April 25, 2023 • 39 mins
Born into a military family, Reggie Rivers learned how to adapt to new situations early. Not only did he move from state to state, he also spent time in foreign countries where he found one common language: sports. During his high school years, he stayed in San Antonio and attended Randolph High School on the Randolph Air Force Base. He played several sports and football eventually rose to the top. While on scholarship to Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University), he had a stellar senior season at running back and was noticed by an NFL scout. He didn’t get drafted, but was offered free agent contracts by the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles. He also had a “real” job in place after graduation. He decided to have some “fun” and go to the Broncos NFL training camp after being assured the real job would be there when he got cut. He made the team. He’d make the team six more times until he was cut before the regular season in 1997.
After he was cut, Reggie continued to write (something he’d done since high school), worked in radio and also in TV. From there, he moved into a successful keynote speaking career and wrote several books. Then, a little over a decade ago, he found what he calls his true purpose: helping non-profits raise money with a company he formed called The Gala Team. From just a few events the first year, Reggie’s team now works with hundreds of non-profit organizations each year and they are starting to expand beyond Colorado. Continuous reinvention at its best!
Hosted by Susie Wargin
After he was cut, Reggie continued to write (something he’d done since high school), worked in radio and also in TV. From there, he moved into a successful keynote speaking career and wrote several books. Then, a little over a decade ago, he found what he calls his true purpose: helping non-profits raise money with a company he formed called The Gala Team. From just a few events the first year, Reggie’s team now works with hundreds of non-profit organizations each year and they are starting to expand beyond Colorado. Continuous reinvention at its best!
Hosted by Susie Wargin
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I understood how to learn the playbook, and I started to realize that,
yeah, this guy's faster than me, but if he makes a mistake every
time he gets on the field,the coaches don't trust him. I'm not
nearly as fast, but I makeway fewer mistakes. Welcome to Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired a weeklypodcast featuring conversations with professional athletes and coaches
(00:21):
who have experienced being cut, traded, fired, and or they're retired.
I'm your host, Susie Wargen.This episode's guest is another prime example of
reinvention. Reggie Rivers has always worna number of hats at the same time.
For example, when he played footballin high school. In college,
he also wrote for newspapers, andthen when he was with the Broncos he
was on eight fifty Koway in Denverand wrote articles in the Rocky Mountain News.
(00:45):
He never expected to make an NFLteam, and was even more pleasantly
surprised when he played for six seasonswith Denver, especially since he had a
different head coach every two years.However, that actually worked to his advantage,
as you'll hear. After Reggie wascut by the Bronchos, they on
to win two Super Bowls, whichstung a little bit, but by then
he was covering the Broncos on TVas part of the media. Eventually,
(01:07):
Reggie went on to a speaking career. He wrote several books, and now
he runs a very successful business calledthe Gala Team, where Reggie and his
team run auctions for hundreds of nonprofitsevery year. He's in the Texas State
University Hall of Fame. Ladies andGentlemen, Reggie Rivers traded fired retired podcasts
with Susie Wargin Reggie Rivers, Itis so good to see you. It's
(01:32):
good to see you. It's beena little while, it has been.
It's funny we're reflecting. I rememberyou when you were pregnant with your first
child. This is now twenty fouryears ago, ninety nine, two thousand.
Yeah, because you were working inradio. We were working in the
same building at that time. Yes, ma'am, our paths have woven in
and out throughout the years. Sothis is fun to see you again and
(01:52):
catch up on everything that you're doingthese days. Yes, good to see
you. So you were born.It's so funny. I've talked to so
many athletes and coaches that are bornin Ohio. It's bizarre. I don't
know what it is. It's ahotbed of athletes and coaches. But born
in Dayton, Ohio, you're inan Air Force family, so end up
moving around a lot in the Statesand other countries, to England and France
(02:12):
being a couple of them. Howoften were you moving during that time?
Well, I was born in Dayton. When I was one, we moved
to England and we lived there forfive years at two different bases. So
we were at the first base fortwo years, then we moved to another
base for three years. Then wemoved to Miami, Florida for a year,
then moved to Greece for three years, then moved to San Antonio and
(02:34):
basically stayed there throughout my junior high, high school in college. Wow,
so you were exposed to probably othersports besides American sports being in England and
in Greece. Right, did youplay other sports while you were growing up?
Only soccer? I remember in Greeceplaying soccer with kids. And one
of the things that came out ofmoving so early in my life is that
(02:55):
it's made me very flexible in termsof meeting people and under any people.
And I can remember living in Greece. We lived in a little village and
I had friends that we played soccertogether. We spoke a different language,
we had a different religion, wehad different customs, different way of dressing,
different everything, but we played soccertogether. And I think throughout my
life it has helped me that nothave this expectation that everyone around me is
(03:20):
going to be just like me,and it's okay for people to be different.
And sports can do that. Youcan put a sport somewhere and it
doesn't matter what you speak or whereyou're from. You can play the game
exactly. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, So you end up for the majority
of your junior high high school ina base at San Antonio, Randolph Air
Force Base, right, Yes,and then you went to Randolf High School.
(03:40):
That's correct. So that on thebase is all military families that are
there, all military family So it'sa public school for military families only.
So we were a mile as thecrow flies, So you know, it's
not a private school. You don'thave to pay to go there, right,
there's no restriction on who can goexcept you just have to be in
the military. It was a mileas the Crow flies from Judson High School,
(04:02):
which is one of the biggest andbaddest schools in Texas. Judson High
School wins the state championship like everyfour years. And they've got so big
that they had to break off theninth graders out of the high school and
they still wore a six A school. Then they broke off the tenth graders
and they had a ninth and tenthhigh school and a junior senior high school
(04:26):
and they were still six A.It was huge. So A mile as
the Crow flies, that's the schoolthat I'm from. My school had two
hundred and thirty nine students. Thattotal, Oh wow, two hundred and
thirty nine. So what class didyou guys play for football? We were
two ay, And because I wassuch a small school, I played football,
basketball, ran track, I wason the yearbook, I was on
(04:48):
the newspaper. I just think sometimeswhat an experience I had. But I
had just been in that town,I would have been at Judson High School.
I was a super late bloomer.I didn't really build my body until
my junior senior in high school.Chances are I never would have played football
if I'd have been at jetson.That is wild. So did you play
(05:09):
football all throughout junior high? Inhigh school? Then I did. I
was on the freshman team at thislittle tiny school. Then I was on
the JV team at this little tinyschool, and my freshman and sophomore year,
I went out for the track team. I was too slow to be
on the track team, and Iwas thinking at this tiny school, if
I can walk at a fast pace, I should be fast enough to be
(05:29):
on the track team. But thecoach came to me and he said,
you know you're not quite fast enough. Because I was my freshman year,
I was five four, one hundredand twenty pounds. No way, Reggie,
Oh my goodness, five four hundredand twenty. And the coach said,
you know you're not quite fast enoughto be on the track team,
but I'd like to offer you theposition of a manager on the track team.
(05:49):
And during practice, you'll be arabbit. We're gonna give you a
headstart and the guy's going to tryto chase you. It'll help you get
faster, it'll help them get faster. And I was like, okay,
I'll take the they meet you therabbit. I loved it. Oh,
how funny. Wow, So didit make you faster though it? And
you know, growing and finally havinga ro spurt, But yeah, it
(06:11):
was I loved being on teams andwhatever role on the team, I was
happy to be on the team.And so I would be a rabbit during
the week and I would just challengemyself. I would say, you know,
this time I had a twenty yardhead start, Well, I'm gonna
back up. I'm only going togive myself an eighteen yard head start and
see if I can beat them tothe line. And you know, I
would start inching backwards. So itwas making me faster and it was making
them faster. Did you beat themmost of the time? No, they
(06:35):
beat me most of the time.Okay. And the way the coach instructed
me, he said, if we'redoing it right, they should be catching
you right at the line. Ifyou're winning by a big margin, then
you're not functioning well as a rabbit. Oh, how funny. That is
crazy. Well, you do havea phenomenal senior year, twelve hundred rushing
yards. Did you start to havemultiple colleges contact you or was there just
(06:58):
the one? How did that happentoo? Two? Yes, two colleges
Angelo State way out in West Texasand Southwest Texas State, which has now
been renamed Texas State University. Iwent and visited both schools. I got
offered full scholarships at both schools.They both wanted me to play defensive back
because in high school I was arunning back in a cornerback. So they
were looking at me and saying,well, we think that you're a natural
(07:21):
safety, and so we're gonna haveyou on defense. We're gonna move you
to safety. And I was like, well, I really like being on
offense and carrying the ball. Andso Southwest Texas State said, well,
which do you prefer. You wantto run the ball or you want to
be on defense. I said Iwant to run the ball. And said,
okay, if you come here,you can be a running back.
And I was like done. Decisionmade, decision made. And ironically,
so I go through. I havea good college career. I get to
(07:44):
the NFL. Now I'm on specialteams and I start to discover I'm a
natural safety. I realized why theywere going to put me at safety.
I was really too slow to bea running back. I was too small
to be a fullback. I wastwo hundred and fifteen pounds when all the
fullbacks were two forty. I rana four point seven one at the combine
when you know the other running backsare running four to five and four to
(08:07):
four. But on special teams,I'm running down the field on kickoffs and
on funt coverage and I discover that, yeah, I am a safety.
They were right all along and Ijust didn't listen. And that probably comes
up now when you do your speakingand things like that. It's there's a
lot to be said up. CarlMecklenberg said it really well. Where everyone
has their natural position and sometimes it'shard for you to mentally get your head
(08:28):
around the fact that this is mynatural position. You may be able to
do a couple of other things,but body types and your abilities put you
into a spot that works the best. Yeah, it really is. And
that's one thing I noticed about greatplayers, you know, to be around
John Elway or Steve Atwater, isthat great players tend to lean into their
strengths. Many of us we tendto kind of focus on our weaknesses and
(08:52):
say, oh, why really shouldtry to get better at this because I'm
not very good at it. That'snot what the great players do. They
lean into the stuff that they doreally well and they just try to get
better and better and better at it. Where most of us are fairly satisfied
if we can do something pretty well, it's like, yeah, that's good
enough. The great ones are like, no, I want to do it
even better, Like Lebron James,I'm great, I want to do it
(09:13):
even better. That's a great point. That's exactly what they do. There's
a lot to be learned from that. So when you're at Southwest Texas State
University now Texas State University, youare not only doing football. You are
in journalism. And your major wasjournalism right right, And then you were
also part of the newspaper there aswell, or you know, you did
some writing for the San Antonio newspaper. I did that was in high school.
(09:33):
Oh, high school, you didthe yo. I was an obituary
writer for the San Antonio Light newspaper. You wrote the obit Wow. My
senior year in high school, Igot that job. And my job was
to go through the death notices fromthe funeral homes and find people who look
like they had interesting lives. Sothis guy was eighty eight years old.
He ran a cement company, andso I would call his family and say,
(09:56):
Hey, I'm writing a story forthe paper. I wonder if I
could ad ask you a few questions. So as a seventeen year old,
it was terrifying. Yeah, butyou quickly discover that most of these deaths
are not a surprise, and thefamilies are so honored that the newspaper is
going to write an article and theydon't mind that it's some seventh They don't
(10:16):
maybe they don't know him seventeen.You probably presented more than you were seventeen.
Yeah, but I probably sounded likeI was seventeen. Hey him,
my name's Reggie Rivers, and Iwork here at the San Antonio Light newspaper,
and I wonder if I could askyou a few questions about Earl.
But they probably opened up to youthen because they wanted to tell the story,
right. Yeah, they were alwaysso great experience. It was.
(10:39):
It helped me get over you know, as an interviewer, there is a
fear of asking questions no matter whoyou're interviewing, absolute somebody on the street,
some prominent person. It helped meget over that fear because the first
few weeks I'm there, I'm like, oh gosh, I gotta call this
family. Someone just died, andyou know, i'd be apologetic, I'm
sorry to bother you at this time. And they're like, oh my gosh,
hey, it's someone from the newspaper. It's they want to they want
(11:03):
to write a story about dad,and you know, and you would just
hear the excitement in their voice.And so I started to help me feel
more confident that when I'm representing thenewspaper, at least I can be confident
and just interview people. And sothen when I went to Texas State,
I majored in journalism. My freshmanyear, I got an internship at the
Austin American Statesman, and then Iended up working at the American Statesman pretty
(11:24):
much every summer, every Thanksgiving,every Christmas break, every spring break,
because I had a scholarship, soI couldn't have a job while school was
in session. Oh but you couldget paid when it wasn't in session.
Own smart move, And what'd youdo for them? I wrote stories.
I was a beat reporter. Myfreshman year. I ended up writing a
(11:45):
hundred byline stories and I won theHM Finchress Award. That is given to
the best intern in the state ofTexas. Whoa Reggie. That's cool.
Yeah. Wow. And after thatthe American Statesman said, hey, you've
got a standing internship throughout the restof your college career. Every time you
have a break, you can justsign up for shifts and we'll put you
in. That's really cool to havethat many opportunities to write throughout your whole
(12:09):
college career. What a great experience. Was it sports or was it news?
Combination of both. It was news. I was a cops reporter,
so fires, robberies. I don'tthink I ever covered any murders, but
a lot of traffic accidents, thingslike that. That's cool. That's really
cool. So you get through college, graduate with your journalism degree, and
you have a dream to play inthe NFL. Right, yeah, but
(12:31):
you have to be invited somewhere tobe able to because you did not get
drafted. Correct, you have tobe invited. And so I had thought
of playing in the NFL, likeevery kid does, you know, at
age eight, ten, twelve,whatever. But I'm a pretty realistic person
too, and so I didn't thinkI was going to go to college.
I was a first person in myfamily to go to college. And I
had a good senior year and Igot recruited and I was like, oh,
(12:52):
wow, okay, I go tocollege. Then when I was in
college, I never really thought aboutplaying in the NFL. I just thought,
Man, what a blessing at thescholarship. I'm getting an education,
I'm getting trained as a journalist.I'm gonna get out and get a job.
Well, my senior year, Ihad one scout from the NFL come
and I think it was Richard Smith, who ended up being a special teams
(13:13):
coach here in Denver, but Ithink at the time he was with Houston.
But he came and he said,hey, you're having a pretty good
year. If you keep this up, you might have a shot to play
at the next level. And so, at age twenty two in my senior
year, that was the first timeI realistically thought, Wow, what I
play in the NFL. So thenI was hoping to get drafted. I
didn't get drafted. I got offereda free agent chance with Philadelphia and Denver.
(13:35):
Philadelphia offered me a thousand dollars signingbonus. The Broncos then offered me
a ten thousand dollars signing bonus fivethousand dollars workout bonus to come and start
on June first and work out,and then a five thousand dollars reporting bonus
for coming to training camp on Julytwelfth. And so I was like,
this ten thousand dollars is the onlyNFL money I'm ever gonna make. I'll
(13:58):
take that over the thousand dollars plusDenver, Philadelphia, you know you're not
too far from Texas. Yeah,Oh my goodness. So you come in
as an undrafted free agent that's innineteen ninety one. What was it like
coming into training camp and just allof a sudden you're at a whole different
level and then trying to make theteam, which you do. It was
(14:20):
pretty wild. So I had abrief moment where I wasn't going to accept
Denver's invitation because I had been offereda job with Procter and Gamble. I
had gone through this whole, likefour week process with Procter and Gamble for
their sales management program. I've beenoffered a job. I was going to
be part of a cohort that wouldall start right after we graduated. They
(14:41):
had this whole training program that yougo through and so I was like,
well, if I don't join,I won't be part of the cohort.
I won't have my offer anymore.I was like, I'm not going to
make an NFL team, but I'vegot a job here. The guy who
was recruiting me, though, wasnamed Dennis Colvin. He had played four
years in the Canadian League way backin the seventies. And he said,
you know, Reggie, You've beeninvited to an NFL training camp. You've
(15:05):
got to go. That's an opportunityof a lifetime. You've got to go.
Your offer will still be valid atthe end of training camp. If
you want it, We'll get youinto the next core hoard that starts,
and so go. And so Iwent off feeling so free and I'm just
now on an adventure. There's nopressure at all. So I walk into
training camp. I know I've gota job at the end of summer.
I'm just like, man, thisis amazing. They gave me ten thousand
(15:28):
dollars. I'm coming to training camp. Look at that. That's John Elway.
Wow, that's Steve Atwater. AndI was just like so enthusiastic,
and I was like soaking in everymoment of it where other guys were walking
out the training sweating. Yeah,they're sweating at they're nervous, They're coming
out of the locker room. It'shot, we're tired, we're sore.
Guy's like, oh God, Iwish we didn't have practice, And I'm
(15:48):
thinking, Wow, this is great. I mean, I've only got like
twelve more practices left. I mean, this is of my whole NFL experience.
And I was so relaxed, Susiethat I made the team. I
was so relaxed. I studied myplaybook. I didn't make any mistakes on
the field. I didn't block thewrong guy, I ran the right pass
route, I ran the ball.Well, I started to realize I'm keeping
(16:11):
up with these guys, you knowwhat. That's kind of a surprise.
Still not thinking I'm gonna make theteam, but it was just like I'm
not embarrassing myself. And so thenwe get to the end of training camp
and they say, all right,it's final cut day. Stay by your
phones. If you're getting cut,we're gonna call you and you'll come in.
If you don't get a call,then we have a team meeting at
noon. So I'm sitting by myphone, and my phone keeps ringing,
(16:33):
people calling the Hey Reggie, didyou get cut yet? No, get
off the phone, and I didn'tget a call. I drive to the
facility. I'm still convinced. I'mlike, why haven't they called me.
I arrived, Steve Atwater's pulling inat the same time as me. I
get out of my car. Stevesays, hey, congratulations, man,
you made it, and I'm like, well, I'm not sure. We
(16:53):
walk into the room. We're sittingin the big meeting room. Dan Reeves
is up there talking to the wholeteam, and I'm like looking at him,
like trying to make eye contact withhim. Am I supposed to be
here? Yeah, I'm expecting atany moment he's gonna look at me and
be like, hey, what areyou doing here? And he didn't,
and I was like, Wow,I made the team. The next year
(17:15):
I go back. You know yougotta make the team every year. Yeah,
the next year I go back.I know what I have to lose.
I feel the pressure. If mysecond training camp had been my first
training camp, I never would haveplayed in the NFL because I was tight.
I was like nervous. I wastrying hard, I was making mistakes,
but I was just so relaxed thatfirst year because I knew I had
a job and I didn't think Iwas gonna make it. What a cool
(17:37):
story. And then once you hadthat taste of the NFL that first year,
you knew what it was like andthere was the nice paycheck and there
were things that came with it,which is why you wanted to continue making
the team right, and I enjoyedit. As the year went on,
it was like, Oh, I'mnot just hanging with these guys. I'm
actually outperforming some of these guys.I'm like, I can do this.
And that's an epiphany too. Ithink we all have. We all have
(18:00):
imposter syndrome to a certain point aswe embarked on these new things, and
it takes a while to realize that, yeah, I'm not faking it.
I can actually do this. Innineteen ninety two, it's interesting you say
that about camp, because that endsup being one of your better years.
It was I ended up becoming thestarting fullback. So I had a rough
training camp but made the team andthen really just kind of started to take
(18:25):
off and was the starting fullback andyou started all the games I think,
didn't you know? It was likeI think maybe game four of the season,
because we played against Cleveland and Ihad a big game against Cleveland.
Robert Perryman was the guy who wasin front of me, and so they
kept putting me in and I thinkI caught like seven or eight passes and
I had eight or nine rushing attempts. I had a run of forty eight
(18:48):
yards. I get a call fromLewis and floor Wax on Tuesday morning and
they're like, Ridge, it's it'sthe Master's mass. Hey man, how
do you feel about being the startingfullback? And I'm like, what are
you talking about. They're like,yeah, man, you're the man.
They just cut Robert Perryman this morning. I'm like, really, you know,
(19:11):
and so you didn't know. Ihave no idea. I'm at home.
I haven't I don't know that that'strue. You know. This is
before the internet, right before cellphones, right, I didn't know.
I'm like, really, I don'tknow about that. And they're like,
yeah, you're the man, You'rethe starter. How do you feel?
And I'm like, I don't know. I found out, yeah, but
that was how I discovered that Iwas now the starter. Goodness. After
(19:33):
that year, Dan Reeves got fired, Wade Phillips came in. Yeah,
new offense. They brought in RobertDelpino became the starting fullback, and so
you know that's a name from thepast. Yeah. Wow. So you
had three different head coaches. Youhad Dan Reeves for two years, you
had Wade for two years, andthen Mike Shanahan he was your oc your
(19:53):
first year, right, right,and then came back to be the head
coach in ninety five. What wasit like as a player, getting you
to three different head coaches during yourtime. I loved it. I realized
early in my NFL career, I'mnot as fast as some of these guys.
I'm not as strong as some ofthese guys. I am a better
(20:14):
student than most of these guys.I understood how to learn the playbook,
and I started to realize that,yeah, this guy's faster than me,
but if he makes a mistake everytime he gets on the field, the
coaches don't trust him. I'm notnearly as fast, but I make way
fewer mistakes. So I loved it. When we got into training camp my
rookie year, I'm studying this bigplaybook and I was having fun learning all
(20:37):
this, you know, and thenyou get a test every day in practice,
like, hey, I passed thetest again. And so then after
two years we get a new headcoach, Wade Phillips brings in Jim Fossil.
Boom, they PLoP out a wholenew offense. We got to study
this. I look better than mypeers because I learn it faster and I
make fewer mistakes on the field,and so I was like, hey,
this is to my advantage. Thentwo years later, here comes Mike Shanahan
(21:00):
bringing in a new offense, andI look better than my peers because I
learn it faster than them. I'mnot better than them. They're going to
catch up with me and then bypassedme. But in the early days,
you got a reset every two years. Yeah, and I'm convinced if Mike
Shanahan had gotten fired after two years, I would have had another two years
in the NFL. You very wellmight have, well, And that brings
(21:23):
us then too. I send outa little questionnaire to my guests beforehand,
and one of my questions to youwas, you know, have you been
cut, traded, fired, andor retired? And you said yes,
cut at the end of training campin ninety seven, and then the Broncos
go on to win two Super Bowlsafter that, which you think is in
direct relationship to you being cut,which is not true. But I think
it's funny that you say that.Well, I have to give credit where
(21:45):
credit is due. Rod Smith wasthe first one to say it, Rod
after they won. Of course Rodsays it. Yeah. After they won
that first Super Bowl, I waslike, hey, congratulations man. He
was like, yeah, apparently allwe had to do is get rid of
you. We were ready to sward. You were like an anchor holds so
something Rod would say, yeah,but yeah, it was. That was
(22:08):
a time when basically it was AnthonyLynn and Detron Smith. It was the
three of us fighting for two spots. Both of them were younger than Medtron
was better than me. Detron hada level of courage that most of us.
I used to think, No,Detron's just dumb. That was when
I was my first thought that nobodywould run into somebody full speed like that
(22:30):
unless they were dumb. But Detronwas not dumb. Detron just had more
courage than the most of us.And we were all courageous guys. Like,
my courage level at my peak wasprobably like a nine point one on
a scale of ten. Detron's couragelevel was a nine point nine nine nine
nine. He's like, yeah,I'll probably survive that, It's not gonna
do me too much harm. I'llbe okay. And he just he truly
(22:52):
believed it, and so he beatme out. He was primarily the one
and Anthony, he and I werepretty equal, and so yeah, when
I look at the way it wentdown, if I were the coach,
I probably would have cut me too. So I didn't have any resentment,
but it was bitter sweet to watchthem immediately go win two Super Bowls well,
and you'd just come off the Jacksonvilleloss, which was even harder.
(23:12):
That's the final game of my career. Everybody, oh man, everybody wanted
redemption after that, Right, whathappened when you got cut? I got
the phone call, came in,talked to Mike, talked to Ted sun
Quist, who was a player personneldirector, talked to mister Boland. Getting
cut was one of the nicest momentswith the Bronchos that ever happened. Everybody
(23:33):
was so kind, so complimentary,so so much gratitude for what I had
done while I was with the team. As I'm cleaning up my locker and
putting everything into a plastic bag,you know, all the other players are
coming and give me a pat onthe back, and you know, wishing
me well. The media interviews meafterward. I got hundreds of letters from
people. It was just it wasreally a warm send off, you know.
(23:55):
Even though I didn't want to getcut, I also understood, yeah,
this is the game. The waythat I made the team, I
broke Melvin Bratton's plate, he wasthe full back before I took his spot.
And then every year somebody would comeand try to break my plate,
and I was able to hang onfor six years. Finally Detron broke my
plate. I respected the process andimmediately started covering the Broncos. You know,
(24:18):
and I didn't feel any animosity towardthe team wore. Mike Shanahan,
who cut me. I still thinkhe's the best coach I ever played for,
by a long shot. Interesting,So then you started covering the Broncos
you immediately, And while you werestill with the Broncos, you started working
at KOWA, having a radio show. You were writing for the Rocky Mountain
news. Later on, you wrotefor the Denver Post, so you were
already back to your journalism roots beforeyou were even done, which set yourself
(24:41):
up so nicely for retirement. Whatwas it like then going to the other
side when you went to Channel fourand you're doing weekends there and covering sports,
covering the Broncos from the other sideof the microphone for a while,
it was surreal because I didn't justknow what they were doing. I knew
what that play was, Like I'mwatching them, I'm like, yeah,
(25:03):
that's a great right triplot, exposityregulation, why switch? I mean,
I know that play. I knowexactly what went wrong on that play.
Like you know, people talk aboutTony Romo, like what he talks about
the game. He's like, oh, here comes the blind said, look
at that, and he's this guy'scoming and they're probably gonna call this hot
route and they're gonna throw the slantto this guy. And he's right,
well, he's he's doing that withevery team in the league and he's been
(25:26):
out for a while. For me, for the first one or two years
that I was out of the league, I had that kind of vision with
the Broncos. It's like I justunderstood everything, and so it really allowed
me to have a quick and easytransition into kind of this analyst role that
I had. And then, ofcourse, the longer you're out of those
meetings, the less knowledge you have. Now you're talking more kind of thematically
(25:49):
about here's the type of play thatthey would call here, as opposed to
here's the exact play and everything elsethat was going on. Yeah, what
did you like more? TV?Writing or radio writing? One hundred percent
has always been my passion. Shortlyafter I learned to read, I started
writing, and so in elementary school, late elementary school, I was an
(26:11):
avid reader and writer. Then inhigh school, getting the the internship,
writing obituaries, going to college writing. I've written six books. I was
a newspaper columnist for fourteen and ahalf years. I'm a writer. I
love writing on a scale of oneto ten, writings of ten, Radio
probably a seven, and TV wasa five. And you know, TV,
(26:33):
I liked. TV was the mostglamorous of all of them, but
it was also don't I don't havethe creativity that like a Vic Lombardi has.
Vic Lombardi takes that screen and hejust makes it his own. He
fills up the box, as theysay, and he just has so much
charisma and creativity, and he knowsexactly how to use that medium. It's
almost like he was made for thismedium. For me, it felt too
(26:56):
formulaic. It's like, Hey,I've got forty five seconds to talk about
the Rockies. Hey, Rockies playeda game tonight, and you know,
this guy struck out six, andthat guy hit a home run and that
guy get thrown out a second andRockies lost. Next day, Hey,
Rocky's had a game today. Thisguy struck out seven, that guy stole
a base, this guy hit ahome run and Rockies run again, depending
(27:18):
on what you were talking about.Yeah, yeah, interesting. And you
mentioned the six books. Um,I know you have the autobiography Advance Johnson.
Are are there any other autobiography onesor are they all more stories?
Right? Yeah? The rest arefiction, okay. I wrote a book
called Power Shift about it an escalatingfeud between a sports reporter and a player
that ends up in somebody getting killed. Then I wrote a book called Fourth
(27:40):
and Fixed about a crime family fixingNFL games. Then my wife's boyfriend and
our feud with the Highland Ranch HomeownersAssociation and you know, my wife is
quick to point out she's never hada boyfriend. We've been together a long
time, yes, right, anduh, and we've never lived in Highland
ranch. It's just a story abouta mayor. Is this falling apart while
(28:00):
they're battling with the hway board overa commercial van that's parking their driveway?
Well, I could be very nonfictionactually exactly. Then I went back to
school and I got a master's degreeat University of Denver in international studies.
And from my thesis I wrote abook called The Colony, a Political Tale,
And it's an allegory about foreign politicstold through two colonies of ants,
(28:22):
the army ants of the Alpha ztribe and the leaf cutter ants of the
ant to stand Drive. And it'sall about how the alpha z ants get
control of the fungus that the leafcutter ants grow deep below there. So
it's this, it's the oil ofthe ant world, the water of the
ant world, the labor of theant world, whatever it is. And
my book is about how wealthy nationsdominate weaker nations. And then I rewrote
(28:48):
Fourth and Fix was the only ofmy books that was published by a publisher.
All the rest are self published.Well, after Fourth and Fix went
out of print, the publisher finallyrelinquished the rights back to me, so
I republished it as Rookies and Bookiesand I rewrote it. But I couldn't
publish it with their title or anyof their artwork, because that's what they
own. I know a lot ofpeople love to write books, or think
that they have a dream to writea book. What would be your advice
(29:10):
to them? Self publishing? It'sgotten so much easier to self published.
When I was self publishing, youhad to negotiate with a printer and do
a minimum print run. So I'dprint like five thousand books, and it
would cost me three dollars and twelvecents per book, And so you can
do the math to figure out,you know, kind of what that costs.
Well, now there's all this printon demand, so you've got an
idea, You send it in,they'll design a cover for you, lay
(29:33):
out the pages, and you couldprint as few as one hundred books,
and then print one hundred more,then print one hundred more. It's made
it very accessible to many more people. Have you thought about writing another book
or are you writing another book?Nope. It's like I wrote every day
for twenty years, and then youknow, as our son started to get
of a certain age, the timethat I used to spend writing became his
(29:53):
time. We're watching his practices,his games, all that kind of stuff.
And your son now is nineteen almosttwenty. I mean, it's in't
that crazy. It is crazy.Because you told that, I thought,
well, there's that's not possible.But then again, my kids are twenty
three and twenty, so of firstit is possible. Yeah, your speaking
career has been a huge it's ahuge part of what you do now.
(30:14):
You and I ran with the sameagent for a little while and then you
started your own thing in twenty thirteen. Right, the Gala team, we
do nonprofit fundraisers. We are benefitauctioneers and fundraising consultants, and so if
you had asked me fifteen years ago, I didn't even know this profession existed.
And we've grown to be a teamof twenty people. We're going to
(30:34):
do one hundred and fifty events thisyear, and we do most of the
biggest charity fundraisers here in Denver.We do the Children's Hospital Gala, the
National Jewish Health Denver Health Saint Joseph'sHealths. We do six out of the
eight public school foundations like Cherry CreekSchools, Denver Public Schools, Douglas County,
Littleton, Saint Vrain, Boulder,and then we do all the Big
(30:57):
Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys andGirls Club called a symphony, called a
ballet at the Denver Library. It'sthis niche that we've fallen into, and
I feel like I have found mypurpose in life. I've always been a
keynote speaker, and I've been ableto make a living for myself by using
my communication ability, whether it wasin radio, newspaper, TV, or
(31:17):
keynotes. And then when I starteddoing auctions, it was like, wait
a second, I'm making a livingfor myself, but I'm also helping this
charity raise two hundred and fifty thousanddollars. That started to feel very compelling
after a while. I feel likeI've been training for this particular job my
whole life, even though I didn'tknow that I was training for this job.
But once the I hit it andthese factors started to come together,
(31:38):
it is just really blossomed into theperfect career that is fantastic. Well,
I remember when my husband worked forDenver Academy and he left there probably in
oh twenty ten or twenty eleven,and you am seed and did the fundraising
for their annual auction that they didevery year. So that was in the
two thousands at some point, soyou were just starting them. But at
that point you were mostly doing keyspeaking and probably not as much auctioning.
(32:01):
So how did it flip? Likewas there a particular thing that happened where
you just said, oh, wow, light bulb, I need to be
doing this and focus on my energieson this. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what happened. I had been doingthree or four charity events a year for
about ten years, and so DenverAcademy was one of them. And I
(32:21):
was at a National Speakers Association conferencein San Diego. The guy on the
stage was saying, what's your valueproposition? How do you move the needle
for your clients? And I thoughtabout the keynote speaking clients I had.
It's like United Airlines, Accenture,Xcel Energy. You know these huge companies
that I don't move the needle.I'm an interesting speaker, I'm entertaining,
(32:42):
but you fill the space at theircorporate get together exactly. Yeah, And
I might be one of five thousandspeakers that some of these big companies higher
all over the world in a givenyear. So am I qualified to do
that? Yes? But do Imove the needle? No? Then I
thought about the handful of charity eventsI was doing, Denver Academy being one
of them, and it's like,Wow, if I help them raise nextra
ten or fifteen thousand dollars, they'rereally happy. I'm really happy for weeks
(33:06):
afterward. So as I'm sitting atthis National Speakers Association conference, I have
this moment it says I want togo back and do more auctions. And
so that was in late twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, I started this company.
I did thirteen events that year.The next year it grew to twenty
nine events. After that, Irecruited two more people. We did fifty
two. It just has kept growingthrough the years. That is amazing.
(33:28):
Are you always looking for more peopleto bring on or does it get to
a point where it's any I'm sureyou have to train them a little bit.
I mean there are techniques to gettingpeople to open up their pocketbooks at
these events, right, Yes,And you know, sometimes it feels like,
man, just money just fell outof the sky. Our motto as
a company is fundraising success is notan accident. It's a series of deliberate
(33:50):
decisions. And so that's what weare experts at helping our nonprofit partners figure
out make some of those deliberate decisionsthat will improve their results. And yeah,
we're all looking for people. We'renot always hiring people, but we're
always looking for people because the momentthat we need somebody comes in a moment
it's like, hey, we hadit, We're perfectly staffed, and all
of a sudden, we've got tenmore events on our calendar and we really
(34:14):
don't have enough capacity. So weneed more consultants, we need more gala
attendants who work on the night ofthe event, and we need more auctioneers.
And so that's what our team hasmade. Our twenty people who's have
seven auctioneers, we have six galaconsultants, and then we have the rest
of what we call gala attendants.They just work on the night of the
event. That is really cool.Reggie, congratulations, what a neat business
(34:35):
adventure to get going and now goingon ten years. Yeah, thank you.
Wow. So as you look back, Reggie, and I ask all
my guests about this, and youhave had all the traveling as a kid
and where you were in high schooland in college and then never thinking you'd
be in the NFL, and nowyou have a great business model going with
your business. There's ups and downswith everything. What would be your advice
(34:57):
to people when they face challenge andhow to move forward and keep going towards
a goal. You've reinvented yourself multipletimes throughout your life, right, I
think that the simplest thing is Ialways ask audience as I say what is
a running back's primary job? I'llask you what do you think of running
backs? Primary job is? Well, you're run with the ball. Okay,
that's part of the job and notthe main job. Blocking part of
(35:21):
the job, not the main job. Don't make him miss, oh,
don't fumble part of the job,not the main job. Gosh, all
right, I'm missing it? Whatam I missing? So? Right?
Everybody will name everything, score,touchdowns, pass, block, do all
this stuff, and all of thoseare part of the job. The job
of a running back is to gettackled. That's the job. If I
was looking for running backs, Isay, hey, I'm looking for somebody
who can get tackled. If you'rethe kind of person gets your leg broken
(35:43):
every time you get tackled, Ican't use you. If you get your
feelings hurt every time you get tackled, I can't use you. We're going
to hand you the ball. Thoseeleven killers over there are gonna come and
tackle you. That is going tohappen. Can you take it? The
first one? You're gonna see thisguy coming and so you can brace yourself.
But now he's got you in thegrass. Here comes the second guy
and he's gonna hit you. Andnow you're just desperate to get on the
(36:04):
ground. You're in an awkward position. Here comes the third guy's gonna come
hit you. I need people whocan take that. I need people who
can get tackled, because that's yourjob. Your job is to go out
there and get tackled, get up, come back to the and run the
next play. And I think,as a metaphor for life, that's the
reality. If we start to understandall of our job is to go get
tackled. If you're not getting tackledas a running back, I don't look
(36:25):
and say, man, I haven'tbeen tackled today. That doesn't mean that
I've been really successful as a runningback. That probably means I'm on the
sideline. True. If I'm inthe game and I'm getting the ball,
I'm getting tackled. And as arunning back, I don't get to relitigate
the decisions that I made. Theyhanded me the ball. I cut to
the left. That cut is done. I can't say, hey, defense,
(36:45):
can we rewind for a minute?I want to go back and make
it cut to the right. SoI cut to the left. Now I've
got to deal with whatever it isthat's in front of me because I cut
to the left. Now I cutto the right. Now I got to
deal with whatever is in front ofme. And it's just always relentlessly forward
looking. This is where I am. How do I get to close to
the end zone from here? Andso those two things, I'm going to
(37:07):
be tackled and just how do Iget to where I'm going from here?
I think has helped me mentally dealwith you know, there's always headaches and
heartache and challenges that come up,and it's just I don't spend too much
time trying to relitigate. Oh,gosh, I wish I had done this
instead of that. Well I didn't. I cut left. This is where
I am. Yeah, so howdo I get there from here? I've
(37:29):
never thought about it like that.In fact, we talk about all the
time. This team had a tenplay, eighty yard scoring drive. That
just means they got tackled nine timesand they scored a touchdown on the tenth
time. Every time you hear adrive that has X number of plays,
it's tackled eleven times, scored onthe twelfth. That's the reality. We're
not going to be scoring these Hey, it's a one touch, one play
(37:52):
touchdown. It is multiple attempts tojust keep advancing down the field. Yeah,
thank you for your time today.Yeah, thank you. Shate you
coming? And how can people findout more about what your team does?
Sure, you can visit us atthe GALA team dot com, tch EGA
LA team dot com. What doyou expect it to do in the future?
I mean, like, do youhave a vision of it growing?
(38:13):
Do you have a vision of whereit'll go? I think that next year
we'll do two hundred events. We'redoing more and more events nationally, like
the Cleveland Clinic and UNC Health inNorth Carolina and Cerner Foundation, and in
Missouri, especially in the healthcare.We've kind of built a niche and so
I can see us expanding into manymore states. That's great. So going
(38:35):
away beyond Colorado, yes, man, awesome? All right, thank you
for coming in. This has beenfabulous. It's so good to see again,
Susie. Is so great to catchup with you and to see that
you're still doing the great things thatyou've always done. It's a pleasure try
and trying, all right. ThanksRegie, you bet Reggie Rivers, he
is so fun and easy to talkto. Make sure you check out the
GALA team dot com to find outmore about the great work he's doing with
his company. New episodes of Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired come out
(38:59):
every two day. Please follow,like, rate, and review this podcast
wherever you listen to podcasts. Youcan keep up on new podcast releases by
following on Twitter and Instagram at CTFRpodcast and also on the website CTFR podcast
dot com. If you like Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired, it
would be amazing if you shared theseepisodes with your friends. I'm your host,
(39:19):
Susie Wargin. Thank you for takingtime out of your day to check
out the podcast, and until nexttime, please be careful, be safe,
and be kind. Take care
I understood how to learn the playbook, and I started to realize that,
yeah, this guy's faster than me, but if he makes a mistake every
time he gets on the field,the coaches don't trust him. I'm not
nearly as fast, but I makeway fewer mistakes. Welcome to Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired a weeklypodcast featuring conversations with professional athletes and coaches
(00:21):
who have experienced being cut, traded, fired, and or they're retired.
I'm your host, Susie Wargen.This episode's guest is another prime example of
reinvention. Reggie Rivers has always worna number of hats at the same time.
For example, when he played footballin high school. In college,
he also wrote for newspapers, andthen when he was with the Broncos he
was on eight fifty Koway in Denverand wrote articles in the Rocky Mountain News.
(00:45):
He never expected to make an NFLteam, and was even more pleasantly
surprised when he played for six seasonswith Denver, especially since he had a
different head coach every two years.However, that actually worked to his advantage,
as you'll hear. After Reggie wascut by the Bronchos, they on
to win two Super Bowls, whichstung a little bit, but by then
he was covering the Broncos on TVas part of the media. Eventually,
(01:07):
Reggie went on to a speaking career. He wrote several books, and now
he runs a very successful business calledthe Gala Team, where Reggie and his
team run auctions for hundreds of nonprofitsevery year. He's in the Texas State
University Hall of Fame. Ladies andGentlemen, Reggie Rivers traded fired retired podcasts
with Susie Wargin Reggie Rivers, Itis so good to see you. It's
(01:32):
good to see you. It's beena little while, it has been.
It's funny we're reflecting. I rememberyou when you were pregnant with your first
child. This is now twenty fouryears ago, ninety nine, two thousand.
Yeah, because you were working inradio. We were working in the
same building at that time. Yes, ma'am, our paths have woven in
and out throughout the years. Sothis is fun to see you again and
(01:52):
catch up on everything that you're doingthese days. Yes, good to see
you. So you were born.It's so funny. I've talked to so
many athletes and coaches that are bornin Ohio. It's bizarre. I don't
know what it is. It's ahotbed of athletes and coaches. But born
in Dayton, Ohio, you're inan Air Force family, so end up
moving around a lot in the Statesand other countries, to England and France
(02:12):
being a couple of them. Howoften were you moving during that time?
Well, I was born in Dayton. When I was one, we moved
to England and we lived there forfive years at two different bases. So
we were at the first base fortwo years, then we moved to another
base for three years. Then wemoved to Miami, Florida for a year,
then moved to Greece for three years, then moved to San Antonio and
(02:34):
basically stayed there throughout my junior high, high school in college. Wow,
so you were exposed to probably othersports besides American sports being in England and
in Greece. Right, did youplay other sports while you were growing up?
Only soccer? I remember in Greeceplaying soccer with kids. And one
of the things that came out ofmoving so early in my life is that
(02:55):
it's made me very flexible in termsof meeting people and under any people.
And I can remember living in Greece. We lived in a little village and
I had friends that we played soccertogether. We spoke a different language,
we had a different religion, wehad different customs, different way of dressing,
different everything, but we played soccertogether. And I think throughout my
life it has helped me that nothave this expectation that everyone around me is
(03:20):
going to be just like me,and it's okay for people to be different.
And sports can do that. Youcan put a sport somewhere and it
doesn't matter what you speak or whereyou're from. You can play the game
exactly. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, So you end up for the majority
of your junior high high school ina base at San Antonio, Randolph Air
Force Base, right, Yes,and then you went to Randolf High School.
(03:40):
That's correct. So that on thebase is all military families that are
there, all military family So it'sa public school for military families only.
So we were a mile as thecrow flies, So you know, it's
not a private school. You don'thave to pay to go there, right,
there's no restriction on who can goexcept you just have to be in
the military. It was a mileas the Crow flies from Judson High School,
(04:02):
which is one of the biggest andbaddest schools in Texas. Judson High
School wins the state championship like everyfour years. And they've got so big
that they had to break off theninth graders out of the high school and
they still wore a six A school. Then they broke off the tenth graders
and they had a ninth and tenthhigh school and a junior senior high school
(04:26):
and they were still six A.It was huge. So A mile as
the Crow flies, that's the schoolthat I'm from. My school had two
hundred and thirty nine students. Thattotal, Oh wow, two hundred and
thirty nine. So what class didyou guys play for football? We were
two ay, And because I wassuch a small school, I played football,
basketball, ran track, I wason the yearbook, I was on
(04:48):
the newspaper. I just think sometimeswhat an experience I had. But I
had just been in that town,I would have been at Judson High School.
I was a super late bloomer.I didn't really build my body until
my junior senior in high school.Chances are I never would have played football
if I'd have been at jetson.That is wild. So did you play
(05:09):
football all throughout junior high? Inhigh school? Then I did. I
was on the freshman team at thislittle tiny school. Then I was on
the JV team at this little tinyschool, and my freshman and sophomore year,
I went out for the track team. I was too slow to be
on the track team, and Iwas thinking at this tiny school, if
I can walk at a fast pace, I should be fast enough to be
(05:29):
on the track team. But thecoach came to me and he said,
you know you're not quite fast enough. Because I was my freshman year,
I was five four, one hundredand twenty pounds. No way, Reggie,
Oh my goodness, five four hundredand twenty. And the coach said,
you know you're not quite fast enoughto be on the track team,
but I'd like to offer you theposition of a manager on the track team.
(05:49):
And during practice, you'll be arabbit. We're gonna give you a
headstart and the guy's going to tryto chase you. It'll help you get
faster, it'll help them get faster. And I was like, okay,
I'll take the they meet you therabbit. I loved it. Oh,
how funny. Wow, So didit make you faster though it? And
you know, growing and finally havinga ro spurt, But yeah, it
(06:11):
was I loved being on teams andwhatever role on the team, I was
happy to be on the team.And so I would be a rabbit during
the week and I would just challengemyself. I would say, you know,
this time I had a twenty yardhead start, Well, I'm gonna
back up. I'm only going togive myself an eighteen yard head start and
see if I can beat them tothe line. And you know, I
would start inching backwards. So itwas making me faster and it was making
them faster. Did you beat themmost of the time? No, they
(06:35):
beat me most of the time.Okay. And the way the coach instructed
me, he said, if we'redoing it right, they should be catching
you right at the line. Ifyou're winning by a big margin, then
you're not functioning well as a rabbit. Oh, how funny. That is
crazy. Well, you do havea phenomenal senior year, twelve hundred rushing
yards. Did you start to havemultiple colleges contact you or was there just
(06:58):
the one? How did that happentoo? Two? Yes, two colleges
Angelo State way out in West Texasand Southwest Texas State, which has now
been renamed Texas State University. Iwent and visited both schools. I got
offered full scholarships at both schools.They both wanted me to play defensive back
because in high school I was arunning back in a cornerback. So they
were looking at me and saying,well, we think that you're a natural
(07:21):
safety, and so we're gonna haveyou on defense. We're gonna move you
to safety. And I was like, well, I really like being on
offense and carrying the ball. Andso Southwest Texas State said, well,
which do you prefer. You wantto run the ball or you want to
be on defense. I said Iwant to run the ball. And said,
okay, if you come here,you can be a running back.
And I was like done. Decisionmade, decision made. And ironically,
so I go through. I havea good college career. I get to
(07:44):
the NFL. Now I'm on specialteams and I start to discover I'm a
natural safety. I realized why theywere going to put me at safety.
I was really too slow to bea running back. I was too small
to be a fullback. I wastwo hundred and fifteen pounds when all the
fullbacks were two forty. I rana four point seven one at the combine
when you know the other running backsare running four to five and four to
(08:07):
four. But on special teams,I'm running down the field on kickoffs and
on funt coverage and I discover that, yeah, I am a safety.
They were right all along and Ijust didn't listen. And that probably comes
up now when you do your speakingand things like that. It's there's a
lot to be said up. CarlMecklenberg said it really well. Where everyone
has their natural position and sometimes it'shard for you to mentally get your head
(08:28):
around the fact that this is mynatural position. You may be able to
do a couple of other things,but body types and your abilities put you
into a spot that works the best. Yeah, it really is. And
that's one thing I noticed about greatplayers, you know, to be around
John Elway or Steve Atwater, isthat great players tend to lean into their
strengths. Many of us we tendto kind of focus on our weaknesses and
(08:52):
say, oh, why really shouldtry to get better at this because I'm
not very good at it. That'snot what the great players do. They
lean into the stuff that they doreally well and they just try to get
better and better and better at it. Where most of us are fairly satisfied
if we can do something pretty well, it's like, yeah, that's good
enough. The great ones are like, no, I want to do it
even better, Like Lebron James,I'm great, I want to do it
(09:13):
even better. That's a great point. That's exactly what they do. There's
a lot to be learned from that. So when you're at Southwest Texas State
University now Texas State University, youare not only doing football. You are
in journalism. And your major wasjournalism right right, And then you were
also part of the newspaper there aswell, or you know, you did
some writing for the San Antonio newspaper. I did that was in high school.
(09:33):
Oh, high school, you didthe yo. I was an obituary
writer for the San Antonio Light newspaper. You wrote the obit Wow. My
senior year in high school, Igot that job. And my job was
to go through the death notices fromthe funeral homes and find people who look
like they had interesting lives. Sothis guy was eighty eight years old.
He ran a cement company, andso I would call his family and say,
(09:56):
Hey, I'm writing a story forthe paper. I wonder if I
could ad ask you a few questions. So as a seventeen year old,
it was terrifying. Yeah, butyou quickly discover that most of these deaths
are not a surprise, and thefamilies are so honored that the newspaper is
going to write an article and theydon't mind that it's some seventh They don't
(10:16):
maybe they don't know him seventeen.You probably presented more than you were seventeen.
Yeah, but I probably sounded likeI was seventeen. Hey him,
my name's Reggie Rivers, and Iwork here at the San Antonio Light newspaper,
and I wonder if I could askyou a few questions about Earl.
But they probably opened up to youthen because they wanted to tell the story,
right. Yeah, they were alwaysso great experience. It was.
(10:39):
It helped me get over you know, as an interviewer, there is a
fear of asking questions no matter whoyou're interviewing, absolute somebody on the street,
some prominent person. It helped meget over that fear because the first
few weeks I'm there, I'm like, oh gosh, I gotta call this
family. Someone just died, andyou know, i'd be apologetic, I'm
sorry to bother you at this time. And they're like, oh my gosh,
hey, it's someone from the newspaper. It's they want to they want
(11:03):
to write a story about dad,and you know, and you would just
hear the excitement in their voice.And so I started to help me feel
more confident that when I'm representing thenewspaper, at least I can be confident
and just interview people. And sothen when I went to Texas State,
I majored in journalism. My freshmanyear, I got an internship at the
Austin American Statesman, and then Iended up working at the American Statesman pretty
(11:24):
much every summer, every Thanksgiving,every Christmas break, every spring break,
because I had a scholarship, soI couldn't have a job while school was
in session. Oh but you couldget paid when it wasn't in session.
Own smart move, And what'd youdo for them? I wrote stories.
I was a beat reporter. Myfreshman year. I ended up writing a
(11:45):
hundred byline stories and I won theHM Finchress Award. That is given to
the best intern in the state ofTexas. Whoa Reggie. That's cool.
Yeah. Wow. And after thatthe American Statesman said, hey, you've
got a standing internship throughout the restof your college career. Every time you
have a break, you can justsign up for shifts and we'll put you
in. That's really cool to havethat many opportunities to write throughout your whole
(12:09):
college career. What a great experience. Was it sports or was it news?
Combination of both. It was news. I was a cops reporter,
so fires, robberies. I don'tthink I ever covered any murders, but
a lot of traffic accidents, thingslike that. That's cool. That's really
cool. So you get through college, graduate with your journalism degree, and
you have a dream to play inthe NFL. Right, yeah, but
(12:31):
you have to be invited somewhere tobe able to because you did not get
drafted. Correct, you have tobe invited. And so I had thought
of playing in the NFL, likeevery kid does, you know, at
age eight, ten, twelve,whatever. But I'm a pretty realistic person
too, and so I didn't thinkI was going to go to college.
I was a first person in myfamily to go to college. And I
had a good senior year and Igot recruited and I was like, oh,
(12:52):
wow, okay, I go tocollege. Then when I was in
college, I never really thought aboutplaying in the NFL. I just thought,
Man, what a blessing at thescholarship. I'm getting an education,
I'm getting trained as a journalist.I'm gonna get out and get a job.
Well, my senior year, Ihad one scout from the NFL come
and I think it was Richard Smith, who ended up being a special teams
(13:13):
coach here in Denver, but Ithink at the time he was with Houston.
But he came and he said,hey, you're having a pretty good
year. If you keep this up, you might have a shot to play
at the next level. And so, at age twenty two in my senior
year, that was the first timeI realistically thought, Wow, what I
play in the NFL. So thenI was hoping to get drafted. I
didn't get drafted. I got offereda free agent chance with Philadelphia and Denver.
(13:35):
Philadelphia offered me a thousand dollars signingbonus. The Broncos then offered me
a ten thousand dollars signing bonus fivethousand dollars workout bonus to come and start
on June first and work out,and then a five thousand dollars reporting bonus
for coming to training camp on Julytwelfth. And so I was like,
this ten thousand dollars is the onlyNFL money I'm ever gonna make. I'll
(13:58):
take that over the thousand dollars plusDenver, Philadelphia, you know you're not
too far from Texas. Yeah,Oh my goodness. So you come in
as an undrafted free agent that's innineteen ninety one. What was it like
coming into training camp and just allof a sudden you're at a whole different
level and then trying to make theteam, which you do. It was
(14:20):
pretty wild. So I had abrief moment where I wasn't going to accept
Denver's invitation because I had been offereda job with Procter and Gamble. I
had gone through this whole, likefour week process with Procter and Gamble for
their sales management program. I've beenoffered a job. I was going to
be part of a cohort that wouldall start right after we graduated. They
(14:41):
had this whole training program that yougo through and so I was like,
well, if I don't join,I won't be part of the cohort.
I won't have my offer anymore.I was like, I'm not going to
make an NFL team, but I'vegot a job here. The guy who
was recruiting me, though, wasnamed Dennis Colvin. He had played four
years in the Canadian League way backin the seventies. And he said,
you know, Reggie, You've beeninvited to an NFL training camp. You've
(15:05):
got to go. That's an opportunityof a lifetime. You've got to go.
Your offer will still be valid atthe end of training camp. If
you want it, We'll get youinto the next core hoard that starts,
and so go. And so Iwent off feeling so free and I'm just
now on an adventure. There's nopressure at all. So I walk into
training camp. I know I've gota job at the end of summer.
I'm just like, man, thisis amazing. They gave me ten thousand
(15:28):
dollars. I'm coming to training camp. Look at that. That's John Elway.
Wow, that's Steve Atwater. AndI was just like so enthusiastic,
and I was like soaking in everymoment of it where other guys were walking
out the training sweating. Yeah,they're sweating at they're nervous, They're coming
out of the locker room. It'shot, we're tired, we're sore.
Guy's like, oh God, Iwish we didn't have practice, And I'm
(15:48):
thinking, Wow, this is great. I mean, I've only got like
twelve more practices left. I mean, this is of my whole NFL experience.
And I was so relaxed, Susiethat I made the team. I
was so relaxed. I studied myplaybook. I didn't make any mistakes on
the field. I didn't block thewrong guy, I ran the right pass
route, I ran the ball.Well, I started to realize I'm keeping
(16:11):
up with these guys, you knowwhat. That's kind of a surprise.
Still not thinking I'm gonna make theteam, but it was just like I'm
not embarrassing myself. And so thenwe get to the end of training camp
and they say, all right,it's final cut day. Stay by your
phones. If you're getting cut,we're gonna call you and you'll come in.
If you don't get a call,then we have a team meeting at
noon. So I'm sitting by myphone, and my phone keeps ringing,
(16:33):
people calling the Hey Reggie, didyou get cut yet? No, get
off the phone, and I didn'tget a call. I drive to the
facility. I'm still convinced. I'mlike, why haven't they called me.
I arrived, Steve Atwater's pulling inat the same time as me. I
get out of my car. Stevesays, hey, congratulations, man,
you made it, and I'm like, well, I'm not sure. We
(16:53):
walk into the room. We're sittingin the big meeting room. Dan Reeves
is up there talking to the wholeteam, and I'm like looking at him,
like trying to make eye contact withhim. Am I supposed to be
here? Yeah, I'm expecting atany moment he's gonna look at me and
be like, hey, what areyou doing here? And he didn't,
and I was like, Wow,I made the team. The next year
(17:15):
I go back. You know yougotta make the team every year. Yeah,
the next year I go back.I know what I have to lose.
I feel the pressure. If mysecond training camp had been my first
training camp, I never would haveplayed in the NFL because I was tight.
I was like nervous. I wastrying hard, I was making mistakes,
but I was just so relaxed thatfirst year because I knew I had
a job and I didn't think Iwas gonna make it. What a cool
(17:37):
story. And then once you hadthat taste of the NFL that first year,
you knew what it was like andthere was the nice paycheck and there
were things that came with it,which is why you wanted to continue making
the team right, and I enjoyedit. As the year went on,
it was like, Oh, I'mnot just hanging with these guys. I'm
actually outperforming some of these guys.I'm like, I can do this.
And that's an epiphany too. Ithink we all have. We all have
(18:00):
imposter syndrome to a certain point aswe embarked on these new things, and
it takes a while to realize that, yeah, I'm not faking it.
I can actually do this. Innineteen ninety two, it's interesting you say
that about camp, because that endsup being one of your better years.
It was I ended up becoming thestarting fullback. So I had a rough
training camp but made the team andthen really just kind of started to take
(18:25):
off and was the starting fullback andyou started all the games I think,
didn't you know? It was likeI think maybe game four of the season,
because we played against Cleveland and Ihad a big game against Cleveland.
Robert Perryman was the guy who wasin front of me, and so they
kept putting me in and I thinkI caught like seven or eight passes and
I had eight or nine rushing attempts. I had a run of forty eight
(18:48):
yards. I get a call fromLewis and floor Wax on Tuesday morning and
they're like, Ridge, it's it'sthe Master's mass. Hey man, how
do you feel about being the startingfullback? And I'm like, what are
you talking about. They're like,yeah, man, you're the man.
They just cut Robert Perryman this morning. I'm like, really, you know,
(19:11):
and so you didn't know. Ihave no idea. I'm at home.
I haven't I don't know that that'strue. You know. This is
before the internet, right before cellphones, right, I didn't know.
I'm like, really, I don'tknow about that. And they're like,
yeah, you're the man, You'rethe starter. How do you feel?
And I'm like, I don't know. I found out, yeah, but
that was how I discovered that Iwas now the starter. Goodness. After
(19:33):
that year, Dan Reeves got fired, Wade Phillips came in. Yeah,
new offense. They brought in RobertDelpino became the starting fullback, and so
you know that's a name from thepast. Yeah. Wow. So you
had three different head coaches. Youhad Dan Reeves for two years, you
had Wade for two years, andthen Mike Shanahan he was your oc your
(19:53):
first year, right, right,and then came back to be the head
coach in ninety five. What wasit like as a player, getting you
to three different head coaches during yourtime. I loved it. I realized
early in my NFL career, I'mnot as fast as some of these guys.
I'm not as strong as some ofthese guys. I am a better
(20:14):
student than most of these guys.I understood how to learn the playbook,
and I started to realize that,yeah, this guy's faster than me,
but if he makes a mistake everytime he gets on the field, the
coaches don't trust him. I'm notnearly as fast, but I make way
fewer mistakes. So I loved it. When we got into training camp my
rookie year, I'm studying this bigplaybook and I was having fun learning all
(20:37):
this, you know, and thenyou get a test every day in practice,
like, hey, I passed thetest again. And so then after
two years we get a new headcoach, Wade Phillips brings in Jim Fossil.
Boom, they PLoP out a wholenew offense. We got to study
this. I look better than mypeers because I learn it faster and I
make fewer mistakes on the field,and so I was like, hey,
this is to my advantage. Thentwo years later, here comes Mike Shanahan
(21:00):
bringing in a new offense, andI look better than my peers because I
learn it faster than them. I'mnot better than them. They're going to
catch up with me and then bypassedme. But in the early days,
you got a reset every two years. Yeah, and I'm convinced if Mike
Shanahan had gotten fired after two years, I would have had another two years
in the NFL. You very wellmight have, well, And that brings
(21:23):
us then too. I send outa little questionnaire to my guests beforehand,
and one of my questions to youwas, you know, have you been
cut, traded, fired, andor retired? And you said yes,
cut at the end of training campin ninety seven, and then the Broncos
go on to win two Super Bowlsafter that, which you think is in
direct relationship to you being cut,which is not true. But I think
it's funny that you say that.Well, I have to give credit where
(21:45):
credit is due. Rod Smith wasthe first one to say it, Rod
after they won. Of course Rodsays it. Yeah. After they won
that first Super Bowl, I waslike, hey, congratulations man. He
was like, yeah, apparently allwe had to do is get rid of
you. We were ready to sward. You were like an anchor holds so
something Rod would say, yeah,but yeah, it was. That was
(22:08):
a time when basically it was AnthonyLynn and Detron Smith. It was the
three of us fighting for two spots. Both of them were younger than Medtron
was better than me. Detron hada level of courage that most of us.
I used to think, No,Detron's just dumb. That was when
I was my first thought that nobodywould run into somebody full speed like that
(22:30):
unless they were dumb. But Detronwas not dumb. Detron just had more
courage than the most of us.And we were all courageous guys. Like,
my courage level at my peak wasprobably like a nine point one on
a scale of ten. Detron's couragelevel was a nine point nine nine nine
nine. He's like, yeah,I'll probably survive that, It's not gonna
do me too much harm. I'llbe okay. And he just he truly
(22:52):
believed it, and so he beatme out. He was primarily the one
and Anthony, he and I werepretty equal, and so yeah, when
I look at the way it wentdown, if I were the coach,
I probably would have cut me too. So I didn't have any resentment,
but it was bitter sweet to watchthem immediately go win two Super Bowls well,
and you'd just come off the Jacksonvilleloss, which was even harder.
(23:12):
That's the final game of my career. Everybody, oh man, everybody wanted
redemption after that, Right, whathappened when you got cut? I got
the phone call, came in,talked to Mike, talked to Ted sun
Quist, who was a player personneldirector, talked to mister Boland. Getting
cut was one of the nicest momentswith the Bronchos that ever happened. Everybody
(23:33):
was so kind, so complimentary,so so much gratitude for what I had
done while I was with the team. As I'm cleaning up my locker and
putting everything into a plastic bag,you know, all the other players are
coming and give me a pat onthe back, and you know, wishing
me well. The media interviews meafterward. I got hundreds of letters from
people. It was just it wasreally a warm send off, you know.
(23:55):
Even though I didn't want to getcut, I also understood, yeah,
this is the game. The waythat I made the team, I
broke Melvin Bratton's plate, he wasthe full back before I took his spot.
And then every year somebody would comeand try to break my plate,
and I was able to hang onfor six years. Finally Detron broke my
plate. I respected the process andimmediately started covering the Broncos. You know,
(24:18):
and I didn't feel any animosity towardthe team wore. Mike Shanahan,
who cut me. I still thinkhe's the best coach I ever played for,
by a long shot. Interesting,So then you started covering the Broncos
you immediately, And while you werestill with the Broncos, you started working
at KOWA, having a radio show. You were writing for the Rocky Mountain
news. Later on, you wrotefor the Denver Post, so you were
already back to your journalism roots beforeyou were even done, which set yourself
(24:41):
up so nicely for retirement. Whatwas it like then going to the other
side when you went to Channel fourand you're doing weekends there and covering sports,
covering the Broncos from the other sideof the microphone for a while,
it was surreal because I didn't justknow what they were doing. I knew
what that play was, Like I'mwatching them, I'm like, yeah,
(25:03):
that's a great right triplot, exposityregulation, why switch? I mean,
I know that play. I knowexactly what went wrong on that play.
Like you know, people talk aboutTony Romo, like what he talks about
the game. He's like, oh, here comes the blind said, look
at that, and he's this guy'scoming and they're probably gonna call this hot
route and they're gonna throw the slantto this guy. And he's right,
well, he's he's doing that withevery team in the league and he's been
(25:26):
out for a while. For me, for the first one or two years
that I was out of the league, I had that kind of vision with
the Broncos. It's like I justunderstood everything, and so it really allowed
me to have a quick and easytransition into kind of this analyst role that
I had. And then, ofcourse, the longer you're out of those
meetings, the less knowledge you have. Now you're talking more kind of thematically
(25:49):
about here's the type of play thatthey would call here, as opposed to
here's the exact play and everything elsethat was going on. Yeah, what
did you like more? TV?Writing or radio writing? One hundred percent
has always been my passion. Shortlyafter I learned to read, I started
writing, and so in elementary school, late elementary school, I was an
(26:11):
avid reader and writer. Then inhigh school, getting the the internship,
writing obituaries, going to college writing. I've written six books. I was
a newspaper columnist for fourteen and ahalf years. I'm a writer. I
love writing on a scale of oneto ten, writings of ten, Radio
probably a seven, and TV wasa five. And you know, TV,
(26:33):
I liked. TV was the mostglamorous of all of them, but
it was also don't I don't havethe creativity that like a Vic Lombardi has.
Vic Lombardi takes that screen and hejust makes it his own. He
fills up the box, as theysay, and he just has so much
charisma and creativity, and he knowsexactly how to use that medium. It's
almost like he was made for thismedium. For me, it felt too
(26:56):
formulaic. It's like, Hey,I've got forty five seconds to talk about
the Rockies. Hey, Rockies playeda game tonight, and you know,
this guy struck out six, andthat guy hit a home run and that
guy get thrown out a second andRockies lost. Next day, Hey,
Rocky's had a game today. Thisguy struck out seven, that guy stole
a base, this guy hit ahome run and Rockies run again, depending
(27:18):
on what you were talking about.Yeah, yeah, interesting. And you
mentioned the six books. Um,I know you have the autobiography Advance Johnson.
Are are there any other autobiography onesor are they all more stories?
Right? Yeah? The rest arefiction, okay. I wrote a book
called Power Shift about it an escalatingfeud between a sports reporter and a player
that ends up in somebody getting killed. Then I wrote a book called Fourth
(27:40):
and Fixed about a crime family fixingNFL games. Then my wife's boyfriend and
our feud with the Highland Ranch HomeownersAssociation and you know, my wife is
quick to point out she's never hada boyfriend. We've been together a long
time, yes, right, anduh, and we've never lived in Highland
ranch. It's just a story abouta mayor. Is this falling apart while
(28:00):
they're battling with the hway board overa commercial van that's parking their driveway?
Well, I could be very nonfictionactually exactly. Then I went back to
school and I got a master's degreeat University of Denver in international studies.
And from my thesis I wrote abook called The Colony, a Political Tale,
And it's an allegory about foreign politicstold through two colonies of ants,
(28:22):
the army ants of the Alpha ztribe and the leaf cutter ants of the
ant to stand Drive. And it'sall about how the alpha z ants get
control of the fungus that the leafcutter ants grow deep below there. So
it's this, it's the oil ofthe ant world, the water of the
ant world, the labor of theant world, whatever it is. And
my book is about how wealthy nationsdominate weaker nations. And then I rewrote
(28:48):
Fourth and Fix was the only ofmy books that was published by a publisher.
All the rest are self published.Well, after Fourth and Fix went
out of print, the publisher finallyrelinquished the rights back to me, so
I republished it as Rookies and Bookiesand I rewrote it. But I couldn't
publish it with their title or anyof their artwork, because that's what they
own. I know a lot ofpeople love to write books, or think
that they have a dream to writea book. What would be your advice
(29:10):
to them? Self publishing? It'sgotten so much easier to self published.
When I was self publishing, youhad to negotiate with a printer and do
a minimum print run. So I'dprint like five thousand books, and it
would cost me three dollars and twelvecents per book, And so you can
do the math to figure out,you know, kind of what that costs.
Well, now there's all this printon demand, so you've got an
idea, You send it in,they'll design a cover for you, lay
(29:33):
out the pages, and you couldprint as few as one hundred books,
and then print one hundred more,then print one hundred more. It's made
it very accessible to many more people. Have you thought about writing another book
or are you writing another book?Nope. It's like I wrote every day
for twenty years, and then youknow, as our son started to get
of a certain age, the timethat I used to spend writing became his
(29:53):
time. We're watching his practices,his games, all that kind of stuff.
And your son now is nineteen almosttwenty. I mean, it's in't
that crazy. It is crazy.Because you told that, I thought,
well, there's that's not possible.But then again, my kids are twenty
three and twenty, so of firstit is possible. Yeah, your speaking
career has been a huge it's ahuge part of what you do now.
(30:14):
You and I ran with the sameagent for a little while and then you
started your own thing in twenty thirteen. Right, the Gala team, we
do nonprofit fundraisers. We are benefitauctioneers and fundraising consultants, and so if
you had asked me fifteen years ago, I didn't even know this profession existed.
And we've grown to be a teamof twenty people. We're going to
(30:34):
do one hundred and fifty events thisyear, and we do most of the
biggest charity fundraisers here in Denver.We do the Children's Hospital Gala, the
National Jewish Health Denver Health Saint Joseph'sHealths. We do six out of the
eight public school foundations like Cherry CreekSchools, Denver Public Schools, Douglas County,
Littleton, Saint Vrain, Boulder,and then we do all the Big
(30:57):
Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys andGirls Club called a symphony, called a
ballet at the Denver Library. It'sthis niche that we've fallen into, and
I feel like I have found mypurpose in life. I've always been a
keynote speaker, and I've been ableto make a living for myself by using
my communication ability, whether it wasin radio, newspaper, TV, or
(31:17):
keynotes. And then when I starteddoing auctions, it was like, wait
a second, I'm making a livingfor myself, but I'm also helping this
charity raise two hundred and fifty thousanddollars. That started to feel very compelling
after a while. I feel likeI've been training for this particular job my
whole life, even though I didn'tknow that I was training for this job.
But once the I hit it andthese factors started to come together,
(31:38):
it is just really blossomed into theperfect career that is fantastic. Well,
I remember when my husband worked forDenver Academy and he left there probably in
oh twenty ten or twenty eleven,and you am seed and did the fundraising
for their annual auction that they didevery year. So that was in the
two thousands at some point, soyou were just starting them. But at
that point you were mostly doing keyspeaking and probably not as much auctioning.
(32:01):
So how did it flip? Likewas there a particular thing that happened where
you just said, oh, wow, light bulb, I need to be
doing this and focus on my energieson this. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what happened. I had been doingthree or four charity events a year for
about ten years, and so DenverAcademy was one of them. And I
(32:21):
was at a National Speakers Association conferencein San Diego. The guy on the
stage was saying, what's your valueproposition? How do you move the needle
for your clients? And I thoughtabout the keynote speaking clients I had.
It's like United Airlines, Accenture,Xcel Energy. You know these huge companies
that I don't move the needle.I'm an interesting speaker, I'm entertaining,
(32:42):
but you fill the space at theircorporate get together exactly. Yeah, And
I might be one of five thousandspeakers that some of these big companies higher
all over the world in a givenyear. So am I qualified to do
that? Yes? But do Imove the needle? No? Then I
thought about the handful of charity eventsI was doing, Denver Academy being one
of them, and it's like,Wow, if I help them raise nextra
ten or fifteen thousand dollars, they'rereally happy. I'm really happy for weeks
(33:06):
afterward. So as I'm sitting atthis National Speakers Association conference, I have
this moment it says I want togo back and do more auctions. And
so that was in late twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, I started this company.
I did thirteen events that year.The next year it grew to twenty
nine events. After that, Irecruited two more people. We did fifty
two. It just has kept growingthrough the years. That is amazing.
(33:28):
Are you always looking for more peopleto bring on or does it get to
a point where it's any I'm sureyou have to train them a little bit.
I mean there are techniques to gettingpeople to open up their pocketbooks at
these events, right, Yes,And you know, sometimes it feels like,
man, just money just fell outof the sky. Our motto as
a company is fundraising success is notan accident. It's a series of deliberate
(33:50):
decisions. And so that's what weare experts at helping our nonprofit partners figure
out make some of those deliberate decisionsthat will improve their results. And yeah,
we're all looking for people. We'renot always hiring people, but we're
always looking for people because the momentthat we need somebody comes in a moment
it's like, hey, we hadit, We're perfectly staffed, and all
of a sudden, we've got tenmore events on our calendar and we really
(34:14):
don't have enough capacity. So weneed more consultants, we need more gala
attendants who work on the night ofthe event, and we need more auctioneers.
And so that's what our team hasmade. Our twenty people who's have
seven auctioneers, we have six galaconsultants, and then we have the rest
of what we call gala attendants.They just work on the night of the
event. That is really cool.Reggie, congratulations, what a neat business
(34:35):
adventure to get going and now goingon ten years. Yeah, thank you.
Wow. So as you look back, Reggie, and I ask all
my guests about this, and youhave had all the traveling as a kid
and where you were in high schooland in college and then never thinking you'd
be in the NFL, and nowyou have a great business model going with
your business. There's ups and downswith everything. What would be your advice
(34:57):
to people when they face challenge andhow to move forward and keep going towards
a goal. You've reinvented yourself multipletimes throughout your life, right, I
think that the simplest thing is Ialways ask audience as I say what is
a running back's primary job? I'llask you what do you think of running
backs? Primary job is? Well, you're run with the ball. Okay,
that's part of the job and notthe main job. Blocking part of
(35:21):
the job, not the main job. Don't make him miss, oh,
don't fumble part of the job,not the main job. Gosh, all
right, I'm missing it? Whatam I missing? So? Right?
Everybody will name everything, score,touchdowns, pass, block, do all
this stuff, and all of thoseare part of the job. The job
of a running back is to gettackled. That's the job. If I
was looking for running backs, Isay, hey, I'm looking for somebody
who can get tackled. If you'rethe kind of person gets your leg broken
(35:43):
every time you get tackled, Ican't use you. If you get your
feelings hurt every time you get tackled, I can't use you. We're going
to hand you the ball. Thoseeleven killers over there are gonna come and
tackle you. That is going tohappen. Can you take it? The
first one? You're gonna see thisguy coming and so you can brace yourself.
But now he's got you in thegrass. Here comes the second guy
and he's gonna hit you. Andnow you're just desperate to get on the
(36:04):
ground. You're in an awkward position. Here comes the third guy's gonna come
hit you. I need people whocan take that. I need people who
can get tackled, because that's yourjob. Your job is to go out
there and get tackled, get up, come back to the and run the
next play. And I think,as a metaphor for life, that's the
reality. If we start to understandall of our job is to go get
tackled. If you're not getting tackledas a running back, I don't look
(36:25):
and say, man, I haven'tbeen tackled today. That doesn't mean that
I've been really successful as a runningback. That probably means I'm on the
sideline. True. If I'm inthe game and I'm getting the ball,
I'm getting tackled. And as arunning back, I don't get to relitigate
the decisions that I made. Theyhanded me the ball. I cut to
the left. That cut is done. I can't say, hey, defense,
(36:45):
can we rewind for a minute?I want to go back and make
it cut to the right. SoI cut to the left. Now I've
got to deal with whatever it isthat's in front of me because I cut
to the left. Now I cutto the right. Now I got to
deal with whatever is in front ofme. And it's just always relentlessly forward
looking. This is where I am. How do I get to close to
the end zone from here? Andso those two things, I'm going to
(37:07):
be tackled and just how do Iget to where I'm going from here?
I think has helped me mentally dealwith you know, there's always headaches and
heartache and challenges that come up,and it's just I don't spend too much
time trying to relitigate. Oh,gosh, I wish I had done this
instead of that. Well I didn't. I cut left. This is where
I am. Yeah, so howdo I get there from here? I've
(37:29):
never thought about it like that.In fact, we talk about all the
time. This team had a tenplay, eighty yard scoring drive. That
just means they got tackled nine timesand they scored a touchdown on the tenth
time. Every time you hear adrive that has X number of plays,
it's tackled eleven times, scored onthe twelfth. That's the reality. We're
not going to be scoring these Hey, it's a one touch, one play
(37:52):
touchdown. It is multiple attempts tojust keep advancing down the field. Yeah,
thank you for your time today.Yeah, thank you. Shate you
coming? And how can people findout more about what your team does?
Sure, you can visit us atthe GALA team dot com, tch EGA
LA team dot com. What doyou expect it to do in the future?
I mean, like, do youhave a vision of it growing?
(38:13):
Do you have a vision of whereit'll go? I think that next year
we'll do two hundred events. We'redoing more and more events nationally, like
the Cleveland Clinic and UNC Health inNorth Carolina and Cerner Foundation, and in
Missouri, especially in the healthcare.We've kind of built a niche and so
I can see us expanding into manymore states. That's great. So going
(38:35):
away beyond Colorado, yes, man, awesome? All right, thank you
for coming in. This has beenfabulous. It's so good to see again,
Susie. Is so great to catchup with you and to see that
you're still doing the great things thatyou've always done. It's a pleasure try
and trying, all right. ThanksRegie, you bet Reggie Rivers, he
is so fun and easy to talkto. Make sure you check out the
GALA team dot com to find outmore about the great work he's doing with
his company. New episodes of Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired come out
(38:59):
every two day. Please follow,like, rate, and review this podcast
wherever you listen to podcasts. Youcan keep up on new podcast releases by
following on Twitter and Instagram at CTFRpodcast and also on the website CTFR podcast
dot com. If you like Cut, Traded, Fired, Retired, it
would be amazing if you shared theseepisodes with your friends. I'm your host,
(39:19):
Susie Wargin. Thank you for takingtime out of your day to check
out the podcast, and until nexttime, please be careful, be safe,
and be kind. Take care
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