Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Bailey Chase: Leaving California, Finding Faith, and Saying Yes to 'Homestead'

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Bailey Chase: Leaving California, Finding Faith, and Saying Yes to 'Homestead' · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life audio.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Hey Bailey, thanks for joining me.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for having me.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Actor Bailey Chase, who stars in the Angels series Homestead.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: I love this series, of course. It all started with
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: the movie of the same name. It's a post apocalyptic
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: drama series that followed survivors inside fortified refuge after a
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: nuclear detonation around Los Angeles. Bailey, let's just start off
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: with this question, why did you want to get involved?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: What attracted you to this story?
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great, almost kind of loaded question. I feel
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: that there was a lot going on. There was a
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: lot going on in my life and in the world
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: at the time, in the world of film and television,
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: there was a Hollywood strike and everything was kind of
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: shut down. There were also other kind of mandates coming
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: out of the Hollywood where being a middle aged white
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: dude wasn't necessarily a popular thing.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And and you know, enter Homestead and it was one
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of those where I was.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: On a family vacation with my in laws. It was
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Those don't happen very often, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: I was like, look, guys, there's no possible way I
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: can read for the show right now. There's like six
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: kids under the age of ten in this house that
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: you know, we were all staying in the beach in
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: South Carolina, and they were like, no.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: We need it, we need it, we need it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: And it was one of those things where I think,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: you know, of course it was a divide intervention, but
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: people want what they can't have. And after like, you know,
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: four days of nos, they finally just offered the thing
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: to me and I.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Was like, whoa, this is great.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: And of course there was, you know, twenty four hours
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: and I knew I was friends with Neil McDonough, pryor
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: you know, we weren't in constant touch or anything. He's
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: a busy guy. We all got a bunch of kids.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: But he's like let me. He's like, let me, you know.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So we side texted and they came back.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Twenty four hours later with a straight offer, and week later.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: I don't plan to Utah, And.
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  Speaker 3: Of course Neil's part of this as well. It seems
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: just maybe personal to you, or at.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: Least you moved from North Carolina, from from Hollywood, from California,
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  Speaker 5: not tilling Ago, so you're not running away from a
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: nuclear bomb, of course, but yeah, what led you to
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: move again?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I think you know, big.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Man, you know, always has a plan, he just doesn't
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: always let us know what it is, and we just
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: gotta gotta adapt.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And it was always my dream actually, so to go back.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: You know, I moved out to LA from I went
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: to do creat I played football duke, you know, in Durham,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: North Carolina back in the mid nineties.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Moved out to LA with a dollar dream.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: It was always my plan to make it, you know
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  Speaker 4: in Hollywood and then come back and then have a
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: normal life. And you know North Carolina. You know, I'm
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: from Florida, but I fell in love with North Carolina.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: My wife from North Carolina, and uh and so it
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: was always the plan, the dream, the hope. But once
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: I got out to LA, you know, I'm a pretty
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: focused guy, and maybe you know, seeing that in some
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: of our roles, I get the blinders on and I
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: you know, I just I just go.
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  Speaker 1: And so I was doing that thing out in LA.
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  Speaker 4: But then COVID hit and so, you know, right before
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: the Hollywood, you know strike, there was COVID and so
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: whoever thought it would be a good idea to strike
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: right after a pandemic, it was hard. It was hard,
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: and you know, I have a lot of you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: empathy with my fellow you know, actors, writers, directors, because
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: it was about four years of not working.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And so we moved to North Carolina. Obviously, the cost.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Of living is a lot easier here than it was
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: out in La. Three young kids at the time. Well
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: they're older now, we still have three kids. They're nine,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: nine to eleven, twins or nine. But at the time
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: there were four, four and six, and so you can imagine,
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  Speaker 4: you know, they were all bouncing off the walls. No school,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: no sports, no work, and yet you know, fifteen grand
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: a month to just break even, you know, it was.
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  Speaker 4: It's crazy out there, right, And I wasn't. I didn't
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: have a mansion. That's just that's just the cost of
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: living out there for a family of five to to
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  Speaker 4: be you know, normal. So I've cut that way down
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: here in North Carolina, and my wife was surrounded by
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: my in laws for families all around. We live outside
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: of Asheville over here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and yeah.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful part of the country. I've been here.
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  Speaker 6: Ay.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes you live around the Sookey Mountains near there in
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: Gatlinburg in that area. That's that's a beautiful part of
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: the country. Ashville is beautiful as well, he wrote on Instagram. Recently,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: you said twenty years of hustle in LA. You've escapped
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: twenty years of hustle in La. How has getting back
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to a slower pace maybe changed your life or it
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: perhaps even taught you about God?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, people people ask me, you know, what's are
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you here?
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  Speaker 4: What's your next move? Where do you see yourself settling?
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  Speaker 4: And I feel like I've already found it. I feel like,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we're here. My in laws are you know,
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  Speaker 4: getting up there in years a little bit, and my
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: mom's no longer with us, but my dad he's in Florida,
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  Speaker 4: but he's got a place up here, and he's eighty five.
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  Speaker 4: And so it's just nice being back on the East Coast.
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  Speaker 4: We want to be able to, you know, support them
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: and be here with them. You mentioned my faith.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: It was funny. I was talking to old.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: College ready yesterday, who's you know, known me thirty years?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: And he's like, man, you're post.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: Lately, and I'm like, yeah, you know, it's just it's honest,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: It's it's how I feel. And moving back here, I've
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: gotten reconnected to my faith. Just started going to church recently.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Took a few years, but I really like the church
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  Speaker 4: where we're going to here, it's called First Baptist. My
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: cousin started taking us and yeah, and.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: The girls are in youth group. They really love it.
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  Speaker 4: My son struggles to get up most mornings, so he's
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: he's hit or miss, you know, when it's fun to
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: go to church.
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  Speaker 1: But it's great and it's nice to be in an
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: environment where I can openly, you know, talk about God
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  Speaker 1: and Jesus and without fear of criticism.
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  Speaker 3: Well, your Instagram biolized the Bible burst has Isaiah sig
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  Speaker 3: z eight. That's where the prophet Isaiah responds to God.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: He says, here, I am sending me. Did you kind
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: of feel like that? I mean, is that kind of
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  Speaker 3: a personal verse for you?
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I do? I do? I feel like I uh. And
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  Speaker 1: I've played some of these characters to self sacrificing.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know, I would do that gladly and
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  Speaker 4: willingly for my family. You know, if if anything ever,
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  Speaker 4: you know, threatening comes our way, I'm going to be
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: out front, you know, like like we all would.
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  Speaker 1: Uh.
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  Speaker 4: And I feel I feel that way about my my community,
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  Speaker 4: you know, because I'm I'm ready to go. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 4: uh that that one really resonates with me.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And then to jump ahead, you know, working with Angel.
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  Speaker 4: Studios has has been great obviously believe in their message,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: and then developing another series for them based on the
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: book series by Lynn Austin. It's called Chronicles or Kings,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: and it's my my dream to play Isaiah in in
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: that series, so that that would be a cool, full
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: full circle moment.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's news to me. Where is that? I guess
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  Speaker 2: we're just in early stages.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're we're in development and I don't know Lin,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: but we were able to secure the rights and basically
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: have a shopping agreement right now and it's uh, it's
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: coming along.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about your character. Your character's next Jeff Ericsson.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: I have not watched every episode, but I watched the movie.
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  Speaker 3: In the first few episodes, he's a He's a hard
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  Speaker 3: nosed guy, no nonsense security leader.
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  Speaker 2: Causes us some tension. He told me before we starting
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  Speaker 2: to go that lots of people don't even like him.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: But uh, well, what what do you like about your character.
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  Speaker 6: And what maybe can can we learn from him?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: What do I like about Jeff?
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  Speaker 4: He's he's truthful, he's authentic, he's great at his job,
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  Speaker 4: you know, retired special operator leading from from the front.
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  Speaker 1: What's hard about him? And the creator of.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: The show, Jason who co wrote the book series and
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: now so the lead writer on the TV series. He's like, bro,
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  Speaker 4: I promise you it's gonna get better, but it's gonna
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: get a lot worse before it gets better.
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  Speaker 1: Like people are gonna love Jeff. He will have has
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  Speaker 1: come to Jesus moment.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, there's a lot of external factors coming at me.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, you see in the feature that my
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: main you know, advisary, even though we're.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: On the same team's Neil McDonough.
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  Speaker 4: And it was great to just have you know, two
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: alpha males there in the ring, John a line in
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  Speaker 4: the sand and going toe to toe.
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  Speaker 1: So as an actor, that was super fun. I love
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  Speaker 1: that guy.
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  Speaker 4: And then we've got don Olivieri, who's the female leader
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  Speaker 4: in the series. She's awesome. She's coming off Yellowstone works
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  Speaker 4: a lot in the Taylor Sheridan world.
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  Speaker 1: She's a boss lady for sure, So she's it's fun.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it's there are certain actors where you're like, oh,
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: we got a you know, we got a big four
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  Speaker 4: page scene today. It uposit you know, a level. And
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: now we've got Charles Eston and so many of the
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: original cast. That's it's become my extended family.
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  Speaker 2: Let's talk briefly about your acting career.
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  Speaker 3: You've been in quite a few series that audiences will recognize,
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  Speaker 3: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the World Churned, say Grace others.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: How did you get into acting? Is this something you
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: grew up wanting to do? And second part of the question,
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  Speaker 3: at this stage of your career, what makes you say
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  Speaker 3: yes to your role?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you left out Longmire.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: That's that's right, that's right, We're sorry about that.
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  Speaker 1: And then you know, you're you're you're good. I actually
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: enjoyed that you left it out because most people we'll
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: leave with it, which is which is fun.
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  Speaker 4: But uh yeah, So I moved to La again Dollar Dreaming.
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  Speaker 4: You know, played college football, and obviously the NFL didn't
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: didn't come calling for a six foot, you know, two
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  Speaker 4: hundred pound safety who wasn't that fast or didn't have
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: any other skills. So I watched a lot of Clint
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Eastwood movies as a kid. Came from a broken home,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: single mom, who worked, and my brother I come home
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: from school, Charlot the TV and and you know there
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: was Clint, you know, in all his Westerns, and you know,
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  Speaker 4: I just kind of said, as a kid, without knowing anything,
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  Speaker 4: like you know, to myself, I want to be like
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  Speaker 4: that guy, you know, on the strong, silent type and
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: you know, good, good versus evil, all the all the
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: things that I believe in. And without really knowing it,
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  Speaker 4: you know that that was my boyhood dream. I you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: grew up smalltown Florida, so there wasn't any like acting
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: or anything. I did sports like all the other boys
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: around there. My brother and I would play football in
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: the hall and you know, put holes in it, much
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: to my mother's dismay. And then once football was done,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: I just pivoted. I was a psychology major. In order
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: to really do anything with that, I was going to
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: have to go to graduate school. And I was like, man,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I just want to go do what I want to do.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: I want to chill for a minute, you know. After
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: kind of being on that track forever, and I moved
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: to LA and I got the acting bug, and and
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: here we are.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I was terrible. I'm terrible in the beginning. That's why
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I did you.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: Know, so Barbara is and Buffy was my first I
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: would say, real job. I did some little sitcoms, married
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: with children, stuff like that, before you know, Baywatch, and
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: then I went to a drama academy over in London,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: did some Shakespeare, got on stage, got you know, through
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: those butterflies, and then when you know, when I came
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: back to La after that, that's that's when Buffy happened
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: and it sort of took off from there.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of kind of got you going.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I can't let you go without talking about your college
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: football career because I'm a huge college foball fan, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I'm embarrassed to know I didn't even realize you played
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: college football, But like I followed Collge football for three
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: or four decades and it's like the sport I follows.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: So tell me about your career. Dude, you played your
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: defensive back and what were your Did you have any
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: good teams?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Was this? Michael?
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: This is going to be the shortest answer. I was
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: more of a special teams star. Okay, if you call that,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: I was sup fished teams player, but I yeah, red shirted, undersized.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I went there as a middle linebacker. So imagine that.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I was the smallest inside linebacker in the
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: a C C and this was the old a CEC,
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: but still the smallest one on scholarship and the whole thing, like,
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: I was actually under two paths and then so they
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: tried to fat me up, but I got to like
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: two oh five and was just maxed out. And after
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: a year they were frustrated. I was off there playing
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: baseball too. Coach made me quit baseball.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Blah blah. There was a.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Coaching change and enter my junior year, coaching and staff
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: came in from Rice and they had a bandit or
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: rover back, so I went from linebacker to safety. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: didn't know what I was doing back there. A year later,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: new coaches come in and a rover like, you just
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: go to the ball. You're a hybrid safety linebacker, which
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: was perfect for me. I was good size, good speed
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: for that, and so I started for one year. We
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: went to a bowl game, Hall of Fame Bowl in
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety five, got to play in Tampa. I'm a
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: big Bucks fan, and so that was that was really fun,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: a great way to go out. We were top twenty
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: that year and then do football was terrible for a
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: while and now and now we're back.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: A spur, your spur, Your kind of got him scoring
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: there in the late nineties, late eighties, I said.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, so he we like crossed in the air.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: He went down to Florida and I came up to
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Duke and then we had a couple of tough years
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: and then got better.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And then it's been up and down. But I love
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: what many Diaz is doing now.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: Obviously I need to be acc Champs is a big
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: deal for us.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Listen, yeah, Cutcliff brought it back and then he kind
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: of have to go. And it's been a it's been
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: a fun round for Duke. We can talk about football
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: all day, but I better not here. We've been talking
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: to We've been talking to Bailey Chase.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: He starts in a new Angel Series home set. Hey Bailey,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: thanks so much, thanks g having me. If you enjoy today's.
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: Interview, please make sure to subscribe and share the episode
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: with a friend. A big thanks to the team at
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: See you next time,