Latest / NFL explained. / Holt Brothers on the GSOT, Holt House Battles, Honoring Mom Through Service
Transcript
- 0:12Speaker 1: I'm Peanut Tillman and this is the NFL Players Second
- 0:16Speaker 1: Act Podcast. I got my high school librarian, Roman Harper
- 0:19Speaker 1: right over here.
- 0:20Speaker 2: What you're gritting. What you're grinning for?
- 0:21Speaker 1: Because every time you just get more and more creative
- 0:24Speaker 1: with how you name dropped me. So I appreciate it
- 0:27Speaker 1: as more. As long as I stay in your life,
- 0:28Speaker 1: I appreciate it. However I get there, I don't know anyways,
- 0:32Speaker 1: all of our listeners out there, make sure you hit
- 0:34Speaker 1: give us a five star rating, hit the subscribe button.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Come come part of the family of the NFL Player
- 0:40Speaker 1: second X podcast, and also anywhere you pick up your podcasts,
- 0:45Speaker 1: whether it's Apple or iHeart. Tell a friend, to tell
- 0:48Speaker 1: a friend, to tell a friend, check us out. Terrence
- 0:51Speaker 1: and Tory Holt were just on the show. Amazing interview.
- 0:54Speaker 3: Give it a listen.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Today's interview. I'm super super excited to have a duo.
- 1:04Speaker 1: I think it's our first duo we've had on the podcast.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Is really looking forward to it. We got my man,
- 1:09Speaker 1: my partner in crime, Charles P. Nut Tilman as always,
- 1:13Speaker 1: and today's guests. Let's go down the resume. All right,
- 1:16Speaker 1: it's the Holt brothers, both of these guys attended NC
- 1:19Speaker 1: State for I was a teammate with one of them,
- 1:23Speaker 1: the brother Terrence hol who I'm not gonna read off
- 1:26Speaker 1: his stats yet. I will go start with Tory Holt,
- 1:29Speaker 1: the brother, the wide receiver. Four time Hall of Fame finalists,
- 1:33Speaker 1: which means he's close. He's knocking on the door. Super
- 1:35Speaker 1: Bowl champion, seven time Pro bowler, two time All Pro,
- 1:39Speaker 1: led the league in receptions twice in the NFL's two
- 1:42Speaker 1: thousands All Decade Team.
- 1:44Speaker 3: Congratulations, my boy, Terrence.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Holt, my favorite hole because my team for a year
- 1:50Speaker 1: came in taught me some ropes, you know what I mean.
- 1:51Speaker 1: As an older guy, was always looking for that safety
- 1:53Speaker 1: to look up to. He was a great blend, a
- 1:55Speaker 1: great person. I get to bounce a whole bunch of
- 1:57Speaker 1: ideas off love playing beside him. Hope was a fifth
- 2:01Speaker 1: round pick in two thousand and three. Play six years
- 2:04Speaker 1: and is and at the same time together as well
- 2:08Speaker 1: during Tony So uh Toys Toys Time. So welcome to
- 2:12Speaker 1: the podcast.
- 2:14Speaker 2: Having us brothers.
- 2:16Speaker 3: Yeah, man, and like.
- 2:17Speaker 1: I said earlier, Toy you should be used to this,
- 2:20Speaker 1: all this coverage around, all these dvs around you in space,
- 2:22Speaker 1: So feel comfortable sharing today.
- 2:25Speaker 2: No doubt.
- 2:25Speaker 4: Man, it's certainly a pleasure to be here for sure.
- 2:28Speaker 4: When when when when making them reached out was like, yo,
- 2:31Speaker 4: the podcast, it's happening at the draft, which I would
- 2:34Speaker 4: be willing to join. I was like, can I bring
- 2:36Speaker 4: my bro? It's like, yeah, so good to have my
- 2:39Speaker 4: brother here? Is good to be able to be.
- 2:41Speaker 1: Able to be man still looking out for your little brother.
- 2:43Speaker 4: And that's what we do a lot together, man, a
- 2:50Speaker 4: lot of that. It's started from how we was raised.
- 2:53Speaker 4: You know, my mom and our dad was really big
- 2:54Speaker 4: on us being together. We got an older sister, so
- 2:59Speaker 4: you know, even though as guys, as boys, we competed
- 3:03Speaker 4: up in the crib, but at the same day, at
- 3:05Speaker 4: the same time, we had to come back, Yo, what's
- 3:08Speaker 4: up man? Nice compete? You know, we still brothers. We
- 3:11Speaker 4: still we still show up the age difference real quick.
- 3:15Speaker 4: Four years and four years.
- 3:16Speaker 1: Before now, let's let's address the elephant in the room,
- 3:19Speaker 1: all right, So at what point does the younger brother
- 3:21Speaker 1: get bigger than the older brother?
- 3:23Speaker 3: And like, how did these things start to happening?
- 3:25Speaker 1: Because I got all older brothers and I cannot I've
- 3:29Speaker 1: never beat my older brother.
- 3:30Speaker 2: It's like this block. Yeah it doesn't matter.
- 3:32Speaker 1: I'm a little bit bigger than he is, but you're
- 3:34Speaker 1: you're the youngest, right and the youngest, but you look
- 3:36Speaker 1: the oldest.
- 3:40Speaker 2: The youngest clarified.
- 3:43Speaker 3: We got that clarit.
- 3:44Speaker 2: Well.
- 3:44Speaker 4: I was I was always chasing my brother. I always
- 3:48Speaker 4: wanted to be around my brother, and uh he oftentimes
- 3:51Speaker 4: he in our neighborhood. He hung with the older kids
- 3:54Speaker 4: as well. So the kids, the kids or guys that
- 3:57Speaker 4: he was hanging with were always like four and five
- 3:59Speaker 4: years older than him. So I'm four years behind him,
- 4:02Speaker 4: So I'm hanging around guys that are eight years older
- 4:05Speaker 4: than me. And when it comes to guys at that age,
- 4:09Speaker 4: guys oftentimes at that age want to hang around girls
- 4:12Speaker 4: and so but anyway, if my brother was in our
- 4:16Speaker 4: neighborhood pitching horseshoes, playing football, I wanted to be there.
- 4:20Speaker 4: So he was always had the burden of my presence
- 4:26Speaker 4: and being around older girl, older guys and older girls,
- 4:30Speaker 4: And I think that's for me playing with them.
- 4:33Speaker 2: Him playing with.
- 4:34Speaker 4: Older kids in the neighborhood helped develop his game physically
- 4:38Speaker 4: and kind of understanding that at some point you're going
- 4:41Speaker 4: to be playing this is your competition. So yeah, they're
- 4:43Speaker 4: older than you now, but if you go to college,
- 4:45Speaker 4: you go to pros, this is what you're going to
- 4:46Speaker 4: be going against. And then for me that was just
- 4:49Speaker 4: it was just normal, so playing up playing competition that
- 4:52Speaker 4: were bigger, old, and more mature to you, and just
- 4:54Speaker 4: always wanted to be in his shadow. That's kind of
- 4:57Speaker 4: continued kind of to this day us being business par
- 5:00Speaker 4: nurse and having the fortunate of both playing in the
- 5:03Speaker 4: National Football League, which is you know, unique in itself
- 5:06Speaker 4: to have brothers that have played.
- 5:07Speaker 2: Even though we got a lot.
- 5:08Speaker 4: Of brothers in the league that have played, statistically, it's
- 5:11Speaker 4: not a lot of brothers that that have played in
- 5:13Speaker 4: our league or made.
- 5:14Speaker 2: It to the league.
- 5:15Speaker 4: So anyway, it's just just a natural thing. He's doing something.
- 5:19Speaker 4: He's been very very uh nice and uh and and
- 5:23Speaker 4: I was always thought about me and invited me to
- 5:26Speaker 4: it and uh and that's just how we do. It's
- 5:28Speaker 4: from my mom and our dad.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me start this next question off. I'm
- 5:32Speaker 2: across my legs.
- 5:33Speaker 1: So we got, you know, right now where we get
- 5:38Speaker 1: that growth sexy going on right now.
- 5:39Speaker 2: So I think it's cool that you could, you know,
- 5:42Speaker 2: you get.
- 5:42Speaker 1: You have your brother to look up to, and then
- 5:45Speaker 1: I know probably when you got to the league you
- 5:47Speaker 1: had an idea of what to expect, right, and maybe
- 5:51Speaker 1: you didn't just because you're the oldest and you're kind
- 5:53Speaker 1: of setting the tone. What was your welcome to the
- 5:57Speaker 1: NFL moment? And then I want to I want you
- 6:00Speaker 1: to answer that question and were you prepared for it?
- 6:02Speaker 1: And did you get that advice from that?
- 6:04Speaker 4: I think for me it was when I was running
- 6:07Speaker 4: out I think it was like zero forty eight and
- 6:09Speaker 4: the defense was in zone and I sat, I chose
- 6:13Speaker 4: to set down, which I did. What I was supposed
- 6:15Speaker 4: to do is my responsibility, And I'm thinking it's.
- 6:18Speaker 2: You know, you know how how in practice? You know
- 6:20Speaker 2: they asked you how to tag off? Yeah?
- 6:22Speaker 4: Nah, Charlie, Charlie Clemens, excuse me, crush me.
- 6:27Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 6:27Speaker 4: It was like, yo, welcome to the NFL, young boy.
- 6:30Speaker 4: So for me physically, that was my welcome to the
- 6:32Speaker 4: National Football League. Mentally was playing in the Super Bowl
- 6:35Speaker 4: was my welcome to the National and that that was
- 6:38Speaker 4: my rookie year. So that took me to a whole
- 6:39Speaker 4: other level right from the gate. So my expectations were high, right,
- 6:44Speaker 4: from the door. So those are my two welcome to
- 6:46Speaker 4: the National Football League moments that stuck with me right
- 6:49Speaker 4: And for me, I had the fortune of I think
- 6:53Speaker 4: I earned the title for the Pros. And again it's
- 6:59Speaker 4: I was very happy with being considered a pros pro.
- 7:02Speaker 4: And that happened for me very early on because again
- 7:05Speaker 4: I was used to being in the locker room. I
- 7:07Speaker 4: carried myself in a certain kind of way where I was.
- 7:11Speaker 4: I was a gym rat. I stayed right across the
- 7:13Speaker 4: street from in Allen Park in Denborn. I was drafted
- 7:16Speaker 4: by the Lions, and I was always I didn't have
- 7:20Speaker 4: a family, so for me, I was always around and
- 7:25Speaker 4: played with players like Robert Porchet and I remember, you know,
- 7:29Speaker 4: being around them, and man, you walking around here like
- 7:31Speaker 4: you a vet, Like you know what I'm saying, Like,
- 7:33Speaker 4: ain't nobody pointing you or letting you having to tell
- 7:35Speaker 4: you where to go? Well, I'm spending so much time
- 7:37Speaker 4: in the building. I'm telling people that been here two
- 7:39Speaker 4: three years that this is upstairs or all those kinds
- 7:42Speaker 4: of things. But my moment to welcome to the NFL
- 7:46Speaker 4: was once h you had a rookie kind of mini camps.
- 7:50Speaker 4: It's just the rookies that are there, and everybody's talking about, well, it's.
- 7:54Speaker 2: Gonna be different when the when the Vets come here.
- 7:57Speaker 2: And you had your O.
- 7:58Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you know that's me a little nervous. Yeah,
- 8:02Speaker 1: I said, it's some anxiety to come with that, like
- 8:04Speaker 1: to day. You know this this is the league and
- 8:06Speaker 1: we you know we running on. I mean you ran
- 8:08Speaker 1: on and.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Off the field when you was in college. But it's
- 8:10Speaker 2: just tempo.
- 8:11Speaker 4: Everything's tempo period to period, and everybody's trying to get
- 8:13Speaker 4: you used to the NFL life. And they were saying,
- 8:16Speaker 4: OTAs hit, come the hit, come the vest. And again
- 8:21Speaker 4: we in shells and in team drill.
- 8:27Speaker 2: I'm out there.
- 8:28Speaker 4: We're going against the first team offense and Corey Schlessinger,
- 8:32Speaker 4: which was a full back, yeah, full back for us, yes,
- 8:35Speaker 4: from Nebraska. It's coming through the hole and coming down
- 8:39Speaker 4: the sideline, and he likes to finish a drill. So
- 8:41Speaker 4: he finishes the drill. We got the ball maybe forty
- 8:44Speaker 4: yards out. He's going to finish all the way to
- 8:46Speaker 4: the end zone. And so we're being talked tag off
- 8:49Speaker 4: like you just was talking about. So I'm tagging off
- 8:52Speaker 4: and I had not got the memo with Corey Slessinger.
- 8:55Speaker 4: He's stiff form. So all I got is I had
- 8:58Speaker 4: on running around. He's uh Detroit, right Detroit, running down
- 9:03Speaker 4: the field and Cory Slash. I go to tag in
- 9:06Speaker 4: kind of like you know, form tackle. I'm gonna breeze
- 9:08Speaker 4: by him, and he stiffs on My whole helmet come off,
- 9:11Speaker 4: pop off my head. That's how stiff is Stiff was
- 9:15Speaker 4: And it was kind of without him even saying welcome
- 9:17Speaker 4: to the NFL. Everybody else is saying like, welcome to you.
- 9:23Speaker 1: So in my in my thirteen years, you know, I
- 9:26Speaker 1: got my bumps and bruises, and I'm gonna look into
- 9:28Speaker 1: my camera right here and I'm I'm gonna show my
- 9:31Speaker 1: little pinky that's all jacked up right now. So I'm
- 9:35Speaker 1: listening to you totally, and I'm looking at your finger
- 9:38Speaker 1: in your left hand and k look in that camera.
- 9:41Speaker 1: Show showed him that that thing right there, That's that's
- 9:44Speaker 1: what greatness looks like.
- 9:46Speaker 2: Yo. That's no chest. That's the ball. Never touches, never hands.
- 9:52Speaker 4: Only time, only time in traffic, because you know, sometimes
- 9:54Speaker 4: you gotta in traffic, you gotta go up and body
- 9:56Speaker 4: the ball.
- 9:57Speaker 2: Sometimes the collision allows you to catch the ball.
- 10:00Speaker 4: So but other than that, I'm using all my hands
- 10:02Speaker 4: to catch the football, like that's as receivers, that's our
- 10:06Speaker 4: job is to catch the football.
- 10:08Speaker 1: So I was very I've always been very, very comfortable
- 10:11Speaker 1: around the ball.
- 10:12Speaker 4: I was talking about this last night thing me in
- 10:14Speaker 4: London fletching and was talking and I used to sleep
- 10:17Speaker 4: with the ball.
- 10:17Speaker 2: I used to be just landing in the bed flipping
- 10:19Speaker 2: the ball.
- 10:20Speaker 4: I mean, he knows that's throwing multiple tennis balls off
- 10:22Speaker 4: of the wall and catching it out in the neighborhood.
- 10:24Speaker 4: Like I've just always been very comfortable catching the ball.
- 10:28Speaker 4: So I'm a natural master of catching the football with
- 10:32Speaker 4: my hands. And funny thing about his finger. We're in
- 10:35Speaker 4: Arizona in two thousand and seven. By that time, I
- 10:38Speaker 4: had moved on to Arizona, and we're playing the Rams
- 10:42Speaker 4: and we're out there as we always did when we played.
- 10:46Speaker 4: We're talking mid play, We're talking to each other. Hey,
- 10:49Speaker 4: you know the family get settle tickets.
- 10:52Speaker 2: Like this game going on, right He just ran a
- 10:55Speaker 2: go route whatnot.
- 10:56Speaker 4: I'm coming back from covering somebody and we just talking
- 10:59Speaker 4: to each other and he's like, man, I just I
- 11:02Speaker 4: just man. He was blocking somebody. It was talking about
- 11:04Speaker 4: his fingers. Man, I just broke my finger again. Showed
- 11:06Speaker 4: me the finger and popped it back in. But this,
- 11:09Speaker 4: this finger has gotten uglier over the years, and I'm like.
- 11:14Speaker 2: Man, they can fix that, you know.
- 11:16Speaker 4: And he's he's just big and this is this, this
- 11:19Speaker 4: is his you know.
- 11:20Speaker 2: I'm the surgeries. I'm tired of the surgeries. This joint, yeah,
- 11:25Speaker 2: say it is what it is. We all have wounds,
- 11:27Speaker 2: we all have our water. I told him, scaring people,
- 11:31Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
- 11:32Speaker 3: He's not lying.
- 11:33Speaker 1: I just saw this fingers for the first album when
- 11:36Speaker 1: you first talk, I mean I was I wouldn't gonna
- 11:39Speaker 1: talk about.
- 11:40Speaker 2: It because you didn't want to jump out your skins.
- 11:42Speaker 3: Seem very comfortable with it.
- 11:44Speaker 2: I'm very, very comfort to be a.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Professional, very comfortable over here queezing for the told it's
- 11:51Speaker 1: one thing to be a badge of honor, but if
- 11:53Speaker 1: you can't hold no changes, it ought to be like
- 11:57Speaker 1: a no change.
- 11:58Speaker 4: You can't hold limit to the badge of honor. We
- 12:01Speaker 4: got to get it fixed.
- 12:03Speaker 1: So tell me this. How does it feel when when
- 12:06Speaker 1: people ask you, guys that you achieved the rare feature
- 12:09Speaker 1: and that is both brothers making it to the NFL.
- 12:14Speaker 3: How much pride does that bring you? I got three
- 12:16Speaker 3: older brothers.
- 12:16Speaker 1: So I would have loved to have an older brother
- 12:20Speaker 1: play in the NFL and achieve that goal.
- 12:21Speaker 3: But for your family, how much pride?
- 12:23Speaker 1: And for you guys individuals, Now, I'll say I'll go first.
- 12:27Speaker 2: I mean you mentioned pride, I mean we we hold this.
- 12:32Speaker 4: I mean it allows us to have the type of
- 12:35Speaker 4: pride that you look for in the family. And then
- 12:39Speaker 4: particularly being able to share something with their brothers. So
- 12:41Speaker 4: we don't take it for granted for sure, and we
- 12:44Speaker 4: know we have a responsibility as being brothers and having the.
- 12:47Speaker 2: Success that we had.
- 12:47Speaker 4: Coming from a small town of Gibsonville, North Carolina, you know,
- 12:50Speaker 4: there's a lot of little ones, a lot of folks
- 12:52Speaker 4: in the neighborhood that look to us.
- 12:54Speaker 2: So we're very aware of that.
- 12:55Speaker 4: But to be able to share something like this stage
- 12:58Speaker 4: with their brother, the high, the lows, the difference, all
- 13:01Speaker 4: those things is just really to me, it is the ultimate.
- 13:05Speaker 4: Because we also come across siblings that don't get along.
- 13:10Speaker 3: It's crazy, and.
- 13:11Speaker 4: We we we look we look at like, how do
- 13:15Speaker 4: you not talk to your brother in a six months,
- 13:18Speaker 4: three months?
- 13:20Speaker 2: What what is that?
- 13:21Speaker 4: Yeah, so so so to be able to to be
- 13:24Speaker 4: able to have a biological sibling and you have that
- 13:28Speaker 4: type of connection with it's it's really dope.
- 13:31Speaker 2: And it's the same with our sister.
- 13:32Speaker 4: My sister is a school teacher, she's she we we
- 13:36Speaker 4: all pride ourselves on serving and we got that from
- 13:38Speaker 4: my father. So my sisters is a teaching terms and
- 13:41Speaker 4: I obviously played sports and we have our foundation. Now
- 13:43Speaker 4: we're able to able to serve.
- 13:44Speaker 2: But to be able to.
- 13:45Speaker 4: Do all those things and I'm going going a little long,
- 13:48Speaker 4: but to be able to do all those things, but
- 13:50Speaker 4: the one that you love and your and your brother,
- 13:52Speaker 4: now it's it's dope.
- 13:53Speaker 2: It's really cool.
- 13:54Speaker 4: Yeah, And I say, for me, it's it's it goes
- 13:57Speaker 4: back to my first statement.
- 13:58Speaker 2: I always wanted to do what my brother wanted to do. Yeah.
- 14:00Speaker 2: So it was it was both.
- 14:03Speaker 4: To have that example kind of to follow and a
- 14:07Speaker 4: good example at that because you know, not every older
- 14:10Speaker 4: brother or older sister is a good example, but they
- 14:13Speaker 4: want you to be the best you can be in
- 14:15Speaker 4: most occasions. And for me, it was both me trying
- 14:19Speaker 4: to do what he done and follow kind of in
- 14:22Speaker 4: his footsteps, which to some people they'll talk about the
- 14:25Speaker 4: pressure that comes with that, Yeah, they're always coming behind
- 14:27Speaker 4: your brother and him having.
- 14:29Speaker 2: The type of career.
- 14:30Speaker 4: But for me, it was it was competitive because, like
- 14:35Speaker 4: we talked about this a great deal where having an
- 14:38Speaker 4: example in seeing that somebody can do it is sometimes
- 14:44Speaker 4: all you need. And I had the ultimate example of
- 14:47Speaker 4: my brother. And I'm kind of like my brother. Oh
- 14:51Speaker 4: he had thirty two points.
- 14:53Speaker 2: I know I'm afford it.
- 14:55Speaker 4: So it was kind of that competition that was breeded
- 14:58Speaker 4: with us being young. And he made the thought of
- 15:04Speaker 4: going to college earning a scholarship while seemingly daunting. My
- 15:10Speaker 4: brother did it. I know I can do it. That's
- 15:12Speaker 4: proof of concept that I can do it. Plus I'm competitive,
- 15:15Speaker 4: I want to do what he's done, if not better
- 15:17Speaker 4: and more. And so I was just I just had
- 15:21Speaker 4: that mindset and thought process that I'm gonna make the league.
- 15:24Speaker 4: I'm gonna do what I need to do to make
- 15:25Speaker 4: the league, get me a scholarship, I'm gonna play I'm
- 15:28Speaker 4: gonna play well, whatever role I need to play.
- 15:31Speaker 2: I'm gonna play it and do it.
- 15:32Speaker 4: And and I had his tutelage all the way you
- 15:36Speaker 4: know through that's you know, I think the beauty of
- 15:40Speaker 4: he and I is that we've been best friends throughout
- 15:43Speaker 4: the process. We've competed and been best friends. And when
- 15:47Speaker 4: he when he lost Super Bowl in two thousand and one,
- 15:51Speaker 4: I lost the Super Bowl. Yeah, he wanted to go out.
- 15:54Speaker 4: It's a funny story. We were after they lose to
- 15:58Speaker 4: the Patriots. They're in New Orleans.
- 16:00Speaker 2: He comes to the room, We all walk back to
- 16:01Speaker 2: the room.
- 16:02Speaker 4: He finally get back after all the media and all
- 16:04Speaker 4: that kind of stuff, and comes to the room.
- 16:06Speaker 2: Hey, he's dressed, ready to go ours and ain't going out? Man,
- 16:09Speaker 2: Like I'm crying.
- 16:11Speaker 4: This is how invested that I've always been in him,
- 16:16Speaker 4: in his routes and stuff that he's done. You know,
- 16:20Speaker 4: playing against the Rams was the easiest thing in the
- 16:23Speaker 4: world for me, the greatest show on turf. While they
- 16:26Speaker 4: were great, I knew him. I've been watching them as
- 16:28Speaker 4: a fan, but also watching them with a competitive mind.
- 16:32Speaker 4: If I was ever on the field against them, this
- 16:34Speaker 4: is what I would do. And so all that to say, man,
- 16:38Speaker 4: that we understand that we've done something that is unique.
- 16:43Speaker 4: We are prideful about it, but we also try to
- 16:49Speaker 4: impress upon other people that you can do it. When
- 16:52Speaker 4: we're population fifteen hundred, nobody had made it out of
- 16:55Speaker 4: our neighborhood. But we had like most neighborhoods and guys
- 16:58Speaker 4: that have made it, we had all talent the people,
- 17:00Speaker 4: maybe even more talented us that ran in the you know.
- 17:04Speaker 2: Just whatever, bad decisions.
- 17:07Speaker 1: So I love that because that is my story growing
- 17:11Speaker 1: up in Pratt, Alabama. Nobody that looked like me had
- 17:14Speaker 1: ever made it to the NFL. We had a full
- 17:16Speaker 1: back named Kevin Turner. God rested soul. He passed away
- 17:19Speaker 1: from LS a few years ago, but that was.
- 17:21Speaker 3: The only guy.
- 17:22Speaker 2: Wow.
- 17:22Speaker 1: And so because that, and like you said, once somebody
- 17:25Speaker 1: that you know does it, Like, dude, I can do
- 17:28Speaker 1: like I didn't know I could achieve that. I thought
- 17:30Speaker 1: it was I ain't got but two hundred people. Our
- 17:36Speaker 1: ceiling was on top of us and it's not even there.
- 17:38Speaker 1: And so it's beautiful to hear you talk about that
- 17:41Speaker 1: and really tour you just bursting through and really, man,
- 17:45Speaker 1: we all can do it now.
- 17:46Speaker 2: Yeah, you open up a floodgate with with competition.
- 17:50Speaker 1: I know I'm a baby and my brother would pick
- 17:54Speaker 1: on me, and like you, I want to hang out
- 17:57Speaker 1: with my brother and he didn't want to hang out
- 17:59Speaker 1: with me just because he was older.
- 18:00Speaker 2: There's a three year gap.
- 18:01Speaker 1: Difference, age difference, and I just was like, man, every
- 18:05Speaker 1: time I tried to beat my brother or something, basketball,
- 18:07Speaker 1: run and whatever, he used to kick my butt. Not
- 18:11Speaker 1: until I got in the high school. I was probably
- 18:14Speaker 1: my sophomore year we played. We finally played basketball one
- 18:17Speaker 1: on one and this was like, I, damn it, I'm
- 18:20Speaker 1: drawing my foot that putting my foot down.
- 18:22Speaker 2: You were not.
- 18:26Speaker 1: And it's funny y'all say that, though, But that was
- 18:29Speaker 1: the first time I had ever beat my brother. I
- 18:33Speaker 1: was fifteen and I beat him in our first we
- 18:35Speaker 1: went to ten. I finally beat him and it was
- 18:38Speaker 1: at that moment in time, I was like, you will
- 18:40Speaker 1: never beat me again.
- 18:41Speaker 2: Same story from that.
- 18:43Speaker 1: From that moment on, I never lost to my brother
- 18:46Speaker 1: because it was just like I got you, because I
- 18:48Speaker 1: could like I beat him now, it's real. So I
- 18:51Speaker 1: know y'all got some competitive stories, you know, like going
- 18:54Speaker 1: going at it like give me, give me, give me
- 18:56Speaker 1: a give.
- 18:56Speaker 4: Me a good story. So one of the same, very
- 18:59Speaker 4: similar or we had. We went to Easton Gildford High
- 19:03Speaker 4: School and so I had grown six inches in my
- 19:09Speaker 4: freshman summer and he was back from back from college
- 19:14Speaker 4: and came to one of our practices, and after the practice,
- 19:18Speaker 4: he and I played one on one and again, by
- 19:20Speaker 4: that time I developed I was taller than him, and uh,
- 19:23Speaker 4: and and again I got him and I beat him
- 19:26Speaker 4: that particular day. But with football, it's it's, it's it's
- 19:31Speaker 4: always been a challenge. I don't know that I can
- 19:34Speaker 4: say other than the score we beat. When I was
- 19:39Speaker 4: with the Cardinals, we beat him a couple of times.
- 19:42Speaker 4: We beat y'all in in two thousand and three when
- 19:45Speaker 4: I was with the Lions, where y'all, y'all are thirteen
- 19:47Speaker 4: and two, y'all came in.
- 19:49Speaker 2: I was y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all.
- 19:51Speaker 4: We beat y'all, but y'all, I was. I was mad
- 19:54Speaker 4: at y'all because y'all were headed to the playoffs. We
- 19:56Speaker 4: were headed home with the way y'all played the game.
- 19:59Speaker 4: But uh, but I say, we got stories from at
- 20:04Speaker 4: our grandma's house, where black grandma's houses are oftentimes more
- 20:11Speaker 4: like museums.
- 20:12Speaker 3: Right everywhere, everything is just an antique.
- 20:21Speaker 1: Everywhere everywhere that ain't from Africa.
- 20:25Speaker 2: Ex label when did you none of this stuff flipping
- 20:32Speaker 2: over made in China?
- 20:33Speaker 4: Right man, So were grandma's house and uh, he and I,
- 20:41Speaker 4: like most occasions, got some ball made up game, were playing,
- 20:45Speaker 4: were getting rough and we hit one of the antiques
- 20:50Speaker 4: or hit one of the tables in the corner of
- 20:52Speaker 4: his of his head table and he's bleeding, but we can't.
- 20:57Speaker 2: Tell you're doing nothing, not in grandma's house.
- 21:03Speaker 4: So we compete in so much and so heavy, we
- 21:07Speaker 4: can't tell nobody this story.
- 21:08Speaker 2: He got a.
- 21:11Speaker 4: Cut in his head that he can't we got to hide,
- 21:14Speaker 4: and we can't tell nobody. It was luckily enough it
- 21:17Speaker 4: had he didn't need any stitches or anything. But we
- 21:20Speaker 4: got more examples of stuff like that where we competed.
- 21:23Speaker 4: I'm telling you everything it didn't matter.
- 21:26Speaker 2: We didn't even have to have.
- 21:28Speaker 4: And that's why we get on our kids now oftentimes,
- 21:31Speaker 4: where kids need to be set up with with everything.
- 21:34Speaker 4: You got to have a baseball glup to play baseball
- 21:36Speaker 4: or or back to play baby.
- 21:38Speaker 2: We went got sticks we had we had we didn't.
- 21:42Speaker 1: Yeah, my driveway is on a slant, and my wife's
- 21:49Speaker 1: like we shouldn't even have a basketball goal because like
- 21:51Speaker 1: it's not it's on a slant.
- 21:55Speaker 2: I played on grass.
- 22:00Speaker 1: Already doesn't matter, and so often I call it so
- 22:04Speaker 1: many of our kids and we're blessed, we're fortunate.
- 22:06Speaker 2: I get it.
- 22:06Speaker 1: You know a lot of first world problems on this conversation, right,
- 22:09Speaker 1: But they live on a.
- 22:11Speaker 3: Yacht, ye, and so they don't know.
- 22:13Speaker 1: It's really hard to tell somebody that lives on the
- 22:14Speaker 1: yacht that you know, your life is not not that
- 22:17Speaker 1: it's bad when you.
- 22:19Speaker 3: Know, that's all they life exactly.
- 22:22Speaker 4: And to this day, we you know, we still are
- 22:24Speaker 4: very competitive, but we're respectful and we certainly have reached
- 22:27Speaker 4: an age which competing against one another it's kind of less.
- 22:32Speaker 4: We're kind of competing and have challenges that are oftentimes
- 22:36Speaker 4: versus you know, in business together that are that are
- 22:39Speaker 4: that are versus other obstacles, and so we're more or
- 22:42Speaker 4: less coming together to strategize on how collectively we're going
- 22:46Speaker 4: to overcome something that, you know, whatever challenge it is
- 22:49Speaker 4: that we're facing that particular day.
- 22:50Speaker 1: So I like that, all right, We're gonna put a
- 22:52Speaker 1: pin in that because I want to get into the
- 22:53Speaker 1: business ventures in a second. But before we get that,
- 22:55Speaker 1: I want to talk about the greatest show on turf?
- 22:58Speaker 1: And so what was that like when you first show
- 23:00Speaker 1: up and it becomes because I don't think you guys
- 23:03Speaker 1: were called the greatest show on turf? Util how you
- 23:05Speaker 1: got showed up your rookie year and you know, you
- 23:08Speaker 1: guys are doing the dance, the bobb and weave and
- 23:12Speaker 1: then you were also I give you guys another thing
- 23:15Speaker 1: you got that receiving core was the first receiving corps
- 23:17Speaker 1: I ever remember that nobody cared about yack like you
- 23:20Speaker 1: guys just caught the ball and got down. We called
- 23:22Speaker 1: it bomb shelter.
- 23:24Speaker 2: We bomb shelter.
- 23:28Speaker 3: That very unique.
- 23:29Speaker 4: That kind of started happening a little later on in
- 23:30Speaker 4: our career because you know, we dealt with so many
- 23:32Speaker 4: coverages many you know, I took some shots in the
- 23:35Speaker 4: National Football League. Unfortunately I didn't take a ton of percussions,
- 23:38Speaker 4: but I took some legitimate shots across the league. So
- 23:41Speaker 4: at times I thought, you know, like your primes others
- 23:44Speaker 4: talk about made it the business decision. At times I
- 23:47Speaker 4: made those business decisions whether I was going to try
- 23:50Speaker 4: to over exert myself and extend and get banged, or
- 23:53Speaker 4: go ahead and be smart take what I got live
- 23:55Speaker 4: to play another down. I thought it was the eventually
- 23:58Speaker 4: you got the first ones to really like and then
- 24:00Speaker 4: eventually bomb.
- 24:00Speaker 2: On you the next next thing, you know, I mean
- 24:02Speaker 2: your end zone.
- 24:03Speaker 4: So but in terms of my introduction into the team
- 24:07Speaker 4: with the greatest showing turf for me, I had Isaac Bruce,
- 24:09Speaker 4: Ricky prol Aza Quem guys when I.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Came into the room that were true pros, true.
- 24:14Speaker 4: Vets, and was really good wide receivers in all fasts
- 24:17Speaker 4: of the position. So I had a luxury of seeing
- 24:20Speaker 4: that every day. So as long as I felt, as
- 24:23Speaker 4: long as I stayed the course, I could become that
- 24:26Speaker 4: complete receiver because I was seeing it in my room
- 24:28Speaker 4: every day. Now, a lot of these young guys that
- 24:30Speaker 4: are coming into their rooms, they're all young, so they're
- 24:32Speaker 4: all teething each other and they're learning as they go,
- 24:34Speaker 4: whether they're having a true sometimes having a legit vet
- 24:38Speaker 4: in the room that can kind of set the tempo
- 24:39Speaker 4: the room, set the temple in practice, you know, accountability.
- 24:44Speaker 2: Just showing you the way every single day.
- 24:45Speaker 4: I was fortunate enough to have that in our room
- 24:48Speaker 4: and on the team, guys like brother Ray Agnew who's
- 24:52Speaker 4: naw with the Detroit lines. Kurt Warner was Kurk Marshall
- 24:56Speaker 4: Orlando Pace who was dominant. I had the luxury of
- 24:59Speaker 4: watching the Lando dominate guys because I played the X
- 25:02Speaker 4: so I'm right on the ball.
- 25:04Speaker 1: I could see the left tackle working. He was destroying Dominique.
- 25:08Speaker 3: He's a big human, it's like a bear.
- 25:12Speaker 1: But general Johnto he is so like hey, yeah, but
- 25:16Speaker 1: he's so solid.
- 25:18Speaker 3: The Super Bowl for the first time and I was like, man,
- 25:20Speaker 3: this is huge man.
- 25:22Speaker 2: And he was a tremendous athlete.
- 25:23Speaker 4: You know, you play basketball, so I had a luxury
- 25:25Speaker 4: of you know, watching, watching, So seeing that on a
- 25:28Speaker 4: day to day basis, Man, if you love ball and
- 25:30Speaker 4: you're competitive and you want to be you know, established
- 25:34Speaker 4: at that at your position, establishing the game, it's like, man,
- 25:37Speaker 4: I gotta.
- 25:38Speaker 2: Do do what they do with more so.
- 25:41Speaker 4: Having that and then seeing how we formed and how
- 25:43Speaker 4: we jailed, I think how we became the greatest show
- 25:45Speaker 4: on turf. Our practices, Like, our practices are greater than
- 25:49Speaker 4: we had some awesome games, but our practices were even greater.
- 25:52Speaker 4: To me, That's where the greatest show to me was born.
- 25:55Speaker 4: It was how we practiced, how unselfish we were, we
- 25:57Speaker 4: celebrated each other. Yeah, which was which which was? Our
- 26:01Speaker 4: coaches used to just tell us how rare that was,
- 26:03Speaker 4: Like we can't believe, like like no one's tripping over
- 26:08Speaker 4: who's getting off? Like every when one get off, everybody
- 26:11Speaker 4: got off right. And then another thing too, what extended
- 26:14Speaker 4: beyond the playing field for us too, like as as
- 26:16Speaker 4: that with that championship group and that greatest show in
- 26:18Speaker 4: term group, all of us both offensively and defensively, we
- 26:21Speaker 4: had a bond like we hung with each other, like
- 26:23Speaker 4: we spent time on one another outside of the ball.
- 26:25Speaker 2: Yeah, you know where I feel, You know how I
- 26:27Speaker 2: feel about the game.
- 26:28Speaker 4: So that's how That's what I was introduced to as
- 26:32Speaker 4: a rookie. So you gotta only imagine what my expectations
- 26:35Speaker 4: were going to be each year, right that we had
- 26:38Speaker 4: success or whether we didn't, I was just I just
- 26:40Speaker 4: had a good We had a good foundation of players
- 26:44Speaker 4: that showed us how to do it, and we had
- 26:45Speaker 4: a really good foundation of coaches. Coach Dick Vermeille, who
- 26:47Speaker 4: just went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was
- 26:49Speaker 4: the head coach, and Mike Marsh and those guys. Mike
- 26:51Speaker 4: coach Marsh was phenomenals was offensive coordinating guys on defense.
- 26:55Speaker 4: But we had a good collective of players where football
- 26:59Speaker 4: meant something to them.
- 27:00Speaker 2: So for a rookie, it was good to get that
- 27:01Speaker 2: kind of tutelage early.
- 27:02Speaker 1: I think everybody I've spoken to who has been to
- 27:07Speaker 1: a Super Bowl or if won a Super Bowl, they
- 27:09Speaker 1: always talk about how dope or how amazing that locker
- 27:12Speaker 1: room is. They hang out outside of the lockero. It's
- 27:16Speaker 1: like it's it's it's a must. I feel like if
- 27:19Speaker 1: you don't do that, you're not You're not You're not
- 27:21Speaker 1: going to be tough. It's gonna be extremely tough. And
- 27:24Speaker 1: then can we just talk about you talked about he's
- 27:28Speaker 1: got induct uh Dig Vermilion, he got inducted to the
- 27:31Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, Like, can we just talk about the
- 27:32Speaker 1: Hall of famers on that team real quick? So you
- 27:34Speaker 1: got Dig Vermilion, you got Isaac, you got Kurt, you
- 27:38Speaker 1: got Orlando Orlando Marshall, Marshall and Niance Williams and NaN's
- 27:42Speaker 1: was with us and on the championship. What is that five?
- 27:46Speaker 2: So what are you four? For?
- 27:48Speaker 1: A time finalists? Like I know you're you're you're knocking
- 27:51Speaker 1: your beating We just had Leu Ray Butler on the
- 27:54Speaker 1: show and he was really talking about and he really
- 27:56Speaker 1: gave a beautiful dection of what it meant for him
- 28:02Speaker 1: to finally get that knock. And I'm hoping, I'm praying.
- 28:07Speaker 1: I see your name every year for the last couple
- 28:09Speaker 1: of years and you you were damn You're so close
- 28:12Speaker 1: and looking at you like when you just run off
- 28:14Speaker 1: the stats earlier, I'm just like, man, this what is what? Why?
- 28:21Speaker 2: Who's ever.
- 28:23Speaker 3: Watching?
- 28:23Speaker 2: Like, let's do the damn things.
- 28:27Speaker 4: It's about I appreciate that. Yeah, and I appreciate it's
- 28:30Speaker 4: about that time. It's it's It's been a cool it's
- 28:32Speaker 4: been a cool journey.
- 28:33Speaker 2: Man.
- 28:33Speaker 4: I've been you know, you mentioned I've been a finalist
- 28:35Speaker 4: four years and just every year the process and just
- 28:38Speaker 4: learning something different and seeing how it all works.
- 28:40Speaker 2: Certainly certainly.
- 28:43Speaker 4: Excited for the guys that go they go in, but
- 28:45Speaker 4: it's always a level of dis important when you know
- 28:47Speaker 4: for sure. But I will say this, coming out of
- 28:49Speaker 4: this year, we feel like our team, my presenter who
- 28:52Speaker 4: was Who's how it balls and my team, we feel
- 28:55Speaker 4: like we are a step closer. So to your point,
- 28:58Speaker 4: we feel like it's going to happen soon, but it'll be.
- 29:00Speaker 2: It'll be an incredible moment to be you know, to
- 29:03Speaker 2: be able to.
- 29:04Speaker 3: Did you think it would be like this though?
- 29:06Speaker 1: Like did you think, like, yeah, maybe my work will
- 29:09Speaker 1: just speak for itself, absolutely certainly. Or there's a lot
- 29:12Speaker 1: of politics campaigning, and I still I want to still
- 29:17Speaker 1: explain a presenter as well, Like I didn't even know
- 29:19Speaker 1: you got to have a present Yeah, it's like so.
- 29:23Speaker 4: Each each guy that goes in has a presenter, and
- 29:25Speaker 4: a lot of times it's someone that covered them at
- 29:28Speaker 4: that particular city of that particular team to beat right right,
- 29:31Speaker 4: so you know, so they have to go in and
- 29:33Speaker 4: present your case of why you should be a pro
- 29:36Speaker 4: Football of Fame. And to Peanuts point, my thing has
- 29:39Speaker 4: always been it's my work is done. It's it's all worthy,
- 29:44Speaker 4: great if it's if it's not, okay, I get it.
- 29:46Speaker 4: I think for me, the biggest joy that I get
- 29:49Speaker 4: out of continue to stay around the game, and as
- 29:52Speaker 4: I continue to talk to guys that I played against,
- 29:54Speaker 4: the respect that we show for each other for.
- 29:57Speaker 2: Playing the game. To me, y'all know that, y'all know
- 30:01Speaker 2: that means everything. It does when your.
- 30:02Speaker 4: Dude come up to you like yo, y'all know that
- 30:06Speaker 4: that shape and that hug like you're a bad boy,
- 30:08Speaker 4: that in the hall is the hall is great, But
- 30:11Speaker 4: that y'all know, means a whole hell of a lot.
- 30:14Speaker 4: So just just feeling that being on that wavelength is great.
- 30:19Speaker 4: I can only imagine with that and the hall and
- 30:23Speaker 4: wearing a jacket. I mean, it's it's icing in the cake.
- 30:26Speaker 4: And in regards to how we feel and play this
- 30:29Speaker 4: game and how we view.
- 30:30Speaker 1: It, at what point did you know when it was
- 30:45Speaker 1: time to hang it up? And I want you to
- 30:47Speaker 1: talk about the transition of not playing football.
- 30:50Speaker 3: This is what you've been doing your whole life.
- 30:52Speaker 1: You've been chasing your brother, You've had all these dreams,
- 30:54Speaker 1: you've accomplished so many things. Can you talk about that transition,
- 30:57Speaker 1: because that's what this play podcast is really it is
- 30:59Speaker 1: all about.
- 30:59Speaker 2: It is talking about the.
- 31:00Speaker 3: Second act and we all figuring out.
- 31:03Speaker 2: What to do next.
- 31:03Speaker 4: Sure, and kudos to both you all for doing this podcast,
- 31:08Speaker 4: because I mean it's the thing that every player will
- 31:12Speaker 4: go through and to hear players that played thirteen years,
- 31:15Speaker 4: eighteen years, fifteen years, whatever have you, and to know
- 31:19Speaker 4: that they may have the same struggles they've set themselves
- 31:24Speaker 4: up financially, they've played as long as they can play,
- 31:27Speaker 4: but they still struggle for a guy that maybe played
- 31:30Speaker 4: two years or six years or four years, where their
- 31:32Speaker 4: careers may have been prompted to stop, you know, because
- 31:36Speaker 4: they just couldn't make another team. But for me, I
- 31:39Speaker 4: had the fortune again of having my brother play income
- 31:42Speaker 4: before me and having advisors that had advised him, where
- 31:46Speaker 4: a lot of my transition started before I even took
- 31:48Speaker 4: a snap in an NFL. It was thinking about next
- 31:52Speaker 4: act and setting myself up on insurance and all those
- 31:54Speaker 4: kinds of things that at some point of your career
- 31:57Speaker 4: you have to start talking about. I was after my
- 32:01Speaker 4: rookie year finished. I was part of that inaugural class
- 32:05Speaker 4: that started to do some of the executive entrepreneurship kind
- 32:09Speaker 4: of programs where I went to Wharton and so there
- 32:12Speaker 4: was guys that were ten years, eleven years, twelve years
- 32:15Speaker 4: in here I am.
- 32:16Speaker 2: As a rookie, only rookie.
- 32:19Speaker 4: Youngest person twenty four years old, and there's thirty five,
- 32:23Speaker 4: thirty six, thirty seven year old guys in there at
- 32:25Speaker 4: this Wharton event in school to learn about kind of transition.
- 32:32Speaker 4: It was transitioning with success, and so I've always kind
- 32:36Speaker 4: of been ahead of the curve trying to think about
- 32:38Speaker 4: my next act, not hoping that it would come anytime soon,
- 32:42Speaker 4: but I got to prepare for it and start thinking
- 32:44Speaker 4: about it. But just like anybody else after my when
- 32:48Speaker 4: it was all said and done and free agency was
- 32:52Speaker 4: going in a way that I thought with not having
- 32:55Speaker 4: a lot of bites from teams and having my faculties.
- 32:59Speaker 4: I had had several concussions when I played, I had
- 33:02Speaker 4: had some injuries like knee and back and some of
- 33:05Speaker 4: those things. You know, One day I just kind of
- 33:08Speaker 4: looked around. It was like in February leading into March,
- 33:11Speaker 4: and like I said, I hadn't had a lot of
- 33:14Speaker 4: teams that had showed interest in communicating with my with
- 33:17Speaker 4: my agent, I was like, you know what, man, I
- 33:20Speaker 4: have done well, I've played six years. I had a
- 33:23Speaker 4: goal of playing ten years. I said, I, you know,
- 33:26Speaker 4: I just think it is it's time. I had just
- 33:29Speaker 4: gotten married and uh and finished in New Orleans and
- 33:34Speaker 4: going to that two thousand and nine season, I started
- 33:37Speaker 4: going to business conferences and just wanting to just just
- 33:43Speaker 4: learn like what's out there, Like, you know, what what
- 33:45Speaker 4: opportunities kind of suit and fit our needs. And we
- 33:49Speaker 4: had already started in seven a real estate business. We
- 33:53Speaker 4: were going to do house flips and it was called
- 33:56Speaker 4: Brothers Buildings was the name of the company, the LLC, the.
- 34:01Speaker 2: LLLC that we had started. And so we just started
- 34:04Speaker 2: to learn.
- 34:05Speaker 4: We had great business advisors and people that we've been
- 34:08Speaker 4: fortunate to be surrounded by to kind of talk to
- 34:11Speaker 4: us and UH and that we could trust that wasn't
- 34:14Speaker 4: in it to have us invest in something that they
- 34:18Speaker 4: wanted to do. And that's oftentimes what players can be
- 34:20Speaker 4: surrounded around is people that they trust that are in
- 34:24Speaker 4: it for themselves to say, you know what, let's take
- 34:27Speaker 4: I can make your money work for you. You know what
- 34:29Speaker 4: I'm saying, Just invest in me and invest in it.
- 34:31Speaker 4: And for us, it was investing in ourselves and knowing
- 34:34Speaker 4: that we had to drive and the ambition to do
- 34:37Speaker 4: something to go beyond what we had done with.
- 34:40Speaker 2: Our sports careers. And so fast forward to that.
- 34:43Speaker 4: You know, for me, I just and with my wife's support,
- 34:47Speaker 4: because I went through a period where I was down.
- 34:48Speaker 4: I didn't have a locker room to support me and
- 34:50Speaker 4: pick me up. So I probably I told my brother this,
- 34:54Speaker 4: I probably I didn't.
- 34:55Speaker 2: I don't.
- 34:55Speaker 4: I didn't know that it was depression, but I probably
- 34:57Speaker 4: was going through depressions, you know what I'm saying, And
- 35:01Speaker 4: so I had to find that next thing. And I
- 35:03Speaker 4: think what has helped me and me and Tory talk
- 35:06Speaker 4: about this all the time is if you're trying to
- 35:08Speaker 4: get in one big bite all of the joy that
- 35:15Speaker 4: you get, an accomplishment you get from playing in the
- 35:17Speaker 4: National Football League and running out there on the field
- 35:20Speaker 4: with eighty five thousand people either booing you or cheering
- 35:24Speaker 4: for you, you're probably going to be disappointed. What you have
- 35:27Speaker 4: to do in transitioning and your second act is those
- 35:32Speaker 4: small bites and those small wins and kind of collectively
- 35:37Speaker 4: putting together whether it's business that you're doing, whether it's
- 35:40Speaker 4: being able to be the dad that you you know
- 35:42Speaker 4: wanted to be or you couldn't be when you know,
- 35:45Speaker 4: when you had football kind of taking up so much
- 35:48Speaker 4: of your time, volunteering, it's things of which you know
- 35:53Speaker 4: ingratiating yourself into your community, things like that that I
- 35:57Speaker 4: think those collectively can put together a nice little mix
- 36:02Speaker 4: of stuff that can give you the pleasure of planning
- 36:07Speaker 4: and not not replace. It's it's something that you know
- 36:11Speaker 4: that most people don't do, but it can give you
- 36:15Speaker 4: the pleasure of filling your day with small wins and
- 36:20Speaker 4: things that you can you can find a career and
- 36:23Speaker 4: find a second act out of and for me and
- 36:25Speaker 4: for us that we did. We went around business conferences,
- 36:28Speaker 4: got business advisement, and then landed rather than the real
- 36:31Speaker 4: estate company on construction.
- 36:34Speaker 2: And there was.
- 36:36Speaker 4: Opportunities for both public and private projects that could benefit
- 36:42Speaker 4: from diversity and inclusion and from a minority owned company
- 36:46Speaker 4: like Whope Other's construction. And so we went about that
- 36:49Speaker 4: course of pursuing public and private opportunities. And eleven years later, Man,
- 36:53Speaker 4: we've kind of grown our kind of revenue, pushing kind
- 36:57Speaker 4: of like nine figures now and in some big opportunities
- 37:00Speaker 4: in front of us. And it's it's just been just
- 37:03Speaker 4: like our careers, where we we've grown. Each year, we've evolved,
- 37:07Speaker 4: we've learned, we've gotten better, we've got craftier, got smarter.
- 37:12Speaker 4: We've had some some things that we've not done well,
- 37:14Speaker 4: but we've learned from those and we feel like we've surrounded.
- 37:18Speaker 2: Ourselves with a really, really really good team.
- 37:21Speaker 4: They are really what make Toy and I successful and
- 37:25Speaker 4: we have the benefit of all the lessons that we've
- 37:28Speaker 4: learned and people that we've talked to coaches being coached.
- 37:32Speaker 4: We have that, and we are in the position now
- 37:34Speaker 4: to coach, to coach and own and UH and stepping
- 37:38Speaker 4: in the fray when we need to to UH to
- 37:41Speaker 4: provide a plan of action and the course of action
- 37:44Speaker 4: and letting people grow and work and and all those
- 37:48Speaker 4: kinds of things. So that's that's really what's been been
- 37:51Speaker 4: beneficial for us and been helpful for us.
- 37:53Speaker 1: And I appreciate that kind of give us that whole
- 37:57Speaker 1: what you guys are up to a little bit more so,
- 37:58Speaker 1: and what I was thinking of before I kind of
- 38:02Speaker 1: lost my thoughts. What you said was so true is
- 38:04Speaker 1: that the respect mutually from your peers and being called
- 38:09Speaker 1: a true pro. That's like the ultimate college pro for
- 38:13Speaker 1: football players. A lot of times in locker rooms like well,
- 38:15Speaker 1: I just want to be called the pro pro pro.
- 38:18Speaker 4: Well, it's funny because when when he when he and
- 38:20Speaker 4: I had this conversation with my kids. When Terrence was
- 38:24Speaker 4: in high school, I talked to him as a high schooler.
- 38:27Speaker 4: When he was in college, I talked and treated him
- 38:29Speaker 4: as he was a high school when he was in
- 38:31Speaker 4: college when he came to the pros, All that's over.
- 38:35Speaker 4: You're a pro now, Yeah.
- 38:37Speaker 5: Like it's a whole and it's a whole level of
- 38:41Speaker 5: expectations and you got to do it every day, your
- 38:45Speaker 5: pro the expectations for you to show up every single day.
- 38:50Speaker 4: And I tell my and now I'm having that conversation
- 38:51Speaker 4: with my daughters. I'm not I'm not talking to you
- 38:54Speaker 4: like I talked to you and he was in high school.
- 38:55Speaker 4: I'm talking to you now you're in college. Dad hasn't
- 38:58Speaker 4: been through that. Mom has been through that, and we
- 39:00Speaker 4: and we speaking that way. And as you move up.
- 39:03Speaker 4: So I just want to I just wanted to share.
- 39:05Speaker 4: I just want to just want.
- 39:06Speaker 1: To shut and I appreciate that. And then, you know,
- 39:08Speaker 1: just talk about your transition a little bit. I mean,
- 39:10Speaker 1: what made you decide to retire when you did. I
- 39:13Speaker 1: mean you're still productive your last year. I think you
- 39:15Speaker 1: believe fifty.
- 39:18Speaker 3: And you're like, you know what, I'm good, I'm ready
- 39:21Speaker 3: to go.
- 39:21Speaker 2: Yeah, my body, my knees told me, yo, you just
- 39:24Speaker 2: time for you to be be done.
- 39:26Speaker 3: Do it.
- 39:27Speaker 4: Lot of turf days, you know, lot of t yeah,
- 39:29Speaker 4: you know a lot of you know, I've had surgeries,
- 39:32Speaker 4: had issues. I came into to the pros with with
- 39:35Speaker 4: the knee issue that I suffered down at the Yeah,
- 39:40Speaker 4: and so I knew early on that I would have
- 39:45Speaker 4: knee issues. And because of the way also how I
- 39:48Speaker 4: practiced and how I played and how we cut and moved.
- 39:50Speaker 4: As a receiver, you gotta do a lot of bend
- 39:52Speaker 4: and a lot of cutting. So I knew I had
- 39:55Speaker 4: a certain window. So with that, with me knowing that,
- 39:58Speaker 4: anticipating that, that old me to really in that window
- 40:01Speaker 4: that I had was the goal as hard as I
- 40:03Speaker 4: possibly could be, as consistent, bes as dominant as I
- 40:08Speaker 4: possibly could. So it was my nees that my health
- 40:11Speaker 4: is what took me out, which was fine, you know,
- 40:15Speaker 4: I because.
- 40:16Speaker 2: Again I I anticipated it happening. I knew it was coming.
- 40:20Speaker 4: When it does, it's it's not what we what we want,
- 40:24Speaker 4: but it's reality.
- 40:25Speaker 2: It is reality. Yeah.
- 40:27Speaker 4: Yeah, So I spoke to coach Belichick about it, and
- 40:29Speaker 4: you know, and we came up with a plan and
- 40:31Speaker 4: and remember calling home, calling my wife, calling my grandmother,
- 40:35Speaker 4: calling Terians, calling my pops. Hey, this was the day.
- 40:39Speaker 4: It was, you know, this was yeah, I was this
- 40:41Speaker 4: is it, This is it? I was coming from a
- 40:44Speaker 4: business conference and he called, and uh, it was. It
- 40:49Speaker 4: was kind of a pregnant pause there where it was
- 40:53Speaker 4: like he said.
- 40:54Speaker 2: Man, I'm done, and I knew it was. I knew
- 40:58Speaker 2: it was serious. It's heart in his voice. Oh man,
- 41:00Speaker 2: it was. It was.
- 41:01Speaker 4: And when he said he was done, it was it
- 41:03Speaker 4: was we done. It was right because I had transition
- 41:06Speaker 4: before him. And what I was gonna say. The funny
- 41:08Speaker 4: thing about transition, I'm chasing my brother, right, I'm always
- 41:11Speaker 4: coming after my brother, middle school, high school, college pros.
- 41:14Speaker 4: This is the first time that I was able to
- 41:16Speaker 4: go before him, so I was able to talk to
- 41:18Speaker 4: him about transition and what it was going to be like.
- 41:21Speaker 4: And I never forget telling him. The thing that he'll
- 41:27Speaker 4: have to do, that we'll have to do, that I
- 41:30Speaker 4: had to do is humble ourselves because we're we're you know,
- 41:35Speaker 4: being down back around the draft and going to the
- 41:39Speaker 4: super Bowl and all those kinds of things. Oftentimes we
- 41:41Speaker 4: are not because we asked for but we're put on
- 41:43Speaker 4: a pedestal and we you know, we're these nice hotels
- 41:47Speaker 4: and there's fans and there's people doing a whole lot
- 41:50Speaker 4: of stuff for you. When you transition and you go
- 41:52Speaker 4: back into the home, and not that you're out of
- 41:55Speaker 4: the home, but there's nobody cheering your name, you know,
- 41:58Speaker 4: and you gotta be okay with that little quieter.
- 42:02Speaker 2: You know. It's and and when you step in the
- 42:05Speaker 2: business people may.
- 42:10Speaker 4: Allow and set up a meeting with you because again
- 42:13Speaker 4: that they know you and and and kind of appreciated
- 42:17Speaker 4: the career that you had. But when they're talking about
- 42:19Speaker 4: giving you a business opportunity, that ain't got nothing to
- 42:22Speaker 4: do because you caught you know seven again, if it's
- 42:28Speaker 4: there's money that you're spending, they want a return on
- 42:30Speaker 4: their investment. They want a service that isn't keeping with
- 42:34Speaker 4: that car. So I was telling my brother at these
- 42:37Speaker 4: business conferences, it's people that you.
- 42:39Speaker 2: Know, will chew you up elevator speech, what do you do?
- 42:42Speaker 4: And and and and to that point, we went to
- 42:44Speaker 4: an event and I wasn't ready.
- 42:46Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't ready. I got humble, Yeah, real quick,
- 42:49Speaker 2: real quick, I went. I told him. I was like, man,
- 42:51Speaker 2: I ain't nothing. Man I ain't never felt like that.
- 42:53Speaker 4: It was discurious because because the guy, the guy was
- 42:58Speaker 4: kind of go ahead. You know, it wouldn't have been
- 43:00Speaker 4: no different if he came on my turf in the
- 43:02Speaker 4: Pro Bowl and he you know, and then I'm on
- 43:05Speaker 4: his turf as a as a businessman. I wasn't ready,
- 43:10Speaker 4: you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, I am okay,
- 43:12Speaker 4: here I am.
- 43:12Speaker 2: You know, I canna man. I didn't even know how
- 43:16Speaker 2: to I had to learn how to talk the language
- 43:18Speaker 2: business culture.
- 43:19Speaker 1: How long did it take you say, like, well, how
- 43:23Speaker 1: long did it take you to figure that out? During
- 43:25Speaker 1: that transition phase? Like say, okay, I retired January one,
- 43:29Speaker 1: and then you're talking to your brother.
- 43:30Speaker 2: He's giving me some advice. Did you sit out a year?
- 43:33Speaker 3: Did you wait a year?
- 43:34Speaker 2: Did you? Or do you get right into it? You know?
- 43:36Speaker 4: I was was, I was done and I was probably
- 43:39Speaker 4: a couple of years out. Oh we actually really went
- 43:42Speaker 4: into that, So I was, I was done. I was
- 43:45Speaker 4: done in my after going into the Old nine season.
- 43:48Speaker 4: We started the business in October seventeenth, twenty eleven, is
- 43:52Speaker 4: when we got going. But we were but we were
- 43:54Speaker 4: in it. But we were going around taking coffees, lunch,
- 43:58Speaker 4: then us with people to tea to tell us before
- 44:01Speaker 4: we spend money, tell us we'll pay for coffee, lunch
- 44:05Speaker 4: and dinner. To get lessons. How do we come into
- 44:08Speaker 4: this construction industry, what's the best way How minority minority
- 44:12Speaker 4: companies or companies, small companies have they failed you know
- 44:15Speaker 4: what I mean? How have they been able to carve
- 44:17Speaker 4: out an identity for themselves to be known for something.
- 44:20Speaker 4: We're going around asking architects, engineers, potential clients, and other
- 44:26Speaker 4: general contractors. Construction managers look like that just like us.
- 44:29Speaker 4: And what ended up happening, which is the greatest thing,
- 44:32Speaker 4: is just like with a coach, where a coach see
- 44:35Speaker 4: that a player has invested and they'll come to them
- 44:38Speaker 4: for extra work or extra tips. That's what we were
- 44:41Speaker 4: getting from those people. We were seeking counsel front as
- 44:44Speaker 4: they seen we went into it and this was not
- 44:47Speaker 4: a place where we were just throwing money or we
- 44:49Speaker 4: were going to own the company and never be seen
- 44:52Speaker 4: and throw money at it.
- 44:53Speaker 2: And stuff like that.
- 44:54Speaker 4: They seen our personal investment and interest in coming back.
- 44:58Speaker 4: And if a guy told us or girl told us,
- 45:00Speaker 4: young lady told us to be hey, come to this
- 45:03Speaker 4: conference and it's in San Diego, but come to this conference,
- 45:08Speaker 4: what was happening was they was testing us.
- 45:10Speaker 2: Yep, we show.
- 45:11Speaker 4: Up, We on time, We suited and booted, you know,
- 45:14Speaker 4: were seeking knowledge, were there. First thing is show up
- 45:18Speaker 4: and y'all know like I know, in our sport and
- 45:23Speaker 4: for our meetings, coming to a meeting and just showing
- 45:26Speaker 4: up a meeting and eating clock. That ain't it, you
- 45:28Speaker 4: know what I mean? Eight o'clock you late. If the
- 45:30Speaker 4: meetings started at eight and you dad, eight, you late.
- 45:33Speaker 4: So we showing up fifteen minutes early, attentive, ready to go.
- 45:38Speaker 4: People started to invest in us, they started champion us.
- 45:42Speaker 4: And that's really the thing that helped here and I
- 45:45Speaker 4: grow to lead our team is we needed some executive
- 45:49Speaker 4: coaching too, you know what I mean, We needed to
- 45:51Speaker 4: be poured in. And I would say for our for
- 45:54Speaker 4: our current and former players and legends alumni is listening
- 45:58Speaker 4: to this podcast, I think you have to allow yourself
- 46:01Speaker 4: to be humbled and allow yourself to be able to
- 46:04Speaker 4: work through transitional coaching for a professional career outside of
- 46:08Speaker 4: foot ball, like to give yourself the grace to learn.
- 46:13Speaker 4: Because again, like I said, I wasn't ready for some
- 46:15Speaker 4: of those business conversations. I'll be back to towns like
- 46:18Speaker 4: some of that shit. But it made me like okay,
- 46:22Speaker 4: all right, and my my plan days I ain't letting
- 46:26Speaker 4: I ain't letting them stay happen again. You know what
- 46:29Speaker 4: I'm saying, Like that'd be the last time coach gonna
- 46:30Speaker 4: say that, say something about that.
- 46:33Speaker 2: So you just learn to clean it up. You learn
- 46:35Speaker 2: to get better.
- 46:35Speaker 4: But you got to give yourself to grace to do that,
- 46:37Speaker 4: and you got to know what you do. That was
- 46:39Speaker 4: the biggest thing is people asking what do you need
- 46:41Speaker 4: to know what your business does? And you got to
- 46:44Speaker 4: do it in a concise way because you might have
- 46:46Speaker 4: the benefit, especially at these big conferences where people meeting
- 46:49Speaker 4: a lot of people, you may have the ear of
- 46:51Speaker 4: an executive or CEO for sixty seconds you're coming down.
- 46:56Speaker 2: That's why it's call e because everybody, everybody, everybody want
- 46:59Speaker 2: to chat.
- 46:59Speaker 4: Everybody want to and what the and the thing I'll
- 47:02Speaker 4: say to players in their sacond act, if it's business,
- 47:06Speaker 4: if it's you know, uh, philanthropic work, whatever is. What
- 47:10Speaker 4: we learned very quickly was while humbling ourselves is something that.
- 47:15Speaker 2: We needed to do.
- 47:17Speaker 4: We didn't need to fray from who we are and
- 47:22Speaker 4: what happens is is in business right if you know,
- 47:25Speaker 4: everybody goes toward and everybody goes to Howard or whatnot,
- 47:29Speaker 4: and they are betrayed to be these business folks. Their
- 47:33Speaker 4: dim a dozen't like they've gone the path towards being
- 47:37Speaker 4: the business people we are.
- 47:39Speaker 2: What we had was that we were unique.
- 47:42Speaker 4: And what you'll learn in doing business and trying to
- 47:46Speaker 4: do businesses that ninety percent of the discussion that you
- 47:49Speaker 4: may be have that you may have with somebody has
- 47:52Speaker 4: nothing to do with that business you're talking, you know, sports,
- 47:56Speaker 4: topic of the day, and being unique and having something
- 47:59Speaker 4: to talk about other than the widget or the thing
- 48:04Speaker 4: or business culture and discussion made us stand out. And
- 48:08Speaker 4: so that's what I say to players is don't worry
- 48:10Speaker 4: about changing who you are.
- 48:11Speaker 2: Be who you are. It's that uniqueness.
- 48:13Speaker 4: It's gonna be different and gonna make you stand out
- 48:15Speaker 4: amongst everybody else.
- 48:17Speaker 2: But be ready.
- 48:18Speaker 4: Once in that ten percent of that discussion, you got
- 48:21Speaker 4: to know your business right and come with what you want?
- 48:24Speaker 4: What do you want? What are you trying to get
- 48:25Speaker 4: out of this meeting. We shouldn't just be meeting just
- 48:27Speaker 4: to meeting. You're dealing with somebody's time. It might be
- 48:30Speaker 4: an hour, thirty minutes, twenty minutes. What do you want
- 48:33Speaker 4: and don't be afraid that tell people what you want?
- 48:36Speaker 4: How can you help me more? People will help you
- 48:38Speaker 4: if you open your mouth rather than you just again
- 48:42Speaker 4: not open your mouth and don't utilize that meeting or
- 48:45Speaker 4: that time that people have.
- 48:48Speaker 1: All I can say is wow, I like that you
- 48:53Speaker 1: just said. It seems like and You're not the first
- 48:57Speaker 1: person to do this. I'm the same way I think
- 48:59Speaker 1: you are too. When we retire and we get out
- 49:02Speaker 1: and we get into that transition and then we get humbled,
- 49:06Speaker 1: we somehow get back into how we prepared, how we
- 49:12Speaker 1: got to the league. I'm sure you do it when
- 49:14Speaker 1: you do your notes and stuff right when you on TV,
- 49:16Speaker 1: and it's just like, no, hold on, hold on that,
- 49:19Speaker 1: I got to teach you thse real quick. Like we
- 49:21Speaker 1: we we get into that, all right. I know I'm
- 49:24Speaker 1: not in the league no more, but I got to
- 49:26Speaker 1: get back into that I'm in the league mentality mentally
- 49:29Speaker 1: of how we prepare, Like I think, like all just naturally.
- 49:32Speaker 4: Do that, like once we came to the professional football league,
- 49:35Speaker 4: once we once we became professionals repros for the rest
- 49:38Speaker 4: of our life, y'o.
- 49:39Speaker 2: For sure, it's a great point.
- 49:40Speaker 1: And whatever we do, it's a great point because we
- 49:42Speaker 1: only know one way it's like fight or flight, and
- 49:45Speaker 1: there ain't no flight.
- 49:49Speaker 2: You're dealing with a pro. Yeah.
- 49:51Speaker 1: And that's why I encourage guys that your sack and
- 49:53Speaker 1: act can be better than your first Yeah. Yeah, right now,
- 49:56Speaker 1: because now we hopefully you've done right by your money.
- 49:59Speaker 1: You are able to invest in yourself and able to
- 50:02Speaker 1: multiply what you have, and like I said, humbling yourself,
- 50:06Speaker 1: asking people for what you want and preparing like you
- 50:09Speaker 1: knew you had to prepare if you were a safety
- 50:13Speaker 1: or a corner and you had to go against the
- 50:15Speaker 1: best receiver or the tight end or the running back
- 50:18Speaker 1: or whatnot, you wasn't just showing up.
- 50:20Speaker 4: And it's the same thing with businesses. Do your homework,
- 50:24Speaker 4: especially on who you meeting. If somebody sends you a meeting, invite,
- 50:27Speaker 4: what's the agenda, what we're gonna talk about, ask about
- 50:29Speaker 4: it right. I'm not going in a meeting that I'm
- 50:32Speaker 4: not having no kind of understanding the way we mean
- 50:34Speaker 4: about exactly.
- 50:35Speaker 1: I think that's very important to you try and encourage
- 50:37Speaker 1: a lot of guys that are going through that transition
- 50:40Speaker 1: to you know, a lot of us are fearful of
- 50:41Speaker 1: the unknown, sure, and so a lot of times you know,
- 50:44Speaker 1: you've great, You've given some great nuggets talking about you know,
- 50:48Speaker 1: be who you are, right and I've got some advice
- 50:50Speaker 1: that Hey, look man, some of you guys are stars.
- 50:54Speaker 3: Naturally.
- 50:55Speaker 1: People will be attracted to you because you're a natural star.
- 50:59Speaker 1: And when you dim your life, other people can't shine.
- 51:02Speaker 1: So when you shine and continue to be who you are,
- 51:04Speaker 1: it lets everybody in the room shine and be seen.
- 51:07Speaker 1: So continue to lean into who you are. I think
- 51:09Speaker 1: you guys have really hit that on the head. And
- 51:11Speaker 1: for me, I would like to know about, you know,
- 51:14Speaker 1: the Whole Brothers, Inc. And when you started this thing,
- 51:18Speaker 1: did you guys have any like initial goals and have
- 51:22Speaker 1: you achieved those goals in what is your trajectory or
- 51:25Speaker 1: the future plans for it? Sure we certainly had goals,
- 51:30Speaker 1: you know, we knew they would change kind of over time,
- 51:33Speaker 1: of course, but we had read all the business metrics
- 51:36Speaker 1: of you know, if you can make it three years
- 51:38Speaker 1: and you can make it, you know, we heard all
- 51:41Speaker 1: those things.
- 51:42Speaker 4: We've evolved, We've a changed, We've we've got more focus.
- 51:47Speaker 4: Whole Brothers Inc. When we started was kind of the
- 51:51Speaker 4: parent company for LLC's like Whole Brothers Football Whole Brother's
- 51:55Speaker 4: Development and Whole Brother's Construction LLC. And then we've had
- 52:01Speaker 4: before Whople Brothers Inc. Was born, we had Whole Brothers Foundation, Inc.
- 52:05Speaker 4: Which is an affiliate two hours. That's a lot of websites. Yes,
- 52:11Speaker 4: but but we've narrowed our focus where our primary businesses aren't.
- 52:17Speaker 4: We're not doing anything with the development company like going
- 52:19Speaker 4: after any real estate deals. And we used to do
- 52:22Speaker 4: camps and clinics with the Football Company and COVID happening,
- 52:26Speaker 4: and so we kind of not doing much with the
- 52:28Speaker 4: with the Football Company, and so it's construction and it's
- 52:31Speaker 4: foundation and so sometimes narrowing your focus is part of
- 52:35Speaker 4: that game plan too, and you learn that over time,
- 52:38Speaker 4: like only got so much bandwidth, right, and I can
- 52:42Speaker 4: keep trying to chop at everything, or I can narrow
- 52:45Speaker 4: my focus and I can get something done. And sometimes
- 52:49Speaker 4: again getting something done is the motivation to keep going
- 52:53Speaker 4: versus being so spread out. And so we did that,
- 52:56Speaker 4: and uh, you know, we initially started with the goal
- 52:59Speaker 4: of doing work in a certain kind of way, like
- 53:02Speaker 4: like we just wanted to do college and university work,
- 53:05Speaker 4: where we've kind of spread Now what we're doing. Education
- 53:08Speaker 4: is a big focus college and university, but we're also
- 53:11Speaker 4: doing K through twelve, so we built kind of uh
- 53:15Speaker 4: elementary schools, high schools. We've worked at our alma mater
- 53:19Speaker 4: and done some cool projects. Now that that's a cool thing.
- 53:22Speaker 1: We're getting to come home, come back home, and we're
- 53:25Speaker 1: through some stuff.
- 53:26Speaker 3: It probably means.
- 53:27Speaker 2: A lot more mans.
- 53:29Speaker 1: When you see a building that you could help construct
- 53:33Speaker 1: on your old stumping grounds and campus, that's a lot.
- 53:36Speaker 3: Of pridect you.
- 53:37Speaker 2: It is.
- 53:38Speaker 4: Yeah, So I say me and Toory talk about this
- 53:41Speaker 4: like I know my campus like I've never known my
- 53:46Speaker 4: campus places. I never went on campus. You know how
- 53:48Speaker 4: we all we got. If you're in sociology degree, which
- 53:51Speaker 4: I was, I went through the buildings of a sociology and.
- 53:54Speaker 2: I was going back to the degree.
- 53:58Speaker 4: Football facility and the dining hall, those are the places
- 54:01Speaker 4: I know. So now we've learned a whole lot more
- 54:03Speaker 4: about campus because we're working on campus. But we've done
- 54:07Speaker 4: do work for our city. We do parks and recreation.
- 54:10Speaker 4: We're doing this cool project that I want to kind
- 54:13Speaker 4: of elaborate on. It's called North Carolina Freedom Park, and
- 54:16Speaker 4: it's the first and only park to commemorate the efforts
- 54:22Speaker 4: of African Americans to the state of North Carolina. So
- 54:25Speaker 4: all this time, there's no park in Charlotte, there's no
- 54:28Speaker 4: park in Winston or all these other metros throughout our state.
- 54:33Speaker 4: And it's on the doorstep of the governors because the
- 54:36Speaker 4: governor's mansion is writ in Raleigh, North Carolina. That's our
- 54:40Speaker 4: that's our capital. And so we're doing this park and
- 54:42Speaker 4: it has all these on these pre cast wall, all
- 54:46Speaker 4: these engravements of statements, quotes from famous African Americans that
- 54:53Speaker 4: made significant contributions to our state. So we're working on that,
- 54:57Speaker 4: and we've been working on that for the past year.
- 55:00Speaker 4: We ride by it every day because it's just doorsteps
- 55:03Speaker 4: from my office. So it's like watching paint dry, because
- 55:07Speaker 4: stuff don't happen like that on the day. It takes
- 55:09Speaker 4: some time. I've been in this project over a year,
- 55:11Speaker 4: but to see that project come together and has this
- 55:14Speaker 4: beacon of hope that is this stainless steel structure that's
- 55:19Speaker 4: about forty foot that sits in the middle of the
- 55:22Speaker 4: park that that that serves like a flame, and the
- 55:25Speaker 4: flame is to provide hope to folks African Americans that
- 55:29Speaker 4: have done so much in our state and now they
- 55:30Speaker 4: get an honest.
- 55:31Speaker 3: And I'm sure you guys are gonna have Charles L.
- 55:34Speaker 1: Sifford on there's ye I think African American PGA golfer,
- 55:39Speaker 1: you know.
- 55:44Speaker 4: But yeah, we so so to do stuff like that
- 55:47Speaker 4: and to be able to take our kids to see
- 55:51Speaker 4: tangible things.
- 55:52Speaker 2: That you know what that you know, Dad built that.
- 55:54Speaker 4: You know that gas station that you're pumping that gut
- 55:56Speaker 4: dad Dad and uncle built Dad.
- 55:58Speaker 2: So it's a it's legacy building. I love it. So
- 56:02Speaker 2: it's a cool thing to do. I love it. You know.
- 56:05Speaker 1: The thing that's we tend to do things at least
- 56:09Speaker 1: from a foundation standpoint or a charitable standpoint. You know,
- 56:12Speaker 1: my daughter had a hard transplant back in two thousand
- 56:15Speaker 1: and eight, and I had my whole foundation set aside
- 56:18Speaker 1: and we were doing education, but once she got sick,
- 56:21Speaker 1: I decided to change it.
- 56:23Speaker 2: It was we're more education based.
- 56:25Speaker 1: So I was just like, my heart's not really an education,
- 56:28Speaker 1: but I do want to keep my foundation and help
- 56:29Speaker 1: these kids. So we ended up changing the mission statement
- 56:34Speaker 1: and we started doing things in hospitals now. And I
- 56:39Speaker 1: want you guys to talk about what you're doing and
- 56:41Speaker 1: what your promise was, because I know you guys lost
- 56:43Speaker 1: your mom when you guys were kids to cancer, and
- 56:46Speaker 1: I want you, can you just talk about kind of
- 56:48Speaker 1: what your foundation is doing right now.
- 56:50Speaker 2: Yeah, So Whole Brother's Foundation is our mission.
- 56:55Speaker 4: We support young kids with a parent or guardian that's
- 56:58Speaker 4: balance cancer. We lost our mom, Aillon Foma in nineteen
- 57:02Speaker 4: ninety six. She was forty three years old, so we
- 57:07Speaker 4: vowed to do something out of her name. Once I
- 57:09Speaker 4: made it to the National Football League, won the Super Bowl,
- 57:12Speaker 4: and then after the year after that, went to this
- 57:14Speaker 4: meeting called Bear Essentials where it was all these families
- 57:16Speaker 4: and these kids and these families that were going through cancer.
- 57:19Speaker 4: And I had never been to a meeting like that.
- 57:24Speaker 4: When my mother was diagnoseding was going through it. The
- 57:27Speaker 4: only treatment we got was amongst each other, my brother
- 57:30Speaker 4: and my sister, my pops, my uncle, my grandmother, everybody
- 57:33Speaker 4: came around to take care of my mom. So, but
- 57:36Speaker 4: we didn't have the twos the resources to know how
- 57:38Speaker 4: to deal with that type of traumacach. Once cancer penetrates
- 57:41Speaker 4: the home, that's trauma. May not be a trauma for
- 57:44Speaker 4: my helmet hit, a head to head hit, but it's
- 57:47Speaker 4: a disease and it's trauma to the crib. So a
- 57:50Speaker 4: lot of those resources, a lot of the time for
- 57:53Speaker 4: mom or dad goes towards trying to beat cancer, or
- 57:56Speaker 4: mom or dad resting, a lot of time for kids. Well,
- 57:59Speaker 4: kids need to develop, kids need to be social, kids
- 58:02Speaker 4: need to be kids. So I went to this meeting
- 58:04Speaker 4: and I was like, it was unbelievable the type of
- 58:06Speaker 4: information that the parents were getting, also the type of
- 58:09Speaker 4: information that the kids were.
- 58:10Speaker 2: Getting on how to deal with and cope with cancer.
- 58:14Speaker 4: And you went to this meeting because like y'all know,
- 58:16Speaker 4: when y'all play, our community, folks would try to connect
- 58:20Speaker 4: you to the community for things that resonated with you, right,
- 58:23Speaker 4: And they know that toy mom had passed away from cancer,
- 58:27Speaker 4: and they was like, hey, you probably should go to
- 58:29Speaker 4: this meeting. You probably relate to this. And when he
- 58:32Speaker 4: went to the meeting, that's when he So Marson Moran,
- 58:35Speaker 4: who's our play development and handled all of the stuff
- 58:39Speaker 4: that we get out in the community, took me to
- 58:40Speaker 4: this went to this She suggested that I go to
- 58:42Speaker 4: this meeting. So we went and I was like, you know,
- 58:45Speaker 4: we don't have a program like this in North Carolina.
- 58:47Speaker 4: Like the kids could benefit from something like this in
- 58:50Speaker 4: North Carolina. I know I am in my twenties, yeah,
- 58:53Speaker 4: and I'm benefit benefit be infinite from it. Now at
- 58:56Speaker 4: twenty some plus years old, I can only imagine what
- 58:58Speaker 4: it'd be like if I was a kid and coming
- 59:00Speaker 4: on up through the ranks. So we started started the
- 59:03Speaker 4: foundation in two thousand, bought the program to North Carolina.
- 59:06Speaker 4: It's called Kids Can. Kids Can still accomplish and achieve
- 59:09Speaker 4: anything that they want though their parent are guardian is
- 59:11Speaker 4: balance cancer and we work with area hospitals in North Carolina.
- 59:16Speaker 4: We have programs that provide peer empathy, education, mental support
- 59:21Speaker 4: to those families, and those families at the hospitals meet
- 59:24Speaker 4: on a monthly basis. Terrence and I often attend those meetings. Again,
- 59:29Speaker 4: these are it's our foundation, it's the families that we're supporting.
- 59:33Speaker 4: We feel like we feel like that it's important not
- 59:37Speaker 4: only to have your foundation, but be visible, yes, present,
- 59:40Speaker 4: be present the time. Like the resources is cool, and
- 59:44Speaker 4: we can generate a lot of resources, and we can
- 59:46Speaker 4: bring a lot of resources to the foundation, but you
- 59:52Speaker 4: can bring more than that by being present, being visible,
- 59:56Speaker 4: spending the time building relationships with those families. So we're
- 59:59Speaker 4: able to do it with those kids can families. So
- 1:00:03Speaker 4: right now where we have what four programs in North
- 1:00:06Speaker 4: Carolina and then one in Saint Louis, and we're just
- 1:00:10Speaker 4: again just helping kids man give them the confidence, give
- 1:00:14Speaker 4: them the information that they need to be able.
- 1:00:17Speaker 2: To go on.
- 1:00:18Speaker 4: And one of the other things about the foundation that
- 1:00:21Speaker 4: we're really excited about too, is we have a scholarship
- 1:00:23Speaker 4: program now. So the kids that go through the Kids
- 1:00:26Speaker 4: Can program at ages six to seventeen. So a lot
- 1:00:29Speaker 4: of those kids, once they finish high school have aspirations
- 1:00:32Speaker 4: to go off to university. Well, again, the resources are
- 1:00:35Speaker 4: dried up and maybe able to get some pension plant,
- 1:00:37Speaker 4: you know, maybe it to get some type of college
- 1:00:39Speaker 4: education or some type of scholarship or something. So we say,
- 1:00:42Speaker 4: you know what, it'd be cool if we take some
- 1:00:43Speaker 4: of those dollars start a scholarship program and for kids
- 1:00:47Speaker 4: that need a little extra push, we can provide a
- 1:00:49Speaker 4: scholarship form and they can go off to university. So
- 1:00:52Speaker 4: our foundation also provides scholarship dollars for those kids that
- 1:00:56Speaker 4: go through the program. And I think we've now given
- 1:00:58Speaker 4: over maybe one hundred some plus thousand dollars and scholarship
- 1:01:01Speaker 4: funds to those kids in our programs. So that's the
- 1:01:04Speaker 4: some of the that's the gist of what Hope Brother's
- 1:01:06Speaker 4: Foundation it's all about. Again, we it's cancer centric certainly,
- 1:01:13Speaker 4: but it's something near and deal to terrences my heart
- 1:01:15Speaker 4: because my mom passed away.
- 1:01:17Speaker 2: So it gives us great joy and it makes it
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: you know, it makes it.
- 1:01:22Speaker 4: Easier to go and to go out and the fundraise
- 1:01:24Speaker 4: and to keep this thing going and and have the
- 1:01:26Speaker 4: type of impact that we have.
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: So you got Whole Brother Foundation, Hope Brother and Holt
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: Brother Plumbing, Whole Brother.
- 1:01:35Speaker 3: You got media.
- 1:01:38Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: Y'all got all the Whole Brother this and everything. But
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: but I will say this two peanut, and I'll say
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: to to our listeners. With your foundations found we've also
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: found that having a foundation has also.
- 1:01:47Speaker 2: Brought us business. Yeah, vice versa, vice versa.
- 1:01:52Speaker 4: So so there's so there's as you as you get
- 1:01:54Speaker 4: into continue to get into your business and continue to
- 1:01:56Speaker 4: get into your career, you'll learn how how the two
- 1:02:02Speaker 4: can can intersect and how the two can can help
- 1:02:04Speaker 4: and play off each And we've done some things strategically.
- 1:02:07Speaker 4: Where the foundation started out in two thousand as Toy
- 1:02:10Speaker 4: Whole Foundation, and then it went to Hope Foundation, and
- 1:02:14Speaker 4: then as part of a kind of global branding initiative,
- 1:02:18Speaker 4: we changed the Whole Brothers Foundation again just to make
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: the connection, and it resonate in part of the bringing
- 1:02:25Speaker 4: the business stuff on with decisions that we made because
- 1:02:29Speaker 4: we were very confident that the two could work off
- 1:02:32Speaker 4: each other. But we never did a foundation because I mean,
- 1:02:36Speaker 4: it's proof and it's evident because the foundation started in
- 1:02:38Speaker 4: two thousand, But we didn't do a foundation to get business,
- 1:02:42Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying.
- 1:02:42Speaker 2: It just we had a foundation and then we started
- 1:02:46Speaker 2: a business. Right. But we see that and I say
- 1:02:49Speaker 2: this real quickly, too cut you. I'm sorry.
- 1:02:51Speaker 4: You know, we often hear people often say to us
- 1:02:54Speaker 4: how unique we are as a as a UH as
- 1:02:57Speaker 4: a firm. It's because we do provide that foundation art right.
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: So we're a for profit, but we also have a
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: nonprofit arm as well, So we're obviously nonprofit.
- 1:03:07Speaker 4: What we're going out and we're solictening to business and
- 1:03:09Speaker 4: we're doing a service, but we're also doing a service
- 1:03:12Speaker 4: with our foundation by building our community where we live,
- 1:03:15Speaker 4: eat and play right. And so it's it's it's connected. Yeah,
- 1:03:19Speaker 4: it is connected. And I was gonna say that's another
- 1:03:22Speaker 4: thing about players that we oftentimes, as you talked about,
- 1:03:25Speaker 4: you know, we start foundations before we finish our career.
- 1:03:27Speaker 4: You know, we're helping, we're involved in the community. And
- 1:03:32Speaker 4: it's again, it's a thing that makes us unique. And
- 1:03:35Speaker 4: I talked about us not needing to change. But you
- 1:03:38Speaker 4: can take that uniqueness right and you start a nonprofit
- 1:03:42Speaker 4: again not just to do it, but for something that
- 1:03:45Speaker 4: you feel that you can be just as good as
- 1:03:47Speaker 4: you were in your sport and your crab. You can
- 1:03:50Speaker 4: be good in creating this service. But what will happen
- 1:03:54Speaker 4: is is because again you're so you support your community,
- 1:03:59Speaker 4: and you've in supporting your community. When there's a choice
- 1:04:02Speaker 4: between you know, Hope Brothers Plumbing versus uh Tillman and
- 1:04:08Speaker 4: Harping Harper Plumbing, they might choose us because we've been
- 1:04:12Speaker 4: in this community for because they know these dollars gonna circus.
- 1:04:17Speaker 2: I don't want him.
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: Look, I would just say this, Uh, A person I
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: love and respect a lot is a pastor of Mind's Ain,
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: Pastor Duran Gray. He said something so great and you
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: guys have really hit it home today is that once
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: you're affected by something, you become an advocate for us. Yeah,
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: and so you guys are talking about this with with
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: the lymphon, with losing your mom and peanup with your
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: daughter and everything like that. What is something that your
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: mom has taught you to start with you that you
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: still use and that you still have hold with great
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: value and that you used in your everyday life.
- 1:04:56Speaker 2: My work, my work ethic, it comes from my mom.
- 1:04:59Speaker 4: I mean, not not that my dad, because my dad
- 1:05:01Speaker 4: certainly wasn't a slouch and he was a he is
- 1:05:06Speaker 4: a is a marine and was provided to I say
- 1:05:13Speaker 4: careful not to say awarded, because you don't get awarded
- 1:05:16Speaker 4: to purple Heart, but you definitely earn earned the Purple
- 1:05:22Speaker 4: Heart might lose some flesh served in Vietnam. But our
- 1:05:28Speaker 4: backbone to our house was our mom. And I to
- 1:05:32Speaker 4: this day cannot remember a day that my moms worked.
- 1:05:36Speaker 4: She worked at Glenn Raven Mills, and she got up
- 1:05:41Speaker 4: five thirty in the morning, had to be work at
- 1:05:44Speaker 4: seven to three, and she did it day in, day out.
- 1:05:48Speaker 2: And so it's it's it's her work ethic.
- 1:05:50Speaker 4: It's it's little that I know in nineteen eighty six,
- 1:05:56Speaker 4: we talked about kind of my mom being diagnosed with lymphoma.
- 1:05:59Speaker 4: She was diagnosed in nineteen eighty six with on phone.
- 1:06:02Speaker 4: I was six years old, he was ten, my sister
- 1:06:04Speaker 4: was fourteen. Well, my mom was so strong that me,
- 1:06:08Speaker 4: as a six year old tory them and my sister knew,
- 1:06:11Speaker 4: but I didn't know. So cancer went into remission in
- 1:06:14Speaker 4: eighty six and came back in ninety five. But my
- 1:06:17Speaker 4: mom was going through keemo all of that in eighty
- 1:06:20Speaker 4: six eighty seven or so, and getting up not missing work.
- 1:06:25Speaker 4: And when we knew there was an issue was when
- 1:06:27Speaker 4: my mom could not go to work. She came home
- 1:06:30Speaker 4: in ninety five, she felt something in us stomach, something
- 1:06:33Speaker 4: was going on, called off work, and two weeks later
- 1:06:36Speaker 4: she knew something was going on. She went to go
- 1:06:39Speaker 4: to the doctor and finally got the news that she regretted,
- 1:06:42Speaker 4: which was that cancer had come back.
- 1:06:45Speaker 2: But it was her work ethic that wrong.
- 1:06:49Speaker 4: I can tell you, pen, I can tell you no
- 1:06:51Speaker 4: matter the defensive drills wave, you know, backpedaling down the line,
- 1:06:57Speaker 4: you know, from one side line to the other side line,
- 1:07:00Speaker 4: how that would burn my quaus and your cuaus and
- 1:07:03Speaker 4: all those kinds of things, and I think about my
- 1:07:05Speaker 4: mom and I work at it. I'm out here getting
- 1:07:08Speaker 4: paid to do this in the National Football League. So
- 1:07:14Speaker 4: for me, it's that memory of her and her work
- 1:07:17Speaker 4: ethic and her persevering with something that unlike mostly what
- 1:07:25Speaker 4: we deal with was life and death. And the fact
- 1:07:29Speaker 4: that here I am at thirty three years old and
- 1:07:33Speaker 4: I'm facing a situation with life and death and I
- 1:07:35Speaker 4: had these kids that are looking up to me and
- 1:07:39Speaker 4: need me, but getting still getting up, working day in
- 1:07:44Speaker 4: and day outs. Something that I pull from. I draw
- 1:07:49Speaker 4: from when there's times that get rough, because if you
- 1:07:53Speaker 4: sack and act first at you're going to have adversity.
- 1:07:56Speaker 4: And so what are you drawing from? What's your source
- 1:07:58Speaker 4: of inspiration? She has been and it is my source
- 1:08:01Speaker 4: of inspiration. Yeah, I think for me and all of
- 1:08:04Speaker 4: what Terrence said, but more importantly her example man like,
- 1:08:11Speaker 4: you know, love their family, Listen to all her brothers
- 1:08:15Speaker 4: and sisters, loved her kids, you know, with what as
- 1:08:21Speaker 4: Terrence mentioned, with work, chemo, come home, come pick us
- 1:08:25Speaker 4: up from school from basketball practice, drive us home, be
- 1:08:28Speaker 4: at the games on Tuesday, bet the games on f
- 1:08:30Speaker 4: Like we know, she's dead, tired, but her example of
- 1:08:33Speaker 4: just being there, I think to me is what it's
- 1:08:37Speaker 4: what's everlasting.
- 1:08:38Speaker 2: When I think about my mom, it's her being there
- 1:08:41Speaker 2: and just herle.
- 1:08:44Speaker 4: She's always say to you know, you know people, you know,
- 1:08:48Speaker 4: folks that have something to say about you, where you're
- 1:08:49Speaker 4: doing good or bad, So you might as well keep going.
- 1:08:53Speaker 2: That's great, you know, and do it.
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: You do it with grace to do it with and
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: do it with the smile is Terrence mentioned so well, well, look, man,
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
- 1:09:02Speaker 2: Cold brothers. By the end of the day, we'll have
- 1:09:05Speaker 2: another hope electronics do something else.
- 1:09:11Speaker 4: What it won't be because y'all do so well with
- 1:09:15Speaker 4: sack and acts and in the way y'all transition. What
- 1:09:19Speaker 4: it won't be is a podcast.
- 1:09:22Speaker 2: All kill it.
- 1:09:25Speaker 3: Guys for coming here, man, Terrence, I love you, guys. Luck.
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: I can't wait to knock that door down, man. And
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: probably the only person that's gonna be happier than you
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: will be your brother.
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: Yes, I have them come out, pull the cloth off
- 1:09:42Speaker 2: the bus man.
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: Congratulations, Thank you, Thank you much, live, thank you guys
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: for listening. You know, with with every show we do,
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: in every guest we have, we try to make it
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: very authentic and just be vulnerable and open and secure
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: and make this a safe place for these guys to talk.
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: And you guys have been awesome for supporting us. We
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: can't thank you enough. We are here to educate and entertain.
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: So make sure, like always and I always ask you,
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: make sure you hit the subscribe button, give us a
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: five star rating, Tell a friend to tell a friend
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: to do we peanut, tell a friend.
- 1:10:21Speaker 3: Make sure anywhere you get your.
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: Apple your podcast where it's Apple or iHeart linked in.
- 1:10:28Speaker 3: Appreciate y'all.
- 1:10:29Speaker 2: Give us a listen, hit that button, click it.
- 1:10:32Speaker 3: I think he needs to stop now