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Roy Hall Jr.'s Journey: Overcoming Adversity and Life Beyond the NFL · Scene Projects Sports Network

• 0:13
  Welcome into the Scene Project Sports Network.
• 0:16
  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today, former Ohio State University and NFL
• 0:22
  receiver Roy Hall junior.
• 0:24
  Roy, welcome to the show.
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  Thanks for having me, Bubba.
• 0:27
  I'm excited, man.
• 0:28
  This is awesome.
• 0:29
  This is awesome.
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  Well, you got a lot of reason to be excited.
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  Got a new book out there and, you know, fight through it.
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  It is gonna change a lot of lives.
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  So you have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to be excited about right now.
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  Before we get into all that, though, I think, where I'd like to start is just getting a
• 0:46
  little bit of your backstory.
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  I know you spent a few years in the league, and I'm sure our listeners will be, you know,
• 0:52
  grateful to hear a little bit about that experience.
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  But we'll get a little backstory, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 0:57
  No.
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  No.
• 0:58
  That's awesome.
• 0:58
  That's awesome, man.
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  So a a lot of it is, obviously, The Ohio State University, and we'll get into the football
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  side of it.
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  But growing up had some challenges like many many of your listeners and viewers may have had
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  something in your childhood that maybe changed your life forever.
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  For me, my my dad has some challenges with substance abuse and him and my mom divorced
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  early on.
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  But my mom and her her next relationship saw a lot of domestic violence.
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  And so watching my mom go through those challenges and the consequences that revolve
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  around those challenges being on the poverty line or below.
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  Know, dad pawned off a lot of the electronics to kinda fuel his habit, so we didn't start out
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  the second phase of life as kids and a family with a lot of money or anything.
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  Mom working two jobs, no car, and then having to ask family members and things for for for
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  money and and try and figure out how to make a way for ends to meet.
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  And so mom had some challenges, and she sacrificed and worked and and poured into us
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  and was huge on education.
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  And so I set out at a very early age with a dream at eight years old to figure out a way to
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  be able to take care of my mother because I wasn't able to do the things that I wanted to
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  do or stand up for her, protect her, be a barrier, and fight for her when I was a young
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  kid when when certain men in her life was taking advantage of that.
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  And and and so my response was to to double down on education, be a four point o student,
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  and then leverage my athletic ability to take me to where my imagination had drawn up.
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  And so that landed me in a space by the time I was a sophomore in high school as one of the
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  top wide receivers in the country with over 50 scholarship offers from the likes of Princeton,
• 2:50
  Yale, and Harvard all the way to Texas, Alabama, and The Ohio State University.
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  And so once I committed Ohio State my senior year, again, now you have a four to five year
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  window to try and develop and do whatever you can, again, to make it to that next level.
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  And not so much for the fame, not for the fortune, Bubba, not for more likes or followers
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  as they would have these days, but to really position myself financially and to create a
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  platform to be able to do what I couldn't do as a little kid, is fully cover and take care of
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  my mom and my family.
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  And so by the grace of God, I was able to do that, and I'm thankful for those moments where
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  we had to fight through, and, here we are.
• 3:34
  Yeah.
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  That's tough.
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  My heart goes out to you, and, unfortunately, your story is not unique to you.
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  Right?
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  A lot of people that live through that, whether it's a, you know and I've dealt with my own
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  substance abuse problems and and grateful that I was able to kind of overcome those before
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  they became a problem for my own children in that way.
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  But but having a mom that no doubt inspired you not only to be better for her, but, always kind
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  of inspiring you in the moment to be better for you.
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  And and and and that I think that's something that, we can all take away.
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  Shout out to your mom in particular and all the moms out there, for for everything that they do
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  for us.
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  I know I wouldn't be here without mine as well.
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  It puts a different meaning on those holidays that people call hallmark holidays like
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  Mother's Day.
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  I mean, whether you believe whether it should be a real holiday or not, what better honorable
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  moment than to lift up someone like a mom who has carried you through?
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  And here's the deal.
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  Not everyone has those same stories.
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  Sometimes the mom is the one that maybe caused some harm.
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  However, if nothing else, that individual did as best as they could by birthing you.
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  And so when you have a mom who's been able to overcome adversity, fight through adversity,
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  fight through the challenges, and not give up on their kids because a lot of times, they have
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  to get themselves right before they can get you right.
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  And so just learning what work ethic is, learning what care and compassion is, learning
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  how to have mental real mental toughness to be able to look your kids in the face and say,
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  hey.
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  This year, you're not gonna have a birthday or Christmas, but it it doesn't mean that you're
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  not gonna go without love, and we're gonna make sure that you you have a, like, move food to
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  eat and a meal to have on the table.
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  Those things matter, man.
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  Working two jobs, specifically one where you obviously don't wanna do to make sure that your
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  kids have what's necessary so that they don't get bullied or teased in school, like, that's
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  real strength.
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  And that's real focus and real discipline to be able to put your kids first because it's not
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  something that everybody does.
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  So, you know, I always love Mother's Day for that reason to be able to honor my mom, but I
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  do it every day by making sure I stay in contact with her daily.
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  We talk daily, and, we see each other weekly, and and it's the least I can do for the person
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  that's probably one of the most important people in my life.
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  I love that you guys are still close, and I'm sure, she was so proud, to see you not just
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  play at the Ohio State University, but to go on and continue your career in football with the
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  National Football League.
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  Now I know your career was cut short due to injuries.
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  Do you feel like the mental fortitude that you, you know, developed through your early years,
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  no doubt in high school, maintaining a four point o and building an athletic career on top
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  of that.
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  Do you feel like that helped you to kinda overcome those challenges, not just in the
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  league, but then post leaving the league and football for good?
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  No.
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  Sure.
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  And and that's a great way to frame it, Bubba, because what you see as a young person really
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  develops who you become.
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  And sometimes people go to the right and to the left, and sometimes those negative experience
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  can actually put you in a position where you become that or you become better because of
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  that.
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  And for me, the sacrifice and the pain watching my mom go through there's a there's a moment,
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  and I talk about it in the book really in the first chapter because the book itself is called
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  fight through it, which I believe that anyone hearing this message or seeing these these
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  clips, they know what it means to fight through it.
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  It is not a get through it.
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  It is not a work through it.
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  Like, in life, every day is a battle.
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  You gotta fight through it.
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  But the part that is most important to me is the subtitle, which is the battles, the
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  breakthroughs, and the beauty of becoming resilient enough to never give up.
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  And so the first part of the book, the first third is about the battles, and I come out the
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  gate talking about a specific moment where this gentleman that was dating my mom hit my mom in
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  the face and broke her nose, and I was the person that had to come face to face with him
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  with a with a screwdriver in his hand as he approached me and my mom at 13 years old.
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  And so I start there.
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  And so when you witness so much blood coming out of your mom's face where it looks like
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  somebody shook up a red Fago pop and then exploded and you see it happen in front of you
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  in real time, and you're a 13 year old feeling like you're a 18 year old and wanting to go toe
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  to toe with a grown man who's five eleven, two hundred twenty five pounds in stocky, and
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  you're really in that moment, you're saying, will I will I will put my life on the line to
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  keep you away from this woman.
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  Like, it makes it easy to overcome a knee surgery or two, a shoulder injury, a pull like,
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  you get a different level of resilience because you know what's at stake, you know what's on
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  the line.
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  Getting to the NFL, yes, it was my dream, but it was my dream because I wanted to make sure
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  that I didn't disregard everything that happened before I got to that level, and I got
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  to that level to be able to take care of my mother.
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  So now all of a sudden, when there's something in front of me that's saying, hey, man.
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  This might be it.
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  Hey.
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  Tap out.
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  This is too hard.
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  How are you gonna overcome this?
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  Here here you are again finding yourself getting released from an NFL team, getting cut
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  from a team.
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  What are you gonna do next?
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  Like, I've already had the blueprint, and I've had it since eight.
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  I saw it again at 13, and now all of a sudden, I know what I'm fighting for.
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  I have a who and a why, and it just keeps you going.
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  Yeah.
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  That's a, tragic story, and and what a hook in that first chapter, to really captivate a
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  reader.
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  I I hope everyone gets the book, fightthroughit.com.
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  It's it's something that we wish people didn't have to go through ever, And I I absolutely
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  hate that you had to, but it also shaped the man that you are now.
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  And now you're being able to turn that story into a positive.
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  And that situation that not just your mom, but that you were put into, you could have both
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  landed in the hospital or worse that night.
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  And, you know, by the grace of God, you didn't.
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  And and just it's unfathomable.
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  Now I I didn't grow up with domestic violence necessarily being a a problem, in my household.
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  I couldn't imagine ever being in that position myself, but I've been in some positions,
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  throughout my life that I I that are my story that I revert to.
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  And no doubt in your life that you revert to that memory so often when things feel like they
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  are too much to think back, well, if I could get over that, then I can really get over and
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  accomplish anything.
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  And and that's exactly right.
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  Yeah.
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  I couldn't have said it any better.
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  And that's you talking from a place of overcoming adversity and challenges and
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  difficulties and your own mess so to speak.
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  And again, this is where your test becomes a testimony, your mess into a message.
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  In the book I put life when you keep fighting through it, your miss becomes a mission, which
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  becomes an act of service, which is something that I do as well giving back to the community
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  through my driven foundation, understanding that you need help.
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  But those moments of where you have a wreck, it becomes recognition.
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  I like the two words and kind of pulling them together.
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  But my favorite is is is Bubba, and you can hold on to this one, where where you think it's
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  the end, God will give you endurance to go through it.
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  And so now all of a sudden where you're like, this is the moment where I can either make a
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  decision to quit and it's all over, or some way, somehow, I now have the endurance and I
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  can stretch that thing out if I just go one more day and I start stacking days and positive
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  decisions and changing my habits and mindset, and then you all of a sudden get ten years
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  removed and you're you're sober for ten years or five years or six months, you start stacking
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  days.
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  And now the the effort that you put in to change in your circumstance is no longer
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  traumatic.
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  It's like a triumph now where you're saying, hey.
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  This was awful, but without this, I wouldn't be the human being I am today.
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  And so those are those moments for me that are necessary.
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  I wouldn't wish them on any kid, on any person.
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  However, if you've gone through or if you're going through anything now, whether it's cancer
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  treatments, challenges in relationships, it's it's really shaping and molding and engineering
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  and really, like, sharpening you, to be the person that you need to be for the next five to
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  ten years of your life.
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  Now making it into the NFL is a challenge all of its own and extremely difficult.
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  Right?
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  It's a very small percentage of the human population that have ever played in the league,
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  but there's also a very large percentage of the people that make it like yourself who are out
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  of the league in a a lot shorter time period than they would want to.
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  Mostly, I would say similar to your story by injury.
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  Talk to me about some of those challenges of of making it to that apex, right, that pinnacle of
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  what you thought your life could be and and being able to provide for your mom finally, and
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  then having to go through the challenge of by really I mean, no fault of your own.
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  Injuries happen, but having that kind of taken away and overcoming that.
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  Yeah.
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  It's probably the hardest the hardest years of my life.
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  And and so you the whole goal, again, if you're motivated to take care of your family or a
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  person, and and a lot of people I believe are motivated by that, but most professions outside
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  of being a professional athlete, you get an opportunity to keep going.
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  There's no one that's gonna come in and say, hey.
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  You can't do this anymore because you pulled your hamstring, or you can't do this anymore
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  because your ankles won't hold up or you popped your Achilles.
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  You can do your profession for thirty, forty, fifty years and do it at a really high level.
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  In the NFL or NBA or NHL, whatever the professional sports league you wanna pick, you
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  are really not given the opportunity to say so on when you're going to retire or leave the
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  game.
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  Very few very few get to really make the decision I'm gonna leave on my own terms.
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  As a matter of fact, it's kind of a running joke.
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  Not only does NFL stand for not for long, but usually, your last play that you play, you
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  would have bet your house on that you would have came back and played another play, another
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  snap, and you just never know when that's gonna be.
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  And so transitioning out of that, specifically at a relatively young age, I'm talking 26, 27
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  years old, where most people are just now getting going on what they wanna do with their
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  lives.
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  You've come out of the career that you wanted to do for your whole life, and you've only been
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  able to do it for three or four years.
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  Now right now, they say it's like two point six seven years is the lifespan of an NFL player,
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  which essentially means you get to play two seasons and maybe you'll make it to your third,
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  and that's on average.
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  And so that means the guys that are playing for twenty plus years like Tom Brady, for every Tom
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  Brady, there's probably a 100 or a 150 guys that only get to play one season in general.
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  And so when you transition out of that, the biggest thing is number one, identity.
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  Who am I without football?
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  Who am I without this thing?
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  And and really, it's not just football, the sport is connected to the locker room and the
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  connections that you make and being a part of something that's massively larger than just
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  yourself and not being able to go back even if you wanted to, not even having that control,
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  not having any say so.
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  But then also how many people are you letting down by not being able to accomplish what you
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  set out to accomplish at reaching that apex that you mentioned, how does that, like,
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  dictate what you do and your interaction with those people?
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  If you're wanting to take care of certain people, if you're to set up a certain
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  lifestyle, even if you were starting a business or giving back to your own organization, what
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  do you do now when the income goes from being in that half of the 1% of people in America now
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  down to how am I and what am I gonna do with my life moving forward?
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  The biggest gripe that I have with outside opinions on that is, hey.
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  Just fall back on your degree.
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  And, yes, that's easier said than done, but even if you fall back on your degree, you go
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  from now the NFL minimum making 850,000 to, hey.
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  You could start off right now at $80, and you're talking about 10% of the lifestyle and
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  the way that you were going about your life.
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  And what does that 80,000 look like as opposed to 800 and what you can do with it?
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  And furthermore, Bubba, when you give everything to something from when you're 10
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  years old to when you're 27 and that's what you do, it all of a sudden forms this thing in you
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  that when it's ripped away from you, you really have to become and live a new life.
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  Like, you die a physical and mental and emotional death towards that occupation.
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  And now you have to reset like it never began, and you got to watch other people who have been
• 17:00
  probably backing you up or people that you play with sign massive contracts, and all of a
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  sudden, it's just like, hey.
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  Transition and fall back on your education.
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  It's just not that simple.
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  There's a level of depression.
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  There's a level of anxiety.
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  There's a level of shame and guilt where people treated you like a superhero, and now they
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  literally treat you like Clark Kent, when he when he's when he loses his powers.
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  And people remember, hey, man.
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  That was really cool when you caught this touchdown pass.
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  So that was awesome.
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  Hey, man.
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  Sorry it didn't work out in the NFL, and now you gotta reset.
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  So it's a difficult time, man, for everyone involved to adjust when you lose that platform.
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  The identity part of that is so massive.
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  And our listeners know I'm the director of marketing and PR for operation combating
• 17:46
  veteran suicide.
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  And a big part that we talk about very similar to the athlete journey is our military
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  veterans, and and they've dedicated in in sometimes their entire adult life to something.
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  And and whether they're medically discharged or they finally retire, that transition into
• 18:03
  getting out and no longer having that forward facing mission.
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  You don't have something that's in front of you every day.
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  Now whether that is I'm going to perform for my team or I'm going to serve my country, the loss
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  of identity is exactly the same.
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  The depression, the anxiety, the loss of self inside of that because so much of what you are
• 18:23
  doing is wrapped up inside of this thing that you do and not necessarily who you are as a man
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  or or a woman out there in the world.
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  And that can be an extremely, extremely difficult time for anyone, not to mention the
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  financial side of it at all.
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  Right?
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  Our military aren't making the kind of money that professional athletes are making.
• 18:46
  So maybe there's a little bit of that, but they also don't have and like you alluded to, fall
• 18:52
  back in your degree.
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  Yeah.
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  But a degree that you haven't used for the entire time you've had it means absolutely
• 18:57
  nothing when you get out there and in the workforce.
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  And you hope that someone at the place you're applying to maybe remembers your name from that
• 19:05
  athletic side and gives you a chance because of your status and not because of, you know, how
• 19:11
  good you are at the job that you've never done.
• 19:15
  Well, the biggest thing even with the identity piece is you don't even know who you are
• 19:19
  without it.
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  And so you have to figure out what you do with you.
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  A forward facing mission, you will give up what it is that you want or what's best for you for
• 19:28
  the sake of the mission or for the sake of the team.
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  And that's all you know.
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  So when you get out of it, you're like, I need to connect to something immediately that allows
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  me to contribute to a team environment and keeps me on routine.
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  And so whether it be a veteran, and obviously, there's there the the top three people, and
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  occupations in my personal opinion, number one is anybody in the armed forces who's serving,
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  for our freedoms in this country.
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  That's number one.
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  Number two would probably be first responders in any capacity, firemen, you know, EMTs,
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  police officers, and then number three would be educators, teachers, and and and everybody in
• 20:03
  that space.
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  Those are the top three.
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  Now just imagine being a teacher and you walking in to go teach your students and then
• 20:09
  like, alright.
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  You're done.
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  You've put in two years.
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  You need to be finished.
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  And you're like, what are you like, this is what I wanna do.
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  This is on my heart.
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  This is what what I've been called to do, and no.
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  You're out of here.
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  Like, you can't apply.
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  You can't go back.
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  You can't do anything.
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  Even individuals, Bubba, that retire.
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  How many people do you know retire?
• 20:27
  I mean, you're talking 60 plus.
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  They'll retire and go back to the same thing or just go work somewhere just because they wanna
• 20:34
  be a part of something.
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  When you do something for so long, think about doctors and surgeons and and people, high level
• 20:40
  sales, CEOs.
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  When they have to leave, even when they have a large bankroll or they've been tenured or have
• 20:47
  a massive retirement, they are trying to figure out what am I supposed to do now without this,
• 20:53
  and they got to do it for a long period of time.
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  Now imagine being a football player and you're like, hey, this is what I wanna do.
• 21:01
  If I can get in ten years, get it to my second contract, I could set my legacy forever.
• 21:07
  I can change my family line forever, and then it's like because of a hamstring injury, plus
• 21:13
  another knee, plus another surgery, plus these young dudes coming in, plus this problem, you
• 21:18
  can no longer do it.
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  Start over.
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  Go fall back on your degree.
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  When you got your degree in college, you didn't even know what it was for.
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  You just did what you thought was best at the time.
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  You're like, alright.
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  What what can make a lot of money be the easiest thing for
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  me to go through so I can play ball and focus on athletics during that time
• 21:34
  of the
• 21:34
  first and first scholarship back.
• 21:36
  Not easy, brother.
• 21:37
  It's not easy at all.
• 21:38
  You know, for those who want to be vets or doctors or attorneys, there's a certain line
• 21:43
  that you know this is what I set up to do.
• 21:46
  But for the majority of it, you're like, hey.
• 21:47
  I'm a communications major.
• 21:49
  What does that mean?
• 21:50
  I don't know.
• 21:51
  Fifteen years from now, podcasting is gonna be booming, and now I find myself with a mic.
• 21:55
  That's that degree kicking in right there.
• 21:57
  I knew it.
• 21:58
  And so it it's difficult, man, to to to do those things, to transition out.
• 22:03
  Even with moms, I've seen it with parents.
• 22:06
  Unfortunately, obviously, people lose children and children pass away, and just being a mom or
• 22:11
  being a dad is like, man, I can't even do that anymore.
• 22:15
  What who am I without that position?
• 22:17
  And so it was it was hard, man.
• 22:20
  It was very difficult to fight through that.
• 22:22
  Very difficult.
• 22:24
  And what was it that you turned to?
• 22:27
  Because, obviously, you know, given your your dad's proclivities for substance abuse and
• 22:33
  those things, you worry about a genetic predisposition to that.
• 22:36
  I dealt with those kind of things.
• 22:38
  I come from a long family of of alcoholics.
• 22:41
  Now none of them necessarily ruined their lives with it, but, you know, I I my my grandfather
• 22:47
  drank until the point where they're like, you can't drink anymore, and he was dead less than
• 22:51
  six months later.
• 22:52
  Right?
• 22:52
  So they was that a worry for you of having that?
• 22:59
  And especially because you were dealing with injuries, we know these doctors are
• 23:02
  prescribing, you know, heavy narcotics sometimes into these injuries.
• 23:06
  Was was that something that you had to deal with or because of your, you know, kind of
• 23:10
  seeing that in your early years, that you were able to kinda overcome that, without, you know,
• 23:16
  the substance abuse issues.
• 23:18
  Yeah.
• 23:18
  That that certainly was not an issue.
• 23:20
  I think the thing for me that I always wanted to do on on any account was stay away from any
• 23:25
  type of drugs or alcohol that could put me in position to make some of those bad choices that
• 23:31
  either my pops made or, you know, men that were around, at the time were making.
• 23:38
  So it was more the opposite for me.
• 23:40
  Like, I'm not even gonna put something in my body that could even have my mom in a position
• 23:44
  where it's like a limb bias moment where something went wrong.
• 23:46
  It was a bad batch or something or I make a poor decision to get behind the wheel of a car
• 23:51
  with something in my system and I'm gone.
• 23:53
  And so I never wanted to put her through that, so that was never an issue.
• 23:56
  I think for me, it's all almost total recall on why I'm doing what I'm doing and what am I
• 24:03
  supposed to be relying on or leaning on and why does god have me in the position that he has me
• 24:08
  in.
• 24:08
  When you talk about playing in the NFL, I know theoretically, you just say, hey, man.
• 24:13
  That's great.
• 24:14
  You made it.
• 24:15
  But when you start to break down the numbers, Bubba, of eight plus billion people being on
• 24:19
  Earth and they're only being a 160 NFL wide receivers on active rosters throughout the
• 24:27
  season.
• 24:28
  So you're talking a 160 people of the eight and a half billion on earth, and people say, hey.
• 24:33
  Well, what if women aren't playing football?
• 24:34
  Listen.
• 24:35
  If we find a woman that could run a four one and six four and can run some routes, I'm
• 24:39
  telling you the way the flag football and everything's running and she could jump up like
• 24:42
  LeBron and snatch something off of DB's head, she'll be in the league.
• 24:46
  So don't give me that.
• 24:47
  But my point is, we got chosen those who were blessed to make it and fortunate to make it.
• 24:52
  I'm one out of one sixty out of 8,000,000,000 people.
• 24:55
  And so you add that and tack that on to how I was raised and the environment that I was
• 25:00
  raised, you're talking about a goal that's almost impossible, almost impossible to do.
• 25:05
  And if you're looking at a little kid in that situation, he says, I wanna go to the NFL,
• 25:09
  mister Hall.
• 25:10
  And it's like, hey, man.
• 25:12
  Like, it's almost impossible.
• 25:14
  Everything has to go right and a bunch of things gotta go wrong to develop you into the
• 25:19
  person you need to be able to withstand that position.
• 25:22
  So for me, it was total recall.
• 25:23
  Number one, remembering how I was raised.
• 25:26
  So and what we went through.
• 25:28
  So if I know that I went through moments where mom had to figure out what we were gonna eat or
• 25:33
  have moments where we didn't have the meal that we wanted to and being on free lunches in
• 25:38
  school, and getting bullied and picked on, and not having a father around or a father figure,
• 25:43
  not playing organized sports until I was in the seventh grade, which means I didn't have a
• 25:48
  coach to get me on the right path, not even having someone who believed in me more than I
• 25:53
  believed in myself, not even being exposed to that, I was able to offer that through my
• 25:59
  driven foundation.
• 26:00
  And so immediately, even my last year in the NFL when we started the organization,
• 26:05
  understanding that we needed to be about giving families basic needs, to families, and
• 26:11
  providing mentorship and leadership to young men and kids in school was huge for me.
• 26:16
  And so when I got done playing, immediately, my focus started being on how can I help grow this
• 26:22
  organization and how can I be in schools and be that coach, be that mentor for young people,
• 26:27
  both boys and girls, to help them reach their goals and their dreams?
• 26:31
  So that was the primary focus when I stopped thinking about myself, life is not about you,
• 26:36
  and started thinking about the things that I went through that I could help other people get
• 26:40
  through and work through and fight through, that was the focus.
• 26:44
  So their problems, their challenges, their hurt, their pain was so much greater than mine,
• 26:50
  but their pain gave me purpose in being able to not just say, hey.
• 26:54
  I'm a help you work through this or fight through this.
• 26:57
  I'm going I'm someone who had to fight through it myself so I know where you came from.
• 27:01
  So that was the number one primary focus.
• 27:03
  Number two was recognizing that I was in position, Bubba, to be able to change my family
• 27:10
  history.
• 27:11
  If you do ancestry.com, my grandfather's grandfather was a slave.
• 27:16
  That's how close it is.
• 27:18
  My grandfather's grandfather was a slave.
• 27:20
  So you fast forward two generations or one generation, and my grandfather who served in
• 27:29
  the air force came home, married his wife, was told by the mortgage teams and mortgage
• 27:37
  brokerage companies in these different places, the banks, that number one, they had to live in
• 27:41
  a certain area, not the area that they could afford via his GI bill, not the area that he
• 27:47
  wanted to live in or my my grandmother wanted to live in.
• 27:49
  Hey.
• 27:50
  This block right here, that's red line here is the only place that you can stay.
• 27:55
  Oh, and we'll double down.
• 27:57
  And if you really wanna get this bank loan, your wife can't have any more kids.
• 28:02
  She already had three.
• 28:04
  So that's how my family started.
• 28:06
  The same house that they purchased is the same house that I grew up in for the first six years
• 28:10
  of my life.
• 28:11
  And so to go from that all the way to just three or four months ago, being invited to the
• 28:18
  State House, here in Columbus, Ohio to open up in prayer and do the invocation for governor
• 28:25
  DeWine's state of the state address to go from not being able to pick a house to in the State
• 28:32
  House in front of all the power and decision makers here in the state of Ohio based on
• 28:38
  fighting through adversity and knowing what we stand for was number two.
• 28:42
  Always knowing where I came from and who I represent and who came before me.
• 28:46
  Right?
• 28:46
  We got these big massive things that we wanna build, never forgetting who laid the first
• 28:50
  brick was number two, and then number three was my faith, brother.
• 28:54
  Real simple.
• 28:55
  Dove into ministry head on, took ministry training, and went through ministry school and
• 29:00
  and bible college for two years straight, 48 out of the fifty two weeks, putting in ten or
• 29:05
  so hours a week, and then parlaying that into being the team chaplain for the Ohio State
• 29:11
  football team for the last twelve years, one of them anyway, had has carried me through.
• 29:17
  So remembering my family, understanding, the freedom, so to speak, that my grandfather
• 29:23
  fought for, and then also, my faith were the three things that carried me through the
• 29:27
  darkest period of my life.
• 29:29
  Yeah.
• 29:30
  And I got the scroll going on here now.
• 29:32
  You can check out more about the Driven Foundation, staydriven.org.
• 29:36
  I wanted to make sure that we get that plugged in there as well.
• 29:41
  Just incredible story, Roy, from everything, you know, from your ancestral beginnings.
• 29:48
  Right?
• 29:49
  How your, you know, ancestors came to this country through your grandfather's service.
• 29:54
  Obviously, we're we're very grateful for him and and, you know, your ability to turn the
• 30:04
  what would absolutely ruin some guys, and it does.
• 30:07
  Right?
• 30:08
  I I'm sure you know a lot of guys that, had shortened careers in the league that are around
• 30:13
  you that did go the other direction and did, you know, fall into deep depression or
• 30:18
  something.
• 30:19
  And I'm so grateful that you already had the mission.
• 30:22
  And even though you had to fight through to maybe, you know, remember that your mission was
• 30:28
  greater than just being a football player and to really digging into that and where it's
• 30:32
  taking you now, obviously, still tied very closely to the Ohio State University and, you
• 30:40
  know, to the point where coach Day did the forward to your book.
• 30:45
  So I I would love for you to speak a little bit about, you know, the book and and where people
• 30:49
  can find it and all of that before I let you get out of here today.
• 30:53
  No.
• 30:53
  That's awesome.
• 30:54
  And the biggest thing is is just storytelling.
• 30:57
  And and in the book, I try and, write it in such a way where I bring you into these
• 31:02
  specific moments of my life, that were pivotal and lessons that I learned from it.
• 31:08
  This is a leadership book.
• 31:10
  It's a motivational book.
• 31:11
  It's an inspirational book.
• 31:12
  It's professional and personal development.
• 31:14
  But most importantly, it's a book to remind you of who you really are and the power that you
• 31:19
  possess to really overcome almost anything.
• 31:23
  And that's why the title is what it is to be able to fight through and know that when you
• 31:28
  wake up every morning and you put those two feet on the ground, that number one, every day
• 31:32
  is a gift.
• 31:33
  And and you have to have gratitude because when you say the cliche things or the idioms of
• 31:38
  tomorrow that I promised and today is a treasure or time is a treasure, those things
• 31:42
  are real.
• 31:43
  And so when you approach each day with a sense of urgency and a sense of purpose knowing that
• 31:47
  you're here you are here for a reason.
• 31:49
  When a hundred and seventy five thousand people pass away every day, two average on every
• 31:54
  second, You're talking fifty, sixty, 70,000,000 people a year, and we get chosen, Bubba, to be
• 31:59
  here today.
• 32:00
  Why us?
• 32:01
  It's like, why you?
• 32:02
  Why did you get chosen to be here?
• 32:04
  It's not to complain.
• 32:05
  It's not to even just keep going through pain.
• 32:07
  It's really to be resilient enough to never give up.
• 32:12
  Resilient enough for your family, resilient enough for your friends, resilient enough to
• 32:16
  overcome to where you might have an opportunity to have your story told or tell your own story
• 32:21
  in a book.
• 32:22
  And so there are so many stories that I it was so many that I had to choose from.
• 32:27
  Moments of when I blew out my shoulder, my rookie year, and had a collision down in
• 32:33
  Houston with the Texans running down on kickoff when the old school kickoff was still around.
• 32:38
  And the gentleman that we crashed into I crashed into, his name was Cedric Killings of
• 32:44
  all names.
• 32:45
  Last name was Killings.
• 32:46
  Big six foot four, two hundred and eighty pound defensive tackle for the Texans, but I lost my
• 32:52
  season, but he lost his career because he broke his neck on that play.
• 32:57
  And then watching him fight through it and regain movement in his extremities over the
• 33:02
  course of that year and then start a brand new career giving back with his wife and making a
• 33:08
  difference and eventually fighting a battle against pancreatic cancer and passing away two
• 33:16
  years ago.
• 33:17
  These are those moments that remind me that you can get back up, and that's what that chapter
• 33:23
  is titled, and that's what that chapter is about.
• 33:25
  But there's so many times where the people and the moments that happened in your life, whether
• 33:29
  it happened directly to you or you were a part of it, that are powerful.
• 33:33
  And when you share them in a way that's digestible and people can read it and and
• 33:38
  understand it and be entertained by it, it can make a massive difference.
• 33:42
  And so that's why why I wrote the book to be able to get the message out.
• 33:47
  So I encourage everyone listening or seeing this.
• 33:51
  Do me a favor.
• 33:52
  Go out and get you a copy of it or two.
• 33:55
  We are really trying to make this a best seller, not so much so that my name grows in
• 34:00
  the lights, but the more people that can get those messages in the book, the more people
• 34:06
  that can be blessed and be be able to be encouraged to keep fighting and fighting
• 34:10
  through their respective journeys that they're on.
• 34:12
  Absolutely
• 34:14
  incredible to get to spend a half an hour with you, Roy.
• 34:18
  It it was absolutely my pleasure.
• 34:20
  I'm very grateful to you, for all the fighting that you've done to get to where you are.
• 34:25
  And then I'll have this beautiful, encapsulation of of how others can do so.
• 34:32
  If you can make it to that top of that mountain and to be, like you said, one of one sixty out
• 34:39
  of 8,000,000,000 to be able to do it from your upbringing.
• 34:42
  There's really nothing that is impossible, but you're gonna have to fight.
• 34:46
  You're gonna have to work, and you're gonna have to get there.
• 34:48
  And finding motivation in books like yours is the way that other young men and women are
• 34:55
  going to find a fight through whatever they're going through in their lives.
• 34:59
  So everybody, once again, you can find that at fightthroughit.com.
• 35:03
  I cannot wait to read my copy and to see versions of myself inside of the pages.
• 35:10
  What I what I think is really what we're seeking to do anytime that we consume any form
• 35:16
  of content.
• 35:17
  So, Roy, just really appreciative for you coming on, sharing a bit of your story, and
• 35:23
  thank you for writing this book.
• 35:24
  I think it's gonna do incredible things to change our culture and change our world.
• 35:28
  Oh, thanks so much, Bubba.
• 35:30
  Happy to be on here.
• 35:31
  Your platform is awesome, and and I'm again, we talked about this before we got on, but I'm
• 35:36
  glad that you fought through it and you are who you are and where you are.
• 35:39
  Keep being one of the best, brother.
• 35:42
  Thank you, and thank you for being part of the scene.
• 35:47
  Amen.
• 35:47
  Appreciate you.