Life Doesn’t Hand Out Participation Trophies | Ep. 123 with NFL Kicker Jake Arians
As football season kicks off, we have the perfect guest to dive deep into everything football. Today, we welcome Jake Arians to the No Grey Areas Podcast. He was a former NFL kicker for the Buffalo Bills and the son of Super Bowl–winning coach Bruce Arians.
Arians shares his journey from picking up football for the first time in 7th grade to earning respect as more than “just a kicker.” Growing up with a coach for a father meant constant moves, hard lessons, and a front-row seat to the game at every level.
Jake walks us through the highest and lowest moments of his career, the difference between being a coordinator and a head coach, and why emotional intelligence is one of the most important qualities in a leader. He shares why sports are one of the best teachers for kids, how “coaching hard and hugging later” earns lasting respect, and why life doesn’t hand out participation trophies. His perspective on hard work, sacrifice, and resilience offers lessons far beyond the field.
WEBSITE: https://www.nogreyareaspodcast.com/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/nogreyareas_gagliano/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/NoGreyAreas
TIK TOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@nogreyareasgagliano
EMAIL: info@nogreyareas.com
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnC2rjEumGJhqy54qazFFw
No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at https://www.nogreyareas.com/
Transcript
Speaker 1
To kick football season off, we have the perfect guest Jake Arians, former NFL kicker and son of Super Bowl winning coach Bruce Arians. Who knows firsthand what it takes to earn respect in the game. In this episode, he talks about leadership, emotional intelligence, the highs and lows of his career, why hard work and sacrifice always pay off. Let's get started.
::Speaker 1
Jake. Aryan, thank you so much for being on the No Gray Areas podcast. You probably hear this all the time, but I feel like I'm looking across the table at your dad.
::Speaker 2
Only if I do this right. You only ever see, like. Yeah. Oh. The place, you know, your eyes.
::Speaker 1
ith my. My dad passed away in: ::Speaker 1
It's like I'm looking at him on TV.
::Speaker 2
I hope that's a good thing. It's pretty intense. It's pretty intense sometimes when you're only seeing him on TV. Well,
::Speaker 2
you.
::Speaker 1
Really saw the intense side of him. Probably, right?
::Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
::Speaker 1
Father son.
::Speaker 1
Like, you.
::Speaker 2
Know, it's funny you don't. That never came home.
::Speaker 2
Really? The coach? I don't know why, but that didn't. He was his dad,
::Speaker 2
so like, he got intense. Yeah. That's pissing off my mom or being a little turd or, you know, whatever. Yeah, but no, I mean that that coach that you see on TV is not the dad is actually quite an introvert, and he's pretty quiet.
::Speaker 2
hen he took over for Chuck in: ::Speaker 2
going to his first press conference, I was like many shy. How's it going to go? Yeah,
::Speaker 2
had him eating out the palm of his hand. What you've seen, you know.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.: ::Speaker 1
Where you at? And you have siblings, right,
::Speaker 1
little sister? Okay. You have a little sister. So you're the oldest? I am
::Speaker 1
okay by quite a bit.
::Speaker 1
Three years. Three years. Okay.
::Speaker 1
All right. So you and your sister grew up football.
::Speaker 2
That's it. That's that's live and die. That's how we
::Speaker 2
know.
::Speaker 1
You played at every level,
::Speaker 1
which
::Speaker 1
very, very, very few of us get to say. I love sports. When I was younger but didn't have the skill to play at every level. Just
::Speaker 1
jumping right into our podcast here. What was the high point and low point of your career? Playing every level. Football. You made it to the pros. High point, low point.
::Speaker 2
I'll answer it quick and then I'll say my high point was actually something else. But my high point was I wanted to play ten years in the NFL. Yeah. And I have a sports center moment in those days. Remember, Sports Center was just rolled all morning, right? So I wanted to wake up a watch, whatever that was. If I was on it.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. All day. Yeah. I kick the game winner in Jacksonville on Thursday Night Football and is still on ESPN. So my dad wasn't playing. He got to watch. That story's awesome. My friends you know that. Everybody got to watch the only game on. And then Friday morning we're back in Buffalo and I watch sports on there like nine times.
::Speaker 2
Yeah because I let it off and ended it. I was like, this is the greatest. That was.
::Speaker 1
Your dream. And you you did it. Yep.
::Speaker 2
The worst moment came six weeks later because I played my entire season in Buffalo, injured. I had trauma, growing tendon off my pelvis, coaches, kids. You trying to do whatever you're told right to the trainers say to the coaches, say, and I shouldn't have been playing at this mangled. So by the time I got cut six weeks later
::Speaker 2
trying like I didn't care at like for him at that point it was just whatever doesn't hurt.
::Speaker 2
So I'm going to kick today. It was that bad, and got released. And that was probably the lowest point I'm getting released from. An NFL team should not be the lowest point of your career, I don't think. I mean, I still pretty awesome thing. I mean, it's heartbreaking the time because you got there. But like there should have been some other stuff that was probably worse.
::Speaker 2
I still can't think of anything that's technically worse than that. The high point, though, rewinding that is actually
::Speaker 2
that's probably the high point. But another one that I wanted to mention is that the last kick of my college career, the game ended. So we're in overtime at Tulane. I played at UAB in Birmingham. I kick a 38 yard game winner in the game and season ends.
::Speaker 2
My career ends.
::Speaker 1
how you walk off the field.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, like I don't know that I got to go to the NFL. I remember being in the locker room going, dude, if that was it.
::Speaker 1
That's the way to go out. Wow. Yeah.
::Speaker 2
Like what more could you ask for? I
::Speaker 2
get emotional with that one.
::Speaker 1
Oh man.
::Speaker 2
It was awesome.
::Speaker 1
I can see why that you you earned that emotion for sure. You know, I always wondered what it would feel like because, again, not at that level, but I coached in my 20s in high school.
::Speaker 1
And, I remember the last year that I coached the soccer team I was coaching, we went undefeated, winning the state championship game, played the team that we'd beaten twice that year.
::Speaker 1
But they were good and we lost in double overtime. I've always wondered, I've always been like, I just want to know what it feels like to walk off the field. And you didn't feel that the pain of a loss all season. I know I won't ever feel that. I won't ever feel that. But you, that's kind of what you
::Speaker 1
decide is your point.
::Speaker 2
On on the flip side of that, as a coach's kid. Yeah, winning the Super Bowl, seeing your dad do that and then losing one.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. One two with Pittsburgh lost one in Pittsburgh and then ends up winning one as head coach. I mean, that was just stupid. How awesome that was. The confetti coming down. Yeah. You're like, wow, this is what this feels like.
::Speaker 2
hat. Walking out of Dallas in: ::Speaker 2
Yeah ever. So to your point it was just yeah my high school team actually went 30 zero on Tuesday championships when I moved from Kansas City to start well Mississippi and up being a huge blessing in disguise. You don't think that's going to be a blessing from Kansas City to start? Well, Mississippi, nine guys off my high school team were in NFL training camp for my second year in the NFL.
::Speaker 2
You're 22 D1 scholarships. I mean, we were unbelievable. So I know, I know that feeling.
::Speaker 1
You
::Speaker 1
feel that in high school and college.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. That's going to win a lot of games in college when we were great. But that that last game of yeah, you know, I mean I was that was pretty spectacular.
::Speaker 1
Let me jump back to something you just said, because I've always wondered about this, the firing
::Speaker 1
because you said, like.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, when my dad would get fired, and. And that's just part of
::Speaker 1
if you're a head coach or a coach.
::Speaker 2
Coach, period. Yeah. Head coach gets fired. The whole staff gets, right. Yeah.
::Speaker 2
you might not done anything wrong, but like my dad always says, I've been fired 12, 15 times. No you haven't. Like, you been fired as head coach. Yeah. At temple. Yeah. Other guys got fired. You were working with. But
::Speaker 2
you have fired too.
::Speaker 1
That's something those guys have
::Speaker 1
work through or to learn to live with.
::Speaker 2
yeah, I mean I there's a bunch of young coaches that I work with now deal with it. I've seen promotion, promotion, promotion promotion coordinator in the NFL 40 fired. Assistant coach fired. Head coach gets fired. Demotion. And they're thinking they should still be a coordinator. They had never gone through that. Yeah. Coming up through the ranks they they struggle with it big time.
::Speaker 2
Yeah they can but it's part of coaching.
::Speaker 2
we talk about it so casually because it's just part of life.
::Speaker 2
you get fired. And I didn't realize my entire life that normal people don't get fired like this. Like my dad's never been fired. Your dad was fired ten times. He must be terrible this job. Well, they're very different jobs.
::Speaker 2
I realize later in life. But, like, Black Monday is the worst thing ever. Yeah. The Monday when the season ends and everybody's getting whacked, GM coaches, assistant coaches, whatever. I remind people every year when I had podcast, we're on Twitter or whatever, like these people have families. Yeah. You all think you're armchair quarterbacks. You're all, you know, you're giving them a column, every name in the book on Sunday.
::Speaker 2
Nobody realizes the hours that these guys work or the passion that goes into it. But when they get fired that Monday and you're cheering about it, they gotta go with other kids. Yep.
::Speaker 2
Hey, we're moving again. They're going to tell their wife like that is. Yeah. It's it's traumatic to a family for sure. I got pretty lucky. I went elementary school one plays middle school one plays high school pretty much one place I moved the middle of ninth grade.
::Speaker 1
You really? Because I was going to ask.
::Speaker 2
the second time in Annapolis,: ::Speaker 2
I mean, have that. Oh, man. I'm a teenage girl in high school having move. Yeah. And three of them have Starkville, Mississippi to New Orleans to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Yeah. And your dad is a prominent coach at the university, especially from Alabama, Mississippi State, like he was at the Saints when we were in New Orleans. It wasn't that big a deal for her, but, I didn't realize at the time it it was it was horrible for her.
::Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.
::Speaker 1
I mean, that's a tough time in people's lives,
::Speaker 1
no matter what. Yeah,
::Speaker 1
but then to have to move like that, what do you think you learned? Some valuable life lessons in,
::Speaker 1
watching your dad have to navigate the highs and lows of coaching,
::Speaker 1
no doubt.
::Speaker 2
I mean, I think the he's not a man like a man of many words. And there hasn't been a lot of, like, true things that stick out. There's been a couple. But the biggest thing I remember is being in high school and him saying, never, Burbridge. You never know when you have to walk back across it
::Speaker 2
that never.
::Speaker 1
Been a bridge
::Speaker 1
because you never know when you got to walk back across it.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
that one was big because like that stick that sticks with you like the coaching fraternity is small. You never know when you're going to have to call that guy back and beg for a job. That's how you feed your family like that was. That would always stuck with me.
::Speaker 2
Now I think he got to the point where he probably wants to burn some now, and he might just bury that and let it go.
::Speaker 2
He might not. You never know with him because he's he's bulletproof now. He's kind of honest. He can do whatever he wants to do. Depending on the show. He might they might let it fly. But yeah, some of those stories of like, you know, getting wronged but not burn that bridge because, you know, that's literally how you feed your family.
::Speaker 1
That's got to be so difficult, though.
::Speaker 2
Oh, it's it's it's tough.
::Speaker 1
So that
::Speaker 1
was that difficult for it. Like, did you know some of those times where he was wronged as a kid or way too young to know?
::Speaker 2
I knew a lot of them.
::Speaker 1
So you knew. Yeah. That's going to be hard for you as a kid then.
::Speaker 2
Like, yeah, I mean, the people that did it still are my favorite people today. They don't really affect my life at all, but they did at the time. So you're like, yeah, I probably know too much, you know, been around this game for for 47 years. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough. It's an interesting business.
::Speaker 2
Something I never thought I wouldn't be in. And I haven't been in really, since I got done playing. I mean, the agent side taking care of all his stuff, but, never beat the bullet and jumped into coaching. Yeah, and it's probably because
::Speaker 2
I didn't want to have to go home and tell my family were moving every, every 2 or 3 years whatever is.
::Speaker 1
you said you're still like you watch the game different than most people.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. See it different than everybody else.
::Speaker 2
I've been.
::Speaker 1
Around
::Speaker 1
some of that. Your personality or is that more growing up with your dad or a little bit of both?
::Speaker 2
I mean, the cool thing with me and my sister didn't get to do as well was I was in locker rooms and like, you know, the basket by basketball experience in life was going to practice with John Chaney at Temple because my dad was upstairs coach and I just walked out of the gym. That's crazy. Go. Chaney was cool enough to let me hang out there.
::Speaker 2
Going to sweet 16 playing Duke. Yeah, and Mark making those guys back in the day. I'm like, this is my my experience.
::Speaker 1
Wow.
::Speaker 2
My first job was with the Kansas City Chiefs going to training camp at River falls, Wisconsin. Marty Schottenheimer, Herman Edwards, Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher, my dad, Joe Pendry, Howard Mudd, that's the staff.
::Speaker 2
Wow.
::Speaker 1
That was just like a is listed Hall of Famers.
::Speaker 2
There Derrick Thomas, Christian Okoye Barry Word Neal Smith those were the guys on the team. I'm still close with a bunch of them now. Yeah, but I mean, I'm going in the ninth grade. It's the summer after my eighth grade year, like you're and I'm there for six weeks, two a days work and 17 hours a day.
::Speaker 2
My mom's like, I want to be great. You got to spend time with your dad. We had dinner together every night, and I never saw him.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
For six weeks. Yeah. Having dinner together was rare anyway, but, like, you know, hang out for five minutes for practice. I'm doing laundry three times a day, working 17 hour days. He's working 20 hour days because Marty Schottenheimer training camp for two days. For six weeks. It's not the stuff these guys have now or no back to back two days and a one day off a week.
::Speaker 2
It was
::Speaker 2
yeah, going in ninth grade. Yeah. So yeah, I mean I see a different I've been around you.
::Speaker 1
At that time. You said you were going, I.
::Speaker 2
Was going in ninth grade going in.
::Speaker 1
The ninth.
::Speaker 2
14, 13. Oh Brian Schottenheimer, funny enough, was kind of me. But he was like five years older than me. So he was kind of like graduating from being the ball boy and leaving. He was going to Kansas. He's a big star quarterback and, I kind of took his place. So it's awesome to see him get his head shot.
::Speaker 2
Now with Cowboys. Great guy. I'm happy too. Happy self for him.
::Speaker 1
Yeah,
::Speaker 1
yeah.
::Speaker 1
have you seen the game change over. Because again you're growing up your coaches kid. You're really seeing the inside of the game and every game morphs.
::Speaker 1
How have you seen it change. And is it for the better?
::Speaker 2
It's interesting. We're talking NFL, we're talking college. The NFL game has to start.
::Speaker 1
With NFL first.
::Speaker 2
Yeah it's changed but not a ton more. The rules have really benefited the passing game. It's not as much run although Philly just proved you can still run it play good defense. Yeah kick people's ass you know and and beat them up. And that's still a recipe I think that always be a recipe for winning. But the rules have changed a ban Marino played today.
::Speaker 2
He's the one for: ::Speaker 1
Just were different because you
::Speaker 1
used his name. Because I just read Reese, I think it was Joe Montana who said that Dan Marino was one of the most underrated quarterbacks of all time and was saying.
::Speaker 2
Well, there's the Goat conversation, and then there's the boat conversation. There's two different lists. Yeah, very few are on both. But if you're talking about the best of all time spent in a football playing the quarterback position, he's top three no matter what. But he never won the Super Bowl. So like the Goat conversation gets gets changed.
::Speaker 1
But to your point, if he played today because of the style of his game
::Speaker 1
yeah quick
::Speaker 1
he could throw and everything
::Speaker 1
just released.
::Speaker 2
He was he was a you know one of those guys that changed the NFL at that time. So the rules have played into that. Yeah. It's still get your best athletes in space. Do what you got to do another college game in the high school game. Completely different going from run the football read option two. They still run the read option.
::Speaker 2
People don't realize the shotgun stuff is really all the jet suites. It's that's just all the stuff that Navy's been running forever that we all ran in high school back in the day. It's just done a shotgun in a different way. But it's still, you know, take a third of the field away, maybe half the field away from the quarterback.
::Speaker 2
The thing that drives me crazy with this is, though, I played quarterback until I realized my mom, if I have one, I probably need to do something else. So I started kicking full time. I'm only going to be five. Ten was they don't call play in the huddle. They don't change the play at the line of scrimmage in high school or in college anymore.
::Speaker 2
I mean, Jared Goff on hard knocks had never been in a puddle and call it a play in the huddle.
::Speaker 2
I mean it as good as he is now and he's a phenomenal leader, phenomenal quarterback. That was the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen him trying to regurgitate a play in the huddle and is on hard knocks like, I wish that for him, that had never happened.
::Speaker 2
He'd never been in one
::Speaker 2
until he got in the NFL, and that's happens all the time now. There's offensive linemen that have never been a three point stance. They get drafted in the NFL.
::Speaker 2
Wow. Like
::Speaker 2
that partial like college high school has changed a ton. And now you know.
::Speaker 1
And
::Speaker 1
how do you think that since then.
::Speaker 2
Now
::Speaker 2
I'm okay with denial but you can't have the knee. And I'll and the portal at the same time. You can't coach anybody anymore. At the end of the day, 1% of them are going to the NFL. Yeah, you might make some money while you're in college now, but a coach's, you were a coach. Your biggest duty is to help a young man become a man, learn a life lesson, become a better person.
::Speaker 2
Let me say,
::Speaker 2
the person I think is doing the best job of now they can actually get on his players hard as Dion, his coach prime, he gets on their ass. Yeah, but he does it in a way where you're not cussing. There's a respect factor there. Yeah. My dad I think I couldn't coach today. Yeah. And all the guys I talk to Nate are young.
::Speaker 2
Like
::Speaker 2
you mess up. Well they're off the field.
::Speaker 1
Because.
::Speaker 2
They're going to get on that kid. And he's like, I'm transferring.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
There's no accountability.
::Speaker 1
That's what I've heard. Yeah. And that's too bad isn't it. Because that's part of the the whole purpose of the sport. Because to your point, if only 1% of them are going to play at the next level, then then what? Are you training these the other
::Speaker 1
night and make.
::Speaker 2
Sure they get their college degree and they're ready for life afterwards? A lot of them don't have dads. You're that father, their father. Figure them be that. But you can't. Yeah. Because they're they're also babied. They can just transfer with the portal. So like if you're going to pay them ahead and I0I think the portal should go back to you.
::Speaker 2
You have to sit out a year if you're going to transfer one of the two I I'm big on you can't have both open the way that is now. That's changed the game too much
::Speaker 2
because.
::Speaker 1
They're just they're able to just jump around all they
::Speaker 1
want.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. It's just it's just I mean, I think I saw.
::Speaker 1
Some as a coach.
::Speaker 2
One quarterback that won a bowl game this year was at the same school he started at one. There's like 50 bowl games. Yeah like this.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
guy can't be the case I remember guys man. Oh man. We got this transfer. Well, that means he screwed up. Yeah. Whoever he went.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
And you and you had to transfer after that.
::Speaker 1
Yeah,
::Speaker 1
Hey, we hope you've enjoyed this episode so far. Be sure to like and subscribe to not miss a future podcast! Okay, let's get back to the episode.
::Speaker 1
So, you were talking about how good you can.
::Speaker 1
see things before they happen. Like, you could pick games. You don't gamble.
::Speaker 2
You said
::Speaker 2
I don't, but I picked them for the last 11 years. We pretty successfully. Yeah. Whether behind the scenes or on a podcast that I used to have. Yeah.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
So why would you pick them just for.
::Speaker 2
I started doing it for the podcast and then I've been a source for a buddy of mine is a big prominent writer in the country. He had to start you know, putting them out. And, so he calls me every week on Tuesdays. We've been really successful. So before injury reports come out.
::Speaker 2
Yeah,
::Speaker 2
all that kind of stuff.
::Speaker 1
So
::Speaker 1
what would be the difference between you and me picking a game. Why would you be so much better? Because
::Speaker 1
it's throw myself under the
::Speaker 1
bus. I'm not good at it.
::Speaker 1
I have some buddies that gamble and they'll call me up sometimes and they're like, we just want to find out who you would pick.
::Speaker 1
So we know that we went
::Speaker 1
with you.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
We're getting the.
::Speaker 2
Right, experience and no loyalty.
::Speaker 2
I mean, every time we got fired, you throw all that, so you give that stuff away. Goodwill's get a big pile of, you know, whatever that is. We get new gear whenever we get to that town. Everyone's like, what's your favorite team? I was like, I played at UAB and I was born in Virginia and at Virginia Tech and Blacksburg.
::Speaker 2
That's it.
::Speaker 1
So you really have no loyalty when you're picking you're
::Speaker 1
not.
::Speaker 2
Dan Marino is my favorite player. But I'm over the Dolphins. Like that's just never been there. So I have no. And I'd never pick my dad's games. So like that was because I didn't want to have that. Yeah. But that's. Yeah, I mean I just, I think experience I just, I think the people that I've been around, which are such a high level and playing it at a high level and just soaking a lot up and I think playing a lot of different positions,
::Speaker 2
playing the quarterback position for a long time allows you to see things a little bit there.
::Speaker 1
You
::Speaker 1
played quarterback in like junior high, high school.
::Speaker 2
Junior high school. Yeah. To like my so
::Speaker 2
7 or 8 ninth I never came off the field. And as big as high school in Missouri and least some at time quarterback safety kicked off, punted, punt return, whatever. I moved to start with Mississippi that freshman year, and I got to go out for spring ball and it's varsity.
::Speaker 2
I'm like five 408 pounds, soaking wet, whatever it was. And I'm like, dude, these are grown men. I just watched the dude bench. 315 in there was play playing nose tackle. Right. This this. I think I'm going to focus on kicking a little bit. Yeah. So it's kind of our Morgan pregnancy quarterback like I graduate high school 165 played my sophomore year in college at 205.
::Speaker 2
Like I needed that. I was a three sport athlete and never went through an offseason program. So once I did, I gained that 40 pounds. Yeah, yeah. And I needed that. Then, like, I wish I to play college. I
::Speaker 2
wish I played high school baseball one year later, gaining that that 30 pounds as a catcher. But just the power, the strength, the stuff that came along with that.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, was pretty awesome. But yeah, I wasn't ready,
::Speaker 2
especially when I talk about how good the team was. Yeah. I mean, one, I want to play quarterback. Both of those are D1 scholarships. One was a first round pick, the green Bay Packers Antoine Edwards. Wow. Years later, at playing safety. But
::Speaker 2
I think all those experiences, the people that I've been around, I just I just see it different.
::Speaker 1
How about the the the head game. Because again you did quarterback and kicking in both of those positions. There's a lot of times where the ball's in your hand, you're winning, losing this.
::Speaker 2
Game
::Speaker 2
and catching it. So that's why I love playing baseball. Probably the most fun I've ever had because you control the game. Yeah. These guys you're calling.
::Speaker 1
This all
::Speaker 1
three of those positions.
::Speaker 2
It's funny because I hate kickers. My dad hated kickers, I became one. I always said I was an athlete that happened to kick.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
So Chris Brown that kicked in Nebraska before that kind of same era as me playing NFL for a long time was kind of one of those guys I really looked up to. I was watching him play maybe his freshman year.
::Speaker 2
I was maybe a junior in high school. Nebraska's playing that really good
::Speaker 2
like late 90s. So like mid 90s. And they're like, man, he ran a 4 or 5. He lives with these guys in the offseason like that. He has respect for his teammates as an athlete and I'm like, that's me. If I got a kick, I'm gonna be an athlete.
::Speaker 2
That happens again. So I really looked up to him. He was an emergency quarterback rent option, high school, that kind of stuff. And I was like, all right, so I train with linebackers and safeties and get hurt doing stuff in the offseason a couple times, but I had the respect of my teammates before I had to go do my job.
::Speaker 2
I also read stuff about the San Francisco 40 Niners win a Super Bowl in the 90s, and the kicker and punter. The team voted not to get Super Bowl rings, then up getting them. But they went. They went to practice and they went play golf every day
::Speaker 2
that their teammates didn't see them as one of them.
::Speaker 1
I never saw
::Speaker 1
the team actually was voting. You see they don't get
::Speaker 1
rings.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, they get the end up getting them. They didn't listen to them. But like players went and said no. And I'm like, that's never going to be me. I'm an athlete. I'm one of your teammates. If we have 5:00 in the morning drills in college, I'm they're working as hard as anybody else.
::Speaker 2
Then if I go kick a game winner, I'm one of the guy.
::Speaker 2
I was already seen as one of them. And if you missed that game winner, which I thank God I never did. It was okay, it wasn't I. It's freaking kicker. Yeah, yeah, I just, I that was never my thing. Yeah. But that that I think all of that because you wanted to play quarterback. You want to play, you wanted to catch.
::Speaker 2
You wanted to kick the head. Stuff never bother me. I was like, oh, man, it's so much pressure.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, no it's not. It's just another kick. Yeah. If you think about all that stuff, it can be.
::Speaker 1
But
::Speaker 1
is that what you would do when you go out there? You just be.
::Speaker 2
So
::Speaker 2
you just go through the routine. Yeah. I mean it's just it was. And you gotta, you gotta want that. Yeah. And maybe you're like, oh what's going to happen if I miss. Yeah. Then you're at a bad place. Yeah.
::Speaker 2
when it, when I make this you call I'm getting carried off field. It's going to be awesome.
::Speaker 2
I got lucky enough to do that. 3 or 4 times is pretty cool.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
that's got to be a really fun way to go.
::Speaker 2
And it was cooler because I had the respect of my teammates already. I was already one of them. I was never looked at as a kicker. Like I said, I hate that that word like it was, you know, there's certain guys that are kickers. And then you had the Justin Tucker and the vegetarians and these guys are like, they're athletes.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, like phenomenal athletes. I just happen to be that much better at kicking than anything else.
::Speaker 1
By the end, it. What made you as kind
::Speaker 1
of interesting? Because there's a little bit of a there's probably some of your personality with that, but maybe some of the way you were raised or I don't know, maybe.
::Speaker 2
I didn't play football or seventh grade. I played soccer year round.
::Speaker 1
I didn't want to
::Speaker 1
respect you of your teammates. Why was that so important to you, though?
::Speaker 1
::Speaker 2
Because I saw kickers not have that. And I was like, If I'm on this team and I played safety, I played quarterback, and I was that guy. Like, if you're that through those two positions, you're a leader on the team. Yeah, you can still be that as a kicker. Yeah, but you got to earn that and all the stuff can.
::Speaker 2
People don't. It's not just the two three hours on Saturday. You spent all week. You spent all offseason. You were at 5:00 in the morning, you know, practices puking, you know, with with all the rest of the guys. There's a lot of stuff that goes into that that you're just one of the guys at that point. I don't know why.
::Speaker 2
Probably personality wise, just being around all those locker rooms and seeing guys that weren't treated the same and not liking it, like, I never want to be that guy.
::Speaker 1
See? And that's why I ask you the question, because
::Speaker 1
seen the same thing. You see those people that don't, they wouldn't even notice.
::Speaker 1
There's
::Speaker 1
some people that if they don't care what their teammates think about them, they don't. They go in the locker room. They don't even notice that, they're being treated differently.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
So you you're noticing.
::Speaker 1
So that tells me that there's something in your personality or a core value that you have that when you're going in the locker room, you're watching how the the teammates are treating each other.
::Speaker 2
And
::Speaker 2
yeah, I think a lot of that came from being a locker room my entire life. Yeah.
::Speaker 1
So on that note, what do you think? Emotional intelligence. Where does that play in the role of a coach or
::Speaker 1
a teammate? Because like I said, again, you're you're noticing what's going on. I'm assuming your dad as a coach probably was pretty good at noticing what's going on with players. Does emotional intelligence have quite a bit to do with coaching, would you say, or not so much.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there's it's not just the X's and O's. I think it's more personality handling your guys a being a true leader, which is not always rah rah. I mean some of these, you know, super rah rah guys, guys see right through I think the thing that made my dad great, that I realized later on
::Speaker 2
a couple of things, but the biggest thing was he they always knew with their stand you might not like the answer, but you're getting an honest one
::Speaker 2
no matter what.
::Speaker 2
There's never anything fake. Well, if you're always real to me, I can't help but respect you.
::Speaker 2
It's true
::Speaker 2
in a story. And if you have that, that goes a long way. Especially when you've earned the credibility. With that, the biggest thing I see in him was the last thing Coach Bryant told him before he left Alabama to take the job at temple was the youngest head coach in Division one history at the time.
::Speaker 2
At 30.
::Speaker 1
Really? Yeah.
::Speaker 2
And, he's a coach. I'm hard to hug them later.
::Speaker 1
him hard and hug him later.
::Speaker 2
I didn't know what that part meant because, coach, I'm hard. My God, the things I've heard come out of that man's mouth
::Speaker 2
are bad. Like, we're not putting that on any podcast and hopefully nobody has any footage of it anywhere. I got a really hard job through his agent, but it was the part after that, the slap on the ass.
::Speaker 2
Put your hand around their neck, tell them to love them and watch them go from, like, shrink tiny to bigger than life. Yeah, that's what made him so good. They they knew the respect was already there because I was always honest. Yeah. If you're honest with yourself. And as a players, we all know that. I screw that up to have a bad practice.
::Speaker 2
Was I half ass and it whatever it was. Yeah. You know well you got called out for it from the man that you respect was always honest with you. And then he slapped her on the butt. Puts sand right neck, tells you love you screw up. We're going to get it tomorrow.
::Speaker 2
It was that's what made him so different.
::Speaker 2
And because the guys that don't have the respect, the fakeness, the rah rah, some of that stuff, that's how you lose locker rooms. You see it every year with guys get coaches or guys get jobs. And you wonder why he's a great coordinator, not a good head coach. I do a lot of that stuff with it, but I think emotional intelligence comes into
::Speaker 2
reading people and being able to relate to all of your different players.
::Speaker 1
Yeah,
::Speaker 1
boy, you just said something I think is fascinating. I could talk to you for hours, man.
::Speaker 1
Let's do it. Part two. You talked to them?
::Speaker 2
Yeah. For sure.
::Speaker 1
But you said they could be a great coordinator, but not a great head coach. And that's interesting statement
::Speaker 1
Is there a big difference?
::Speaker 2
Not to everybody, but you see it every year. How many guys get fired then tell every year seven, 7 or 8 jobs come open every year. And then the the next young fad, the next young quarterback whisperer, you know, whoever it is gets hired as a huge difference in just handling an offense and then standing in front of an entire team.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
How you handle them on game day, how you handle them on the routine, how much goes in the offseason, what your schedule looks like,
::Speaker 2
how much rah rah fake crap is there and how real are you? You're talking about grown men making a lot of money. You know, they don't have to respect you. You got to earn that.
::Speaker 2
And I don't think everybody lives by accountability. And what I say goes, and I'm always going to be honest with you, I don't think enough people have that part. I don't know that it's necessarily, you know, coordinator head coach thing, but I think it's more of that emotional intelligence personality. How do you relate to everybody? Not everybody's cut out to be a head coach.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. You see it every year. Yeah. Great coaches phenomenal coordinators. Yeah
::Speaker 2
but it's more that's X's and O's. That's what they are. They are in their lane and you give them too much to handle I think a lot of these young guys too right now it's big fat of young young offensive coaches getting a head coaching job who they call plays for a year.
::Speaker 2
They're just getting used to doing that. Now you're going to give them a head coaching job. You have to put an entire offseason together. They have no idea how to do. And now we're on. On Sundays, we expect them to call plays and be the head coach.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
And you see a bunch of them, the plays coming a little bit late and the quarterbacks won't like this. He's got too much going on. He wasn't ready for that in first place, but he was the young hot thing. And these owners yeah these owners these billionaires God bless them man. They they can get a little handle overzealous.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
when you're explaining that, it makes me realize. And I know you would agree with this, Jake, but everybody that has a job, the they're doing something that probably most people have no idea of the details that go into it. I suspect that's especially true of a head coach of like we see them on the the weekend with their headsets on
::Speaker 1
and they're
::Speaker 1
bored and they're whispering their plays and stuff into that.
::Speaker 1
And we think that that's it. But like you just threw out a couple of things like planning the off season. And I'm sure there are so many things that our audience has no idea that goes into coaching.
::Speaker 2
Oh, there's a there's a lot of former players don't become coaches.
::Speaker 2
They have no idea how hard it is, the hours they work. My dad started this internship program when he's here at the Cardinals, a former players coming in training camp. And then 1 or 2 of them getting a full time internship for the year, hoping to get more minority coaches, but more former players in the coaching.
::Speaker 2
And if there's eight of them for training camp, only 1 or 2 of them want that by the training camps over there, I do. I had no idea the coaches worked as hard. I didn't know what they were in there. 6 a.m. and there leave it at midnight, like 3 or 4 days a week, like what goes into all of this stuff?
::Speaker 2
But yeah, there's there's so much that goes into I mean, just planning an offseason program. What days off? Yeah, I think the thing my dad was really big on because of the accountability was knowing who his leaders were in the locker room and talking to him and trusting them, getting that feedback and them knowing that his door is always open.
::Speaker 2
And whatever setting here is between us. Just honest conversation. You have. You have my respect because I've always been honest with you.
::Speaker 2
And tell me what's going on. The locker room, your team now, I used you. You've heard him say that all the time. Is your team, not mine. Yeah. You're the one police in the locker room, but they got to have the freedom to be able to do that.
::Speaker 2
I think that's another thing that made him really successful.
::Speaker 1
Man, that is such a huge life lesson. And I think something that any listener that's were running a business or anything, I'm convinced that
::Speaker 1
most air organizations there. The book, the policy
::Speaker 1
manual is
::Speaker 1
built around the bottom 10% of the employee.
::Speaker 1
So,
::Speaker 1
you know, you got the bottom 10%. They do something. So you write a new rule and pretty soon you've got 150 pages of these stupid rules that are just based on the ones that you should just fired him.
::Speaker 1
Yeah. So
::Speaker 1
what you're saying that your dad would do is he would go in and he's not looking at the bottom 10%. He's looking at who's the top 1 or 2%. And he needs to win them over in the locker
::Speaker 1
room.
::Speaker 2
Oh, he's got a lot of credit. And then doing so for hiring you. He's the first
::Speaker 2
head coach to have two black coordinators. First coach to ever hire a woman, then wins a Super Bowl with three minority coordinators, a minority head coach and two full time women on the staff.
::Speaker 1
Wow.
::Speaker 2
And wow. That's a huge thing and a massive milestone in the NFL. And probably what he's going to be known for more than the wins.
::Speaker 2
He wanted to he he'll say it all the time. I find the right the best people and hire the best people. I don't care their color. I don't care if it's a woman.
::Speaker 2
Whatever. Because coach teaches at the end of the day, is what he always says. If they can teach and they can help my guys, and that's all the guys want. If you can make me better, I don't care if you're black, white, purple, man, woman, whatever it is, you make me better. I'm gonna listen. Yep. And that was that was always big for him.
::Speaker 2
Was that not the bottom 10%? I don't want a guy because after fill a tight end coach, I'm playing him. One of my guys that I trust that I know is good is going to do the job.
::Speaker 1
And even he's you're saying he's even do that was a player. So
::Speaker 1
yeah
::Speaker 1
recognizing who are the leaders in the locker room
::Speaker 1
and if
::Speaker 1
he wins them, if he has an open door policy
::Speaker 1
with them,
::Speaker 1
he knows that he has a better chance.
::Speaker 2
They're your coaches in the locker room. You've been in locker rooms. There's a lot goes on the coaches don't know about yet.
::Speaker 2
if you got the wrong guys in there and we see it all the time now, social media has changed so much of what we know about behind the scenes. And you see, you think talented teams are really bad on Sundays.
::Speaker 2
They're bad culture in locker. Philly, you apparently had some phenomenal stuff going on. Jalen hurts is a quiet leader in a really tough town, but there are some phenomenal leaders on that. But a lot of those guys were young.
::Speaker 2
There's some rookies that were stepping up as leaders. This year, but like their locker room was tight. They were accountable to each other.
::Speaker 2
They had a goal and that wasn't coming for Sirianni, like a lot of it was. He did a hell of a job. But like, they built a really good culture in that locker room. It kind of takes care of itself, but you got to help it take care of itself.
::Speaker 1
If you're the coaches, why this is
::Speaker 1
such a fascinating conversation because the culture in the locker room is the same thing. Is this the culture that you have at the workplace?
::Speaker 2
It's it's no.
::Speaker 1
Different a
::Speaker 1
family. There is a.
::Speaker 2
Culture.
::Speaker 2
That's all that.
::Speaker 1
That you're creating as a leader.
::Speaker 1
::Speaker 1
And
::Speaker 1
that's not necessarily going to be what you wrote down on the wall and said was going to be your culture. It was the behaviors of the of the team.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, you can, you can. My dad's big thing was trust loyalty and respect.
::Speaker 1
Trust loyalty and respect.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. And you got to trust the man next to you. You got to trust the process. You know, the things that go along with that. He gives a great speech on. That was the first speech of every first day, every year of training camp. And that was just around the building. And it was on T-shirts stuff. And there's every organization has that.
::Speaker 2
Yep. But if you're not living that yourself, then it's just words on the wall. That became a mantra for all of his teams that, like every guy got it. It's pretty simple stuff. Yeah,
::Speaker 2
but not everybody gets that.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, a lot of times less is more, though, when it comes
::Speaker 1
to those core
::Speaker 1
values or those
::Speaker 1
beliefs or those behaviors.
::Speaker 2
That were,
::Speaker 2
yeah, can get too.
::Speaker 1
Deep for a
::Speaker 1
culture. Yeah. So I like that really simple. He had three of them. Did he carry that was true. Most of his career.
::Speaker 2
Started in Arizona. Took it to Tampa with him. Is that was though that was it. That was the thing the thing the organization is built on. And that's, you know, the respect, respect everybody respect the respect to people serving your food. Respect everybody that's in the building. There's a whole business side of people selling sweets and selling tickets and doing stuff that runs an NFL organization.
::Speaker 2
Most players I know about, but if they're in this damn building, they're helping us win.
::Speaker 2
Respect them all.
::Speaker 2
You know, trust all of them. Trust that they're doing their job, their trust in you for two years. So it's pretty simple stuff. And then being loyal to, you know, loyal to that cause,
::Speaker 2
and you can't get too deep with it.
::Speaker 2
You can get, you know, wait. But it's pretty simple. If you follow those things, it's, I mean, the average ten wins for eight years, the head coach was pretty successful. Yeah. With how that worked.
::Speaker 1
I'm looking forward to having him on here too. He's
::Speaker 1
going.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, we're going to do it for sure.
::Speaker 1
You
::Speaker 1
guys, if I can get you off the golf course sometime when he comes down.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, we'll
::Speaker 1
get him on because I can't wait to, to to pick his brain on some of the stuff. What are some of the lessons that you learned either in the locker room as a player, as a coach, as a coach's kid that have helped you in life around choices?
::Speaker 1
So we talk about, no gray areas
::Speaker 1
to talk about. We make our
::Speaker 1
choices and eventually our choices make us. That's just true. That's part of being
::Speaker 1
human. Absolutely.
::Speaker 1
So what are some lessons that you've learned in the sports world,
::Speaker 1
whether you were a player
::Speaker 1
or?
::Speaker 2
It's funny because they all apply to everything the rest of your life. But I think why sports are so important and why every kid should play sports, whether they're good at it or not. And not everybody's going pro like some of these parents driving me crazy. Just put them in it. Hopefully I had some phenomenal coaches that weren't my dad, my dad and coach me, but had some great ones.
::Speaker 2
It taught hard work. There's never a substitute for hard work. Hard work always pays off. Sacrifice always pays off. Tough times make tougher people. If you don't know what you can go through, you quit too early. Like you see it. This generation, it's just drives me. There's no sacrifice. There's no
::Speaker 2
mean, I remember like we've we forecourt pressed in eighth grade in the first 45 minutes of every practice were running suicides until we about because we had to be in that kind of shape of full court press the entire game.
::Speaker 2
I look back on that now as a 47 year old man that shaped me. Yeah. And they sucked,
::Speaker 2
when.
::Speaker 1
They're telling you lighten up again.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. Like listening to Jocko Willink podcast and the Navy Seal stuff, which I've been fascinated with my whole life, is like, he's like, it's discipline. It's not motivation.
::Speaker 2
There's not one part of you that's motivated to get back in that water and how weak it's discipline of who? Rob jumping my ass back in the morning. And not one man wants to get out from under that boat and get back in the water.
::Speaker 1
And
::Speaker 1
I love Jocko Willink. You mentioned him, I love I follow him on Instagram. I love every day. He's got a picture. It's like 403 and he's got a
::Speaker 1
picture.
::Speaker 2
He earns the.
::Speaker 1
Sunrise.
::Speaker 2
That doesn't happen anymore. Yeah,
::Speaker 2
and I'm not great at either. Yeah, but I have a lot more. I think it may maybe because I'm just get old, but maybe it's I just don't I don't see that in the 15 and 25 year olds that I run across now. They they've never had to
::Speaker 2
they go home. And I never went home and
::Speaker 2
my mom and dad about our practice was they wouldn't have cared.
::Speaker 2
It told me to go back and do it again because apparently when hard enough, if I'm complaining about it now, all I see is, oh, well, we're going to go in and they want to complain about practice. Oh,
::Speaker 2
I'm so sorry, honey.
::Speaker 1
Maybe you should quit. You're going
::Speaker 1
to go talk to the coaches.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
About. Yep.
::Speaker 2
That's not real life. Going back to what sports teach us, only one tenth of 1% go pro. 1% sign of Division one scholarship. And that's football.
::Speaker 2
What does it teaches you? Life. It teaches you that tough times happen. Get your ass off the ground and keep moving. That's the biggest thing.
::Speaker 1
But you
::Speaker 1
bring that up because I think almost every
::Speaker 1
point I have to think about this a little bit. But I think most every life lesson that I have today that I think, I don't know that there's hardly any of them that I didn't learn at some point through
::Speaker 1
sports, and I didn't do it
::Speaker 1
near the levels that you did, you know.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 2
You had coaches, but you had people and you had the you also had the permission from the coach, but the coach had the permission from the parents to be a coach, to be a mentor in your life, to be hard on you when it was time to be hard on you.
::Speaker 2
I mean, it's like I want to write a book that life's not life's not a participation trophy.
::Speaker 2
Yeah, it drives me crazy. There's wins and losses.
::Speaker 2
You know what? You learn just as much from losing as you do from winning. Yep.
::Speaker 2
Sometimes more.
::Speaker 2
Absolutely.
::Speaker 1
I hate to say that because winning some way more.
::Speaker 2
Fun, but it is. But you don't. You maybe don't learn as much,
::Speaker 2
But you have to learn to win and lose because that's every day. Yeah, life's not fair.
::Speaker 1
yeah.
::Speaker 1
It's not you. Do
::Speaker 1
you learn that in sports.
::Speaker 1
You learn the lifestyle for in fact, you lose.
::Speaker 2
You walk across and shake his hand, you win. You walk across and shake his hand. Period. In a story. That's how it is. You learn that.
::Speaker 1
that ownership again, you talk about Jocko. One of my favorite books is Extreme
::Speaker 1
Ownership.
::Speaker 2
But I wrote you from.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I love that book.
::Speaker 1
That's one of the things you learn if you have good coaches that are telling you in sports. So, you had a bad referee and we've all had we've all had coaches who told us this in the locker room afterwards. We're whining about the refs, bad calls, and then the coach helps us understand the.
::Speaker 2
Those three plays do not.
::Speaker 1
Lose the game inside the game. Yeah, yeah.
::Speaker 1
You dribbling it off your knee and you having four turnovers in the fourth quarter that lost the game for us. But that's that ownership. There's so many life lessons that you learn
::Speaker 1
like that from
::Speaker 1
sports.
::Speaker 2
I don't I don't think
::Speaker 2
I don't think there's another substitute in like me in the military. But that's long after most of us are done playing sports. You know, I joined the year 18. I think that's why so many business owners look for people that played, you know, college sports. We're in the military, that discipline, that sacrifice.
::Speaker 2
they're there. Yeah.
::Speaker 2
I mean, it's it's built in. I don't think you have to look for it because if somebody played four years of college sports, there was discipline. They were sacrifice. I say all the time my my wife with me. Then this does flies out the window. If you're on time, you're late. If you're earlier on time, you run till you puke.
::Speaker 2
A couple times in college, you realize your butt is going to be there five minutes before you're supposed to be minimum. Yeah,
::Speaker 2
That means you're on time. Yeah. Now
::Speaker 2
we all get married later in life and have daughters and other things that that doesn't necessarily apply. But yeah, that's how I've lived my life. But that's one of the things you learned in college like that was and as a business owner, as somebody later, I that's who I want to hire.
::Speaker 2
I don't want hire somebody that's making excuses why they're ten minutes late every day.
::Speaker 1
Yep. You're totally.
::Speaker 2
Right. It's two different two different personalities. Period.
::Speaker 1
Right. There's crossover.
::Speaker 1
So you were talking about before we turned the mics on. You're a little bit of an entrepreneur. Not a little bit. I think you're a lot of an entrepreneur.
::Speaker 2
Kind of serial at this point.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Just just,
::Speaker 1
lot of things, working for yourself and a lot of things figuring things out. How would you define an an entrepreneur?
::Speaker 1
As we're wrapping up this episode. Be sure to leave us a five star review. And if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment on something you'll take away. All right, let's hop back into the remainder of the episode.
::Speaker 1
How would you define an an
::Speaker 2
I love business plans. I don't know why, but it just kind of became something later on. Life did something. I'll I can see something I think probably goes back to coaching.
::Speaker 2
Everything in my life been a game plan. Here's the game plan for the week. Let's go execute it. I think the same thing with looking at any business plan.
::Speaker 2
I think one of the things, I mean, I'd be a great job would be like a consultant of come in and tell me what you see. I would teach you about my business. Tell me what you see that's here. And they're wrong. I don't have this. This business would be fun. But I think you just see it different because it's like a game plan.
::Speaker 1
Oh, man. You probably you're probably look at me going, did I just lose them because I was looking at you? But but I was I was thinking, what a great idea that especially when I'm going back to what you were saying about how you see it, like you're pretty good at it. You don't bet. But you you,
::Speaker 2
Yeah. You see, in games, just pick at them. Yeah.
::Speaker 1
Pick a game. Yeah, yeah.
::Speaker 1
but that's what you do if you're picking games is you're going in there and you're trying to see things that other people are going to miss.
::Speaker 2
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
But to go in as a consultant to a.
::Speaker 2
Business,
::Speaker 2
I think that'd be a lot of fun. But I kind of see that with all my business is I look first I look for something in business or an opportunity that I have. That's that's a niche that I might be able to fill that's not there. And that's kind of what it's whether it's real estate, medical sales.
::Speaker 2
At one point I've had a diamond business for 21 years, which is a crazy story I'll tell in part to, how I, how I got into that.
::Speaker 2
And that's been a side business forever and then represent my dad run our family foundation. But, yeah, I was always looking for something and got my hands. I can't I also can't sit behind a desk and do one thing every day of my life.
::Speaker 2
That's not changing anytime soon. I couldn't do the same thing every day.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
Oh, I'm with you. I knew I liked you since I met you over here. I knew I liked you. Well, Jake, we need to have you back. We do need to do a
::Speaker 1
part two. Let's do it. Joking
::Speaker 1
about it. But we have so many things that I wish we could cover. And I just got the signal a little bit ago that we're close to out of time here, so we have to wrap it up, but I would I I've got a bunch of stuff on here I didn't even start to ask you about yet.
::Speaker 1
So we gotta have you back some
::Speaker 1
time.
::Speaker 2
Let's do.
::Speaker 1
It.
::Speaker 1
All right. But let's do this to finish off the two truths and the lie.
::Speaker 1
Our audience has heard you here for about 45 minutes or so. We think we know you a little bit. So you're going to give us three statements.
::Speaker 1
are going to be truths.
::Speaker 1
One will be a lie. Let me see if I can guess it.
::Speaker 2
So I had a knee replacement at 42.
::Speaker 1
Okay.
::Speaker 2
My grandmother turns 100 in March
::Speaker 2
and I've been to six Kentucky Derby.
::Speaker 1
Wow. Okay, those are
::Speaker 2
I wanted them interesting and bland at the same time.
::Speaker 1
Those are really good.
::Speaker 1
::Speaker 1
I got to go with the knee replacement is true just because you played sports. So I'm pretty.
::Speaker 2
Sure
::Speaker 2
I thought that one might be a little too easy. So.
::Speaker 1
Yeah, you're on. I got it right.
::Speaker 2
But at 42 is still.
::Speaker 1
No. That was where I was kind of stuck because
::Speaker 1
there was part of me was saying, well, that probably would have been more in your 20s or 30s.
::Speaker 1
you had a knee replacement.
::Speaker 2
You had a partial knee replacement. At 42, I was completely bone on bone, 100% arthritis and needed to be done. That's that's not a good life from.
::Speaker 1
Your sporting.
::Speaker 2
Days catching. And then that was my point. Leg. Yeah. Just that that medial meniscus was rocked.
::Speaker 1
Yeah.
::Speaker 1
You're plant leg. So it's not your kicking
::Speaker 1
leg. That's
::Speaker 1
the one. Is that usually the one that a football player
::Speaker 1
or.
::Speaker 2
Yeah. So a lot of guys have hip problems on that leg is just that that steady pounding. But then yeah
::Speaker 2
yeah.
::Speaker 2
But yeah that's okay.
::Speaker 1
All right. So down to a: ::Speaker 1
true. I got it.
::Speaker 2
You got it. You got I've only been to four Kentucky Derby.
::Speaker 1
Really really. Okay. That's still pretty impressive. That was were they fun to go to. Like would you reckon.
::Speaker 2
They're a blast. If you want to go to the Kentucky Derby go the day before the Oaks. Yeah it's half the people. Just as much fun. But you can actually get line and bet you can move around a little bit. But it is, if you're a sports fan, man, it is. Yeah. It's just different.
::Speaker 1
Resources are so.
::Speaker 2
Beautiful and a ton of fun. Yeah. It's tough. I mean, like the culture of the place. Churchill Downs, pretty special place. But yeah.
::Speaker 1
Grandma's 100. Those.
::Speaker 1
It's your turn to say I'm.
::Speaker 2
I'm saying my dad's mom. Yeah.
::Speaker 1
Dad's mom, 100. She's still doing pretty
::Speaker 1
well. She's.
::Speaker 2
You know, everybody's failings is a big German woman, but she's still sharp as a tack at 100 man. Hopefully.
::Speaker 1
That's amazing.
::Speaker 2
Hopefully wicked. Well, well, we'll see, we'll see. There's another side of the family. My my mom's dad died when I was three at 64, so I got a little bit of both, but that's going back to the daily routine and taking care of yourself. I got a newborn I need to be around for, so.
::Speaker 1
That's
::Speaker 1
right. Well, congrats on that.
::Speaker 1
Thank you, thank you.
::Speaker 1
That's amazing.
::Speaker 1
Yeah. So
::Speaker 1
fun. Well thank you so much for being on here. We're going to have you on again
::Speaker 1
okay.
::Speaker 2
Thanks for having me. All right.
::Speaker 1
Wow. All those lessons Jake talked about hit home. Whether you're on the field or navigating life's challenges. As Jake says, life doesn't hand out participation trophies. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to never miss a future episode. We'll see you next time. No gray areas.
