments came when the lights went out
when he was playing in the Super Bowl against forty
nine ers. It was crazy. And how his body's feeling
playing in his forties, which we talk about here. Congrats
to Joe on still being in the league playing in
his forties. Here he is Joe Flacco, my partner that
(07:02):
I work with a lot, as Matt Castle, who played
in the league for a long time, and he talks
about once he started to be a bit older and
he had dealt with injuries that the hardest part was
not not getting injured, it was bouncing back, because as
you get older, it's harder to bounce back. At your
stage right now, is that the hardest part is when
(07:25):
something hurts, does it take longer to heal?
Speaker 7 (07:27):
I think you got to make sure that you get
to the point where nothing you minimize the amount of
build up that happens. Obviously, throughout the course of a game,
you're going to deal with acute injuries that you have
to try to heal from as quick as possible. But
I think for me, as I get a little bit older,
it's just that maintenance routine. It's getting a good routine
so that little things don't turn into big things. And
(07:49):
when I was younger, you kind of run through those
little things in a week, and now that I've turned forty,
they kind of build up, they don't go away, and
before you know it, you're hurting a lot more than
you want to.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Does it hurt after every game or is there an
occasional game where you're like you look down, You're like,
I'm okay.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
That's the beauty about playing quarterback, is that, Yes, you
do look down after some games and say, oh, wow,
I came out of that one great, And you don't
really deal with anything. The other ten eleven guys on
the field, the other twenty one guys in the field,
when you're out there, they are dealing with it week
in and week out. I would say that I have
it easy, as you know, as it comes to the
(08:27):
NFL standard.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Why are you still playing? You love it?
Speaker 7 (08:31):
I better love it if I'm doing this. Yeah, yeah,
I listen. I have one thing, maybe maybe hopefully a
couple more than one thing, but one thing that I
really really enjoy doing, one thing that I feel like
I can really do at a high level, and I've
never really thought about not doing it. I've been able
to do it since I've been a kid, and I
(08:52):
kind of just want to keep that dream alive. I
still feel like I can do it at a high
level and have a lot of fun doing it. So yeah,
that's kind of why I still do it. It's kind
of a weird question to talk about, but it's a
lot of fun and I do love it. I love
being in that locker room with all the players. I
love being in the huddle, that feeling that you get
(09:15):
before before game time. I wouldn't say that I'm totally
in love with that, but when you don't have that
for a few months, you realize that you miss it
and it's just something that's pretty special.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Can you give me a memory from when the lights
went out in the super Bowl? Because that was weird
for us. I can't imagine you're freaking playing in the
Super Bowl and it all goes down, Like what are
you guys even talking about when that happens.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
I remember sitting on the bench and kind of the
lights go out and you kind of just look around, like,
what the heck is going on? I wish I had
more memories of it. It's funny because after the game,
everybody kind of started expressing to me what they thought,
and some people were scared.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
I mean a lot.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
I had a lot of friends and family that were
nervous as what was going on, and thankfully for me,
that never really crossed my mind. I kind of just
took it for what it was, sat on the ground,
stretched out a little bit. You know, you think it's
going to be two or three minutes. You don't realize
it's going to be twenty or thirty or however long
it was, so I think if I had to guess
(10:14):
how my mindset was, it was probably taking it like
every two or three minutes, thinking it was going to
they were going to come back on and we were
going to get right back to it.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Playing at Pittsburgh and College and then Delaware. Like, to me,
that's cold weather sounds terrible, But you've played in cold
weather places in the NFL for the most part, too.
Is that even a thing? Do you even get cold?
Or is that just normal?
Speaker 7 (10:36):
There's definitely things about that that are not ideal. I
think you just you put that big coat on, you
sit on the heated bench, and you deal with it
for the five ten minutes that you're not sitting on
that bench. But we got it. We got it pretty easy.
The fact that we got guys waiting for us on
the sideline to throw a big coat over us and
sit on a you know, one hundred degree warming bench.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
When you're out there playing, you're honestly not thinking about it.
Speaker 7 (11:02):
It's like the first thirty seconds that you take that
code off that you're thinking what the hell am I doing?
Or pre pregame warm ups are actually probably more miserable
in the game, because you're like, do I want to
even go out there and warm up? Or do I
just want to kind of hang out in the locker
room and say say, I'm good, I'll be ready to
go once the game starts.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And warmups probably no adrenaline, right.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
Yeah, exactly, you're not. You're just like, I'm not playing
the game. Why am I going to go out there
and do it to myself? And I don't have to,
So it's a little bit harder mental hurdle to get
a ticket out there for pregame.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
At the height of your career or when you will
say that your arm was the healthiest it may even
be now. You ever just chunk a ball to see
how far you could throw a ball?
Speaker 7 (11:40):
You know, I used to when I was in college,
but like when I was in late college, early part
of my career in the NFL, I was probably more
interested in seeing how far I could throw it and
doing some long casts. These days, I just kind of
do it to keep my arm in shape. I'm not
necessarily super wired about where I can throw the ball
through the uprights from uh. When people ask me, I
(12:02):
always to say I can probably I could throw it
around seventy five yards.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
I don't. I don't know, maybe give or take a
few yards here and there, so.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Eighty eighty five.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
I honestly, if I could touch eighty, I would probably
say eighty. I don't think I've ever thrown a football
eighty yards unless I would unless I was down on
the Jersey shore on the beach with a forty mile
an hour winds.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
I wasn't throwing the ball eighty yards.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So that's a good point, because if I'm lying about
driving a golf ball, I never lie short. I always
or I always estimate a little long. It's like, what
do you do? Yeah, I got to sixty five average,
and really it's not that so I guess right, Yeah,
that's a good point. When did you realize in your
youth that you had a really strong arm?
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Oh, I guess growing up on the schoolyard, just kind
of playing two hand touch. I could always throw that
little ball that you know, the little pee wee ball
that kind of everybody plays with.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I think, you know, we might have had a Minnesota.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
Vikings or probably a Philadelphia Eagles rubber football that we
could kind of I could throw the length of a
schoolyard and nobody else could really do that. So you
kind of figure, all right, nybe, I could throw the
ball a little.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Bit when these guys are getting ready for draft day,
draft night, if it's night one or second round or
third night, like, what was your draft night like?
Speaker 7 (13:11):
So I was sitting on my couch in my parents' house.
I really didn't want to let cameras in because I
was unsure about where I was going to be picked,
and just kind of wanted to be more private in general.
But obviously I got talked into, you know, allowing them
to come into the house. And I was just kind
of sitting on the couch and waiting to see what happens.
And we were all watching the draft, excited and kind
(13:33):
of eager to see what was going to happen. But
coming from Delaware, I didn't know if I was going
to be There was a lot of momentum probably behind
where I was going.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
To be picked.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
I felt like I was probably going to be picked
decently high. But I could have been a first round pick.
I could have been a third round pick. I had
no idea. So I was a little bit I was excited, obviously,
because at that point I didn't really care where I.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
Was going to be picked.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
I knew that I was going to be an NFL
draft pick, and I think that was the most exciting thing. Yeah,
there was probably a little bit of uncertainty in my
mind too, because you just don't know where you're going
to go and where you're going to spend the next
you know, you plan on spending the next fifteen years
of your life probably wherever.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
You end up getting picked.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
So it was, yeah, definitely definitely a little bit of
a mixed feelings about where that could be.
Speaker 6 (14:16):
Who called you, Ozzie called me.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
Ozzie called me, and I think they were I think
they traded up with Houston, I want to say. And
he said, hey, Joe, we're about to you know, we're
about to trade up here with Houston into the eighteenth
pick and and select you to become a Baltimore Raven.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
And you know, obviously, like the whole.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Room that I was sitting in kind of went nuts
because they were, you know, they realized I was on
the phone call and I was kind of giving them
a head nod or whatever I was doing to let
them know, like, hey, it's about to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
How much sleep do you try to get a night.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Right now.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
Yeah, we're going to pivot into health.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Man.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
I got to tell you there was a time where,
like my kids were younger, and we could actually enjoy
three hours on the couch being my wife by ourselves
from like seven thirty to ten thirty or eleven o'clock
eleven thirty, whatever we wanted to do. You know, we
could put those kids to bed. But now my kids
are getting older, they complain about bedtime every night. It's
getting pushed, you know, further and further back, and I'm
(15:15):
usually knocked out on the couch at nine o'clock and
then at ten fifteen I'm waking up with my wife
going back to bed, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
Sleeping till six thirty, six forty five every day.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So is there a you get to a game, because
there are mornings if I'm either doing the show or
if i'm even if I'm on touring doing stand up
my bra I just have brain fog some days and
if I sleep maybe something my eight. You ever get
to the game day and you're like, man, like I'm
just not fully there and you have to go all right, guys,
my brain's not clicking the right way and need you
to help me out a little bit.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
Listen, there's times, Yeah, I don't know about my brain,
but your body definitely wakes up a little bit tired sometimes,
And listen, it's not ideal for us. We're waking up
even if most of the time, even if you're at home,
you're waking up in a hotel, you don't get to
sleep in your own bed. And definitely if you're on
the road. And honestly, I'm not great at at falling
(16:07):
asleep and sleeping well. In a hotel, I usually can
kind of turn my mind off and not worry about anything,
and that I'm the same way the night before the game.
I'm not really thinking about it. I feel like if
I do have things on my mind, I can actually
relax and go to bed and kind of put it
out of my mind. But just a night's sleep in
a hotel, I've never quite gotten used to it. So
there's always probably a little bit of that.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Three final questions that leads me to that. So do
you stay at home? Do you stay in the same
hotel room, in the same bed to at least have
some sort of consistency.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Man, I've been all over the place the last few years.
I have no idea.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
It's been I think typically, Yes, you're in the same
room all year.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Like in Baltimore's same room, Saints, same room, same room. Joe,
we appreciate the time, and I thank you for spending
some time with us.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
No, I appreciate it. You guys have a good one,
all right, Thanks Joe.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Now we'll get to former NFL and current college head
coach Jim Mora. Coach. Moro was the head coach in
Atlanta when Michael Vick was our quarterback. So I asked
him what it's like to coach Michael Vick, especially during
that time. Here's what he said.
Speaker 8 (17:11):
He was unbelievable. Number one, he was a really good person.
He is a really good person. We stay in touch.
I'm happy he's coaching. He's going to have a great
impact on Norfolk State and all those student athletes. But
every single day, every single day on practice, on the
practice field, he would do something that you would just
let go.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Did he just do that?
Speaker 8 (17:29):
I mean, the most unbelievable athlete I've ever been around.
We're playing the Carolina Panthers. We win the game, I
think we win the division or I don't know something,
and it's a fourth down and goal, and you know,
if we don't score a touchdown, the game's over. Our
coordinator we call time out. Coordinator comes over and gives him,
you know, all these instructions, like, you know, you got
(17:51):
to look here, you gotta look at this guy. You
gotta look at that guy this year number one read.
Mike starts to run on the field. I bring him
back and I go, hey, Mike, I go listen. Man,
if you don't like it, just frigging run, Just take
off and go. And that's that that. You can find
it on YouTube, a picture of him diving into the
end zone against Carolina, his knees about an inch off
the ground. And that was the kind of guy. He was,
(18:12):
like you just like I tell him every every week,
just go be you. You know, like we've worked hard
all week. Your skill set's improving, your understanding of the
concepts are improving. But at the end of the day,
don't be paralyzed by trying to do things that you're
not comfortable doing. Just go be you. And he was man,
he was fun to be around.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
He was something just to watch like his old YouTube
because obviously I watched it as a kid, but to
watch it now and to just see the separation at
almost at will. It's crazy to watch now that far
remove from it, just how athletically superior he was.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
His burst.
Speaker 8 (18:46):
Yeah, you know you remember that that that game against
the Vikings where he split the two defenders.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And you'd see that every day. But his arm was
like a whip.
Speaker 8 (18:55):
I mean, there was that commercial who was throwing it
out of the stadium and I know that was you know,
it wasn't real, but I think he could probably do that.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
It was.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
I mean, he was a cultural icon and he made
a huge impact on this league. I think he changed
the direction of how people look at quarterbacks. And yeah,
he was really fun and just funded to know as
a person.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Next up, our interview with Kansas City Chiefs chairman and
CEO Clark Hunt. Clark grew up around the league, with
his family being a huge part of NFL history, and
now he's leading one of the most successful franchises in
all of sports. Big thanks to Clark for coming on
with us here. He is Clark Hunt. First of all,
mister Hunt, I would like to say that I cannot
wait for you to be in the Hall of Fame.
I want to say what I've seen from your organization.
(19:40):
I'm ready whenever you're on television and that jacket, I'll
be like, that's my guy right there. So congratulations on
just massive success over the past decade.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
Yeah, well, I sure appreciate it. It's absolutely been a
very special time to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.
You know, really, from the day that Andy Reid walked
into the building in twenty thirteen, we've been building for
this moment. We've had an incredible amount of success over
the last six years, and hopefully we'll be able to
carry that forward.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
The legend of the Andy Reid interview is nine hours.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 9 (20:14):
That is accurate, and it's hard to believe in retrospect.
I'm not sure what we talked about for nine hours,
but it was a great opportunity to really get to
know each other, and I think we just realized that
we had tremendous chemistry and that relationship was going to
be a good fit. I also had a lot of
(20:36):
my staff there who got to spend time with Andy,
which I think was good for them and as well
as good for Andy. And there was just a lot
of comfort all the way around, and we were able
to get him to Kansas City later that week and
he's been there ever since.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
How important was culture versus X's and O's when making
that decision.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
Well, we've been through a very challenging couple of seasons
leading up to that hiring in twenty thirteen, and I
felt that we needed a very experienced leader, somebody who
had experience in championship games, which Andy certainly did. Interestingly,
(21:17):
our twenty twelve team had I believe six Pro Bowl
players on it, and that was a team that won
only two games, so it wasn't like we didn't have
some talent on the roster. And I think what Andy
did when he arrived in Kannessee was he really changed
the culture. He changed the expectations, he changed the relationship
(21:39):
between the coaching staff and the players, and he was
able to immediately get off on a great start. The
team won nine straight games at the beginning of that
twenty thirteen season, and I just think it shows what
a great coach he is, both from a culture standpoint
as well as from the next.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
AS and o's.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
If I was the owner, I don't want to do
like player stuff. Do you ever go work out with
the players like cut off a shirt and hop in.
Speaker 9 (22:06):
So during training camp, when I, you know, spend a
more time around the team, I will occasionally end up
in the gym with the players, and I have to
say it's very humbling or maybe even humiliating.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
That's awesome. I feel like I would be doing that
all the time. The folklore of the mister Clark Hunt
graduating first as class at SMU true or false.
Speaker 9 (22:29):
It's hard to believe, but but it's true. I have
several children who are at SMU recently graduated from SMU,
and it's it's it's a great university, and I had
an amazing experience there. I'm not sure how I pulled
that off.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Patrick Mahomes as a person. What's he like? What's your
relationship like with him? As people?
Speaker 9 (22:50):
Yeah, he's just an awesome human being. As good a
football player as he is, he's an even better person.
Of course. Everyone knows about his leadership ability in the
locker room, but he's a guy that really cares about
the people around him, and I think that's part of
the reason why his teammates love playing with him, is
(23:11):
that they know that he cares about them both on
and off the field. He's a terrific guy, you know,
lots of fun, loves to play golf, He's a tremendous
family man, and it's you know, so much fun to
get to see him be a dad.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I want to make a comparison, and you're definitely way
more successful, way smarter, and better looking than me. But
when I started to have a bit of success and
I was like touring, I'd have all this people come
up like, I'm your cousin, let me get tickets. When
you guys started to crush it, did you have more
friends all of a sudden that wanted to be like,
you know, on the field, Oh Clark, it's me, your
buddy from my school.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
You know, that's one of the blessings that comes with
having a little bit of success. And I have a
great group of friends and I love having them around
for these championship opportunities. That's something when I look back
on this time period that I'm going to remember getting
to celebrate it with my family and friends. So that's
(24:09):
totally a positive that I've got some guys that have
reached out that I haven't seen.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
In a little while.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah, I had people on twenty three and meters like
like one percent match, They're like, I'm your cousin, let
me get in see I'd be afraid with the Chiefs,
they'd be a lot worse than that, mister Hunt. I'm
always super curious about successful people and driven people, like
what they read. Like I would imagine you're a studious person, Like,
what are your favorite books?
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Yeah, so I don't have a lot of time to
read books. I spend a lot of time reading literature
that's related to the sports business and just sort of
staying up on what's going on both in the National
Football League and you probably know that we're also involved
in Major League Soccer. So it's really more focused on
(24:55):
newspapers and magazines. You of course access online today that really,
you know, helped me stay up to speed on what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
What about listening to people that have opinions that have
no idea what they're talking about. Do you ever come
across that, like on social media or anybody like this
guy thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't.
Speaker 9 (25:17):
Certainly, social media has changed how we consume news, and
it's opened up the ability to have a lot of
other people that are commenting on sports, and so you've
got a lot more perspectives out there. Not everybody's going
to agree, and that's okay.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
When you were growing up, who was your favorite player?
Speaker 6 (25:37):
It was Lynn Dawson.
Speaker 9 (25:39):
You know, I grew up during that era where the
Chiefs went to Super Bowl, won and lost, and then
made it back in Super Bowl four and beat the
Minnesota Vikings. I got to spend some time around around
the team as a kid with my dad, and you know,
Lynn was definitely a hero for me. I was also
a big fan of your on Stin Rude because I
(26:01):
was a soccer player and Johan, of course was one
of the first soccer style placekickers in the National Football League,
and so I love getting to hang out with him
as well.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
We have three more questions for you, mister Hunt. And
you're sitting in front of a wall of accolades, a
team accolades for sure, a lot of balls. Which ball
behind you brings up the quickest, greatest memory.
Speaker 9 (26:25):
Well, I'm not going to stand up and you know,
pick one of the balls. But one of them back
there has the signatures of our Super Bowl team from
twenty nineteen and that was obviously special because it was
our first trip back to the Big Game in fifty
years and you know, being able to get across the
(26:48):
finish line there and win that game that was so special.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
There he is mister Clark Hunt Chiefs. That's all see yeah,
all right. Final interview is with former Georgia All American
and longtime college football analyst David Pollock. David was one
of the most dominant David was one of the most
dominant defensive players in the country during his playing days,
and then he became one of the most recognizable voices
(27:13):
breaking down the sport every single Saturday. Thanks to David
for hopping on all with us. Here he is David Pollack. David,
good to see you man.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Great to see brother.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Thanks for having me out a couple things. What does
Saturday like at your house?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Probably the laziest human in the world.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I always wake up and make sure that I get
my workout in, you know, get some steps in because
the rest of the day is going to consist of
watching football, multiple screens and multiple games going.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I got my laptop in front of me taking.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Notes of everything that I see in the observations, and
it's literally it's a quick grind from twelve o'clock to
night time. It's like what just happened. It was fast
and furious. But it's so much dagga fun too. It's
not like it's really working. And think about this, man
if says, like, what do you want to do?
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Something you want to do?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Like, sorry, bet, I gotta work.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Like I got to sit here right on the couch
and work. So it's a lot of consuming for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Do you still catch the West Coast games too? Or
is it bedtime?
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Oh god, no, we're catching them all, brother, Like, we're
not going to bed till, you know, till one or two.
I mean it's you know, I was up watching by
you late, you know, this past after this past Saturday,
after everything was commencing. Actually I'm sorry Sunday morning. So no,
you definitely stay up and watch as much as you
can to to make sure you're educated. There's some good
football out west man, Like, it's fun to it's fun
(28:33):
to watch that and consume that as well.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Can you watch NFL though recreationally because you're watching college obviously,
because you're an expert. Can you watch NFL with a
little less attention?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Man, I just try to. I tried not to on Sundays.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I try to just get away from it, and we've
got church, and we've got you know, a small group,
and we've got other things.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
So it'll be on like during the day at the
end of the day. But now we.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Definitely try to do more as a family and get
up and move a little bit more and do like
I love to play golf in the afternoon if I can,
if I can stink that in. But now I can't
watch any game like a normal like just sit back
and relax and watch like I'm definitely always looking at
the game from an analytical view, probably one of the
only things that won't turn my brain off. But NFL
(29:18):
football is fun and different. And I've played fantasy for
years and that's kind of changes the way you look
at the game. But this year I told I committed.
I said, I'm not watching for fantasy.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I'm not doing it. I'm not getting upset, like I'm
just cheering my guy on.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So I try to decompress a little bit on Sundays
after you finished playing after your injury. And I have
different friends that played different positions and their bodies did
different things after they retired. Some of them put on
a bunch of weight, some of them lost a bunch
of weight. You played a position nowhere, I'm not sure
if you had to keep your weight up or down
because you played a very athletic position, but it was
on the line. What happened to you physically after you
(29:52):
stopped playing.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Yeah, I was a chunky. I was a chunky monkey.
I always was growing up. And it's funny your identity
gets you know, it's okay when you're a football player
to be thicker and be bigger and so defensive lineman.
I was two ninety two at my heaviest, and you do,
you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You go one or two ways.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
You either keep the habits you had and if you do,
you're going to keep growing, or you start.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
To change the eating habits.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
And so I've definitely lost like fifty sixty pounds from
my top playing weight, and it's a different look. I
eat to survive. I'm not one of those persons that
has a lot of these like temptations and food like
I don't care where we go eat.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I just I want to eat the same thing.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
I want to know what I'm eating, and definitely me
and my buddies. When you go back to reunions, it's
it's you're a one hundred percent right.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
It's one or the other.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It's get really skinny and trim, or it's put on
a little bit of weight and you look like you
played a totally different position.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
You said you work out every day before, or you
try to work out every day, same with me, But
I assume our workouts are a bit different. Just looking
at us, I would think visually, Uh so are you
still a guy who does heavy weight or how have
you changed your workouts?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, I'm done with heavyweight, man, Like heavyweight does nothing
for me. I'm not trying to have any more surgeries
or put my body through anything I don't need to.
Like I squatted almost seven hundred pounds in college, but like,
I'm not going over you know, two seventy five on
a squad now, and I'll just do twenty five reps bench.
I'm not going to do over two twenty five. I'll
do twenty five to thirty reps if I need to
(31:23):
do twenty five to thirty reps, or I'll slow it
down big time. Like the other day, we did sets
of ten and I did you know, five count down
with two twenty five hesitate and then come up, Well,
you do ten reps like that it'll hurt, like you
can make the weight hurt. So to me, it's more
about moving fast. We're big on the row machine. We're
big on the bike, especially assault bike, because that thing
(31:45):
will whip your Heini like.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But it's definitely a different way of training.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I'm not trying to get big and to have all
this mass, you know as we get older, trying to
fight father time and continue to be able to do
some explosive things, but not be like a big corn
fed mule. I've had those days. Those days are gone.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Was there ever a game where they rushed it either
where you lost and it's just awkward and you're like,
oh man, these fans are everywhere or the opposite where
it happened, and you're like, man, this is crazy, Like
we won and the fans are all down on top
of us.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
When you're a player that loses, you're pissed off and
you got all these people that they're not meaning to,
but they're running into you like they're running on the
field and they're they're kind of bumping with you, and
you literally want to lower your shoulder and eliminate a
human being out of your way cause you're you're upset,
right like you're you want to take it out, but
you know, you know you can't do that, but it
is it's hard to keep your composure when that's when
(32:36):
that's happening. But when you're a student and that's happened
for you, like the passion and energy because because you
get so much like the dog walk at Georgia when
I was there, man, like to go through and watch
these people's eyes and to watch how much like passion
they have. Like, man, if it doesn't get you excited
to play, I don't know what does.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
If they're that excited, you dang sure better be.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
And and the thing I always loved about Georgia, like
you can bark it another human being, like a grown
adult can bark engine. That's and that's socially acceptable. Like
I'm all in for that kind of culture, but I
can see how it could lead to some bad I'm
surprised we haven't had more of the other like people
getting upset, people getting ran over, you know, because you're
you're literally running on the field with a bunch of
(33:18):
folks that are you know, not in the greatest of spirits,
that are sometimes angry and upset because they just lost.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I mean, I think Aligarrett Blunt, that was not a
positive one. When they ran down and punched them. I
mean that that was a bad one. But yeah, I
think I would. That's why I would react to fans
ran down and I lost. I do not think. I
think i'muld be so triggered from losing that it would
not be a positive environment for me.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, I mean, you're the emotions are not fun. Like
you're trying your best to be a good sport and
like shake hands and do that part, and then but
now you've got people running and bumping into you left
and right, like, yeah, that's not going to bring out
the best most of the time in a human being.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
In high school, for you, when did you become dominant?
Ninth tenth grade? When was it for you physically and
mentally that the game was very easy?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So so my freshman year was okay. I was an
offensive lineman, a little bit chubby, still hadn't grown into
my body. Actually, they asked me the first day, like
what position do you play? I was like, you know,
full back in the linebacker. They're like, not with the
six flat forty you play offensive line. And then my
second year I got a little bit better, but I
was stuck between JV and varsity and I actually quit.
(34:22):
I was like, bro, this sucks. Like football is hard
enough and not playing isn't cool. And then between my
sophomore and junior year, I grew six inches and gain
sixty pounds. And I don't know if you know this,
but like football is a lot more fun when you're
the hammer and not the nail.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Like it just makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
But like, obviously, my junior year started to have success,
started to get recruited a little bit. But I'll never
forget man. Before my senior year, my coach, I had
a brand new coach. He calls me into his office
and he's like, hey, man, and I had offers from Georgia, Clemson,
like Ohio State and company going into my senior year.
He's like, if we're going to be a great team,
I need you to be the best player on the
(34:59):
field every single play. And I'm like, I'm your best player,
like you know, a cocky punk at that age. And
and he put on like six clips in a row
of me kind of jogging to the football and I
was like, oh my gosh, Like he's not wrong. Like,
that's really that's lazy. And I started practicing like an animal.
I started flying around and he helped me see something
(35:19):
in myself that I didn't see, and it took away
that blind spot and showed me I needed to really
really work. And then I became a really, really good
football player. You know, my senior year of.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
High school, why Georgia? What was it?
Speaker 4 (35:31):
This is the simplest answer that you've asked yet. My
baby doll, Lendsay Pollack, that was that was that was
their best. That was the feather in the cap of Georgia.
My dad grew up My dad grew up up north.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
He was a Giants fan. We didn't pay attention to
much college football.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Moved down south when I was four, so we watched NFL,
not college. But when I started getting recruited, I started
seeing all the atmospheres.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was like, this is dope.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
But my baby doll, Lindsay Pollack, my only girlfriend, the
only girlfriend I've ever had now my wife.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Like, I drove to Gainesville, Florida with Steve.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Spurrier and I was like, oh my gosh, that's forever away,
you know, from her, And so being fifty five minutes
down the road right there in Athens.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Was like, yeah, that'll work.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
You have your seatball, get ball signed behind you. So
and you do a couple of podcasts, and we're always
finding and recommend a good podcast to our listeners. So
what are we gonna hear on that podcast?
Speaker 6 (36:19):
Man?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
I love college football with everything in me and right
now with our season of life and my wife, like
a lot of people know, she's she got diagnosed with
brain cancer, and like, so your your priorities and your
travel and your schedule is a lot different. So like
television absolutely not going to be a thing, but like
football is so fantastic and so great and that's literally
what you're gonna do. I have my buddy, that's my
(36:40):
neighbor on the podcast with me, who works for Pro
Football Focus and has all the numbers.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
But like we come to you, you.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Know, four days a week and just talk football, unbiased,
strong opinions that are not like everybody else's. We're going
to watch a lot of tape and just I mean,
it's football, it's college football. It's the best there is
and so just having that and being able to follow
it talk about it is something that I enjoy and
I just can't imagine life without it, and that's what
you'll get several days a week on YouTube and on
(37:08):
all the platforms for podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Hew you guys. Check it out Sea Ball, Get Ball
with David Pollock. Hey, big fan. Hated you at Georgia
when you played us, but loved you all the other times.
And then I was with a bank. I love watching
with the Bengals too, So yeah, big fan of you,
especially on television. So thank you for the time. Man,
really appreciate it and hope the podcast is killing it well.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Thank you so much, Man, appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of some of
your favorites from twenty twenty five. We hope you have
an awesome new year. Be sure to give us a
follow on socials at twenty five Whistle Sports. Also leave
a comment on Spotify, subscribe to our show, help us out,
tell your friends. Appreciate you guys so much. Have a
great week. Theme song written by.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Bobby Bones That's Me and performed by Brandon Ray. Follow
Brandon on Socials at Brandon Ray Music. You can follow
the show on Instagram at Bobby Bones Sports. Thanks to
our crew co host at producer Ready segment producer at kickoff,
Kevin and Executive US are at Mike Gistro, but most importantly,
thank you for listening.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Bobby Bones.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
We'll talk to you next time here on twenty five
whistles
Hosts And Creators
Bobby Bones
Amy Brown
Lunchbox
Eddie Garcia
Morgan Huelsman
Raymundo
Mike D
Abby Anderson
Scuba Steve
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