September 2, 2025 • 49 mins
What does it take to grow up in South Central Los Angeles, avoid the pitfalls of gang life, and rise to a 12-year NFL career? In this best-of edition of No Wrong Choices, we revisit our conversation with Curtis Conway — former wide receiver for the Bears, Chargers, Jets, and 49ers, and later a broadcaster with the NFL and Pac-12 Networks.
But this isn’t just a football story. In Part One, Curtis offers a deep and honest look at growing up in South Central at a time of intense violence and uncertainty — and how he found ways to learn from that environment rather than be consumed by it. He explains how the lessons of the street — toughness, leadership, resilience — became the foundation for his career and his life.
From his first love of basketball to his unexpected transition from quarterback to wide receiver at USC, Curtis’s story is about far more than the game. It’s about mentality, perseverance, and finding what you truly love — even when the odds are stacked against you.
👉 Want more? Part Two of our conversation with Curtis Conway is available right now wherever you’re listening, or on our website at NoWrongChoices.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Larry Samuels (00:02):
Hello and welcome to a best of edition of no
Wrong Choices.
With the NFL season kicking offthis week, we thought it was
the perfect time to revisit ourconversation with Curtis Conway,
a wide receiver who spent 12years in the league with the
Bears, chargers, jets and 49ersbefore moving into broadcasting.
I'm Larry Samuels, soon to bejoined by Tushar Saxena and
(00:25):
Larry Shea.
In the first part of thistwo-part series, you'll hear how
Curtis's upbringing and innerdrive shaped his career.
Tushar will ask the firstquestion after my brief lead-in.
Let's get started.
Curtis, thank you so much forjoining us.
Curtis Conway (00:39):
Thanks for having me, guys.
Tushar Saxena (00:40):
So, curtis, I'm going to ask you know you spent
so much time in the league,right you're?
You had 3 000 yard seasons.
You were considered one of theone of the toughest guys in the
league.
What is curtis conway doing now?
Curtis Conway (00:53):
Man, uh, right now, today, or just postseason,
after I retire well, I mean, wecould probably go with today if
you'd like, but post career,we'll go with post career
Larry Samuels (01:02):
If somebody were to meet Curtis Conway for the
first time, what would you tellthem?
or who would you tell them?
You are.
Curtis Conway (01:09):
I'm a little bit of everything you know at this
age.
I'm a dad, I'm a coach I meanyou name it businessman so many
different hats that I put on.
It's just a matter of what dayand time I'm in, but for the
most part I would say, um, I'vekind of dedicated myself to uh
(01:30):
just being a husband and afather until, uh, until my kids
are out of school.
You know, I was broadcastingand I really enjoyed that.
But, um, me and my wife, who'sreally busy, uh, before we had
kids, we sat down and talked andwe said, you know, we're both
going in our second careers Oncewe have kids.
We don't want to, you know, dothe nanny and babysitting thing
(01:53):
all the time.
So somebody is going to have to, you know, shut it down.
To be quite frank, I didn'tthink it was going to be me.
I'm like oh, I'm going to havekids, you know I'm going to be
me.
I'm like, oh, I'm going to havekids, you know I'm going to be
right here in my broadcastingcareer or coaching or doing
something, so the wife is goingto be the one staying home.
But it didn't turn out that way.
(02:13):
But I enjoy it.
You know, I enjoy being afather and being able to help my
wife with.
You know a lot of the thingsthat she's doing.
I feel like God blessed me withwhat I really wanted to do in
life, and that's play footballand be able to give back to my
community, and I was able to dothat at such a young age to
(02:34):
where I feel like now I canenjoy the fruits of my labor.
Larry Shea (02:37):
We love that answer and, by the way, his wife is a
household name, layla Ali.
Let's put that right there onthe table.
But we love that answer thatyou're a family guy and that
comes first.
Let's bring you all the wayback to the beginning, though,
because we want to start yourjourney from the beginning and
make it linear.
So we know you were an athleteas a kid, but from just reading
(02:59):
your bio, reading about you,learning about who you are, you
were more of a track guy, wereyou not, than a football player.
Curtis Conway (03:06):
No, they get that wrong all the time.
They think because guys arefast at football, track was the
thing.
I didn't start running trackuntil I was in high school, so
I'd already had five years ofPop Warner football up under my
belt before I put on spikes.
Larry Samuels (03:22):
So you started as a football player.
When did you get into sports asa kid, when did it start to
have meaning to you?
Take us through thatprogression.
Curtis Conway (03:30):
Well, since I was a kid I'm talking like six,
seven, eight sports was alwaysimportant because that's what we
did as kids.
Saturday morning, elementaryschool, when recess, we played
basketball, we play kickball, weplay football.
(03:51):
So sports was always important.
We always looked forward todoing something sports oriented
as kids and of course you know,once you start playing organized
sports.
As a kid I played Pop Warnerfootball for Inglewood Pop
Warner, starting at nine yearsold, and it was so fun.
My mom didn't want me to playbut I bugged her enough to where
(04:13):
she couldn't deny me fromplaying.
And then, once I got out thereand she saw what I was able to
do my first year, the rest washistory and I don't think the
coaches wouldn't allow me tostop playing.
If my mom would have tried to.
They made sure.
Larry Samuels (04:28):
I was-.
Tushar Saxena (04:29):
What happened in that?
Larry Samuels (04:30):
first year.
What did you do?
Curtis Conway (04:32):
Well, I was really good.
I will say that my mom, ofcourse, never saw me play
football.
Of course I'm just playing inthe street with all the kids and
all the older kids.
But I was always fast.
So the older kids would alwayspick me and we would play in the
street and we had this rulecalled sideline tackle, which
(04:54):
meant it was a little strip ofgrass by the curve and if you're
on that sideline you gottackled onto that grass from the
street.
Well, I was probably thesmallest kid but I would get
picked all the time because Iwas pretty athletic and I was
fast.
So the bigger boys, you know,they used to punish me pretty
good on the sideline.
But it made me tough mentally,physically to.
(05:19):
When I got to play with kids myage in my mind and this went
throughout high school and eventhroughout college my mindset
was always these guys that I'mplaying with is my age or either
three or four years older thanme.
So my confidence level was sohigh because of what I
(05:39):
experienced playing in thestreet with the teenagers as a
kid.
Tushar Saxena (05:44):
So is that that confidence that you took then
when you played more organizedsports, whether it be or not, I
shouldn't say organized, butwhen you were able to play on
the high school level, let's saywhen you got to, when you got
to LA and you're playing, you'replaying more, you're playing
more varsity and you're you know, you're obviously excelling on
the field, you know.
I want to talk, to talk to us alittle bit about how important
(06:07):
it is to have a coach who isinfluential on you or is a good
influencer, how influential acoach can be on a young athlete.
Curtis Conway (06:16):
You know, I'm going to be very honest in this
interview, or whatever we wantto call it.
A coach didn't have toinfluence me.
It was never a coach, it was noone.
I naturally was a naturalcompetitor and I really got it
from the guys in my neighborhood.
Like, really it was thatmentality that I developed, was
(06:40):
my surroundings growing up.
I say this all the time andit's funny People think I'm
crazy when I say it, but when Iwas playing Little League, pop
Warner, my coaches were so toughon us to where, when I got to
high school and college, whencoaches would try to get tough
on me, it was like a joke.
Tushar Saxena (06:59):
Like.
Curtis Conway (06:59):
I done already been through the worst that you
can be around because we had acertain standard that we had to
live by growing up in SouthCentral LA.
So you know hard work and beingtough.
Once I got to high school andcollege it was already built in.
So if anybody that I would givecredit to, it would be the
(07:20):
teenagers and the guys that Igrew up around that were older
than me, who and it wasn'tverbal, it was by action.
You know you had to be tough,you had to have a competitive
mentality.
Growing up.
Where I grew up so it was likecompeting was easy, being tough
was easy, motivation was easy.
I was always self-motivated,just based on what we went
(07:43):
through playing in the street,and so that translated over into
organized ball right.
Larry Shea (07:49):
You get to what the high school level and you start
taking it a little moreseriously Describe serious,
because I know some people whenthey say serious, it's like I
started training.
Curtis Conway (08:00):
I started thinking about the NFL.
I started working on my bodyand all I did none of that.
I love to play sports.
It started thinking about theNFL.
I started, you know, working onmy body and all, I did none of
that.
Like I love to play sports Likeit wasn't about okay, let me get
a trainer, like everybody got atrainer now.
Uh, everybody wants to liftweights and look a certain way,
(08:21):
it was really just kids playingsports.
It wasn't like on the offseason of football in high
school, for example, I was avarsity quarterback.
Uh, as a sophomore, um, whenfootball season was over, you
couldn't get me to talk aboutfootball because it was track
season.
So I wanted to, I was runningtrack.
I wasn't trying to run track toget fast to play football, I
was running track because I wasfast and I wanted to win races,
right.
So, uh, it was.
(08:43):
It was really like I alwaysjust lived in the moment, if
that makes any sense.
It was never like okay, I'mtaking this serious.
Everything that I didcompetitive, I took serious.
I'm a sore loser and what Imean by that is I hate to lose
and if I lose I'm going tofigure out a way to come back
(09:03):
and win.
So, to be honest with you, Ican't say there was a time where
I was like, man, let me getserious about this sport stuff,
because I was always in thatmindset once I started playing
organized sports.
Like you know, I play for areally good Pop Warner
organization where they won, andso I was a huge part of it when
(09:26):
I got there also, and you knowlosing wasn't an option.
So we competed, man, and youknow I tell my son this all the
time.
You know I had friends when Iwas at SC, when I moved from
quarterback to wide receiver.
I had friends that were playingthe position.
Oh well, you know they got mehere I'm here now.
Larry Samuels (09:50):
Oh well.
Curtis Conway (09:51):
I'm here now, so you in my spot.
So that was always my mentality.
Tushar Saxena (09:57):
So I want to ask then, because you know, actually
you brought up a really goodpoint about the idea of you know
, season to season, oncefootball ended, then it was
track season and then when trackseason ended, it was another
sport.
Now you know full disclosure,you're not the first athlete
we've had join us and the onething that we've kind of noticed
when it comes to like greatathletes, that great athletes
(10:19):
are great athletes and they'regreat at athletics.
So obviously you had a love forsports and you had a love for
competing.
Was football always your firstlove, or did you have other
sports that you really enjoyedLike?
Randy Moss always said that heactually he thought he'd be a
better basketball player.
Dave Winfield often said thathe he wanted to be a, he wanted
to be a football player and wasactually drafted by the
(10:40):
Minnesota Vikings.
Um, so was football always thesport that you wanted to play?
I mean not say you want to be aprofessional in it, but was
that always your sport?
Curtis Conway (10:49):
No, not at all.
I was a hoop, I was abasketball player man.
You know, you couldn't havetold me back in the day I wasn't
a little Magic Johnson.
Larry Samuels (11:01):
Especially in LA.
Curtis Conway (11:02):
Yeah, especially in LA.
I grew up right down the street.
If, if everybody, anybody knewthe park that I played in and
pop Warner is literally probably200 yards from the Los Angeles
farm in Inglewood.
So, uh, you know I was magicJohnson, and so it it the funny
story.
I played basketball up until mysophomore year.
(11:23):
Uh, in high school, and Istopped because our basketball
team wasn't that good andeverybody was saying, man, you
should run track.
We travel, we go out of town,we compete on a whole different
level, the basketball team notthat good.
So my coach, my footballcoaches and track coaches didn't
know.
But by basketball season andtrack season being at the same
(11:44):
time, I was still young enoughas a sophomore to play rec ball.
So I was running track in theninth grade and the 10th grade
and still playing rec ball whenI was in high school.
So once I got to the 11th gradeI was too old to play
basketball rec.
So that's when I ended upstopped playing basketball.
(12:06):
But, man, basketball was reallymy first love.
Like on Friday nights after agame in high school and I'm
talking about all the way up tomy last game of the season, you
best believe Saturday morning Iwas in the neighborhood playing
pick up basketball somewhereeither at the school or at the
gym.
So it's funny because peoplewill be like man, you was just
(12:29):
balling last night on thefootball field and here you are
in the neighborhood playing witha bunch of dudes that could
possibly hurt you out here.
Larry Samuels (12:37):
That's great.
Curtis Conway (12:39):
But again, it wasn't like today, where I can't
do this because I might gethurt.
It was like, okay, we'replaying against this
neighborhood, we're playingagainst these guys.
Tushar Saxena (12:47):
It's a different world, man.
It is a different world, yeah.
Larry Samuels (12:51):
So rec ball was like the why or something like
that, or was it organized?
Yeah it was organized.
Curtis Conway (12:57):
It was park leagues, it was the park league.
So I continued to play with thepark league.
Larry Samuels (13:04):
Got it Now when you were playing at the
playground on a Saturday andyou're going down there and it's
pickup basketball.
You know in LA, you know in thearea you're describing, like
what were those games?
Like how rough were those.
Curtis Conway (13:17):
It was real rough .
It was like again.
So just it's growing up in thehood of South Central LA at a
time where gang violence anddrugs was at an all time high.
So this is, this is the type ofatmosphere I'm playing in, but
I grew up in that, so it wasnormal for me.
It wasn't like an outsiderlooking in.
This was normal life.
(13:38):
So again, you don't think twiceabout oh, I'm a high school
football star, I might get hurt.
It's like nah, it's game time,I'm at the park, I'm going to
dunk on you.
If you try to block my shot,I'm going to steal it.
You know, it was thatatmosphere.
So when I think back on it,it's just like getting hurt and
(14:02):
worrying about the things thatcould happen never crossed my
mind.
Like I said, I always live inthat moment.
So if I'm playing basketball atthe park Friday night after a
game or at the school, guesswhat?
I'm trying to stay on the court, because if you lose, well, you
might get picked up if you're agood athlete, but if you lose
you're not getting on the court.
So once you get to, five it'slike we out here to win.
(14:24):
We're not out here worryingabout almost stay in the corner
and shoot jumpers, cause I don'twant you to.
You know, foul me and I hit thepole or I hit the concrete.
Like no, we playing ball.
Larry Samuels (14:33):
That's awesome.
Now, curtis, I have to ask thisquestion Cause cause you
brought it up and sort of wentdown this path growing up in the
neighborhood that you were inat that time, you know, with the
gang life that you know wewould see on the news and
everything else.
I mean, clearly, that was closeto you, that was around you.
How did that impact you?
(14:55):
Uh?
Curtis Conway (14:59):
You know it was a way of life.
Man, I can go in so manydirections with this.
You know, as crazy as thissounds, I survived it.
So I could take a lot of thepositives.
That most people that didn'tsurvive would say it was a
negative for them.
I would say the best thing forme was I was always a leader.
(15:20):
I was always a leader.
So it didn't matter if myfriends at eight years old
playing football at 13 decidethey wanted to tote guns and
gang and gangbang.
I was still Curtis and I stillhung with those guys.
It's just when they decided todo certain activities.
I would you know I wasn'tinvolved in it and I never had
(15:41):
to be involved in it because Iguess I mean, we were friends.
A lot of people don't reallyunderstand that culture,
especially back then.
We grew up in that situation.
So these are the same guysthat's in and out of jail that
I'm talking about.
We were playing football on thestreet.
So I don't look at the drugdealers and the gangbangers the
(16:02):
same way outsiders may do,because I really know who they
are deep down inside certaincircumstances and situations and
decisions that they may, basedon our environment and choices
that they may, went thatdirection.
So I never I'm not that one whowho say I'm better than the
guys that made it out of myneighborhood.
(16:23):
I just love football, so therewas nothing going to deter me
away from the game.
They didn't love football.
They were talented and theycould play football, basketball.
They were just as athletic as Iwas.
They just didn't love it asmuch as I did to where gangs and
selling drugs and doing allthese things would take them
away.
I was okay with not having alot of money and not having the
(16:45):
nice clothes and not doing allthose things.
For some reason.
I can't take credit for it.
It was just who I was growingup.
It's still who I am today.
So, um, I will say this I'm not, I'm not Curtis Conway the man,
uh, as a father.
Um, I'm not Curtis Conway theman, as a father, as an athlete,
(17:07):
I'm nothing.
Without growing up on 56th andCentral and South Central LA, I
draw everything from thoseexperiences, even today, my
mentor he was a really good dudebut he was a drug dealer.
He was a really good dude buthe was a drug dealer and he sold
(17:28):
drugs, but watching him, he wasa family man.
He's married still married tothe girl he was with in high
school.
Today he just did what he hadto do to make a living.
But I know the man and so he'sthe reason I'm the father I am
and the husband I am, because Isaw how he treated his wife.
But on the outside, looking in,you would think this criminal,
(17:50):
this guy.
But I knew who he was inside,but I knew what he had to do to
provide for his family.
So again, I mean I can take alot of the things that people
see as negatives.
I can take them as positivebecause I experienced them and I
can speak on it.
And so, man, it's, you knowit's, I wouldn't trade anything
(18:14):
for what I experienced growingup in South Central.
Larry Shea (18:17):
I love that you say that it defined you, it made you
who you are and you wouldn'tchange a thing.
That's that's important.
I guess my question would be itbuilt your mental toughness.
Obviously, the streetball builtyour physical toughness.
I think toughness is probablyone of your best professional
qualities, but I would say, howeasily could it have slipped
away?
I mean, you're with thesepeople all the time and they're
(18:40):
friends, like is it possiblethat it could have gone in a
different direction?
Or you were just never going tolet it happen because football
was too important?
Curtis Conway (18:48):
Yeah, I mean because this is your everyday
life.
Like it's been plenty ofmoments in my life where my life
could have been taken.
It's been plenty of times in mylife where I could have been
set up by the police because I'maround the wrong crowd and they
just want to plant drugs on youto get you to talk about who's
the big drug dealer in theneighborhood.
(19:09):
Like it was.
It was.
You know we call it a concretejungle.
You had to experience likeevery day.
You know this was, this was.
If you go back and you look upthe 80s and the 90s in South
Central LA, just wearing a redshirt or a blue shirt in the
wrong neighborhood can get youkilled not beat up, not shot,
but killed.
So my high school was red.
(19:30):
So if I'm wearing my redsweatpants on the bus going to
school and the bus is goingthrough another, a rival
neighborhood, someone gets a kidgets on the bus, or a teenager
or a young adult get on the buswith a gun.
He had no problem with shooting.
Like shooting was fundamentalback then.
(19:50):
So it wasn't.
It wasn't, but to us it was.
We understood how to for lackof better terms.
We understood how to move andwhat to do in situations.
We knew all this because wewere.
I was a, I'm a product of that.
I just chose not to do that,but I'm around it every day,
(20:14):
like I.
I mean I've seen it all.
I mean I've seen guys get shotright next to me.
I've seen, uh, friends get in,go in and out of jail.
Uh, I've seen the, the, the,the good, the nicest kid at
eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15,16.
He's a murderer.
(20:35):
It has no problem with, youknow, going to kill somebody for
the neighborhood.
So, um, you know, growing up inthat environment, like I said,
um, we don't look at it.
No, we didn't.
It just it was different for us.
That was life.
So it wasn't a wow situation,it was.
This is what it is.
You either choose to be orchoose not to be, and you live
(20:59):
your life and you try to surviveas you were.
You're growing up and, and youknow, luckily, um, I made it out
.
But trust me, man, I didn't gothit by you know, I didn't got
hit with billy clubs, by thepolice.
Oh, man, uh, just being a kidwalking down the street with my
friends and they think we'regang members, but we just kids
(21:21):
that live in the neighborhood,and you know who's going to
believe us versus the police.
Right, you know so we had to,but we understood that it wasn't
like, oh man, like weunderstood that the police had
the upper hand and they didn'tcare.
And because we've seen it somany times that it became normal
to us, you know what I mean wejust had to.
(21:46):
Again, we didn't, it was just,it wasn't a second thought it
was life.
Larry Samuels (21:48):
Did you have a burning desire to get out?
Was that part of sports andlooking towards junior college,
looking towards what eventuallybecame USC, or like what was
that dynamic?
Curtis Conway (22:03):
You know what I love?
My, my community.
I loved it to the point towhere I went to the closest
university to my house, usc.
Yeah, like USC is right in theheart of South Central.
It's probably eight minutesfrom my driveway.
Um, there was nothing about mycommunity and it was bad, but
(22:24):
that was my community.
It was home.
It was home, you know, myfriends was there, my family was
there.
Um, so I never.
My story is not the typical man.
I gotta make it out to buy mymother a house and all that I.
It happened because it happenedorganically, because I love to
play football and I did whateverit took to play football and
(22:46):
get better.
So, okay, I'm a senior, I gotto do all these things to get to
college.
So if this is going to preventme from playing football, then
I'm going to do it, whether it'sget good grades, pass the SAT,
which was a huge pivotal pointin my life, my senior year, not
(23:07):
passing the SAT, but I didwhatever I had to do to play the
game and it just kept goingfrom one year to the next to
being the best on this, beingthe best at this position, now
getting drafted to the ChicagoBears, um, you know, at that
point the love for football wasmy driving point of everything.
(23:28):
I did all right.
Tushar Saxena (23:29):
So I was going to ask you a bit about the notion
of and I understand that.
You know, I understand that USCis in Compton and it's very
close, obviously, to where yougrew up, so but I was still
going to ask the question of wasusc something of an oasis?
Uh, from from where?
From your neighborhood that yougrew up?
But maybe that's maybe that'sthe wrong question to ask,
(23:50):
because in many senses it didn'treally matter.
Let me ask you this your twoyears, two years at your juco,
was that more important to youthan your two years at usc?
Curtis Conway (24:00):
let me explain that situation just so a lot of
people don't know that story.
Uh, I didn't spend two years atUSC.
Let me explain that situationjust so a lot of people don't
know that story.
I didn't spend two years at aJUCO.
I didn't even spend a year at aJUCO.
Larry Samuels (24:13):
How much time you got no as much as you're
willing to give us.
Curtis Conway (24:18):
Nobody knows the truth.
People that know know, but themedia, they, they mess the story
up all the time because theydon't really know.
They just take bits and piecesand I never really talked about
it publicly.
So you guys are basicallygetting this firsthand.
Okay, um, out of high school,my senior year in high school, I
took the sat.
I didn't take the sat until thesecond semester of my senior
(24:42):
year.
Now, mind you, I'm anAll-American as a track guy.
As a ninth grader, I'm astarting quarterback.
As a 10th grader, I'm gettingletters all over the country
since my 10th grade year and theSAT wasn't presented to me in a
serious manner until the secondsemester of my senior year.
(25:02):
With that being said, I'mrunning track Every Saturday.
We got a big track meet.
Every Saturday is the SAT.
I failed the SAT three, fourtimes and didn't go to USC.
I signed a letter of intent inJanuary for USC and didn't pass
(25:25):
the SAT.
So my first year out of highschool I was back in the
neighborhood.
I didn't go to JUCO.
That September I didn't go tojunior college.
That September after Igraduated, I was working
construction.
I was working construction thatfirst semester while studying
for the SAT.
(25:45):
I passed the SAT the first time.
I took it because I finally gotan opportunity to study for you
.
I remember back then.
You know you had to pay to togo to an SAT course.
Tushar Saxena (26:02):
Yeah, and I went to Princeton?
Curtis Conway (26:04):
Yeah, prep course .
They didn't have it at the highschools, so it wasn't available
.
The preparation wasn'tavailable to me, and once I got
out of high school, I got a joband I was able to afford
Princeton review, which was likean incredible story.
Yeah, it was like an eight-weekcourse and after eight weeks,
that Saturday after the eightweeks, you go and take the test.
(26:26):
So I did that and I passed thetest.
A lot of people don't realize Iwent to Nebraska that summer
when Nebraska was actuallybetter than USC.
They wanted to Prop 48 me, soout of high school yeah, you
know, I couldn't go to SCbecause I didn't pass the test I
went to Nebraska because theywas willing to bring me in on
(26:47):
the Prop 48, which meant that Icouldn't play football, I
couldn't be around the team, butI can go to school and I lose
my red shirt year and my medicalyear, but I still have three
years to play.
So because of my ego, I went,you know.
But being a Trojan was alwaysin my heart and so the day I had
to.
So I'm in Nebraska, lincoln,nebraska, and I don't know if
(27:09):
you guys remember a running backby the name of Derrick Brown.
Larry Samuels (27:12):
No, I don't, I don't, yeah.
Curtis Conway (27:15):
Yeah, he played for the Saints for a minute,
went to Nebraska.
We both go there on a Prop 48.
We were like two of the highlyranked athletes coming out of
California that year and I'llnever forget.
We were in line to turn in ourclasses and he went first and it
was my time and as I wasgetting up I went to him and I
(27:36):
told him I said, man, I thinkI'm going back home.
And he's like what?
Like bro, we're here.
We've been here like two weeks.
Long story short, I went back tothe dorm.
I called my uncle and I toldhim I didn't want to play here.
I wanted to come back and tryto study for the SAT, to get
into USC.
I'm like I'm a Trojan.
(27:57):
I always wanted to go there,not because of no other reason
other than I wanted to go there.
It wasn't the coach, it wasn'tthe players.
I wanted to go to SC.
Everybody tried to talk me outof it because, like you, about
to come back to the neighborhood, are you crazy?
You finally got out of here.
So I end up.
You know they end up getting mea ticket.
I went to talk to Tom Osborneand told him that I wanted to be
(28:18):
released.
He released me and I went backhome and I got a job, and that's
when I started studying for thetest, studying for the test.
I passed it on the first one inSeptember.
Now I'm thinking because I wasa dual sport guy and I was going
to do both of them at USC thatthey would at least bring me in
in the spring for track.
They was like USC said no, theywasn't going to bring me in.
(28:40):
So now I passed the test inSeptember.
I'm working construction, andso what happened was the second
semester I started takingcourses that would transfer into
USC at El Camino College.
Okay, so that was my littlestint into junior college.
I didn't play ball, I wasn'ttraining, I wasn't running track
(29:02):
, I wasn't doing nothing, I wasworking.
You were just trying to getcredits, just getting credits,
gotcha.
Tushar Saxena (29:08):
Gotcha All right.
So how wasn't doing nothing?
I was just trying to getcredits, just getting credits,
gotcha, gotcha all right.
So how important, how importantto you was, was the usc
experience?
Forget, forget the footballpart of it, forget the.
How important was it being atusc?
Curtis Conway (29:17):
it was, it wasn't what I thought it was going to
be.
To be quite frank, you had togrow up a lot.
You know you.
I learned a lot in terms of,like, just time management alone
.
Larry Shea (29:28):
Yeah, that's college Trying to shuffle football
around classes.
Curtis Conway (29:33):
We had to schedule our classes around
football practice.
It wasn't the other way around.
You might be from 8 o'clock to10 o'clock.
You might be at the schoolgoing to class, practice,
weightlifting, watching tape.
That was a crazy experiencebecause in high school you go to
school, you practice, you gohome.
You had to grow up a lot.
You have nobody telling you.
You know you had to get up andgo to school.
(29:54):
If you didn't want to go toclass, you didn't have to go to
class.
You had to go to class, but youdidn't have to go to class.
If that makes any sense.
Larry Samuels (30:03):
No, that makes perfect sense.
College once too.
You guys know what I mean.
How many hours a week did youhave to put into football?
Like, like, like.
What was that commitment?
Curtis Conway (30:13):
Um, I don't think it was.
It was a normal practice.
You know you go to practice.
I think practice was like anhour 40 minutes, um, film was
probably 30 minutes beforepractice and you probably had to
lift at some point during theday.
Um, um, you had to find timebetween classes to go lift and
that was probably 30 minutes oflifting.
It wasn't so much.
(30:34):
It wasn't a lot of time that wehad to spend with football.
That was hard.
It was juggling the schedulesbecause, like, say, for instance
, you have a class that you needto take, but it's during the
time you got film, or you havefootball practice.
Now either you can't take theclass or you got to.
I mean, those were the hardestthings, is, you know, and at
(30:56):
that time you're thinking schoolis supposed to be so important
and yet, and still, we have toschedule our classes around
football.
And I mean, being honest, thecoach don't.
He don't, he don't want to hearthat he's trying to win
football so you know the notionto think that a coach really
cares about school.
Trust me, let one of the starplayers say well, my class is
doing practice.
(31:17):
You won't be missing practice,that's for sure.
So I think that was the hardestpart is is, you know, having to
go from class to practice, tofilm and and just do all these
different pockets, whereas inhigh school you went to school.
School was out the way.
You go to practice, youpractice and then you go home
and you do homework.
Larry Shea (31:36):
It's so funny.
As you're talking about this,it sounds like playing football
was actually the easiest part ofthis time of your life.
The other stuff was hard theorganization, the independence,
the becoming a man but you'reobviously plying your trade.
You're getting better every day.
At what point do you say toyourself I think I could play on
(31:56):
the next level?
Curtis Conway (32:00):
Never, never, never and it sounds crazy, man,
anybody that knows me.
No, I never talked about theNFL.
I never talked about.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that.
I always lived in the moment Iwent to.
I went to USC as a quarterback.
I went to USC.
So my first year I was in thequarterback room and I was
returning kicks.
Tom Marinovich was thequarterback.
(32:25):
I haven't heard, my God, he wasan amazing quarterback.
That's a whole other story, butyou couldn't have told me by my
sophomore year that I wasn'tgoing to beat him out and I
probably wouldn't have, but youcouldn't have told me that I
wasn't.
So I was playing quarterback.
What happened with Todd endedup leaving.
(32:47):
So, um, I was talented enoughwhere they was like we gotta put
him on the field, so theyallowed me to return kicks as a
backup quarterback.
wow, how crazy is that, right,that's how much I love playing
football.
I told the coach like man, I'mnot sitting on the bench,
there's too many things that Ican do, so if I'm not the
starting quarterback, I got todo something.
And so again, I was fast, theyallowed me to return kicks and I
(33:11):
was in the quarterback room mysophomore year.
Todd left for the draft andended up getting drafted in the
first round by the Raiders.
And so now me and a guy, we'recompeting for the starting job
in the spring and in the summer,but what ended up happening was
SC, because we were bothathletic, for the starting job
in the spring and in the summer.
But what ended up happening wasSC, because we were both
athletic, they wanted us to runthe option.
(33:35):
And everybody just assumed,because I had a lot of rushing
yards, I was an optionquarterback, and you can't go
anywhere in my high school filmand find me running the option.
Right, right, I was themodern-day quarterback.
Now I was the guy that droppedback and I was fast enough and
had the mobility enough to breakthe pocket and make things
happen.
And so when I got to SC, ofcourse my sophomore year they
(33:59):
wanted to run the option andtrue story.
I remember after the ArizonaState game I scored on the
option play.
That kind of solidified me.
I remember after the ArizonaState game I scored on the
option play.
That kind of solidified me andI went to the office of
coordinator and I told him Ididn't want to play quarterback.
Tushar Saxena (34:15):
Oh, that's interesting.
Curtis Conway (34:16):
And he said why Like you could be an all-PAC-10
quarterback.
And I said, well, I've seen thelikes of Jamel Holloway Turner.
Larry Samuels (34:24):
Gill Right, right , yeah, I remember those guys.
Major Harris, yeah, I rememberthose guys Major.
Curtis Conway (34:27):
Harris.
Larry Samuels (34:28):
Yeah.
Curtis Conway (34:28):
I saw these guys be man amazing, and they didn't
get a shot at the pros.
I'm like that's not going to beme.
And he was.
So you know, of course, at thispoint your quarterback is
telling you he don't want toplay, he want to do something
else.
And so for weeks he kept tryingto get me to play.
(34:49):
Of course I was playing, but Iwas uh reluctant and uh, finally
, by mid-season, um, and mindyou, we're still me and the
other quarterback, we're stillgoing back and forth.
Nobody has solidified the job,but I was.
I was out there and theywouldn't put me in other
positions, but I was still ableto return kicks because I was
really good as a freshman.
So you couldn't take me off akickoff return or punt return.
(35:10):
So, long story short, I runback a punt return for a
touchdown against Stafford andyou know, all of a sudden I go
in the meeting room and I waslike I want to play.
Wide receiver Coach was indenial, like no, no, no.
And so so I told him I'm gonnatransfer if I don't, if I don't
move.
Larry Samuels (35:29):
Oh wow, I was wondering what leverage you had
for these conversations, so you?
Curtis Conway (35:33):
pulled that you're gonna transfer to
nebraska well, I told him I wasgonna transfer and, uh, he
thought I was playing.
So, uh, he ended up calling mygrandmother and my grandmother
said man curtis has been makinghis own decisions since he was
14.
You're talking to the wrongperson.
If he decides he's going toleave, trust me, he's going to
leave.
And what ended up happening was,two weeks later, they moved me
(35:57):
to wide receiver and I wasprobably like the fourth or
fifth wide receiver, and you cantell that they were trying to
make it tough on me.
Oh, interesting, yeah, becauseit would have been easy for me
to go back to quarterback andget on the field.
But again, I'm the ultimatecompetitor.
And that's when I had friendsin front of me, that you know,
and I was just like, come on,man, in my mind these guys are
(36:19):
not better than me, even thoughthey've been playing receiver in
high school and this is myfirst time playing wide receiver
.
Larry Samuels (36:29):
And first time playing wide receiver, and you
know a couple weeks, I was astarter.
Wow, how are they making?
Making it difficult for it for?
Curtis Conway (36:33):
you?
Were they sabotaging yousomehow?
Well, you know that widereceiver is up for the.
The quarterback has to get youthe ball.
So they, you know, I I don'tthink they were trying to
sabotage me.
I I think in my own mindbecause I felt like if they
wasn't throwing me the ball, oh,they want me to play
quarterback.
That was my mindset.
But it was a lot of times I wasopening, I wasn't getting the
(36:55):
ball and I was like, come on,and I'm a quarterback, so I know
where the ball should go.
I was just back there, right,you know.
So I was a little I, I was alittle menace for a second, I
would say that, but it ended upworking out.
You know, a lot of people don'trealize, man, I only played
wide receiver a year and a halfat USC.
(37:16):
That's amazing and I was justshowing my son the other day
that somebody sent me somethingwhere they were talking about me
.
If I would have stayed inschool, I definitely would have
been up for the Heisman goinginto my senior year.
So you know, I played a yearand a half I ain't going to say
a whole year and a half, I'llsay a year and a couple games at
(37:36):
wide receiver and left schoolas a true junior.
And you know, was a top tenpick, number one wide receiver
taken.
So again, it was just football.
It had nothing to do with theNFL.
It was like okay, you thinkthis guy is better than me,
let's compete.
When we got on the field, itdidn't matter who we were
playing in, it didn't matterLike I didn't even take a lot of
stock in.
(37:56):
Oh, this guy is an All-Americancornerback, we're playing
against this defense.
None of that ever mattered tome.
You got to remember.
My mindset was these guys aremy age or maybe three or four
years older.
They didn't.
My mind was my conditions as akid was way worse than any
organized football game couldever be.
(38:17):
So I was never afraid ofanything and I've always, in my
mind, felt like I was going tosucceed because I had that
competitive drive and I feltlike I've already been in the
worst conditions that I can bein.
Like I said, there's no cementthere.
I got a uniform on this guy.
Yeah, this guy is my size andI'm 19,.
(38:37):
He's 20.
Like that's how I approachthings, so it didn't really
matter if you were all Americanat my age, you my age and I'm an
all-American, so good luck foryou.
Larry Shea (38:49):
You're built for this.
Somebody better pray for you.
Tushar Saxena (38:51):
Yeah, somebody better pray for you.
Curtis Conway (38:52):
That's right.
Tushar Saxena (38:53):
All right.
So I mean, obviously thispodcast is about trying to give
advice to others, and all we'vedone thus far is talk about your
life, which is justunbelievably fascinating, beyond
belief.
So the one thing that I thinkwe can all kind of take away
from this is just your puredetermination, like your inner
drive, and your puredetermination, no-transcript.
Curtis Conway (39:42):
That's.
There's nothing other than that.
What does Kobe always talkabout?
The Mamba mentality had nothingto do with his talent.
Remember Kobe said I remembersomething where I saw Kobe said
that in high school they had himranked 50-something.
So in his mind he was like whoare these guys in front of me?
And every time he playedagainst him he went at him.
(40:03):
Think about the mentality thatKobe had.
Rememberordan got cut in highschool.
Yeah, he wasn't.
So look at his chip on hisshoulder.
Remember tom brady was asix-round draft pick so
everybody just assumed a greatathlete as a kid.
Because he's talented, it'sgonna be that man.
No like.
If it ain't in you, it's justnot in you.
(40:25):
I've seen I mean I've grew upwith some of the most talented
athletic people, but they didn'tlove it.
If it ain't in you, it's justnot in you.
I've seen.
I mean I've grew up with someof the most talented athletic
people but they didn't love itenough.
It wasn't.
It didn't mean enough to them.
You know it meant a lot to TomBrady.
It meant a lot to MichaelJordan.
It meant a lot to Kobe.
Had nothing to do with ourphysical gifts.
God blessed us with somephysical tools that we were able
to work with man.
But everything you do is aboutmentality and how you approach
(40:49):
it and the will and what are youwilling to do when the chips
are down, because in everythingyou do in life, you're going to
have some times where things arenot going good.
What keeps you in, that keepsyou in that field, is the fact
that you love it.
I tell people all the time.
I can tell if you love it ornot.
(41:09):
Like everything I told you,everything I did centered around
if I had to build a house andyou said I couldn't play
football if I didn't build ahouse, I was going to build that
house.
That's how much I love.
Like you couldn't keep me offthe field.
That's just what it was If youwere like and that I believe
that is the driving force.
(41:29):
Some people will get away withtalent, but the ultimate goal,
the ultimate, the real dudes man, trust me, they got something
in them.
You can't teach.
It has to be in there alreadyand unfortunately, a lot of
people can can say a lot ofthings and try to motivate
people and if you train hard Iknow people who train harder
(41:51):
than most people and stilldidn't make it.
The advice I would give peopleis find something you love.
Don't find something you like.
Don't find something that makea lot of money, because in this
country we're so that the richis the way of life, so
everybody's trying to like.
In my community, everybody wantsto be the athlete, everybody
wants to be the rapper,everybody wants to do these
(42:13):
things.
Man, find out what you reallylove and be the best at that,
because everything else, man,there's going to come times
where, if you in it for themoney or if you in it for the
fame, man, it's going to betimes where it man, it don't
feel too good and you knowyou're going to have to be able
to fight through it, and that'sjust spirit and mentality right
(42:35):
there.
It has nothing to do with howfast you can run or how you can
jump, how many touchdowns youscored, man.
Or can you go out there andplay when you're injured, you
know?
Can you go out there and playwhen a coach is telling you you
know we just drafted this guy atwide receiver, we need you to
help him out Like people don'treally understand that about.
You know professional sports,especially football.
(42:57):
You know you're supposed tohave this mentality of oh, we're
a team sport, okay, they draftthe receiver, and then the coach
is telling you, curtis, you gotto get him up to speed.
So you're teaching a guy totake money out of your pocket.
Think about that for a second.
We need him to help the team,curtis.
So you got to bring him up tospeed, you got to teach him the
ropes.
So after you show the guyeverything you know, you look
(43:21):
him in the eye and say, bro,you're still not going to take
my job, I'm still competing,which?
Larry Samuels (43:27):
theoretically makes both of you better, I
guess.
Curtis Conway (43:30):
Yeah, again, pray for me.
Tushar Saxena (43:34):
You're not getting my job.
Larry Samuels (43:35):
You know what I'm saying, so again that was my
mentality.
Curtis Conway (43:38):
So it still comes down to a mentality, because
you always got young talentcoming up trying to take your
job and you know you got to bewilling to go out there and
fight through a lot of stuff,man.
So Will, for me, is number one.
And you know you got to bewilling to go out there and
fight through a lot of stuff,man.
So, um, will for me is numberone, will for me is number one.
Um, I like to tell people, youknow, get in a quiet space and
(43:59):
just find what you like.
What do you love to do?
Naturally, take the money outof it because, again, like I
told you guys, it was neverabout money, it was never.
I played more basketball, Iwatched more basketball.
I had more, I liked morebasketball players than I did
football.
I didn't even really watchfootball, I was always about
basketball, but I love to playfootball, if that makes any
(44:23):
sense.
Tushar Saxena (44:24):
I just love to play football.
I didn't care, Absolutely yeah.
Curtis Conway (44:27):
I didn't care about watching it, I wanted to
play football.
I didn't care.
Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't care about watching it, I wanted to play it.
If I watched one series offootball, I'm going outside with
my football trying to round upeverybody.
I loved it.
You know that was in me.
So, um, I can sit up here allday and fluff it, man, but I
know for me, I can speak formyself and a lot of guys.
(44:47):
Man, you got to have some kindof mentality.
You got to have some kind ofmentality, you got to have some
kind of drive and ultimately,you got to love what you do, to
be the best, and only becausethere's going to be times where
you fail.
What are you going to do inthose moments when it's not good
?
And most people you know,everybody, say everybody.
I tell people this all the timeeverybody want to make it to
the NFL, aspn.
(45:08):
They show highlights.
They don't show the guystraining on the offseason,
throwing up on the sidelinewhile they're training.
Nobody gets to see none of thehard work.
You know, thank God for thecameras now so you can see these
guys, the work that they put inon the offseason.
But, man, this stuff it's noteasy.
It's not easy at all.
And again, you know, astalented as you can be, if you
(45:32):
don't have that inner drive tosay man, I'm going out here no
matter what.
Oh, you trying to take my job?
Okay, these are your teammatesthat you're still competing with
every day.
Larry Shea (45:42):
Iron sharpens iron right.
I mean, that's the way it is.
This seems like a great time totalk about losing, like not
succeeding.
I mean, you know you're talkingto three hosts right here who
just had our fandom footballteam's asses kicked this past
weekend, so we're all lickingour wounds a little bit and it's
hard, like as a fan, to likelose and watch your team lose.
(46:06):
How is that, as a player, Doyou get over it?
How long does it take?
What do you do?
I mean, this is your livelihood, or is it?
Hey, this is a job.
I got to turn the page, getbetter and move on and try.
Try a different way or work alittle harder.
Like what is the mentalitythere?
Curtis Conway (46:24):
Um, I can only speak for myself.
Um, without putting any namesout there, I've played with
players that really didn't care.
Man, they're getting a paycheck.
Larry Shea (46:33):
Yeah.
Curtis Conway (46:34):
You know, a lot of people drive is the money,
like I said, and they'retalented enough to make it.
Like I said before, I'm acompetitor and I'm a sore loser,
so I always wore it on myshoulders.
If we lost to a team, you bestbelieve I was trying to get them
back.
I would even develop some kindof hatred in my own mind because
I know it's just a game and weshaking hands afterwards, and
(46:58):
you know.
But for me, you know, I had todevelop some kind of negative
something to you, um, becauseyou beat me yeah, that was.
Larry Shea (47:09):
That was the Jordan thing.
Right, he used to get mad atsomeone on the other team and
make a story up.
Curtis Conway (47:14):
Whatever it was didn't have to be true, yeah
exactly, I didn't know that, butman, that's, that's what it is.
It's like, wait a minute, theybeat us, they got the upper hand
, like I, you know, and I hadsome pretty bad seasons in
Chicago.
But, man, you don.
Man, you start to hate theother team, no matter who's on
(47:36):
the team, you hate them.
It's not until the offseasonwhere you can kind of digress a
little bit and get over it.
But especially when you'replaying teams in your division,
if you lose to them the firsttime and you've got another
opportunity to play them, man,it's like the Super Bowl, of
course.
Larry Samuels (47:49):
It's like the Super Bowl, Of course.
Curtis Conway (47:50):
It's like wait, y'all beat us to laugh.
Oh man, y'all not doing it, Idon't care, I got to play
against everybody.
You know it's that mentality.
So I will say, man, losing it'stough man.
And I've been on teams whereour leaders, some guys, would be
on the back of the planelaughing and talking like we
didn't lose.
And you know, you got someplayers that go back in the back
(48:12):
and have a word or two andmaybe a hand or two Like how are
y'all back here acting like wedidn't just lose?
And you know.
So you're talking 53 differentpersonalities.
You know, on a plane ride,after a loss, everybody is
different.
Larry Samuels (48:32):
So, like I said, for me, man, it you know, don't
call me, don't talk to me, youknow and don't let me have a bad
game.
Yep, and that's why you became agreat player.
That wraps up this best ofedition of no Wrong Choices with
Curtis Conway.
What a story.
If you'd like to hear the restof it, part two is available
right now, wherever you'relistening, or on our website at
norongchoicescom.
On behalf of Larry Shea TusharSaxena and me, larry Samuels.
(48:57):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you liked what you heard,please support the show by
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Thank you again for listening.
Hello and welcome to a best of edition of no
Wrong Choices.
With the NFL season kicking offthis week, we thought it was
the perfect time to revisit ourconversation with Curtis Conway,
a wide receiver who spent 12years in the league with the
Bears, chargers, jets and 49ersbefore moving into broadcasting.
I'm Larry Samuels, soon to bejoined by Tushar Saxena and
(00:25):
Larry Shea.
In the first part of thistwo-part series, you'll hear how
Curtis's upbringing and innerdrive shaped his career.
Tushar will ask the firstquestion after my brief lead-in.
Let's get started.
Curtis, thank you so much forjoining us.
Curtis Conway (00:39):
Thanks for having me, guys.
Tushar Saxena (00:40):
So, curtis, I'm going to ask you know you spent
so much time in the league,right you're?
You had 3 000 yard seasons.
You were considered one of theone of the toughest guys in the
league.
What is curtis conway doing now?
Curtis Conway (00:53):
Man, uh, right now, today, or just postseason,
after I retire well, I mean, wecould probably go with today if
you'd like, but post career,we'll go with post career
Larry Samuels (01:02):
If somebody were to meet Curtis Conway for the
first time, what would you tellthem?
or who would you tell them?
You are.
Curtis Conway (01:09):
I'm a little bit of everything you know at this
age.
I'm a dad, I'm a coach I meanyou name it businessman so many
different hats that I put on.
It's just a matter of what dayand time I'm in, but for the
most part I would say, um, I'vekind of dedicated myself to uh
(01:30):
just being a husband and afather until, uh, until my kids
are out of school.
You know, I was broadcastingand I really enjoyed that.
But, um, me and my wife, who'sreally busy, uh, before we had
kids, we sat down and talked andwe said, you know, we're both
going in our second careers Oncewe have kids.
We don't want to, you know, dothe nanny and babysitting thing
(01:53):
all the time.
So somebody is going to have to, you know, shut it down.
To be quite frank, I didn'tthink it was going to be me.
I'm like oh, I'm going to havekids, you know I'm going to be
me.
I'm like, oh, I'm going to havekids, you know I'm going to be
right here in my broadcastingcareer or coaching or doing
something, so the wife is goingto be the one staying home.
But it didn't turn out that way.
(02:13):
But I enjoy it.
You know, I enjoy being afather and being able to help my
wife with.
You know a lot of the thingsthat she's doing.
I feel like God blessed me withwhat I really wanted to do in
life, and that's play footballand be able to give back to my
community, and I was able to dothat at such a young age to
(02:34):
where I feel like now I canenjoy the fruits of my labor.
Larry Shea (02:37):
We love that answer and, by the way, his wife is a
household name, layla Ali.
Let's put that right there onthe table.
But we love that answer thatyou're a family guy and that
comes first.
Let's bring you all the wayback to the beginning, though,
because we want to start yourjourney from the beginning and
make it linear.
So we know you were an athleteas a kid, but from just reading
(02:59):
your bio, reading about you,learning about who you are, you
were more of a track guy, wereyou not, than a football player.
Curtis Conway (03:06):
No, they get that wrong all the time.
They think because guys arefast at football, track was the
thing.
I didn't start running trackuntil I was in high school, so
I'd already had five years ofPop Warner football up under my
belt before I put on spikes.
Larry Samuels (03:22):
So you started as a football player.
When did you get into sports asa kid, when did it start to
have meaning to you?
Take us through thatprogression.
Curtis Conway (03:30):
Well, since I was a kid I'm talking like six,
seven, eight sports was alwaysimportant because that's what we
did as kids.
Saturday morning, elementaryschool, when recess, we played
basketball, we play kickball, weplay football.
(03:51):
So sports was always important.
We always looked forward todoing something sports oriented
as kids and of course you know,once you start playing organized
sports.
As a kid I played Pop Warnerfootball for Inglewood Pop
Warner, starting at nine yearsold, and it was so fun.
My mom didn't want me to playbut I bugged her enough to where
(04:13):
she couldn't deny me fromplaying.
And then, once I got out thereand she saw what I was able to
do my first year, the rest washistory and I don't think the
coaches wouldn't allow me tostop playing.
If my mom would have tried to.
They made sure.
Larry Samuels (04:28):
I was-.
Tushar Saxena (04:29):
What happened in that?
Larry Samuels (04:30):
first year.
What did you do?
Curtis Conway (04:32):
Well, I was really good.
I will say that my mom, ofcourse, never saw me play
football.
Of course I'm just playing inthe street with all the kids and
all the older kids.
But I was always fast.
So the older kids would alwayspick me and we would play in the
street and we had this rulecalled sideline tackle, which
(04:54):
meant it was a little strip ofgrass by the curve and if you're
on that sideline you gottackled onto that grass from the
street.
Well, I was probably thesmallest kid but I would get
picked all the time because Iwas pretty athletic and I was
fast.
So the bigger boys, you know,they used to punish me pretty
good on the sideline.
But it made me tough mentally,physically to.
(05:19):
When I got to play with kids myage in my mind and this went
throughout high school and eventhroughout college my mindset
was always these guys that I'mplaying with is my age or either
three or four years older thanme.
So my confidence level was sohigh because of what I
(05:39):
experienced playing in thestreet with the teenagers as a
kid.
Tushar Saxena (05:44):
So is that that confidence that you took then
when you played more organizedsports, whether it be or not, I
shouldn't say organized, butwhen you were able to play on
the high school level, let's saywhen you got to, when you got
to LA and you're playing, you'replaying more, you're playing
more varsity and you're you know, you're obviously excelling on
the field, you know.
I want to talk, to talk to us alittle bit about how important
(06:07):
it is to have a coach who isinfluential on you or is a good
influencer, how influential acoach can be on a young athlete.
Curtis Conway (06:16):
You know, I'm going to be very honest in this
interview, or whatever we wantto call it.
A coach didn't have toinfluence me.
It was never a coach, it was noone.
I naturally was a naturalcompetitor and I really got it
from the guys in my neighborhood.
Like, really it was thatmentality that I developed, was
(06:40):
my surroundings growing up.
I say this all the time andit's funny People think I'm
crazy when I say it, but when Iwas playing Little League, pop
Warner, my coaches were so toughon us to where, when I got to
high school and college, whencoaches would try to get tough
on me, it was like a joke.
Tushar Saxena (06:59):
Like.
Curtis Conway (06:59):
I done already been through the worst that you
can be around because we had acertain standard that we had to
live by growing up in SouthCentral LA.
So you know hard work and beingtough.
Once I got to high school andcollege it was already built in.
So if anybody that I would givecredit to, it would be the
(07:20):
teenagers and the guys that Igrew up around that were older
than me, who and it wasn'tverbal, it was by action.
You know you had to be tough,you had to have a competitive
mentality.
Growing up.
Where I grew up so it was likecompeting was easy, being tough
was easy, motivation was easy.
I was always self-motivated,just based on what we went
(07:43):
through playing in the street,and so that translated over into
organized ball right.
Larry Shea (07:49):
You get to what the high school level and you start
taking it a little moreseriously Describe serious,
because I know some people whenthey say serious, it's like I
started training.
Curtis Conway (08:00):
I started thinking about the NFL.
I started working on my bodyand all I did none of that.
I love to play sports.
It started thinking about theNFL.
I started, you know, working onmy body and all, I did none of
that.
Like I love to play sports Likeit wasn't about okay, let me get
a trainer, like everybody got atrainer now.
Uh, everybody wants to liftweights and look a certain way,
(08:21):
it was really just kids playingsports.
It wasn't like on the offseason of football in high
school, for example, I was avarsity quarterback.
Uh, as a sophomore, um, whenfootball season was over, you
couldn't get me to talk aboutfootball because it was track
season.
So I wanted to, I was runningtrack.
I wasn't trying to run track toget fast to play football, I
was running track because I wasfast and I wanted to win races,
right.
So, uh, it was.
(08:43):
It was really like I alwaysjust lived in the moment, if
that makes any sense.
It was never like okay, I'mtaking this serious.
Everything that I didcompetitive, I took serious.
I'm a sore loser and what Imean by that is I hate to lose
and if I lose I'm going tofigure out a way to come back
(09:03):
and win.
So, to be honest with you, Ican't say there was a time where
I was like, man, let me getserious about this sport stuff,
because I was always in thatmindset once I started playing
organized sports.
Like you know, I play for areally good Pop Warner
organization where they won, andso I was a huge part of it when
(09:26):
I got there also, and you knowlosing wasn't an option.
So we competed, man, and youknow I tell my son this all the
time.
You know I had friends when Iwas at SC, when I moved from
quarterback to wide receiver.
I had friends that were playingthe position.
Oh well, you know they got mehere I'm here now.
Larry Samuels (09:50):
Oh well.
Curtis Conway (09:51):
I'm here now, so you in my spot.
So that was always my mentality.
Tushar Saxena (09:57):
So I want to ask then, because you know, actually
you brought up a really goodpoint about the idea of you know
, season to season, oncefootball ended, then it was
track season and then when trackseason ended, it was another
sport.
Now you know full disclosure,you're not the first athlete
we've had join us and the onething that we've kind of noticed
when it comes to like greatathletes, that great athletes
(10:19):
are great athletes and they'regreat at athletics.
So obviously you had a love forsports and you had a love for
competing.
Was football always your firstlove, or did you have other
sports that you really enjoyedLike?
Randy Moss always said that heactually he thought he'd be a
better basketball player.
Dave Winfield often said thathe he wanted to be a, he wanted
to be a football player and wasactually drafted by the
(10:40):
Minnesota Vikings.
Um, so was football always thesport that you wanted to play?
I mean not say you want to be aprofessional in it, but was
that always your sport?
Curtis Conway (10:49):
No, not at all.
I was a hoop, I was abasketball player man.
You know, you couldn't havetold me back in the day I wasn't
a little Magic Johnson.
Larry Samuels (11:01):
Especially in LA.
Curtis Conway (11:02):
Yeah, especially in LA.
I grew up right down the street.
If, if everybody, anybody knewthe park that I played in and
pop Warner is literally probably200 yards from the Los Angeles
farm in Inglewood.
So, uh, you know I was magicJohnson, and so it it the funny
story.
I played basketball up until mysophomore year.
(11:23):
Uh, in high school, and Istopped because our basketball
team wasn't that good andeverybody was saying, man, you
should run track.
We travel, we go out of town,we compete on a whole different
level, the basketball team notthat good.
So my coach, my footballcoaches and track coaches didn't
know.
But by basketball season andtrack season being at the same
(11:44):
time, I was still young enoughas a sophomore to play rec ball.
So I was running track in theninth grade and the 10th grade
and still playing rec ball whenI was in high school.
So once I got to the 11th gradeI was too old to play
basketball rec.
So that's when I ended upstopped playing basketball.
(12:06):
But, man, basketball was reallymy first love.
Like on Friday nights after agame in high school and I'm
talking about all the way up tomy last game of the season, you
best believe Saturday morning Iwas in the neighborhood playing
pick up basketball somewhereeither at the school or at the
gym.
So it's funny because peoplewill be like man, you was just
(12:29):
balling last night on thefootball field and here you are
in the neighborhood playing witha bunch of dudes that could
possibly hurt you out here.
Larry Samuels (12:37):
That's great.
Curtis Conway (12:39):
But again, it wasn't like today, where I can't
do this because I might gethurt.
It was like, okay, we'replaying against this
neighborhood, we're playingagainst these guys.
Tushar Saxena (12:47):
It's a different world, man.
It is a different world, yeah.
Larry Samuels (12:51):
So rec ball was like the why or something like
that, or was it organized?
Yeah it was organized.
Curtis Conway (12:57):
It was park leagues, it was the park league.
So I continued to play with thepark league.
Larry Samuels (13:04):
Got it Now when you were playing at the
playground on a Saturday andyou're going down there and it's
pickup basketball.
You know in LA, you know in thearea you're describing, like
what were those games?
Like how rough were those.
Curtis Conway (13:17):
It was real rough .
It was like again.
So just it's growing up in thehood of South Central LA at a
time where gang violence anddrugs was at an all time high.
So this is, this is the type ofatmosphere I'm playing in, but
I grew up in that, so it wasnormal for me.
It wasn't like an outsiderlooking in.
This was normal life.
(13:38):
So again, you don't think twiceabout oh, I'm a high school
football star, I might get hurt.
It's like nah, it's game time,I'm at the park, I'm going to
dunk on you.
If you try to block my shot,I'm going to steal it.
You know, it was thatatmosphere.
So when I think back on it,it's just like getting hurt and
(14:02):
worrying about the things thatcould happen never crossed my
mind.
Like I said, I always live inthat moment.
So if I'm playing basketball atthe park Friday night after a
game or at the school, guesswhat?
I'm trying to stay on the court, because if you lose, well, you
might get picked up if you're agood athlete, but if you lose
you're not getting on the court.
So once you get to, five it'slike we out here to win.
(14:24):
We're not out here worryingabout almost stay in the corner
and shoot jumpers, cause I don'twant you to.
You know, foul me and I hit thepole or I hit the concrete.
Like no, we playing ball.
Larry Samuels (14:33):
That's awesome.
Now, curtis, I have to ask thisquestion Cause cause you
brought it up and sort of wentdown this path growing up in the
neighborhood that you were inat that time, you know, with the
gang life that you know wewould see on the news and
everything else.
I mean, clearly, that was closeto you, that was around you.
How did that impact you?
(14:55):
Uh?
Curtis Conway (14:59):
You know it was a way of life.
Man, I can go in so manydirections with this.
You know, as crazy as thissounds, I survived it.
So I could take a lot of thepositives.
That most people that didn'tsurvive would say it was a
negative for them.
I would say the best thing forme was I was always a leader.
(15:20):
I was always a leader.
So it didn't matter if myfriends at eight years old
playing football at 13 decidethey wanted to tote guns and
gang and gangbang.
I was still Curtis and I stillhung with those guys.
It's just when they decided todo certain activities.
I would you know I wasn'tinvolved in it and I never had
(15:41):
to be involved in it because Iguess I mean, we were friends.
A lot of people don't reallyunderstand that culture,
especially back then.
We grew up in that situation.
So these are the same guysthat's in and out of jail that
I'm talking about.
We were playing football on thestreet.
So I don't look at the drugdealers and the gangbangers the
(16:02):
same way outsiders may do,because I really know who they
are deep down inside certaincircumstances and situations and
decisions that they may, basedon our environment and choices
that they may, went thatdirection.
So I never I'm not that one whowho say I'm better than the
guys that made it out of myneighborhood.
(16:23):
I just love football, so therewas nothing going to deter me
away from the game.
They didn't love football.
They were talented and theycould play football, basketball.
They were just as athletic as Iwas.
They just didn't love it asmuch as I did to where gangs and
selling drugs and doing allthese things would take them
away.
I was okay with not having alot of money and not having the
(16:45):
nice clothes and not doing allthose things.
For some reason.
I can't take credit for it.
It was just who I was growingup.
It's still who I am today.
So, um, I will say this I'm not, I'm not Curtis Conway the man,
uh, as a father.
Um, I'm not Curtis Conway theman, as a father, as an athlete,
(17:07):
I'm nothing.
Without growing up on 56th andCentral and South Central LA, I
draw everything from thoseexperiences, even today, my
mentor he was a really good dudebut he was a drug dealer.
He was a really good dude buthe was a drug dealer and he sold
(17:28):
drugs, but watching him, he wasa family man.
He's married still married tothe girl he was with in high
school.
Today he just did what he hadto do to make a living.
But I know the man and so he'sthe reason I'm the father I am
and the husband I am, because Isaw how he treated his wife.
But on the outside, looking in,you would think this criminal,
(17:50):
this guy.
But I knew who he was inside,but I knew what he had to do to
provide for his family.
So again, I mean I can take alot of the things that people
see as negatives.
I can take them as positivebecause I experienced them and I
can speak on it.
And so, man, it's, you knowit's, I wouldn't trade anything
(18:14):
for what I experienced growingup in South Central.
Larry Shea (18:17):
I love that you say that it defined you, it made you
who you are and you wouldn'tchange a thing.
That's that's important.
I guess my question would be itbuilt your mental toughness.
Obviously, the streetball builtyour physical toughness.
I think toughness is probablyone of your best professional
qualities, but I would say, howeasily could it have slipped
away?
I mean, you're with thesepeople all the time and they're
(18:40):
friends, like is it possiblethat it could have gone in a
different direction?
Or you were just never going tolet it happen because football
was too important?
Curtis Conway (18:48):
Yeah, I mean because this is your everyday
life.
Like it's been plenty ofmoments in my life where my life
could have been taken.
It's been plenty of times in mylife where I could have been
set up by the police because I'maround the wrong crowd and they
just want to plant drugs on youto get you to talk about who's
the big drug dealer in theneighborhood.
(19:09):
Like it was.
It was.
You know we call it a concretejungle.
You had to experience likeevery day.
You know this was, this was.
If you go back and you look upthe 80s and the 90s in South
Central LA, just wearing a redshirt or a blue shirt in the
wrong neighborhood can get youkilled not beat up, not shot,
but killed.
So my high school was red.
(19:30):
So if I'm wearing my redsweatpants on the bus going to
school and the bus is goingthrough another, a rival
neighborhood, someone gets a kidgets on the bus, or a teenager
or a young adult get on the buswith a gun.
He had no problem with shooting.
Like shooting was fundamentalback then.
(19:50):
So it wasn't.
It wasn't, but to us it was.
We understood how to for lackof better terms.
We understood how to move andwhat to do in situations.
We knew all this because wewere.
I was a, I'm a product of that.
I just chose not to do that,but I'm around it every day,
(20:14):
like I.
I mean I've seen it all.
I mean I've seen guys get shotright next to me.
I've seen, uh, friends get in,go in and out of jail.
Uh, I've seen the, the, the,the good, the nicest kid at
eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15,16.
He's a murderer.
(20:35):
It has no problem with, youknow, going to kill somebody for
the neighborhood.
So, um, you know, growing up inthat environment, like I said,
um, we don't look at it.
No, we didn't.
It just it was different for us.
That was life.
So it wasn't a wow situation,it was.
This is what it is.
You either choose to be orchoose not to be, and you live
(20:59):
your life and you try to surviveas you were.
You're growing up and, and youknow, luckily, um, I made it out
.
But trust me, man, I didn't gothit by you know, I didn't got
hit with billy clubs, by thepolice.
Oh, man, uh, just being a kidwalking down the street with my
friends and they think we'regang members, but we just kids
(21:21):
that live in the neighborhood,and you know who's going to
believe us versus the police.
Right, you know so we had to,but we understood that it wasn't
like, oh man, like weunderstood that the police had
the upper hand and they didn'tcare.
And because we've seen it somany times that it became normal
to us, you know what I mean wejust had to.
(21:46):
Again, we didn't, it was just,it wasn't a second thought it
was life.
Larry Samuels (21:48):
Did you have a burning desire to get out?
Was that part of sports andlooking towards junior college,
looking towards what eventuallybecame USC, or like what was
that dynamic?
Curtis Conway (22:03):
You know what I love?
My, my community.
I loved it to the point towhere I went to the closest
university to my house, usc.
Yeah, like USC is right in theheart of South Central.
It's probably eight minutesfrom my driveway.
Um, there was nothing about mycommunity and it was bad, but
(22:24):
that was my community.
It was home.
It was home, you know, myfriends was there, my family was
there.
Um, so I never.
My story is not the typical man.
I gotta make it out to buy mymother a house and all that I.
It happened because it happenedorganically, because I love to
play football and I did whateverit took to play football and
(22:46):
get better.
So, okay, I'm a senior, I gotto do all these things to get to
college.
So if this is going to preventme from playing football, then
I'm going to do it, whether it'sget good grades, pass the SAT,
which was a huge pivotal pointin my life, my senior year, not
(23:07):
passing the SAT, but I didwhatever I had to do to play the
game and it just kept goingfrom one year to the next to
being the best on this, beingthe best at this position, now
getting drafted to the ChicagoBears, um, you know, at that
point the love for football wasmy driving point of everything.
(23:28):
I did all right.
Tushar Saxena (23:29):
So I was going to ask you a bit about the notion
of and I understand that.
You know, I understand that USCis in Compton and it's very
close, obviously, to where yougrew up, so but I was still
going to ask the question of wasusc something of an oasis?
Uh, from from where?
From your neighborhood that yougrew up?
But maybe that's maybe that'sthe wrong question to ask,
(23:50):
because in many senses it didn'treally matter.
Let me ask you this your twoyears, two years at your juco,
was that more important to youthan your two years at usc?
Curtis Conway (24:00):
let me explain that situation just so a lot of
people don't know that story.
Uh, I didn't spend two years atUSC.
Let me explain that situationjust so a lot of people don't
know that story.
I didn't spend two years at aJUCO.
I didn't even spend a year at aJUCO.
Larry Samuels (24:13):
How much time you got no as much as you're
willing to give us.
Curtis Conway (24:18):
Nobody knows the truth.
People that know know, but themedia, they, they mess the story
up all the time because theydon't really know.
They just take bits and piecesand I never really talked about
it publicly.
So you guys are basicallygetting this firsthand.
Okay, um, out of high school,my senior year in high school, I
took the sat.
I didn't take the sat until thesecond semester of my senior
(24:42):
year.
Now, mind you, I'm anAll-American as a track guy.
As a ninth grader, I'm astarting quarterback.
As a 10th grader, I'm gettingletters all over the country
since my 10th grade year and theSAT wasn't presented to me in a
serious manner until the secondsemester of my senior year.
(25:02):
With that being said, I'mrunning track Every Saturday.
We got a big track meet.
Every Saturday is the SAT.
I failed the SAT three, fourtimes and didn't go to USC.
I signed a letter of intent inJanuary for USC and didn't pass
(25:25):
the SAT.
So my first year out of highschool I was back in the
neighborhood.
I didn't go to JUCO.
That September I didn't go tojunior college.
That September after Igraduated, I was working
construction.
I was working construction thatfirst semester while studying
for the SAT.
(25:45):
I passed the SAT the first time.
I took it because I finally gotan opportunity to study for you
.
I remember back then.
You know you had to pay to togo to an SAT course.
Tushar Saxena (26:02):
Yeah, and I went to Princeton?
Curtis Conway (26:04):
Yeah, prep course .
They didn't have it at the highschools, so it wasn't available
.
The preparation wasn'tavailable to me, and once I got
out of high school, I got a joband I was able to afford
Princeton review, which was likean incredible story.
Yeah, it was like an eight-weekcourse and after eight weeks,
that Saturday after the eightweeks, you go and take the test.
(26:26):
So I did that and I passed thetest.
A lot of people don't realize Iwent to Nebraska that summer
when Nebraska was actuallybetter than USC.
They wanted to Prop 48 me, soout of high school yeah, you
know, I couldn't go to SCbecause I didn't pass the test I
went to Nebraska because theywas willing to bring me in on
(26:47):
the Prop 48, which meant that Icouldn't play football, I
couldn't be around the team, butI can go to school and I lose
my red shirt year and my medicalyear, but I still have three
years to play.
So because of my ego, I went,you know.
But being a Trojan was alwaysin my heart and so the day I had
to.
So I'm in Nebraska, lincoln,nebraska, and I don't know if
(27:09):
you guys remember a running backby the name of Derrick Brown.
Larry Samuels (27:12):
No, I don't, I don't, yeah.
Curtis Conway (27:15):
Yeah, he played for the Saints for a minute,
went to Nebraska.
We both go there on a Prop 48.
We were like two of the highlyranked athletes coming out of
California that year and I'llnever forget.
We were in line to turn in ourclasses and he went first and it
was my time and as I wasgetting up I went to him and I
(27:36):
told him I said, man, I thinkI'm going back home.
And he's like what?
Like bro, we're here.
We've been here like two weeks.
Long story short, I went back tothe dorm.
I called my uncle and I toldhim I didn't want to play here.
I wanted to come back and tryto study for the SAT, to get
into USC.
I'm like I'm a Trojan.
(27:57):
I always wanted to go there,not because of no other reason
other than I wanted to go there.
It wasn't the coach, it wasn'tthe players.
I wanted to go to SC.
Everybody tried to talk me outof it because, like you, about
to come back to the neighborhood, are you crazy?
You finally got out of here.
So I end up.
You know they end up getting mea ticket.
I went to talk to Tom Osborneand told him that I wanted to be
(28:18):
released.
He released me and I went backhome and I got a job, and that's
when I started studying for thetest, studying for the test.
I passed it on the first one inSeptember.
Now I'm thinking because I wasa dual sport guy and I was going
to do both of them at USC thatthey would at least bring me in
in the spring for track.
They was like USC said no, theywasn't going to bring me in.
(28:40):
So now I passed the test inSeptember.
I'm working construction, andso what happened was the second
semester I started takingcourses that would transfer into
USC at El Camino College.
Okay, so that was my littlestint into junior college.
I didn't play ball, I wasn'ttraining, I wasn't running track
(29:02):
, I wasn't doing nothing, I wasworking.
You were just trying to getcredits, just getting credits,
gotcha.
Tushar Saxena (29:08):
Gotcha All right.
So how wasn't doing nothing?
I was just trying to getcredits, just getting credits,
gotcha, gotcha all right.
So how important, how importantto you was, was the usc
experience?
Forget, forget the footballpart of it, forget the.
How important was it being atusc?
Curtis Conway (29:17):
it was, it wasn't what I thought it was going to
be.
To be quite frank, you had togrow up a lot.
You know you.
I learned a lot in terms of,like, just time management alone
.
Larry Shea (29:28):
Yeah, that's college Trying to shuffle football
around classes.
Curtis Conway (29:33):
We had to schedule our classes around
football practice.
It wasn't the other way around.
You might be from 8 o'clock to10 o'clock.
You might be at the schoolgoing to class, practice,
weightlifting, watching tape.
That was a crazy experiencebecause in high school you go to
school, you practice, you gohome.
You had to grow up a lot.
You have nobody telling you.
You know you had to get up andgo to school.
(29:54):
If you didn't want to go toclass, you didn't have to go to
class.
You had to go to class, but youdidn't have to go to class.
If that makes any sense.
Larry Samuels (30:03):
No, that makes perfect sense.
College once too.
You guys know what I mean.
How many hours a week did youhave to put into football?
Like, like, like.
What was that commitment?
Curtis Conway (30:13):
Um, I don't think it was.
It was a normal practice.
You know you go to practice.
I think practice was like anhour 40 minutes, um, film was
probably 30 minutes beforepractice and you probably had to
lift at some point during theday.
Um, um, you had to find timebetween classes to go lift and
that was probably 30 minutes oflifting.
It wasn't so much.
(30:34):
It wasn't a lot of time that wehad to spend with football.
That was hard.
It was juggling the schedulesbecause, like, say, for instance
, you have a class that you needto take, but it's during the
time you got film, or you havefootball practice.
Now either you can't take theclass or you got to.
I mean, those were the hardestthings, is, you know, and at
(30:56):
that time you're thinking schoolis supposed to be so important
and yet, and still, we have toschedule our classes around
football.
And I mean, being honest, thecoach don't.
He don't, he don't want to hearthat he's trying to win
football so you know the notionto think that a coach really
cares about school.
Trust me, let one of the starplayers say well, my class is
doing practice.
(31:17):
You won't be missing practice,that's for sure.
So I think that was the hardestpart is is, you know, having to
go from class to practice, tofilm and and just do all these
different pockets, whereas inhigh school you went to school.
School was out the way.
You go to practice, youpractice and then you go home
and you do homework.
Larry Shea (31:36):
It's so funny.
As you're talking about this,it sounds like playing football
was actually the easiest part ofthis time of your life.
The other stuff was hard theorganization, the independence,
the becoming a man but you'reobviously plying your trade.
You're getting better every day.
At what point do you say toyourself I think I could play on
(31:56):
the next level?
Curtis Conway (32:00):
Never, never, never and it sounds crazy, man,
anybody that knows me.
No, I never talked about theNFL.
I never talked about.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that.
I always lived in the moment Iwent to.
I went to USC as a quarterback.
I went to USC.
So my first year I was in thequarterback room and I was
returning kicks.
Tom Marinovich was thequarterback.
(32:25):
I haven't heard, my God, he wasan amazing quarterback.
That's a whole other story, butyou couldn't have told me by my
sophomore year that I wasn'tgoing to beat him out and I
probably wouldn't have, but youcouldn't have told me that I
wasn't.
So I was playing quarterback.
What happened with Todd endedup leaving.
(32:47):
So, um, I was talented enoughwhere they was like we gotta put
him on the field, so theyallowed me to return kicks as a
backup quarterback.
wow, how crazy is that, right,that's how much I love playing
football.
I told the coach like man, I'mnot sitting on the bench,
there's too many things that Ican do, so if I'm not the
starting quarterback, I got todo something.
And so again, I was fast, theyallowed me to return kicks and I
(33:11):
was in the quarterback room mysophomore year.
Todd left for the draft andended up getting drafted in the
first round by the Raiders.
And so now me and a guy, we'recompeting for the starting job
in the spring and in the summer,but what ended up happening was
SC, because we were bothathletic, for the starting job
in the spring and in the summer.
But what ended up happening wasSC, because we were both
athletic, they wanted us to runthe option.
(33:35):
And everybody just assumed,because I had a lot of rushing
yards, I was an optionquarterback, and you can't go
anywhere in my high school filmand find me running the option.
Right, right, I was themodern-day quarterback.
Now I was the guy that droppedback and I was fast enough and
had the mobility enough to breakthe pocket and make things
happen.
And so when I got to SC, ofcourse my sophomore year they
(33:59):
wanted to run the option andtrue story.
I remember after the ArizonaState game I scored on the
option play.
That kind of solidified me.
I remember after the ArizonaState game I scored on the
option play.
That kind of solidified me andI went to the office of
coordinator and I told him Ididn't want to play quarterback.
Tushar Saxena (34:15):
Oh, that's interesting.
Curtis Conway (34:16):
And he said why Like you could be an all-PAC-10
quarterback.
And I said, well, I've seen thelikes of Jamel Holloway Turner.
Larry Samuels (34:24):
Gill Right, right , yeah, I remember those guys.
Major Harris, yeah, I rememberthose guys Major.
Curtis Conway (34:27):
Harris.
Larry Samuels (34:28):
Yeah.
Curtis Conway (34:28):
I saw these guys be man amazing, and they didn't
get a shot at the pros.
I'm like that's not going to beme.
And he was.
So you know, of course, at thispoint your quarterback is
telling you he don't want toplay, he want to do something
else.
And so for weeks he kept tryingto get me to play.
(34:49):
Of course I was playing, but Iwas uh reluctant and uh, finally
, by mid-season, um, and mindyou, we're still me and the
other quarterback, we're stillgoing back and forth.
Nobody has solidified the job,but I was.
I was out there and theywouldn't put me in other
positions, but I was still ableto return kicks because I was
really good as a freshman.
So you couldn't take me off akickoff return or punt return.
(35:10):
So, long story short, I runback a punt return for a
touchdown against Stafford andyou know, all of a sudden I go
in the meeting room and I waslike I want to play.
Wide receiver Coach was indenial, like no, no, no.
And so so I told him I'm gonnatransfer if I don't, if I don't
move.
Larry Samuels (35:29):
Oh wow, I was wondering what leverage you had
for these conversations, so you?
Curtis Conway (35:33):
pulled that you're gonna transfer to
nebraska well, I told him I wasgonna transfer and, uh, he
thought I was playing.
So, uh, he ended up calling mygrandmother and my grandmother
said man curtis has been makinghis own decisions since he was
14.
You're talking to the wrongperson.
If he decides he's going toleave, trust me, he's going to
leave.
And what ended up happening was,two weeks later, they moved me
(35:57):
to wide receiver and I wasprobably like the fourth or
fifth wide receiver, and you cantell that they were trying to
make it tough on me.
Oh, interesting, yeah, becauseit would have been easy for me
to go back to quarterback andget on the field.
But again, I'm the ultimatecompetitor.
And that's when I had friendsin front of me, that you know,
and I was just like, come on,man, in my mind these guys are
(36:19):
not better than me, even thoughthey've been playing receiver in
high school and this is myfirst time playing wide receiver
.
Larry Samuels (36:29):
And first time playing wide receiver, and you
know a couple weeks, I was astarter.
Wow, how are they making?
Making it difficult for it for?
Curtis Conway (36:33):
you?
Were they sabotaging yousomehow?
Well, you know that widereceiver is up for the.
The quarterback has to get youthe ball.
So they, you know, I I don'tthink they were trying to
sabotage me.
I I think in my own mindbecause I felt like if they
wasn't throwing me the ball, oh,they want me to play
quarterback.
That was my mindset.
But it was a lot of times I wasopening, I wasn't getting the
(36:55):
ball and I was like, come on,and I'm a quarterback, so I know
where the ball should go.
I was just back there, right,you know.
So I was a little I, I was alittle menace for a second, I
would say that, but it ended upworking out.
You know, a lot of people don'trealize, man, I only played
wide receiver a year and a halfat USC.
(37:16):
That's amazing and I was justshowing my son the other day
that somebody sent me somethingwhere they were talking about me
.
If I would have stayed inschool, I definitely would have
been up for the Heisman goinginto my senior year.
So you know, I played a yearand a half I ain't going to say
a whole year and a half, I'llsay a year and a couple games at
(37:36):
wide receiver and left schoolas a true junior.
And you know, was a top tenpick, number one wide receiver
taken.
So again, it was just football.
It had nothing to do with theNFL.
It was like okay, you thinkthis guy is better than me,
let's compete.
When we got on the field, itdidn't matter who we were
playing in, it didn't matterLike I didn't even take a lot of
stock in.
(37:56):
Oh, this guy is an All-Americancornerback, we're playing
against this defense.
None of that ever mattered tome.
You got to remember.
My mindset was these guys aremy age or maybe three or four
years older.
They didn't.
My mind was my conditions as akid was way worse than any
organized football game couldever be.
(38:17):
So I was never afraid ofanything and I've always, in my
mind, felt like I was going tosucceed because I had that
competitive drive and I feltlike I've already been in the
worst conditions that I can bein.
Like I said, there's no cementthere.
I got a uniform on this guy.
Yeah, this guy is my size andI'm 19,.
(38:37):
He's 20.
Like that's how I approachthings, so it didn't really
matter if you were all Americanat my age, you my age and I'm an
all-American, so good luck foryou.
Larry Shea (38:49):
You're built for this.
Somebody better pray for you.
Tushar Saxena (38:51):
Yeah, somebody better pray for you.
Curtis Conway (38:52):
That's right.
Tushar Saxena (38:53):
All right.
So I mean, obviously thispodcast is about trying to give
advice to others, and all we'vedone thus far is talk about your
life, which is justunbelievably fascinating, beyond
belief.
So the one thing that I thinkwe can all kind of take away
from this is just your puredetermination, like your inner
drive, and your puredetermination, no-transcript.
Curtis Conway (39:42):
That's.
There's nothing other than that.
What does Kobe always talkabout?
The Mamba mentality had nothingto do with his talent.
Remember Kobe said I remembersomething where I saw Kobe said
that in high school they had himranked 50-something.
So in his mind he was like whoare these guys in front of me?
And every time he playedagainst him he went at him.
(40:03):
Think about the mentality thatKobe had.
Rememberordan got cut in highschool.
Yeah, he wasn't.
So look at his chip on hisshoulder.
Remember tom brady was asix-round draft pick so
everybody just assumed a greatathlete as a kid.
Because he's talented, it'sgonna be that man.
No like.
If it ain't in you, it's justnot in you.
(40:25):
I've seen I mean I've grew upwith some of the most talented
athletic people, but they didn'tlove it.
If it ain't in you, it's justnot in you.
I've seen.
I mean I've grew up with someof the most talented athletic
people but they didn't love itenough.
It wasn't.
It didn't mean enough to them.
You know it meant a lot to TomBrady.
It meant a lot to MichaelJordan.
It meant a lot to Kobe.
Had nothing to do with ourphysical gifts.
God blessed us with somephysical tools that we were able
to work with man.
But everything you do is aboutmentality and how you approach
(40:49):
it and the will and what are youwilling to do when the chips
are down, because in everythingyou do in life, you're going to
have some times where things arenot going good.
What keeps you in, that keepsyou in that field, is the fact
that you love it.
I tell people all the time.
I can tell if you love it ornot.
(41:09):
Like everything I told you,everything I did centered around
if I had to build a house andyou said I couldn't play
football if I didn't build ahouse, I was going to build that
house.
That's how much I love.
Like you couldn't keep me offthe field.
That's just what it was If youwere like and that I believe
that is the driving force.
(41:29):
Some people will get away withtalent, but the ultimate goal,
the ultimate, the real dudes man, trust me, they got something
in them.
You can't teach.
It has to be in there alreadyand unfortunately, a lot of
people can can say a lot ofthings and try to motivate
people and if you train hard Iknow people who train harder
(41:51):
than most people and stilldidn't make it.
The advice I would give peopleis find something you love.
Don't find something you like.
Don't find something that makea lot of money, because in this
country we're so that the richis the way of life, so
everybody's trying to like.
In my community, everybody wantsto be the athlete, everybody
wants to be the rapper,everybody wants to do these
(42:13):
things.
Man, find out what you reallylove and be the best at that,
because everything else, man,there's going to come times
where, if you in it for themoney or if you in it for the
fame, man, it's going to betimes where it man, it don't
feel too good and you knowyou're going to have to be able
to fight through it, and that'sjust spirit and mentality right
(42:35):
there.
It has nothing to do with howfast you can run or how you can
jump, how many touchdowns youscored, man.
Or can you go out there andplay when you're injured, you
know?
Can you go out there and playwhen a coach is telling you you
know we just drafted this guy atwide receiver, we need you to
help him out Like people don'treally understand that about.
You know professional sports,especially football.
(42:57):
You know you're supposed tohave this mentality of oh, we're
a team sport, okay, they draftthe receiver, and then the coach
is telling you, curtis, you gotto get him up to speed.
So you're teaching a guy totake money out of your pocket.
Think about that for a second.
We need him to help the team,curtis.
So you got to bring him up tospeed, you got to teach him the
ropes.
So after you show the guyeverything you know, you look
(43:21):
him in the eye and say, bro,you're still not going to take
my job, I'm still competing,which?
Larry Samuels (43:27):
theoretically makes both of you better, I
guess.
Curtis Conway (43:30):
Yeah, again, pray for me.
Tushar Saxena (43:34):
You're not getting my job.
Larry Samuels (43:35):
You know what I'm saying, so again that was my
mentality.
Curtis Conway (43:38):
So it still comes down to a mentality, because
you always got young talentcoming up trying to take your
job and you know you got to bewilling to go out there and
fight through a lot of stuff,man.
So Will, for me, is number one.
And you know you got to bewilling to go out there and
fight through a lot of stuff,man.
So, um, will for me is numberone, will for me is number one.
Um, I like to tell people, youknow, get in a quiet space and
(43:59):
just find what you like.
What do you love to do?
Naturally, take the money outof it because, again, like I
told you guys, it was neverabout money, it was never.
I played more basketball, Iwatched more basketball.
I had more, I liked morebasketball players than I did
football.
I didn't even really watchfootball, I was always about
basketball, but I love to playfootball, if that makes any
(44:23):
sense.
Tushar Saxena (44:24):
I just love to play football.
I didn't care, Absolutely yeah.
Curtis Conway (44:27):
I didn't care about watching it, I wanted to
play football.
I didn't care.
Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't care about watching it, I wanted to play it.
If I watched one series offootball, I'm going outside with
my football trying to round upeverybody.
I loved it.
You know that was in me.
So, um, I can sit up here allday and fluff it, man, but I
know for me, I can speak formyself and a lot of guys.
(44:47):
Man, you got to have some kindof mentality.
You got to have some kind ofmentality, you got to have some
kind of drive and ultimately,you got to love what you do, to
be the best, and only becausethere's going to be times where
you fail.
What are you going to do inthose moments when it's not good
?
And most people you know,everybody, say everybody.
I tell people this all the timeeverybody want to make it to
the NFL, aspn.
(45:08):
They show highlights.
They don't show the guystraining on the offseason,
throwing up on the sidelinewhile they're training.
Nobody gets to see none of thehard work.
You know, thank God for thecameras now so you can see these
guys, the work that they put inon the offseason.
But, man, this stuff it's noteasy.
It's not easy at all.
And again, you know, astalented as you can be, if you
(45:32):
don't have that inner drive tosay man, I'm going out here no
matter what.
Oh, you trying to take my job?
Okay, these are your teammatesthat you're still competing with
every day.
Larry Shea (45:42):
Iron sharpens iron right.
I mean, that's the way it is.
This seems like a great time totalk about losing, like not
succeeding.
I mean, you know you're talkingto three hosts right here who
just had our fandom footballteam's asses kicked this past
weekend, so we're all lickingour wounds a little bit and it's
hard, like as a fan, to likelose and watch your team lose.
(46:06):
How is that, as a player, Doyou get over it?
How long does it take?
What do you do?
I mean, this is your livelihood, or is it?
Hey, this is a job.
I got to turn the page, getbetter and move on and try.
Try a different way or work alittle harder.
Like what is the mentalitythere?
Curtis Conway (46:24):
Um, I can only speak for myself.
Um, without putting any namesout there, I've played with
players that really didn't care.
Man, they're getting a paycheck.
Larry Shea (46:33):
Yeah.
Curtis Conway (46:34):
You know, a lot of people drive is the money,
like I said, and they'retalented enough to make it.
Like I said before, I'm acompetitor and I'm a sore loser,
so I always wore it on myshoulders.
If we lost to a team, you bestbelieve I was trying to get them
back.
I would even develop some kindof hatred in my own mind because
I know it's just a game and weshaking hands afterwards, and
(46:58):
you know.
But for me, you know, I had todevelop some kind of negative
something to you, um, becauseyou beat me yeah, that was.
Larry Shea (47:09):
That was the Jordan thing.
Right, he used to get mad atsomeone on the other team and
make a story up.
Curtis Conway (47:14):
Whatever it was didn't have to be true, yeah
exactly, I didn't know that, butman, that's, that's what it is.
It's like, wait a minute, theybeat us, they got the upper hand
, like I, you know, and I hadsome pretty bad seasons in
Chicago.
But, man, you don.
Man, you start to hate theother team, no matter who's on
(47:36):
the team, you hate them.
It's not until the offseasonwhere you can kind of digress a
little bit and get over it.
But especially when you'replaying teams in your division,
if you lose to them the firsttime and you've got another
opportunity to play them, man,it's like the Super Bowl, of
course.
Larry Samuels (47:49):
It's like the Super Bowl, Of course.
Curtis Conway (47:50):
It's like wait, y'all beat us to laugh.
Oh man, y'all not doing it, Idon't care, I got to play
against everybody.
You know it's that mentality.
So I will say, man, losing it'stough man.
And I've been on teams whereour leaders, some guys, would be
on the back of the planelaughing and talking like we
didn't lose.
And you know, you got someplayers that go back in the back
(48:12):
and have a word or two andmaybe a hand or two Like how are
y'all back here acting like wedidn't just lose?
And you know.
So you're talking 53 differentpersonalities.
You know, on a plane ride,after a loss, everybody is
different.
Larry Samuels (48:32):
So, like I said, for me, man, it you know, don't
call me, don't talk to me, youknow and don't let me have a bad
game.
Yep, and that's why you became agreat player.
That wraps up this best ofedition of no Wrong Choices with
Curtis Conway.
What a story.
If you'd like to hear the restof it, part two is available
right now, wherever you'relistening, or on our website at
norongchoicescom.
On behalf of Larry Shea TusharSaxena and me, larry Samuels.
(48:57):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you liked what you heard,please support the show by
following us on your favoritepodcast platform, while giving
us a five-star rating.
You can also follow us onLinkedIn, instagram, facebook,
youtube and Threads simply bysearching for no Wrong Choices.
Thank you again for listening.
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